What We Become

by Psychoduck2012

Rating: teen
Tags: Dark, Human, Sad, Tragedy
Length: 49144

Gaige is a broken man, from a broken world. When he is transported to Equestria will he flourish in his newfound paradise? Or is he too far gone

The world is a harsh and cruel place. Clouds of ash have overtaken the sky, blotting out the sun. All the plants and animals are long gone. Whoever is still alive is broken in a way that cannot ever be set right. Living off borrowed time, on a borrowed world and seeing through borrowed eyes with which to sorrow it. Gaige is one of these people. His past life is but a memory to him. His friends, his family all gone. Lost in the days gone bye. One day, a supply run goes awry and he is transported to Equestria. He is finally in paradise, but will a man as broken as him be able to adjust? Or is he too far gone.

*WARNING* This fic will include (some) graphic mutilations and/or deaths of humans and ponies alike. I apologize in advance if you come across a scene of your favourite character getting brutalized.

Published 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC
Last updated 2013-02-14 02:47:02 UTC

Welcome to Hell

Oh my god, this isn't happening

Gaige kept repeating those words again and again in his head to calm himself down. The sky was on fire, there were tremors, things crashing down from the sky, panicked people running around him, corpses...so many corpses. What was happening? He didn't know and didn't have the time to care, all he knew was he was just walking home from school when things started going to hell. It started with a few tremors, then the sky turned a fiery orange and that's when the rocks started falling. All the clocks stopped at 1:15 and the power went out. Gaige didn't know what was going on, nor did he really have the time to care.

I have to get home and find my parents. I have to get them out of here!

He broke into a sprint and rounded the last street corner to get to his home...only his home wasn't there. All that was left was a smouldering crater with a few bits and pieces scattered around

No...

Gaige fell to his knees in utter defeat. He started shaking uncontrollably as he welled up with sorrow and rage. He began punching what was left of his door vigorously and screaming “NO!” over...and over. As his knuckles began to bleed he curled up into a ball and started to weep. He closed his eyes and waited for it all to end.

Only it never ended.

* * *

“Alright boys get your asses outta bed, it's another beautiful day in the wasteland!”, boomed a man with a heavy Bostonian accent.

Gaige reluctantly opened his eyes “Jesus Seb...can't a guy sleep in for once?” he said between yawns.

“Yeah”,  Seb laughed, “Maybe if we ever see the sun again”

Gaige raised himself out of his bed slowly and looked around. He saw the same sights as usual. His two childhood friends Dawson and Patrick, who he's known them since before the event, they were the last thing left of his “normal” life. They both sat by the window sharing a bottle of whiskey and staring out into the desolation that was Haventon. It wasn't much of a town, but it sure as hell was better than living on the road. Gaige silently thanked Seb for saving him...and what was left of his group from bandits. He knew that if he hadn't him, Dawson and Patrick would just be another few corpses on the road. There used to be 15 people in their group...they were lucky to have 3 left. Gaige, Patrick and Dawson never really fit into Haventon. They were the first friendly people they'd ever found out in the wastes and most of the people in Haventon had been there since the Event 5 years ago. They had no idea what was waiting for them out there. It was a nice size town, about 200 strong, had lots of food, water and guns. It was a real oasis in the hellhole that was left of the world and after what Gaige and his group had been through, they were more than happy settle down there. Gaige slowly wandered over to where Dawson and Patrick were sitting.

“So you boys out enjoying the view?”, Gaige asked jokingly

“Yeah corpses, grey skies and dead plants are the first thing I want to see every morning”, Patrick retorted sarcastically. Patrick was average  height and fairly muscular, a rare sight in the wasteland and definently not someone you wanted to come up against in one on one combat. He had always been the resident cynic of the group. His comment didn't surprise Gaige.

“Just think...this actually used to be a city...It's really weird to think that anything out in these godforsaken wastes used to be...well...normal. I'd give anything just to see the old world again”, Dawson pondered. Dawson's golden hair flowed in the ash laden breeze, and his darkened eyes stared emptily towards the wastes.

He's been overthinking things too much again.Gaige thought to himself. Over thinking wasn't a good thing in the wasteland, most of the things you do are actions you'd much rather try to forget and for a good reason. Unfortunately your brain has a way of using those actions against you. You remember what you want to forget and you forget what you want to remember.

“Yeah...well the old world went away...and it isn't ever coming back...you remember what we saw out on the road; the cannibalism, marauders, desperation. I figured you would know better than anyone that it's just gonna be survivors out there until death catches up with them...and then it'll be just death wandering the road and he'll say “where'd everybody go?” and that'll be it.”, Patrick stated, completely emotionless. Patrick never really was the same since he lost his father, then again, none of them really were the same after living in the wasteland for five years.

“Hey...at least we won't ever have to hear the word 'swag' again!”, Dawson chirped optimistically. They all let out a tired chuckle.

“Yeah, add that to the list of things I DON'T miss”, Patrick added in,“I don't know how, after all this time, you can still keep up with the jokes,” he inquired.

“I don't know, I guess it helps keeps my mind off the pile of shit that is my life now” Dawson replied sadly.

"Yeah, join the club," Patrick replied, taking a shot of old and dirty whiskey.

“Sorry for intruding on your little chit chat ladies, but we got supply runs to make and daylight is wasting. Hurry your asses up!”, Seb hollered in his gruff booming voice. Gaige, Dawson and Patrick exchanged glances for a few seconds until Gaige broke the silence.

“You heard the man, minds clear let's get on the road,”

Man I hate doing this. Gaige thought to himself

* * *

A lanky man wearing an intricate tribal mask stood tall among the corpses of his former tribe members. “YOU CAN'T KILL ME!”, he bellowed raising a machete, “I'M IMMORTAL, I'M A GOD, I'M-”, his voice was interrupted by the loud crack of a rifle and a bullet tearing through his left eye socket.

“...Just another psychopath”, Patrick concluded, “These guys don't look like they had much, let's grab what we can and move into the city.” Nobody objected they just continued silently sweeping through the desolate camp. This was an accurate representation of what remained of humanity: killers, psychopaths, bandits. No one out in the wastes ever wanted to make friends with you. Kill or be killed was the new rule and you either obeyed or you were just another body on the side of the road. Everyone was a monster, some more than others.

Gaige slowly strafed around the corner of a small house with his rifle raised. “...Jesus christ.”, he said dropping his rifle and nearly emptying his stomach. Before him was a whole family, hung from the lamp posts of a street, left for the mutants to get at. One of the children still had part of a stuffed animal strapped to his back.

“Glad I'm not them”, Patrick remarked, passing Gaige and remaining seemingly unphased, “Come on let's head up to the highway with the rest of the group we think there's a broken down caravan with some ammo”. They both made their way up the highway overpass, there was a sign half hanging off its' posts. Gaige could barely make out the words “Savannah” on the sign.

“Savannah, Georgia,” Gaige said with a bit of nostalgia, “I came here once when I was a kid...used to be a really nice place. I'm not so sure it's so nice anymore though.”, Gaige said as he looked up at more rotting corpses hung from the lamp posts on the highway.

“Really? What could've ever given you that idea?”, Dawson said wryly while lying down on top of a ruined truck, “What took you lazy asses so long I've been waiting here forever,” he added.

“This must be the day pigs fly...I think Dawson just called us lazy,” Gaige grunted, “Now let's see what goods we have waiting for us in these cars.”

“Hey with enough velocity pigs fly JUST FINE mister smart ass!”, Dawson stated, looking noticeably annoyed. The trio joined up with the rest of the small group and took a look at a abandoned caravan of crudely armoured vehicles. There were three vehicles in total; two trucks and what looked like an old armour plated school bus with spikes and plows and the whole package. The vehicles all looked supply laden and they all seemed to be in working condition.

“Alright, this is an amazing find if you haven't noticed already. Gav and I are going to need about 10 people going through all the supplies in the vehicles and I'm also going to need four people checking to see if these vehicles are functional. If they are, then you're looking at our ride back to Haventon. If not then we'll grab what we can and leave the rest for another trip here. Dawson, Gaige and Hansley, I want you three on guard duty, watch out to see if whoever owns these vehicles decides  to come back , or any bandits try to sneak up on us. This looks almost too good. Alright move out everyone!”, bellowed Seb. The whole group did as they were told and Dawson, Gaige and Hansley set themselves up on a few wrecked cars.

Gaige noticed Dawson looking back at the bandit camp they just destroyed with visible sadness in his expression. “Hey...you okay man?”, he asked, looking concerned.

“Nobody's really 'ok' anymore, but I'm managing. I just can't stop thinking about those people we just killed...and all the people we've ever killed...I mean how do we justify it?”

“Hey don't stress about it, those people were bandits...killers, they deserved it,” Gaige said reassuringly.

“Then what are we Gaige?,”, he stared defiantly into Gaige's eyes. Gaige could feel his light blue eyes burning holes into his skull, “What do we deserve?”, he hissed showing the rage building up inside of him. For the first time in his life, Gaige was speechless. He kept opening and closing his mouth as if to say something but nothing ever came out. “That's what I thought...”, Dawson added as he turned his attention back to the highway in front of them.

Gaige returned to watching the highway and the ruined city as well, feeling uncomfortable with the newfound silence that came over the highway. It seemed like nothing was making any noise other than the soft rummaging of people going through supplies. Gaige could have sworn he had heard at least a few crows on the road over by a corpse.

Wait...Gaige thought. There used to be a corpse there. He sat staring at the road where a bloody body used to be and then saw a pair of legs being dragged behind a car. Alarmed by this he started looking around. There were bodies everywhere on the road, fresh half torn apart bodies...and they had bite marks on them. Wait bite marks...what would-...Oh no... Gaige started to hear raspy breathing, snarling and the sound of claws scraping against metal. Mutants...Gaige knew he had to get his group off the highway and fast. “Everybody get off the highway MUTANTS INCOMING!”, Gaige shouted. Everyone paused for a second and noticed the bear like horribly mutated creatures barreling down the highway towards them.

“We have the bus running everybody get in NOW!”, Seb shouted frantically “We're not waiting forever let's go”, Gaige and Dawson vaulted over the maze of broken down cars in front of them, desperately trying to outpace the mutants breathing down their necks. Hansley tried getting up on a car and popping a few rounds into a mutant, he didn't last very long. He was swarmed by about three of them and was being torn apart. The mutants pack consisted of a herd of bear like creatures. They were probably shredders. Some horrible Gentek wildlife experiment gone wrong

Dawson aimed his revolver at the three attacking shredders “Come on we have to get them off of him!”, He commanded as he drew a bead on the first shredder.

“No!”, Gaige yelled, “We have to go and besides, he'll distract them for a bit!”, Gaige began forcefully lowering Dawson's arm.

Dawson struggled to keep his weapon up for a few seconds then as tears welled up in  his eyes he swore quite loudly and lowered his arms in defeat. Gaige pulled him along towards the bus. “Come on! Come on we have to go NOW!”, Ordered Seb. Gaige and Dawson put in one final effort and sprinted as fast as they could towards the back door of the bus and dove inside. “Alright driver make that gas pedal hit the damn floor we have to get out of here” Seb yelled at the top of his lungs, with a hint of panic in his voice. The driver pushed hard on the gas pedal and the bus lurched forward. Gaige began firing out of the back of the bus wildly at the approaching shredders. I don't have the ammo for this!  He thought to himself as he looked at the four bullets left in his revolver. He began looking frantically around the bus for more rounds and that’s when Gaige looked at the cabin of the bus and came to a grim realization, it was caked in blood and bits of viscera.

“It's a nice ride isn't it, once you can get past all the blood everywhere.”, Patrick said with a morbid sense of cheeriness. Everyone on the bus was out of breath and in a cold sweat, the bus was moving fast enough that it could outrun the mutants, but that was only until they ran out of gas. How much gas does this thing even have? Gaige thought to himself.

“Seb you better figure out a plan b soon, we're running on fumes here!”, yelled the driver.

Well that wasn't what I wanted to hear. Gaige looked back out the window. He could make out one of the group members fruitlessly sprinting to catch up with the bus only to run out of energy and turn his gun on himself. Things really weren't looking up.

“Driver...I want you to take the next exit it'll take us straight to Haventon, once we get there we can close the town gates and pick off the shredders!”, Seb said with authority.

“But there's a wreck right in the middle of it”, replied the driver, looking confused.

“We'll go through it.”, Seb stated cooly.

“I'm sorry what the hell did you just say?”, the driver asked frantically.

“I said, we'll drive through it...”, Seb re stated.

“I'm sorry, but are you INSANE? There's no WAY we're ever gonna make it! We're in a bus god dammit not a tank!”, the driver hysterically yelled.

“Either you drive us through that wreck or we die on this highway...your choice”, Seb hissed urgently. Just as the driver began barreling towards the wreckage a shredder jumped through the onto the grated windshield and begin tearing at the bars. “Holy shit!”, Seb yelled, as the driver swerved to the right in an attempt to shake the beast. Only the swerve cause the bus to hit the wreckage and roll repeatedly. The last thing Gaige saw was the everything from the floor of the bus hitting the roof, then it all went black. He tried opening his eyes a few times but all he could make out were blurred figures shooting and shouting incomprehensible things. Darkness once again began eating away at the edges of his  vision until it was the only thing he saw. Then after what seemed like ten seconds,  his eyes finally fluttered open.

This time a harsh light assaulted his eyes and he had to raise an arm to defend himself from the light. Am I dead? Gaige thought. His vision slowly and painfully began to adjust to hist surroundings and he could barely manage to lift his head, as he looked around he could make out large green rolling hills, a forest, blue skies and clean water. Ok, I'm definitely dead, but hey, this isn't half bad! Gaige tried to get up to enjoy his newfound paradise but was discouraged by a sharp pain throughout his entire body. Okay...scratch that I'm not dead...but then where the hell am I? Gaige pondered, he didn't notice anything familiar and his surroundings seemed to be bright and almost pastel like. Huh, Maybe this is somewhere the Event didn't touch. But something seemed off, everything looked almost too cheery and very alien. It all reminded him of something he knew before the Event, but he couldn't put his finger on it.

Gaige noticed a town off in the distance, it looked very old fashioned with all wooden buildings. A town? Hopefully there's a hospital there, because I think I just may have a case of a broken everything. Gaige slowly inched himself over to a nearby tree and sat himself up leaning on it. It was only then that he noticed the true severity of his wounds. His chest had multiple lacerations and he was losing a fair amount of blood, not to mention that all his limbs were bruised all to hell. Great,  He thought, The one time I'm nowhere near a doctor. Then Gaige remembered his pack, it was still on him, it had bandages and some pain pills, that would hold him for a while. Gaige also noticed that he still had his rifle and revolver on him, but not much ammo left. Hopefully I won't need these again, I have enough blood on my hands.

It was then that Gaige looked up and noticed the two technicoloured small horses looking straight at him and talking in a hushed tone. One was a minty green colour with a white stripe down it's mane and the other was an light orange with freckles. Wait...is the orange one wearing a cowboy hat...What in the Sam Hill? Gaige was incredibly confused by this sight and wasn't sure how to react as the two small horses trotted towards him. Okay maybe this is all some sort of weird dream, maybe I'm just really...really...REALLY high. Gaige kept trying to find a reasonable explanation for what was transpiring in front of him until he noticed that the two technicoloured horses were looming over him. Alright Gaige think, first impressions are everything so don't do something stupid. Naturally Gaige immediately raised his revolver at the closest horse and said “Another step and I'll paint this field with your blood!” Great choice Gaige...just fan-fucking-tastic. You've always had a knack for messing up like this. Gaige scolded himself.

* * *

"Look at him. He's injured. He's weak. You promised me the best quality product! What is this nonsense?!?"

"Sir, I can assure you. This one has great potential. You have not even given him a chance. If you knew half of what I did about his history, you would agree that he is the best possible choice for your required services," the man calmly said, smirking and chuckling to himself. He patted the strange lopsided creature's shoulder reassuringly. The creature's lopsided eyes glared at him furiously.

"This placement seems like the wrong one for this man. I have the right mind to end you myself! We had a deal. I thought I was supposed to receive one of your finest products. Instead I got a crippled mess," he hissed. Pushing the man's hand off his shoulder violently. The creature sleuthed back over the window and stared out into the inky darkness of the night. A candle barely illuminating his imperfectly shaped muzzle.

"Well...as an old associate of mine once said. 'The right man in the wrong place can make all the difference in the world'," the man smiled wryly. He joined the creature by the window. Surveying the silhouette that was left of the landscape. "Sir, I'm a respectable capitalist, just like you. It is my personal policy to never disappoint my client. In time, you will see what I have seen. You will see his potential and you shall be able to bend his fate to your will. You will have your hitman," the man said, still staring out the window, "There is a reason that I am the greatest there is in this business," and with that the man pushed himself off the windowsill and strode over to the  the door.

"Where are you going so suddenly?" asked the creature, turning slowly to face the door. His question appeared to fall on deaf ears as the man continued his slow walk towards the door. He stood momentarily in the doorway before turning around to face the creature once again.

"I hope you realize that once you put this plan in motion, there will be no return to how things once were. You are sure you would like to go through with our offer. Past this point, I cannot undo what has been done. No one can," the creature nodded. He understood the risks and rewards of his actions. Whether the risks were worth the reward would be up to fate. "Good. I wish you the best of luck in your future endeavours. I shall be monitoring my assets and assuring they follow our desired paths set out for them. I shall contact you when everything is prepared to be set into motion," the man pulled his black hood over his head and turned around towards the exit.

"And what if they do not obey?" the creature inquired. The man paused for a long time, considering his course of action in a scenario such as that one.

"If one of our assets will not aid our cause. I will personally destroy them to ensure they cannot be used against us. These beings can be dangerous...in the wrong hands," the man said without turnining around. He then strode out of the room. Leaving the creature to his own devices and plans. The creature wasted no time in returning to working out the formalities of his plan. He leaned over his oak desk. Rifling through papers and reviewing maps thouroughly. The flickering light of the candle illuminating the room in an faint orange glow. The creature continued working in isolation. Like the dedicated tactician that he had come to be. Revising maneuvers. Armament options and troop placement alike. He eventually came to a list of the names of his human task force. He carefully guided his bony finger down the page until he found the name he was searching for. Gaige Hendrickson, it read.

"Well Gaige," he whispered, "you will either be the key to my greatest triumph or the key to my downfall...I can only pray that fate will be kind to me."

First Impressions are Everything

Great...What now?

Gaige kept running through ways he could get out of his current situation, but none seemed feasible. Dammit Gaige, you've spent five years in the wasteland seeing unspeakable things, yet two technicoloured horses are making you shit your pants. Think dammit! Gaige kept the gun pointed shakily at the closest of the two small horses, the one with the cowboy hat. He locked  eyes with it and it glared back in a complete stupor. He didn't think it understood the situation. Of course it doesn't know what you're doing it's a horse god dammit! Gaige thought to himself. He started to put himself at ease realizing that the two strange creature in front of him were probably peanut brained wilder beasts, until one of them opened its' mouth to speak.

“Well that ain't exactly the way to treat a lady!” Exclaimed the orange horse. Gaige was about to reply, but then he came to the realization that a horse just spoke perfect english to him. His mind...wasn't very accepting of that idea.

Oh what the hell...did that horse just talk? Gaige thought to himself. No...no way I'm just imagining things, must be the blood loss. It wasn't until the orange horse turned and began talking to the green horse that Gaige realized that, there were in fact two very real pastel talking horses in front of him. “You heard me...I said stay back! Or I'll shoot!” He hissed hoping to deter them from coming any closer. He knew he had to find a way to get away from them and fast, he had lost a lot of blood. Gaige began struggling to his feet while training his revolver on the two strange creatures. Come on Gaige get up dammit, you've been through worse than this! He thought in an attempt to coax his protesting muscles into cooperating

“Ah don't take too kindly to monsters threatening mah friends...I'd watch yer mouth if I were you” The orange horse menacingly said while glaring at Gaige. It looked like it was getting ready to charge him. All of a sudden the orange horse whipped around and drew back its' hind legs.

Gaige looked up from his half crouched position just in time to see a pair of hooves shooting out towards him. Aw crap. He thought just milliseconds before his body was sent soaring a good three feet behind where he stood. Gaige went limp and hit the ground with a sickening thud. He had the wind completely knocked out of him and he gasped for air. Damn, I think my ribcage has been turned into jello. Gaige thought between bouts of excruciating pain. My gun! I have to get my gun! Gaige began to panic until he noticed that his gun had wedged itself under his chest when he landed. He slowly grasped it as the two horses drew nearer and began slowly and painfully raising himself off the ground. “Don't..think I'm done yet...” Gaige sputtered out between laboured breaths, “I'm just getting starte-” Gaige's speech was interrupted by him losing consciousness and landing face first in the grass.

* * *

“What do you think it is Applejack” Asked Lyra, eying the motionless creature curiously and poking at it with her fore-hoof.

“Ah don't know...or much less care but I don't think it's gettin' up anytime soon” Applejack glared cautiously at the strange monkey like thing that lay in front of her.

“I don't know Applejack, I mean to me it looks kind of like a...human.” Lyra stated as her eyes began to light up.

“Oh come on Lyra, everypony knows humans are just an old fillies tail to keep ponies away from the everfree forest. Sweet Celestia when are you gonna stop with that nonsense” Applejack scolded. Everyone in Ponyville knew Lyra was a complete nut-job for believing in these mystical “Humans”, but Applejack couldn't help but notice the similarities between the creature in front of her and Lyra's nonsensical drawings. Maybe she was right. No that's total nonsense, how could you even consider that. Applejack scolded herself for thinking something so foolish.

Lyra, looking hurt, turned back to poking at the strange creature with a sight. She saw it had a some a thick pelt covering its' body with the exception of its' extremities and had a very metallic looking head with reflective orange eyes. She reached out to poke it again, except this time, it let out a low groan and Lyra took a great leap into the air, letting out a high pitched shriek and tumbling over backwards in fear. At the sight of this Applejack's attention snapped back to the creature in front of her. She noticed something red pooling under it. Is that...blood? She thought to herself.  “Oh...oh my...Lyra get up we have to get this thing to a doctor and fast if we wanna know anything about him.”

“Why? What's wrong?” Asked a suddenly panicked Lyra.

“It's bleeding Lyra...It's bleeding a LOT!” Applejack became suddenly very nauseous from the sight of the creature's condition. “Fluttershy's cottage is just over this hill, if we can get him there she might be able to do somthin'!” Applejeack hollered as she bit down onto the creature's hood and began dragging it. Lyra soon joined in the frantic effort.

I'm not losing my chance to meet a human now, I'm so close and I KNOW this time it's an actual human. I'm not letting a little blood loss take away MY DREAM! Lyra thought to herself as she began pulling more and more frantically.

Great, first a mutant attack, then a bus crash and now I'm being kidnapped by tiny coloured horses...Could my day get ANY better? Gaige thought to himself sarcastically as he lay half conscious being dragged over a ground. Gaige slowly felt himself slipping away from consciousness again, only this time he welcomed the darkness and drifted away from reality.

* * *

Gaige was slowly rummaging through an old refrigerator in a ruined farmhouse, doing his best to avoid making any noise. Damn, only three cans of tuna...that's not enough for everyone. Gaige thought to himself as he looked at his meagre scavenged supplies and frowned. Hopefully the rest of the group found more than this, otherwise we aren't going to make it much longer. It didn't take Gaige long to deduce that the small five cans of meat they had wouldn't feed all sixteen people. He had to move on and keep looking.

Gaige exited the farmhouse out into the ashen wastes stealthily only to be jerked onto the ground suddenly. He landed on his face and quickly flipped around to face his would be assailant. Only it was Patrick pinning him down and motioning for him to be quiet. Gaige looked around quickly and noticed that their group was huddled behind the low wall near the farmhouse watching something. Wait...there's only fourteen of us. Gaige suddenly thought. Patrick got off his chest and repositioned himself against an old wrecked truck and Gaige followed suit. Gaige kept looking around for his other two group members, but they were nowhere in sight. Until he looked over the top of the truck he was behind, there they were, being held up by a heavily armed group of at least seven heavily armed bandits, both of them on their knees with guns pressed to their heads. Well shit...Gaige thought. This complicates things a little. He looked around for any way that the bandits could be eliminated without killing both his group members. Damn...the rest of the group would get shot at the minute they poked their heads out. He thought, then he deduced that him and Patrick were the only ones far enough away to set up a shot without being seen. Then he came to the grim realization that he was the only one of the two with a rifle.

“Gaige...I hate to break it to you...” Patrick urgently whispered, “But you're the only one who can make the shot and we can't save both of them.”

“There HAS to be another way, some sort of gas tank or something I can hit to distract them!” Gaige hissed back. He wasn't going to lose anybody else, he'd already lost four people just last week.

“Alright NOBODY...and I mean NOBODY steals from us you sons of bitches!” Hollered who must've been the bandit group's leader, “Now I know y'all are in our farmhouse so you better come out now or were gonna kill each and every one of you! Starting with these two! You have ten seconds to get your asses out of that house or these two's brains are gonna be all over the concrete! Ten!”  Counted the bandit leader.

“Now would be a good a time as any to set up that rifle Gaige” Patrick whispered.

“No I'm going to find a way to save both of them!” Gaige retorted.

“We don't have the time Gaige, you have to choose. There's no other way!” Patrick pleaded. He was right and Gaige knew it. With a sight Gaige laid prone on the ground and began peering down the scope of his rifle

“Nine!” Yelled the bandit leader. Gaige could now see his two captured group members; Carol and her husband Eb.

Dammit why'd you both have to wander off! Gaige silently cursed himself for not keeping track of them

“Eight!” Continued the Bandit leader.

Shit, Carol's pregnant, but Eb knows this county better than anyone here. This isn't going to be easy

“Seven!” Yelled the bandit leader, urging the other bandits to ready their weapons. Gaige attempted to steady his aim but he was shaking uncontrollably.

When the time comes...will I be able to do it, will I be able to choose or will they both die because of me? Gaige asked himself.

“Six! Times running out!” Taunted the bandit leader.

Gaige began inhaling deeply and steadying his shot.

“Five. Ya'll can come on out anytime!”

Now! Gaige pulled the trigger of his hunting rifle and saw the bandit who was hovering over Carol become one eye short. Whoever had a gun in Gaige's group rose up and begun firing at the bandits. The  bandits, being completely overwhelmed, were gunned down in a matter of seconds, but not before putting a bullet through Eb's head.

Gaige stayed hunkered behind the truck for a few seconds after the shooting died down until he got the “All clear” from Patrick. He then slowly made his way down to the pile of corpses that was once a bandit group, and Carol among them cradling Eb's corpse. Gaige felt an immense sense of guilt. It's my fault Eb's dead..his bloods on my hands. Gaige slowly approached Carol. How could he comfort a woman who he had just robbed everything from. Gaige cleared his throat and finally spoke to her. “I'm sorry I couldn't protect you both...I had to choose.” It wasn't exactly comforting for her, but at least it was the truth.

“No Gaige..” Carol said between sobs, “You couldn't protect him...” She turned around revealing a large gash on her neck that went down to the bone and a horribly pale face “You couldn't protect me, you couldn't protect Carson. You couldn’t protect Ben. You couldn't protect ANYONE” Carol yelled as her eyes glazed over and she began sounding more and more malevolent. Finally she brandished a hunting knife and plunged it deep into his abdomen, “You deserve this more than anyone!” She hissed as Gaige slowly drifted into the arms of death.

* * *

Gaige woke with a start and took in a sharp gasp of air. “No!” he croaked, not being able to take in enough air to scream. His eyes darted furiously around the room he had been put in, it was a small bright coloured room in what appeared to be a cottage. Gaige noticed he was curled up in a fetal position as the bed he was in was much too small for him, which seemed peculiar to him, that was until he remembered he was in a land of talking equines. Thank god...just another dream. Gaige thought, the night terrors like that were frequent for him, but still, even after five years, he was still shaken by each and every one of them.

Gaige could make out some faint voices on the floor below him and assumed it was the two creature who were dragging him across the field. I need to get out of here before they can come up and do whatever the hell they're planning to do with me. Gaige couldn't shake the feeling that something bad would happen if he didn't. He tried to raise himself out of the bed and after a few minutes, and quite a few popped stitches, he succeeded in getting to his feet.  Gaige scanned the room for his things and noticed that they were all piled in a corner of the room. He immediately hobbled over to his bag and pulled out his painkillers and morphine. He stared at the long needle that contained the sweet pain suppressing juice he desired. I hate needles. He thought to himself before he jabbed the needly into a vein on his bicep using a hand to stifle a yelp of pain. He then looked down at his body it had been bandaged and the lacerations on his chest had been partially stitched. Damn, looks like I'm gonna need to really be careful if I wanna stay alive. He could feel the morphine starting to take effect as he regained some of his mobility and began retrieving his things.

Gaige noticed that his clothing had been left mostly untouched and his hazardous environment mask was still on his head. Good that means I can stay anonymous. Or rather as anonymous as a large bipedal ape like creature can be in a society of talking horses. He strapped his pack onto his back and was about to make his way out of the second story window, when he remembered he was missing one thing; his revolver. He figured since he only had five rifle rounds left it would be best to bring his revolver with him just in case. So he began scanning the room for it, only the revolver was nowhere to be found.

Gaige crept close to the staircase down the the first floor to see if he could spot his possession on the first floor, when he heard a voice coming from downstairs. “...And he pointed this here metal thing at Lyra and I and threatened us! Can you believe that?” it was the voice of the orange horse from the field. Shit, well I can't say I didn't see this coming. Gaige cursed silently and began slowly creeping away from the staircase. He figured he could come back for the gun another time. Suddenly Gaige felt his foot snag on something that was on the floor and he tumbled over backwards with a large crash. Gaige looked up from the ground and saw a small white rabbit smiling smugly at him. “Oh you little son of a bitch!” Gaige hissed, “I will turn you into a fucking hat, get back here!” he growled as he lunged for the small rabbit that was much too quick for him. Gaige landed on the floor face down and proceeded to slowly raise himself with a defeated sigh.

Gaige suddenly noticed a sudden eerie silence. The voices downstairs had stopped, and slow deliberate hoof steps could be heard, slowly approaching the staircase. Well...time to go. Gaige figured and he made a mad dash for the open window and slid out onto the roof. Within seconds he had slid off  the roof and had hit the ground running for the closest brush cover he could get to. Gaige burst through some brush cover and onto a stone path and then stopped to catch his breath for a second. It was only when he raised his head to look around that he realized that he was now on a path populated by at least fifty brightly coloured equines all gawking at the sight of a giant monkey wearing a metal mask that just came barreling out of the underbrush. “Um...Hello...there's absolutely no reason to panic. I'm not here to-” Gaige was not able to finish his sentence as the crowd of pastel equines immediately began panicking, most were running away from him, but a brave few were heading straight towards him.

Well shit...this just got a lot harder!

Memory

Agent Lugo crept silently through the darkened empty hallways of an empty apartment complex. He could've sworn he had seen someone moving at the end of the hall and was prepared to confront them. Beads of sweat began to run down his face and his heart rate skyrocketed as he drew nearer to the end of the hallway. Each step he took, was a step closer to his potential demise. After what seemed like hours he reached the end of the hallway. As he slowly turned the corner at the end of the hall he heard a faint thudding behind him and he whirled around to face the source of this unnerving noise. Alas, it was too late for Lugo, for when he turned around there was already an enemy agent in the process of driving his knife deep into Lugo's chest.

“Player one defeated...Player two is victorious”, blared the television speakers in their monotone synthesized voice.

“Oh come on, this time I know you cheated!”, whined Gaige, “I demand a rematch!”. Gaige huffed and crossed his arms in display of childish frustration.

“I swear I didn't cheat at all Gaige!, Patrick retorted defiantly, “Have you ever considered that maybe you're just bad at this?”, he added with a wry smile. As Gaige processed that remark, he could almost picture himself slowly wrapping his hands around Patrick's neck and throttling the life out of him, but that might not go over to well with his parents so he restrained himself.

“Oh yeah?”, Gaige paused to think of an intelligent comeback, “Well...well maybe you're just a...you know what? Fuck you!”, Gaige yelled whilst turning away from his so called friend. He could feel his face burning red with anger and embarrassment.

“Hey calm down man, I was only joking.”, Patrick said in an attempt to cool his friend down, but Gaige would have none of it. “Look...if you want I can even tell you how to play as well as me!”, Gaige paused for a moment to consider the offer.

“Alright...I'm listening”,  he muttered angrily after a short period of silence.

“Okay then, let's get started. If you want to beat your enemy you have to start by getting to know him.”, Patrick stated, doing his best to keep himself from outright laughing at Gaige's hilariously non-threatening “angry” face.

“Wait...Patrick I don't think two soldiers are really going to want to have a nice chat over a cup of tea and talk about themselves!”, Gaige interrupted, completely befuddled by the concept he was being introduced to.

“No Gaige, not like that. I mean you have to watch him.”, Patrick continued, doing his best to avoid becoming frustrated with his friend's lack of comprehension.

“Okay, now you're just sounding really creepy!”, Gaige half yelled in his state of now complete confusion.

“Gaige, seriously stop with the interruptions alright! I mean you have to learn how your enemy operates, watch what he does and how he does it. You have to learn how he thinks and you have to be able to predict what he's going to do and counter it before he does it.”, Gaige was beginning to listen more intently as Patricks voice shifted to an oddly dark tone “You have to think like your enemy and  you have to act like your enemy...”, Gaige became entranced by his friends sudden shift in character, “Before you can defeat your enemy, you have to be your enemy.”, Patrick stated in a dark malevolent tone.

* * *

Be the enemy Gaige. Calm down and just be the enemy.

Gaige was crouched on a branch, fairly high up on a large tree surveying the growing herd of pastel equines nervously searching for him around the park he had hidden in. They're scared, good. I can work with that. Gaige thought to himself as he took another look over his pursuers who he had barely managed to throw off not minutes before. The relentless sprint it had taken Gaige to temporarily escape his pursuers had taken a large toll on him physically. Gaige slowly slumped back against the tree trunk near the high branch he was on as he attempted to slow his laboured, raspy breathing.

In his time spent studying his enemy, Gaige had noticed three main archetypes of equines: pegasi, unicorns and “normal” equines, who he referred to as regulars. The unicorns appeared to posses some form of ethereal powers, mainly centred around levitation, but he had seen a few unicorns who had launched bright bolts of energy from their horns which left whatever they hit nicely charred. I'll have to watch out for them at a range, Gaige realized, if I can get up close to them I could probably remove their ethereal advantage though. The pegasi, quite obviously possessed the ability to fly and Gaige noticed that they were quite often the fastest of any equine, especially a certain blue equine with a rainbow mane. Better watch out for that one, Gaige figured. The regulars didn't posses any strange abilities and appeared to just rely mostly on the brute force of their hind legs in any sort of attack. Gaige didn't feel like trying his luck up close with any of them, especially the ones he had discerned as stallions, they had slightly more cubical muzzles, deeper voices and a lot more muscle mass than the mares. They looked like a force to be reckoned with.

Gaige began checking his surroundings for any possible way he could slip away unnoticed, there were none he could see or think of. Wait, I think I still have that decoy grenade in my pack, Gaige thought, The noise and fake gunshots from that would probably give me enough time to get away. Gaige carefully leaned forwards and brought his pack silently around to his lap and began slowly rummaging though its' contents. He began to panic as the pastel horses slowly drew nearer to his position, Gaige didn't have much time left before they would notice him, so he doubled his efforts to find his decoy and after a few more seconds of digging he finally pulled out the jury rigged explosive. It wasn't much, a tin can filed to the brim with cherry bombs and filled with many small holes poked through the exterior, it didn't look to reliable but it was Gaige's only option at the moment. He pulled his lighter out his pocket and carefully lit the fuse. When Gaige saw the fuse light we immediately lobbed the decoy as hard and as far as he could, it landed almost directly in the middle of the advancing herd of pastel horses. Perfect when this goes off I should be able to hop down and-. Gaige's train of thought was interrupted by the sudden snap he heard directly beside him. Gaige whirled around , alarmed by this sudden noise only to be face to face with a rainbow maned blue mare who looked just as surprised as he did. The pupils of her wine coloured eyes dilated in complete and utter terror and she drew in a sharp breath and prepared to scream.

“Monste-”, her frantic cry was cut short by Gaige's knuckles colliding with her jawbone. The mare's balance was thrown off by the blow and she went tumbling off the branch in a daze. Gaige jumped down onto her locking his arm around her neck into a sleeper hold.

Shit, this isn't good. Oh well at least now I have a hostage I can use to barter with. Gaige frantically thought. Just then Gaige's decoy went off like a flare in the middle of the night. The initial powder explosion caused a fair amount of smoke and the subsequent loud bangs of the cherry bombs detonating sent the Gaige's would-be pursuers running panicked for cover. Perfect, Gaige thought, Now all I have to do is just get to the woods and I'll be fine. Gaige noticed the blue mare had begun struggling to free herself from Gaige's hold. “Oh no you don't!” Gaige hissed as he constricted the helpless mare's neck with as much force as he could muster. The mare began struggling even more frantically, thrashing about and opening her mouth to scream, but she was barely able to get out a few gargles and chokes before her movements became progressively slower, until she fell still and her eyes fluttered shut. Gaige held his index and middle finger up to her neck. Still alive? Good, Gaige thought to himself, any fatalities could potentially further complicate his situation. Gaige quickly released the mare out of his iron grip and sprung up to make a mad dash for the treeline. It was only about fifty metres away but Gaige's muscles wailed in protest as he hobbled as fast as he could towards his lush, green salvation. His legs were burning and it felt as if someone poked a few hundred tiny needles into his ribcage. The pain was almost unbearable but Gaige kept pushing himself, victory was so close, he couldn't bring himself to give up now.

“What the-...There's nopony here it's just a tin can!”, shouted one of the horses back near Gaige's last position. Just as Gaige heard that he managed to launch himself into the treeline with one final effort and tumble down a hill quite clumsily. As Gaige finally stopped tumbling and landed flat on his back, he opened his eyes and looked up at the beautiful forest around him that stretched on for miles and was filled with potential safe havens for him. Suddenly Gaige heard a voice coming from the edge of the forest, “...If he went into the Everfree forest there's no WAY I'm going to follow him, do you have any idea how dangerous it is in there?” Gaige let out a raspy laugh as he heard this remark, he knew he was finally safe...for the moment.

* * *

“Dashie! Dashie wake up! Come on this isn't funny anymore!” Pinkie Pie pleaded as she knelt over her fallen friend with tears streaming down her face. She had never seen Rainbow Dash like this, her face was all bruised and swollen and Pinkie couldn't see that her chest wast rising and falling as it should've been. “Dashie?...”, Pinkie Pie trailed off as she felt an immense lump in her throat and her mane deflated and straightened out.  Pinkie was going into shock at the mere thought of her friend never waking up. She kept looking expectantly at Dash's limp body, but nothing happened. Pinkie was about to have mental breakdown when suddenly Dash shot up from the ground with a start and took in a sharp gasp of air. “Dashie you're okay!”, squeaked Pinkie Pie as her mane inflated and curled once again and she brought her friend into a tight embrace. Pinkie was overjoyed and a river of tears began flowing from her closed eyelids, soaking Rainbow Dash's fur.

“Wha- Pinkie? Why wouldn't I be okay?” Dash asked while rubbing the badly swollen left side of her muzzle.

“I heard that you...got attacked by that monster! I thought he'd...he'd-” Pinkie trailed off as she began sobbing once again.

“Oh Pinkie, you know I can take care of myself. You should've seen me fight that monster off I nearly had him, but he pulled a dirty move and knocked me out!” Dash bragged narcissistically, hoping Pinkie didn't learn the horribly embarrassing truth.

“But..I heard that the big mean monster knocked you out with a single hit, and then he choked you!”  Pinkie said, confused as to which story she should believe.

“Well...maybe I exaggerated just a little bit.” Dash retorted, nervously laughing afterwards to try and hide her embarrassment for being beaten so easily. Dash pulled away from Pinkie's embrace and cringed as she noticed a dull throbbing pain shoot through the entire left side of her muzzle. She groaned and began clutching at her muzzle, wishing that the pain would go away. When she pulled her hooves away from her muzzle she noticed that they were tinged red. Am I bleeding? Dash thought to herself.

“Dash, your face is in really bad shape. I think I should take you to the hospital.” Pinkie urgently stated, alarmed by the awful dark purple lump on Dash's jawline and the cut that was adjacent to it. Dash clutched her muzzle in pain once again and slowly nodded. As she followed Pinkie towards the hospital she thought to herself,

If I ever see that monster again...I swear...I will make him regret ever showing his ugly mug in Equestria and send him crawling back to the ditch he dragged his disgusting ass out of! Nopony messes with my face and gets away with it! It'll pay...it'll pay DEARLY!

* * *

Gaige had finally gathered enough firewood to be able to finally settle down for the night and start a fire by his wooden lean-to. As he threw the last of his lumber into his fire pit he sat down with an exasperated sigh. I wonder how things are going back in Haventon, He pondered, hoping, in the back of his mind, that everyone else had managed to make it back in one piece. Then Gaige felt something he never dreamed he'd ever feel, he longed to be back in the wasteland. Not because he enjoyed it there, but the only two things he had left of  his past life were back there; Patrick and Dawson. They were his only friends in a world of chaos. They'd saved his ass and he'd saved their's many times before. Gaige just didn't feel right leaving them in that hole while he sat on his ass in a veritable paradise. If anything they were more deserving of a paradise than he was. Both of them had saved many of their group members, Gaige included, on multiple occasions and were always there when the group needed them most. Gaige may have led the group, but he alone felt responsible for each and every one of their deaths, losses and injuries. Gaige was someone they looked up to and he let them all down.

Suddenly Gaige heard a twig snap somewhere in front of him and he was jerked back into reality. He whipped his head up to face the noise and saw two small colts, eyes wide with terror as they locked eyes with Gaige. They were both fully dressed in pirate garb and carried small wooden swords. One of them was a small milk white colt with brown splotches covering his body and an eye patch, that one reminded Gaige of Carson. He was so small, helpless and vulnerable. With that thought Gaige entered a trance as his mind took him back to one of his memories of the wasteland. The two colts bolted away at a lighting pace, shrieking and tripping over one another all the way back, but Gaige didn't notice, nor did he care. For Gaige was entranced in a web of memories.

* * *

“Gaige! Come in here, Dale keeps asking to see you. Something about his kid.” Dawson told Gaige motioning towards their makeshift medical tent. Gaige silently got up from his post by their vehicle caravan and headed towards the tent. He could feel an ever increasing sense of dread as he approached the tent. When Gaige entered the tent he saw Dale lying on the bed they'd made him, his bandaged bullet wounds were still bleeding and he smelled of rot and gangrene. Gaige almost became sick by just entering the room.

“Something you need Dale? Are your wounds doing ok?”, Gaige said with a warm smile, even though he already knew the answer to his second question.

“That's...just it Gaige.”, Dale wheezed out between laboured breaths. “Come a bit closer, I need you to do something for me.” Gaige slowly walked over next to Dale's makeshift “bed”, cobbled together from sleeping bags and cots, and looked expectantly at him. “Gaige...I don't think I have much time.”, Dale wheezed, barely being able to turn his head to face Gaige.

“Don't say that Dale, you'll bounce back don't worry!” Gaige said reassuringly.

“No...I'm not I can feel it.”, Dale stated as he began to break out sweating, “I may not make it but...Gaige..promise me you'll take care of my boy, I don't want him to end up like me...please.”, he pleaded.

“Listen Dale you're not going to die...not on my watch! Okay! You're going to get up tomorrow you're gonna walk this off, we're gonna get you antibiotics and everything is gonna be-”, Gaige suddenly cut himself off as Dale clutched onto his left wrist with both his clammy hands.

“Gaige...don't be a fool. You and I both know I don't have that kind of time and besides all the pharmacies are picked clean for miles!”, Dale barely croaked out, “Now please...promise me you'll take care of my boy! That's all I need to hear Gaige, I need to know that Carson's going to be protected. I don't want my little boy to die out here Gaige! A child doesn't deserve that!” Dale pleaded desperately.

“No Dale, don't say that come on!” Gaige hissed. He felt Dale's grip weaken and his eyes began to flutter shut. “Dale! Don't you dare die on me Dale!”, Dale's breaths became shallower and shallower until they stopped completely, “Dale, breathe dammit! Open your fucking eyes Dale! Carol! Get the fucking defibrillator in here NOW!” Gaige yelled as he began to perform chest compressions on Dale in a vain attempt to resuscitate him.

Carol burst into the room and saw Gaige giving CPR to a motionless Dale, “Oh my god...” She whispered as she put a hand over her mouth in shock.

“Dammit Carol! Fucking do something! We can still bring him back!” Gaige hissed as he continued his chest compressions.

“There's nothing to do Gaige! His wounds got infected and that's what killed him! Even if we do bring him back what'll it be for? To watch him suffer for another hour and die again?” Carol screamed in frustration. Gaige completely ignored her and began performing his chest compressions more vigourously. “Gaige...stop”, Carol asked. Gaige continued to compress harder on Dale's chest, to the point where blood was starting to come from Dale's mouth. “Gaige stop!” Carol yelled in an attempt to get Gaige's attention. Gaige continued ignoring her. Carol tore Gaige away from Dale and pushed him away from the bed while screaming, “Dammit Gaige, there's nothing we can do for him! He's fucking dead! Get a goddamned grip!”. Gaige stared defiantly at Carol for a few seconds before yelling out a few dozen obscenities and flipping over Dale's makeshift IV setup.

“How are we going to explain this to-” Gaige was cut off by a soft voice coming from behind him

A small, ghastly pale child with flowing dark brown hair was standing at the entrance to the tent with his index finger placed on his mouth as he hushed Carol and Gaige. “You shouldn't be so loud. Can't you see Papa's trying to sleep?” Whispered the child in a hushed tone. It was Carson, Dale's son. Gaige and Carol looked at each other as if to ask, What am I supposed to tell him?, only neither of them could answer that question. Before they knew it Carson had rushed over by his father's body and was softly shaking the corpse in a feeble attempt to rouse his father from his eternal slumber. “Papa? Papa wake up!” The boy demanded innocently, “Papa?...Gaige why isn't he waking up?”. Gaige could feel Carson's bright blue eyes, wide with worry, fixated solely on him, Gaige couldn't bear to meet his gaze.

“Carson, you shouldn't be here.” Carol softly uttered as she lifted the boy into her arms. “Your father....he's...not going to wake up.”, Carol was barely able to string out a sentence she was so close to tears, her lip began to quiver uncontrollably as she slowly carried the boy away from his father's corpse.

“No! Don't take me away from him! He's gonna wake up! Right Gaige? Put me down I wanna be with Papa!”, Carter began kicking and screaming in a vain attempt to get away from Carol. As Carol whisked the grief stricken child out of the tent, Gaige's eyes fell to the floor. He couldn't stop thinking of his parents broken, charred remains in the crater that used to be his home. How he had wanted to die with them then and there. How he was alone in a hostile world for such a long time. He never wanted to see somebody go through what he did, especially not a small child. That was no way to live.

“I...I promise you Dale...”, Gaige whispered as he shakily closed Dale's eyes for the last time, “I promise I'll take care of your boy.”

* * *

Gaige was slowly pulled himself away from his thoughts and back into reality. He found himself whispering, “I'm sorry...”, to himself over and over. Gaige did his best to get his mind off of his past, but he knew he'd only be able to bury his past for so long. In the end, everything he did would catch up to him. Everyone he killed, everything he did and everyone he lost would haunt every minute of his life, like a malevolent shadow that he could never escape. Gaige began thinking back to his time with Dawson just before the fateful bus crash that transported him into a veritable paradise. He could hear Dawson's last question echoing in his head.

What do we deserve?, Gaige knew that he had finally found an answer to Dawson's question.

We deserve something much worse than death...we deserve to live with ourselves.

Close Encounters

“Well we're in the middle of a desert now...wonderful.”, the man continued muttering to himself as he angrily paced atop the ridge he had climbed. His leather duster, along with the rest of his clothing, had been assaulted by the desert's sandstorms for days now and he had been covered in a fine layer of whiteish brown dust from head to toe. The desert's bright pastel colours betrayed it's unforgivingness. He had climbed the ridge hoping to see some sign of life somewhere close to him, but all he could see for miles was the a large, barren desert. He knew that there was a fairly good chance that him and his companion would die in this desert.

“God...I haven't seen this much nothingness since I lived in Vermont!”, chirped a groggy voice behind the man. The man turned around to be greeted by his companion, another man whom he had been transported with into this god-forsaken desert. His companion surveyed the hundreds of miles of sand dunes surrounding them. His expression was hidden by his metal helmet and polarized visor, but the man had known him long enough to guess that he probably had his usual idiotic grin plastered across his face.

“So you catch anything on the radar today?, the man inquired.

“Nothin' today, but I know that faint signal we got from Gaige's helmet was coming from the north...I think we should keep heading in that direction. I mean it's not like we really have any other options.”

“Look around you, do you really think Gaige is still alive out there? There's nothing for miles out here and in the state he was last time I saw him, I don't think he'd make it too far out there. Face it Dawson we're searching for a corpse at this point and it's a waste of time!”, the man yelled, his frustration with his companions naivete was growing with each passing day.

“Patrick...I'm not giving up on him. You know he would never give up on us if he were in this position!”

“No Dawson, he'd do what he needed to keep himself and whoever he's with alive and not go on some pointless wild goose chase for someone who might not even be alive!”

“That's bullshit! You know that if he thought there was even the slightest chance someone was alive, he would go after them! I don't care what you say I'm going after him and you can go shove your self preservation up your goddamn ass! I'm looking for something that really matters to me and I'll go alone if I had to”, Dawson stood defiantly facing Patrick. The positions of the two resembling that of an old west standoff.

“I suppose you're right...”, Patrick sighed in defeat. Even if he wanted to leave on his own he couldn't, Dawson had most of their supplies with him. “I'll go with your plan, but I swear if we run out of food here...it'll be your ass on the line!” Patrick hissed angrily. He didn't like the “plan” one bit, but Dawson was right, he didn't really have any better options. So the two silently continued on, further into the desert. We're dead men walking, Patrick thought to himself.

* * *

It was a beautiful fall afternoon on the edge of Sweet Apple Acres. The sun had finally emerged from behind the cloud cover and everything was glistening in the daylight. The grass rustled softly in the wind and the apple orchard was a collage of beautiful oranges, yellows, and reds. The trees of the Everfree forest swayed lazily a little ways away from the orchards perimeter fence, but a strange malicious air could be felt radiating from the forest. Despite the events that had transpired by the edge of the Everfree forest not two weeks before, Applebloom, Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo stood expectantly right at the edge of the dangerous forest. “I don't know Applebloom...we've been coming here every day for the past two weeks and we still haven't seen this weird monster thing you're telling us about. Are you sure it's even in here?”, Scootaloo asked while giving an exasperated sigh.

“Ahm sure it's in here! Mah sister swears she saw it run away into the forest right here!” Applebloom cried, she was very headstrong about this monster hunting business and she wasn't going to give up on it so easily. Esepecially since her sister, the Element of Loyalty, told her that there was a real monster that lives in the forest. “You can leave now if you want to, but ahm not leavin' 'til ah see mah monster!” , she continued.

“I'm with Scootaloo. Let's just go Applebloom...I don't like this it's scary.” Sweetie Belle whispered, not bothering to hide how terrified she was anymore.

“Hey don't say that too loud Sweetie! You know what they say about monsters don't you?”, Scootaloo asked malevolently. Sweetie Belle gulped and shook her head, “They can smell fear and when they smell fear do you know what they'll do?”, Sweetie Belle started shaking and shook her head again, “They'll eat you whole!”, Sweetie Belle squealed and began to gallop back towards Sweet Apple Acres as fast as she could. Applebloom proceeded to charge after her and drag her bag to the edge of the forest, much to Sweetie's chagrin.

“Scootaloo! What are you goin' around spreadin' nonsense like that! Are you tryin' tah give Sweetie a heart attack?”, Applebloom scolded. Scootaloo brushed her off and rolled her eyes sarcastically at her.

“Oh come on! Sweetie's just being a little diva, that was nothing! At least I didn't tell her about how the monster slowly rips open it's prey and toys with it until-”, Scootaloo's melodramatic tale elicited another high pitched squeal from Sweetie Belle.

“Scootaloo!”

“Alright fine, I'll stop!” Scootaloo huffed and sat on her haunches crossing her fore hooves in frustration. “You girls aren't any fun.”, she muttered to herself as she continued to sulk.

“Applebloom can I please leave now! I'm really scared!”, Sweetie Belle managed to get out as she began to cry.

“No! Nopony's leavin' here now! There ain't nothin' dangerous about this monster! We're all perfectly safe here and he's not gonna come out her an' eat us or som'n! Everything'll be fine!”,  as Applebloom scolded her two friends, she noticed that both of them where staring at her, eyes wide with fear. She looked a little closer and she was about to ask them why they we're staring at her so strangely when she noticed they seemed to be looking at something behind her. She whipped around to face a vicious and hungry looking timber wolf. Applebloom was frozen in place with fear. Her mind screamed at her to run, but her legs didn't want to cooperate. So she stood frozen, staring straight at the timber wolf as it stared back and snarled with drool dripping out of its' mouth. The wolf eyed Applebloom hungrily with it's horrible yellow glowing eyes as it dropped to a crouch and prepared to pounce on it's prey. The wolf launched itself into the air towards Applebloom with its claws extended out towards her. Applebloom could only watch in dismay as time seemed to slow to a crawl and the timber wolf sailed through the air towards her. Suddenly, the creature was knocked out of the air by a large metal pole that curved at one end. The wolf yelped as it was struck hard by the pole and fell to the ground in a heap. Applebloom's gaze scanned down the pole until her gaze met it's owner, what looked like a large monkey clad in a helmet and robes. It was the monster her sister had warned her about

“Bad dog! Sit!”, scolded the monster. The timber wolf had now brought itself back up its' feet, snarling at the creature who dared separate it from it's delicious morsel. The timber wolf pounced at his assailant, only to be beaten off by the metal pole once again. “Fucking Christ! You damn wolves are impossible to train!”, the monster yelled in frustration. The wolf righted itself as it flew towards the ground and landed on its' paws as it prepared for another pounce. This time, when the timber wolf launched itself at the monster, the monster was caught off guard and was only able to bring up one of its' arms in a meagre attempt to protect itself. As the timber wolf bit down hard on the monster's arm, the monster uttered a sharp cry of pain and begin flailing its' arm in an attempt to break the wolf's grip. The monster fell to the ground with the timber wolf on top of him as it desperately tried to keep the wolf's snapping jaws away from its' face. The two became a flailing mass of limbs as they struggled to overpower one another. The monster began thrashing at the wolf in a frenzy of desperation and after a few frantic blows the wolf had been knocked off balance. The monster took advantage of the wolf's daze and brought its' hind leg up and kicked the wolf off itself with a mighty grunt. As the wolf slammed into the ground the monster slowly brought itself to its' feet and roared at the wolf. The timber wolf was now crouching once again with its' ears pressed back as it slowly backed away. It gave one last enraged growl at the monster and then proceeded to flee back into the Everfree forest.

Applebloom and her two friends were still frozen in place. They were all awe struck by the helmet wearing monkey that had just tussled with one of the deadliest creatures to ever exist and it had easily overpowered it. Needless to say, the three fillies were now possessed with a new level of fear as they began to wonder what horrible fate the monster had in store for them. They continued to stand frozen in time gaping at what they thought would surely bring them to their doom.

* * *

Gaige's heart was pounding like an indian war drum inside of his chest. He had been exhausted by the encounter with one of those strange wooden wolves. The tussle with the wolf wasn't helping his existing injuries either, he could feel a dull throbbing pain in his ribs as he slouched over and clutched his side. Goddam these bruised ribs, as if I don't put up with enough shit, Gaige thought to himself as he grunted in pain. He pulled his arm away from his side to inspect the bite he'd received in the fight. It didn't look too bad, the wound was oozing crimson blood but its' size was fairly small, the bite mostly tore up his sweater. He pulled his sleeve up to reveal his bloodied forearm that had a few nice fang sized bloody pock marks in it. Well, I have time, might as well bandage it, Gaige thought to himself as he began rummaging through his bag. He pulled out what was left of his roll of gauze and dressed the wound sparingly using some medical tape to hold the Gauze together. Well, it's not as good as what Carol could do, but it'll hold for now, as Gaige was repacking his medical supplies, he could see three brightly coloured creatures in the corner of his vision. He looked towards them fearing for the worst, only for his gaze to be met by three small flabbergasted fillies. They each looked like they came up to his thigh and they didn't seem too terribly muscular. Gaige ruled out that they were a threat and got on with his business. He had apples to take and he had to get them while the field hands of the orchard were making their trips back to the barn. As he walked towards the orchard and began picking a bounty of apples, he heard a trembling voice stutter something behind him.

“You...you can't take those...those are ours!”, Gaige turned around to meet three trembling fillies standing a few feet away from him, watching him. Two of them had their mouths agape, but one of them, the beige one with the red hair with a bow in it, had a certain fire in her eyes as she stared at him with a serious expression. He could safely assume she was the one who had called him out. He stuffed the last of the apples he had picked into his bag and began heading towards the tiny trembling trio.

“What are you gonna do call someone to come get me?”, Gaige chuckled as he stood over the trembling fillies.

“Ah'll...Ah'll call for mah brother! He'll get you real good mister...er...m'aam...or whatever you are!”, the beige filly stated, doing her best to look threatening.

Gaige chuckled, “There's no one around for miles, all your field hands are over by the barn. Even if you ran there and got one by the time you got back here I'd be long gone. Oh, and for the record, it's mister.”

“Well...ah'll...ah'll get somebody!”

“Who...you're parents?”, Gaige laughed heartily, “I know the farmhouse is further than the barn, good luck with that little miss.”

“Don't even mention my parents! Ah hate mah parents and ah wish they were dead!”, the filly was now in hysterics.

“Hey don't ever talk about your parents like that!”, Gaige was suddenly angered by the filly's ignorance, “You have no idea how much you'll miss them when they're gone!”, with that remark Gaige felt a pang of sadness, he hoped to god that the filly would never have to go through what he did.

“And who are you tah tell me what tah do?”, the filly demanded, her fear disappearing, only to be replaced by her anger spawning from the mention of her parents.

“I'm a nobody...I was never here.”, Gaige cooly stated. He figured the field hands would start back towards the outer fields and he didn't want to be around when they got there, so he began heading back towards his forest sanctuary.

“Hey! I'm gonna tell Rainbow Dash you did this and then she'll beat you up for what you did!”, threatened a high pitched gravelly voice from behind Gaige. As Gaige turned around he could see the orange filly had stepped towards him, but at the sight of him turning to face her, she froze up in fear once again. Gaige walked right up to the petrified filly and crouched down on one knee.

“Oh yeah...her...Well you can go tell her that if values her good health and her face, she'll stay the hell away from me. I knocked her unconscious last time we met, I won't go so easy on her next time and if I ever see one of you, or any other pony come after me...they can consider themselves already dead.”, the filly's eyes grew wide with terror. Gaige noticed that one of the other fillies, a white and pink one, was trembling uncontrollably off to his left. I'm sure it won't hurt to have a little fun with that one, might send them a message. Suddenly, Gaige whipped over towards the white and pink filly with his crowbar drawn, “...Boo!”, he hissed. The filly squealed and galloped as fast as she could in the opposite direction and her two friends followed suit. Y'know...maybe dealing with these freak show ponies won't be so hard after all. Gaige thought to himself as he watched the fillies gallop off.

* * *

“I've looked for days now, there's no records of anything like this ever existing in Equestria!”, Twilight Sparkle let out a frustrated groan. She had been losing sleep for at least a week to searching in vain for information on Ponyville's new “Monkey Monster”.

“Twi, there has to be somethin' around here that explains this...this thing! Look again, there has to be a book on it, you have a book about everything here!”, Applejack pleaded, “We can't just sit here while this monster terrorizes the whole darned town! This thing's dangerous, didn't you hear about how it tried tah eat Sweetie Belle? We've gotta learn how to stop it!”

“There's nothing to learn Applejack! This monster isn't even supposed to be here! We can't figure out how to stop it!”, Twilight suddenly paused as she began tapping her chin with her hoof in deep thought, “Unless...”, the purple unicorns eyes lit up as a large smile krept onto her face, “I've got it!”, she exclaimed.

“Got what?, Applejack asked, cocking her head at her ecstatic friend.

“The monster scavenges for food here right? We've all heard stories of a big monkey breaking into ponies houses.”, Twilight stated, nearly bouncing with excitement, “Well, we're gonna make him a meal he can't resist. Get as much food as you can Applejack, we're going to bring the monster to the library!”

“Twi have you gone INSANE? Bring the monster here? What's that gonna do other than probably get us killed!”, Applejack yelled, confused by her friends plan.

“No, you see, the only way we can learn anything about this monster is if we can catch it. So, we put all the food we can in one place and get some royal guards to watch all the stores. This monster will be forced to come here to get its' food.”, Twilight excitedly explained, “And besides, do you have a better idea?”

Applejack paused for a moment and thought to herself, “No...Ah can't say ah do...”

“Well then that's the plan! Let's get to it!”, Twilight exclaimed, briskly trotting off towards the Ponyville market.

That mare ain't right, Applejack thought to herself as she followed her friend.

* * *

I can't believe I'm doing this

Gaige silently approached the massive tree that was the local town's library. He had seen them piling supplies into it. A whole truckload of food awaited him inside the darkened building. He regretted having to enter a building where he had no escape route if he was spotted. If he was spotted that would be it for him, there'd be nowhere to run. He wished he could have been scavenging in one of the many small buisnesses of the town, but the town's population had caught on to what he had been doing and posted guards at every store entrance. How much longer can I keep doing this, Gaige thought to himself. He didn't have much in the way of food and stealing a few apples at a time from the local orchard wouldn't suffice if he wanted to survive. Going into the library was a risky choice, but if he pulled it off he might not have to scavenge again for at least a month. If he could pull this off, he might actually be able to rest for a while. Well...I better get on with it.

Gaige crept up to the rather small purple door and knelt down in front of it, blending into the shadows like a ghost. He checked the door to see if it had a lock and like all the other houses in the town, it didn't. Funny, they must not get many thieves here. Either that or they do something horrible to thieves to deter them. Gaige shook his head, trying not to think about what the latter might be. He took a can of motor oil from his pocket and began applying droplets of the oil to the hinges. Better safe than sorry, He thought to himself as he finished lubricating the hinges. Gaige began slowly pushing the door in, moving it very deliberately and making sure there were no tripwires or other traps that were waiting for him on the other side. Usually the equines never thought to lay traps, but this time, he saw a series of snares set up for him to get caught in. A trap? These ponies are getting craftier. Gaige could now assume that the library was a set up, he was meant to get caught in one of their snares when he went in. Gaige would have been impresses, if the snares weren't so easy to avoid. The ponies underestimated him, as Gaige had dealt with much more dastardly traps back in the wasteland. He cut the snare closest to the door and simply hugged the left wall of the library and shimmied around the rest. His precious supplies were now only mere feet away. He crouched and glided over to where the supplies were sitting  atop a table in one glorious pile. Gaige's mouth began to water at the sight of that much food in one place. It had been at least 5 years since he had seen so much food in one place. It wouldn't hurt to have a bite, I mean it's not like anyone's around, and with that Gaige began gorging himself with the mass of food that lay in front of him. It was the greatest feeling he'd felt in five years.

After a good few minutes of stuffing himself, Gaige laid down on the closest armchair with a bloated belly. The chair wasn't so accommodating, as it obviously was made for tiny horses and not a massive six foot tall human. The uncomfortable feeling of sitting half curled up in a ball made him feel a bit of nostalgia. It reminded him of the family road trips he used to go on as a child, and how he always had to sit right in between two very space consuming people for hours on end. Man, I miss those, Gaige thought to himself. He missed a lot of things.

* * *

Twilight Sparkle tossed and turned restlessly in her bed. The monster had to try to get in soon. Any minute now, she would hear the sound of one of Applejack's snares being pulled taught. Only the sound never came. Twilight let out a sigh of ennui and rolled over in her bed once again. Maybe it's smarter than I thought. Twilight began to worry that all her efforts had been in vain. She couldn't imagine how angry the whole town would be if they had to go to the trouble to gather most of their food and place it in the library for nothing. It would just be another disaster caused by the town egghead. Element of magic, I might as well be the element of ineptitude, She thought to herself as she groaned and buried her face in her pillow.

A faint clanging could be heard from the first floor of the library. “Spike! Get away from the food! It's for luring the monster!”, Twilight instinctively yelled.

“I'm up here Twilight. What are you talking about?”, Spike groaned and rubbed his eyes groggily.

Wait...that means... Twilight shot out of her bed and galloped down the staircase towards the first floor. As she made it to the bottom of the staircase she could see her door swinging open violently and a shadow disappearing into the night. The food was all gone, save a few goods left lying on the floor. How did he get past the snares?, Twilight pondered, Never mind that it's getting away! I have to chase after it! She charged after the monster as fast as she could. She managed to get in three hoof steps before she felt something constrict her hind hoof. Oh no, the snare pulled itself taught and left Twilight dangling from the ceiling upside down. She let out a cry of pain as she could feel circulation being cut off from her hoof.

“What happened Twilight? What's wrong?”, Spike frantically asked as he rushed down the stairs. The scene that awaited him on the first floor was a strange one. Twilight was hanging from the ceiling by her hind hoof, the food was gone and the front door to the library had been swung wide open. Spike couldn't help but burst out laughing at the irony of Twilights situation. He lost control of himself as he began rolling on the floor chortling and snorting in attempts to breathe between his fits of laughter.

“Spike...please...just hit the alarm”, Twilights asked, her cheeks now burning bright red with embarrassment and contempt. The baby dragon did as he was told but not before laughing maniacally at the rather helpless purple unicorn for another few minutes. As the alarm began to sound and the noise of the entire town stirring from it's slumber flooded her ears Twilight thought to herself. Whatever you are...there's no way I'm letting you get away this time, Twilight knew that the monster had made many enemies and few friends and they were all coming for him. It was only a matter of time, the hunt was on.

The Stare

Why? Why didn't I see this coming?

Gaige had made it to the outskirts of the town. He was already exhausted from carrying his pack stuffed with food. He knew he didn't have much time before the ponies all realized that he was long gone from the town centre and began fanning out to search for him. He pushed himself as hard as he could up the long winding road to the cottage where he had been taken to when he first arrived in this strange land. He turned back momentarily and could see the faint light of lanterns bobbing up and down frantically as what must have been the entire town's population searched every nook and cranny of the town in vain. The gun! Focus on getting the gun!, Gaige started back up towards the cottage as fast as he could move. He was sweating through his clothes and his legs had begun to cramp up. He knew he didn't have much fight in him, if he got caught, he would be an easy target.

Gaige burst through the door of the small cottage and landed on his chest with a mighty crash. He lay on the floor gasping for breath and clutching his gut for a few seconds before he mightily hauled himself up on a nearby dresser, which creaked in protest. As he got to his feet, he stumbled forwards into what must have been the living room. There it is!, Gaige's precious six-shooter was sitting right out in the open on a tiny coffee table. Gaige hobbled over and snatched his revolver up. The gunmetal felt so cold and soothing on his rough palms. His hand instinctively molded to the grip and he felt as if he had been reunited with an old friend. This revolver had seen as much as he had, he had found pretty much the day after the Event and never let it leave his sights. Good to have you back, you old son of a bitch. He proceeded to check how many rounds he had left, there weren't many. There were still four bullets in the gun, same as he had left it. That's three dead ponies, plus the four I could kill with my bow and one bullet for me, this isn't enough. Hopefully I have more in my bag somewhere. He loaded the gun and holstered it at his side.

Gaige heard a soft scuffling behind him and slowly turned around to face whoever, or whatever it was that was bold enough to approach him alone. He raised his gun and scanned his surroundings briefly. “Oh not you again!”, Gaige hissed. It was the white rabbit who had nearly cost him his life when he first arrived in this world. The rabbit stood at the doorway to the room Gaige had entered, his arms crossed and his face contorted in a angry scowl. Gaige figured there wasn't much he could do to him now, the house was basically abandoned. So he ignored the miniscule angry rabbit and set out for the door.

As Gaige walked towards the door he could feel something hard hit the back of his head. He stopped and stood where he was and bunched up his knuckles. Ignore it Gaige, this little shit isn't worth your time, he then felt a much larger object strike the back of his head with even greater force than the first one, Alright...that's fucking it!

* * *

Fluttershy rushed downstairs to find the source of the scuffle that had awoken her. As she reached the first floor of her cottage a terrifying sight bestowed her, the monkey monster, the one who had terrorized the entire town, was in her house chasing Angel around the living room and swinging a small blade around wildly.  “Get the fuck back here! I will fucking end you!”, bellowed the monster in it's gruff and horrifyingly loud voice. Fluttershy couldn't help but let out a small yelp of surprise.

Fluttershy was frozen in fear. She didn't know what to do. Part of her mind told her to jump into action to save Angel from the monster, but another part of her mind told her to flee as fast as she could. The monster continued to fumble about in the dark, cursing and thrashing at its' prey in a frenzy of anger, snarling and growling with each wild stab in the dark. She knew she was powerless against this monster, if it attacked her there would be nothing she could do to defend herself. So she sat there, frozen in time, watching the morbid game of cat and mouse Angel and the monster were playing.

Fluttershy suddenly thought of one thing she could do. The option was her last resort, but she figured now was a better time than any to use it. So widened her eyes and put on an infuriated expression. She was going to have to use her final option, she was going to have to use the stare. She stomped her hoof a single time and yelled out “Hey!”, as angrily as she could make it sound. The monster suddenly whipped around with a loud grunt and it made the mistake every creature always made. Its' horrible shining orange gaze met her own and its' body locked in place. She could almost smell its' terror as she began delving deep into its' psyche with her piercing stare.

* * *

Fluttershy was overwhelmed at first with the emotions that were emanating from this creature. As her mind flooded with its' memories she could see exactly what it had seen and felt everything it had ever felt. She was bombarded with visions of pestilence, death, devastation, suffering and hopelessness. Those visions came merged with feelings of regret, hatred, melancholy and rage. The intensity and sheer amounts of sentimentality emanating from deep within the creature's cortex were making Fluttershy's head spin. She was unable to focus properly and soon became woozy, almost to the point where her dinner was attempting to make an unannounced reappearance, much to her chagrin. She could see darkness creeping into the edges of her vision as she began to break out in a cold sweat. She could feel the creature trying to resist the stare. She had never encountered anything with the ability to actively resist her stare, nor had she prepared to face one that could do so.  the monster's voice could be heard clearly inside in her head.

“Get out!”, Fluttershy's head began to feel like it was being slowly impounded on either side. A searing pain shot through the front of her head, nearly leading her to lose her focus.

I can't lose it, not now, and with that she put all focused as hard as she could on continuing to break into the monster's memories. Every ounce of energy she had left in her went towards breaking the creature's mental lock. She could hear its' scream echoing in her head and with that she forced her way inside of its' memories. Her vision went completely dark and flashed momentarily. This hasn't ever happened before, She thought to herself as her eyes were suddenly assaulted by daylight and ash.  As her vision returned and her eyes re-focused to her strange new surroundings she noticed that the world around her was now as grey as stone. The cloud cover was thick and dark and ash could be seen blowing lazily in the wind. The countryside around her was in shambles, charred and ruined she couldn't make out a single living soul. All that she could see were fires in the distance and a dead forest. Where am I?

Fluttershy heard the light crunch of somepony walking behind her and she froze up in fear of what it may be. After about a minute of petrification, she decided that whatever it was she heard must not have been dangerous and slowly turned around to face what was behind her. A gruesome sight awaited her. The monster stood solemnly next to a rectangular hole in the ground, slowly and deliberately shovelling dirt into it. She looked a little closer and noticed a small wooden cross. It was a grave that it was filling in. Only she didn't have to look to far to realize that that wasn't the only grave, there were at least ten and they all looked fresh. Fluttershy was speechless. Never in her life had she seen so much death. Did the monster do all of this?, she asked herself. It couldn't have, surely there was nothing that could be so cruel...Was there?

Fluttershy's train of thought was interrupted by the sound of something else approaching her and as she whipped around to face it she realized that it was another monkey monster. This one was clad in thick raggedy clothes and was covered from head to toe in dirt. The monster stroked its' long greasy mane with one of its' paws as it drew closer to Fluttershy. It was a light brown and had an unkempt beard that dominated its' muzzle. Its' large, chocolate coloured eyes could almost trick somepony into believing it was friendly and innocent.The monster seemed to pay no heed to the fact that it was walking directly towards her and seemed to almost be looking through her, as if she wasn't even there. Despite all that, Flutteshy was still utterly horrified as she stood trembling now standing only mere inches from the monster. As the monster drew closer to her she closed her eyes and silently prayed that it wouldn't hurt her as she tensed up, anticipating the monster to strike at any moment. Only the strike never came, she opened her eyes and realized the monster had passed right though her.

“Gaige, don't you think you've done enough for today? Here, go get some rest and I'll take over for you ok?”, the other monster put a hand on his companions shoulder.

Gaige...that must be its' name. Fluttershy also assumed by his physique and his voice that he was the monster equivalent of a stallion.

Gaige didn't seem to acknowledge the other monster behind him. He just continued to stare blankly at makeshift wooden grave markers. After a long, somber silence, Gaige removed his helmet and turned to the other monster. “Maybe Carol was right...I can't protect anyone.”, Gaige's eyes were red and irritated. His eye sockets were sunken and dark, he looked like he was severely sleep deprived.

“ Don't you listen to that bitch Gaige! You've gotten us through more than we could have ever hoped to get through alone!”, the other monster sounded frustrated by Gaige's remark.

“But at what cost? We just lost a whole quarter of our group today. What does it matter how far I get the group if we're all gonna die like this anyways! I don't think I'm strong enough to keep doing this. I won't last much longer.”, Gaige never even turned to look at his comrade, he just continued staring at the field of graves with a blank expression, but his melancholic tone of voice defied his indifferent expression.

“Gaige you can't talk like that. You've got a kid to take care of now for god's sake! You can't just give up! Carson needs you! We all need you! Fuck's sake man get it together! This isn't the time to be selfish.”, the other monster scolded. Yet Gaige still stood silently staring ahead, failing to fully agknowledge his comrade. The other monster let out a heavy sigh, “Look...just come back to camp. Its' getting dark and it's not safe here at night. We're not losing anyone else today.”, and with that the other monster started off back towards Fluttershy, passing through her once again on his way back to his camp. Gaige remained still, in a sort of vigil by the graves.

Fluttershy was on the brink of tears. She didn't know how Gaige could continue functioning after seeing that many of his friends die in front of him. Maybe this pushed him over the edge?, she asked herself. Though she still bore contempt towards him as this still did not justify Gaige's own cruelty and terrorization of the innocent denizens of Ponyville. She felt the need to search for why he had been so cruel and violent to everypony, but she was too preoccupied with observing the tragedy of this new world she was in.

As Fluttershy looked around more and more she began to realize that this was not just an average cloudy fall night. The landscape around here bore scars of past fires and explosions for as far as she could perceive. There's was nothing she could see that was alive, save Gaige. The place where she stood overlooked what must have been a city. Only it was now in ruins, with wrecked machinery and litter as its' only inhabitants. The only light she could perceive against the harsh ashen dusk was that of the fires that blazed fiercely throughout parts of the former city. There wasn't even any sunlight that penetrated the thick dark grey clouds that covered the sky as far as she could see. This was a veritable wasteland. What happened here?

After a long while of staring into the abyss that was the world that surrounded her, Fluttershy noticed a small silhouette moving in the darkness towards Gaige. As she looked a little closer she realized it was a much smaller monster. The little monster silently approached Gaige and stood next to him. Gaige reached over and patted the little monster on the head as he said something inaudible to her Fluttershy dared move closer to get a better look at the two strange creatures. The little monster looked to be like the monster equivalent of a small colt. Fragile and innocent. His soft, terribly thin face covered in patches of dirt and grime. His bright blue eyes seemed like the last bastion of innocence in this desolation. He had a gaze that could pierce you heart. “Gaige, are we going in there tomorrow?”, the little monster asked, pointing at the ruined city.

“Yes, we have to. We need to find food and this is our best bet.”

“Are we starving yet Gaige?”

“Yes, but it takes a long time to die from starvation. We'll find something before then, I promise you.”

“But that  means we have to go in there. I don't  want to go in there, what if there are more bad men?”

“There's no one in there Carson...”

So the little one's name is Carson, what an odd name, Fluttershy thought to herself.

“How do you know?”

“Because...we killed them all”

“Okay.”

“Okay what?”, Gaige asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Nothing, just okay.” and with that the two continued to stare out toward the ruins that lay ahead of them. Suddenly, the ground began to vibrate and a terrible rumbling and crashing could be heard emanating from the city. Fluttershy watched as Gaige held onto a trembling and weeping Carson. Gaige stroked his hair as he held tightly onto him as he shushed him. As the rumbling came to a close and the ground stopped vibrating Gaige let go of Carson and said,

“Don't worry, that was only a building falling down. Pretty soon all the buildings in the world are going to fall...but not on us.”

“How do you know?”, asked a teary eyed Carson.

“I just do.”, Gaige replied reassuringly.

“Gaige...I just don't want anyone else to die”, Carson mumbled.

“You know I can't promise that. The city should be safe but I don't know anything for sure. Everybody dies Carson, that's just how it is.”

“Okay”, replied Carson. The two stood there silently for a long while. Fluttershy couldn't bear to see Carson living under such circumstances. He was so small and innocent. He deserved better than this. Fluttershy could now see why Gaige was obviously a damaged creature. He came from a cruel world. Populated by cruel creatures. There was no way anypony could stay “normal” under such circumstances. Fluttershy thought that she had seen the worst that could happen to anyone in such a world. It wasn't until Carson spoke up for a second time that she realized that the world she was seeing, was much crueler than she had thought. “I miss my papa...”, Carson began sobbing as he flung himself onto Gaige in a tight, trembling embrace. Gaige just stood there, shocked by this sudden embrace and unsure of how to react to it. Eventually he returned the embrace and whispered to Carson.

“I know....I miss mine too.”, the pair stood there for a long time in each other's embrace.They were two shadows in the night beside the dying fire, each the other's world entire.

* * *

“Get the fuck out!”, Fluttershy could hear the monster's voice in her head once again. This time it was louder and angrier than before. Her head began spinning once more and she could see the memory in front of her was beginning to fade away as darkness began to engulf her vision once again. Fluttershy attempted to continue to hold the stare, but she was spent. She had no energy left to resist Gaige's psychological defences. With that, she broke the stare and stood swaying in a daze for a few seconds. She could hear Gaige screaming out obscenities as she watched him stumble about clutching his head in pain. Such a psychological invasion was not to be performed without repercussions. Fluttershy could barely stand up straight, let alone lift a hoof to defend herself should Gaige become hostile. She could only continue to stand there half consciously swaying in the darkness. As the pain from the psychological battle subsided Fluttershy noticed that Gaige was now fully lucid and approaching her while levelling a strange metal apparatus at her head.

“Not a word!”, he hissed, “Not a single fucking word! If I hear that any of this got out, I'll kill you...slowly! Do you understand?”, Fluttershy gulped and stood there staring wide eyed at Gaige. Terror seized her body once again as she began trembling uncontrollably. “I said...do you understand!”, Gaige whispered menacingly. Fluttershy gulped again and tried to hold down the lump that was forming in her throat.

“...Yes”, she managed to squeak out.

“Good”, and with that Gaige silently stalked out of her cottage and disappeared into the inky darkness.

* * *

Gaige stalked silently through the underbrush. If he made a noise he would be noticed and with the size of the search group that meandered about just mere metres away, he couldn't afford that. He had to stay focused and stay quiet. As his adrenaline began pumping he could feel his senses heightening. It was a feeling that was all too familiar for him. Years in the wasteland had honed his stealth capabilities to extreme levels. It was how he was used to operating. The shadows were his sanctuary and the battlefield was his canvas. He could manipulate it as he saw fit, and that's exactly what he planned to do.

Gaige peered out of the underbrush to assess the situation he was facing. The search group was comprised of three pegasi, ten regulars, five unicorns and what looked to be three armoured guards of some sort. Golden armour? These guys must be real special, Gaige thought to himself as he drew his makeshift bow from his back. Lucky them, they get to be the first to go, Gaige observed the group's movements for a short while longer. They were fairly spread out and the guards were all very far apart. Another error Gaige could exploit. They were almost making this too easy for him.

Gaige began silently circling around the group under the cover of darkness. He headed straight towards the closest guard. Who was performing a half assed visual check of the area around him. Gaige gracefully slid out of the bushes and slowly creeped up behind the guard. He had made the mistake of straying too far from the group and into the darkness. Now he was going to pay his due. Gaige crept up and slowly coiled his arm around the guards neck and constricted as hard as he could. The guard began struggling and making hoarse chocking noises. “Don't bother trying to scream, no ones going to hear you.”, Gaige whispered as he slowly dragged the struggling pony backwards. The pony's struggling became progressively weaker until it stopped completely. Gaige then slowly let go of the body in the bushes and made sure it wasn't visible to any ponies from the search party, hopefully he could take them out before they noticed.

Gaige loaded a stolen arrow into his crude bow and zeroed in on one of the other guards who happened to be directly in the centre of the group, he looked to be directing the group's efforts. Take out the leadership, and the rest falls apart. This fucker won't know what hit him. Gaige drew a bead on him, something stopped him from taking the shot right away. You don't need to kill him, just leave Gaige you don't have to do this, spoke a voice inside his head. He couldn't help but be surprised at this sudden development of a conscience. He hadn't had a moral dilemma like this since his first year in the wasteland. All he'd known was the process of action and reaction for the past four years. He did what he had to do to keep himself alive, there wasn't anything else to it. I have to do this, I have to end this now, he reassured himself. Can you really kill something so innocent, what did it even do to you?, he asked himself. After a short pause he pushed those thoughts to the back of his head. I'm killing him cause I have to, he told himself, It's gonna be as easy as one, he zeroed in on his target, two, he drew back his bowstring, three, he released the string and prayed the arrow would hit its' mark.

Sending a Message

Dawn Star stood at attention, observing his search party methodically scanning the surrounding underbrush. He was incredibly proud of how much more organized and effective his search party was compared to the other ones. Unlike the other guards he wouldn't let his group get unnerved by one easily overpowered monster. The monster was outnumbered twenty to one, even if he got the drop on them he would have no chance at defeating the entire search party. He was sure his group would be the ones to hunt down the beast first. With him in charge there was no way that anypony would beat him to his prize. I can see it now Dawn Star, promoted to captain of the guard.

Dawn Star felt a sudden stabbing pain in his left flank and let out a cry of agony. His flank suddenly felt as if it were on fire. He could feel his own blood seeping through his fur and dripping down his leg onto the ground. His rear left leg suddenly gave out and he crashed to the ground wallowing in agony. The last thing he heard before he slipped out of consciousness was his fellow guard, Stonehoof running towards him and yelling something he couldn't process. He attempted to reply, but his vision was quickly consumed by darkness as he fell into the calming grasp of the unconscious world.

* * *

“Dawn Star, no!”

One of the pony guards was barreling towards his fallen comrade at a breakneck speed.  Obviously paying no heed to Gaige who was now fully exposed. Shit, that shot wasn't lethal, Gaige thought to himself as he quickly planned his exit strategy. I have a feeling things are about to go from bad to worse, suddenly Gaige noticed that he was now completely illuminated. In front of him, were three unicorns, each with their horns glowing an unbearably bright pastel colour. Well shit.

“I found him!”, shouted one of the unicorns. The guard who had been running towards his fallen guardsman stopped immediately and locked eyes with Gaige. His face contorted into a terrible scowl as a huff of steam could be seen emanating from his nostrils. He let out a mighty war cry and began charging towards Gaige.

Time to disappear, Gaige whipped out one of his smoke pellets and flung it at his feet. The pellet exploded with a satisfying pop and he was almost instantaneously surrounded by a smoke barrier. It wasn't much but it would give him a bit of a head start on his pursuers. Suddenly an enraged pony guard burst through the smoke and skidded to a halt mere feet away from Gaige. Wonderful.

“You!”, hissed the rather imposing guard in between laboured breaths. He locked eyes with Gaige momentarily as the two stood facing each other, readying to leap into action at any second. The whole scene resembled an old western standoff. Whoever was the quickest would win. Gaige prayed that the guard was as slow as he looked. Suddenly and without warning the guard lowered his head and charged straight towards Gaige. Gaige instinctively rolled to the side, avoided the guard's charge and drew his crowbar as he landed on his feet once again. The infuriated guard let out another battle cry and whipped around to face his elusive opponent. Only Gaige had already prepared to strike first. As the guard turned towards Gaige a terrible crack could be heard as Gaige's crowbar collided forcefully with the guards jawbone. The guard stumbled back, dazed by the impact. Gaige struck him again in the same place. The guard fell to the ground with a satisfying thud.

Gaige could hear the flapping of wings that were quickly growing louder. Gaige looked to the heavens just in time to see the same rainbow maned mare he had tussled with not two weeks ago hurtling towards him. Gaige did not have any time to react as the mare collided with him and sent him flying onto the ground. As Gaige landed he could feel the mare stomping on his torso with her forehooves repeatedly, which elicited a few cries of pain from Gaige and did not help his already bruised ribcage. The mare then reared up on her hind hooves, giving Gaige an opening to counter her. Gaige proceeded to flip onto his back and stick the bottom of his crowbar towards her ribcage as she brought her hooves down. Midway through her frenzied assault, the crowbar jabbed into her exposed gut and winded her with the impact. She could be heard gasping for air as Gaige pried her off of him with the crowbar. The mare landed on her side and proceeded to go into an uncontrolled fit of coughing and sputtering.

Gaige stood over the incapacitated mare momentarily, planning his next moves carefully. You know what...I think I'm going to have to send these ponies a little message. Gaige strode closer to the mare who was now making meagre attempts to stand herself up and get away from Gaige. He saw that her wings began flapping furiously as she attempted to take off into the air. This was quickly interrupted by Gaige firmly grasping one her her wings and throwing her to the  ground. He then grabbed on to both of her wings and began slowly twisting them. The pegasus wailed and struggled in protest as he continued to twist the wings until her heard a satisfying crunch. The pegasus squealed in agony and began wildly thrashing about.

“Let me go!”, she screamed.

“Oh you don't get to leave yet,” Gaige whispered, “You get to be my messenger.”

* * *

Twilight Sparkle stood nervously at the head of her search party. The group were all in a tense defensive position a few feet away from the cloud of smoke that the monster had suddenly conjured up. Rainbow Dash and one of the Canterlot royal guardsmen had charged headlong into the plume and neither had returned. All that could be heard from inside the grey mist was some sporadic thumps and screaming. The screams sounded like Rainbow Dash's. As badly as she wanted to rush in and help her friend, she couldn't risk endangering the group. Why did it have to be my group that ran into the monster?

“Alright I've had enough, I'm leaving!”, Bon Bon bluntly stated, as she whipped around to make a brisk exit.

“No! Everyone needs to just stay here in a group and stay calm. This could be a trap!”, Twilight protested. Another frantic cry could be heard from the other side of the smoke cloud. Twilight shifted nervously, desperately trying to maintain her composure despite her building anxiety. Suddenly, all went quiet. The only thing Twilight could hear was her heart pounding. The silence was deafening, time seemed to stand still momentarily as the ponies all waited for the monster to make his next move. Maybe it left?

Just as Twilight's adrenaline rush began to fade and she, once again, considered herself “safe”, the unexpected happened. A laboured grunt could be heard from the smoke cloud and not one second afterwards did Rainbow Dash's limp body get tossed out of the smoke like a rag doll. She hit the ground with a whimper and she looked as if she was trying to move and get back onto her feet, but she barely possessed the strength to lift her hooves from where they lay. The ponies all looked on in horror as the pegasus lay broken and whimpering on the ground. Her wings were bent at an odd angle and her feathers were all ruffled and bloody. Her torso was badly bruised and bloodied, it looked as if something had broken most of her ribs and some small gouges pockmarked her body. What could do this to her?, Twilight thought to herself as she looked on in dismay.

Twilight's question was promptly answered as the monster emerged from now dissipating smoke, holding cracked royal guard helmet in one hand and a small  metal device in the other. The monster was about half as tall as a bear and bore over the ponies menacingly. He wore a long black duster and had dirty and tattered boots on. The most horrifying part of him was his head. It was unlike anything Twilight had ever seen before. It was a dark grey, very metallic looking, and lacked a mouth, ears and a muzzle. The only feature that could be made out on its' “face” was one horrible orange tinted eye that extended across the front of its' head. It was a truly terrifying sight. The monster proceed to casually toss the guard helmet at the ponies.

“Alright, anyone else want to try something?”, it bellowed in it's deep and gruff voice. The ponies all remained silent, “No takers? Anyone?”, the ponies were still frozen in fear. “Good, at least you know how to take a hint. Now I'm going to leave, and none of you better even think of following me, or you'll end up like this bitch.”, the monster raised its' massive boot and stomped hard down on Rainbow Dash's side. She barely had the strength to let out a quiet whimper of pain. Twilight cringed at the sight of this. This monster was turning out to be more volatile and brutal than anything else she had ever seen. The monster took its' boot to Rainbow once again. This time, Twilight didn't react with fear, she reacted with rage. How dare this monster come into her town and terrorize her friends. Not only that but now it was hurting innocents. That was the last straw for Twilight. Her vision became tinted red, she could hear that the monster was saying something else, but it was barely audible to her now. All she could hear was her heartbeat and her own furious snorting.  It was then that she snapped. She had unwittingly been charging on of her spells in her rage and she could see that her horn now giving off a bright purple glow. She didn't remember focusing on a spell to charge, all she knew was that she had charged something up to its' full capacity. The monster quickly noticed her readied spell and levelled its' small metal device at her and yelled something inaudible to her.  In a sudden panic she cast her spell, hoping that it was something that would stop the monster for good.

Twilight heard a loud crackle as a ball of bright purple lighting streaked from her horn towards the monster. Twilight realized that she had cast a lightning ball spell, that was one of her few harmful spells that she knew and it was very destructive. The last time she had used it it had blown up part of Applejack's barn door, she relished in what it could do to the monster. The bolt hit the monster dead in the chest and sent purple bolts of electricity jumping across his body as he seized up from the shock and was blown down onto the ground. Its' body lay on the motionless on the ground, smoke could be seen rising off of its' body. I did it! I defeated the monster! Its' all over now!

“Fuck!”, groaned the monster as it slowly began to sit up, still smoking.

Oh no...

“You...You probably thought that was a brave thing to do right?”, the monster asked as it slowly rose to its' feet. “You thought you'd be the big hero of this adventure?”, Twilight gulped as she slowly began to back away from the monster. “Well where I'm from, heroes don't last too long,” The monster levelled its' metal device at Twilight once again as it staggered towards her. “I hope you enjoyed that little stunt of yours, consider it your last.”, growled the monster. The monster let out a cry of surprise as it was suddenly lifted off the ground and encased in a bright yellow aura. He was slowly raised skyward as he thrashed about in a vain attempt to escape the aura. Then, in a brilliant flash of yellow, it was gone. Twilight's search party looked around for the bold unicorn that had been able to perform such a great feat, but they were nowhere to be found.

I only know one pony in all of Equestria who could create that aura, Twilight thought to herself.

* * *

Gaige's vision flashed yellow briefly as he was consumed by the strange aura that had plucked him straight off the ground. The flash hurt his eyes and he had to close them momentarily as he blindly felt around, attempting to defend himself against his assailant, wherever it may be. He felt as if his stomach had been turned upside down and was overcome with strong nausea. He knelt down and clutched his stomach in an attempt to keep himself from vomiting up his last meal. He gagged multiple times and then, much to his chagrin, his lunch made an sudden reappearance on the floor directly below him. After that bout of nausea he began to feel slightly better as he rose to his feet and slowly opened his eyes. His surroundings were initially very blurry and it was is if Gaige was looking at them through a haze, but after a few blinks his eyes adjusted he found himself in what looked like the throne room of a lavish medieval palace. He quickly noticed the two very regal looking horses atop a short set of stairs, they appeared to be staring him down. One of them was a tall white alicorn with long slender legs and a flowing green and magenta mane, the other was a noticeably smaller navy alicorn with a flowing blue mane sprinkled with what looked to be stars and what looked like a small black semicircle on her chest bearing a white crescent moon. Both the horses looked to be standing in some sort of breeze, based on their flowing manes, but Gaige couldn't feel a breeze coming from anywhere. How strange, he was awe struck by the sudden appearance of these two very imposing, regal equines.

Gaige's stupor was quickly broken by the realization that he was also surrounded by armed guards. There were four of them, all wearing golden armour, just like the ones from the search party. Only these ones were much larger, looked older and brandished spears that were pointed at Gaige's throat. He decided it would be best if he did not attempt anything he might regret, so he slowly laid his revolver on the ground and raised his hands behind his head. “Look, I don't want any trouble with you.”, he stated plainly to surrounding guards. He was about to continue speaking when he was interrupted by the navy alicorn.

“You have been accused of crimes of violence and cruelty against Equestria and its' people! What say you in your defence!”, hollered the navy alicorn. Gaige knew now that it was a mare based on its' loud, but feminine voice. Gaige remained silent, carefully pondering his next moves. It was life or death at this point.

“The princess asked you a question, scum!”, growled one of the guards as he brought his spear closer to Gaige's throat. Gaige pondered to himself momentarily before responding.

“Always.”, he replied.

“What did you say! Speak up worm!”, the guard hissed.

“I said, always.”, Gaige repeated.

“What do you mean 'always'? Always what?”, asked the guard.

“Always strip your enemy of his weapons before you interrogate him.”, Gaige whipped out the flash bang grenade he had been cooking behind his back and dove away from the guards, making sure to cover his ears and shut his eyes. He heard the guard hollering at him as he dove away and felt a spear tip stick into his ribcage. It didn't go in much further than the tip though, Gaige figured he could patch the wound up later. As Gaige hit the floor he could hear the grenade detonating and the guards screaming in pain. Gaige's ears were now ringing from the grenade, but luckily he was not completely disoriented. He quickly brought himself back up to his feet and whipped around to face the guards who were now stumbling around blindly, making half hearted attempts to swing their spears around in hopes of hitting Gaige. Gaige slowly pulled out his crowbar and got straight to business.

He struck the guard closest to him directly on the left side of his jaw, the guard dropped in head, unconscious. Not a bad start. Gaige proceeded to work his way to the next guard who was wildly thrashing about, locked in battle with an invisible assailant. Gaige grabbed his spear as he was swinging it and drove it into the guard's exposed thigh. The stallion screamed in pain and fell on his side. Gaige moved on to the final two guards who were back to back, stumbling in circles with their spears at the ready. Gaige hit the first one in the small of his back, which sent him screaming to the floor in pain. Gaige then stomped on the stallion's exposed underbelly until he felt that the guard was sufficiently incapacitated. And then there was one. The final guard was the scrawniest of all of them and stood shakily swinging his spear from side to side as in an attempt to defend himself. Gaige simply walked up behind the guard and whispered in his ear.

“You better run.”, he hissed, and run the guard did. The stallion took off at full speed away from Gaige and ran face first into one of the large marble pillars in the room, knocking himself out cold. Not bad Gaige, Gaige thought to himself as he admired his work, Now time to deal with these to royal pricks.

The tall white alicorn was obviously beginning to regain her senses as she squinted her eyes in an attempt to focus on Gaige and attempt to piece together what happened in her thirty seconds of disorientation. Gaige calmly strode over to where he had dropped his revolver and picked up his reliable magnum. The white alicorn was now fully aware of her surroundings and her horn began to glow at the sight of Gaige. “I wouldn't do that if I were you.”, Gaige said as he pressed his revolver to the white alicorn's head, “Now...me and my friend here have some questions to ask you.”

Ghost Town

“Come on keep up Dawson! We gotta catch that son of a bitch!” Patrick was running as hard as he could with Dawson lagging behind, struggling to keep pace due to the heavy rucksack he carried. First stranger I trust in five years and he has to go an steal half our food. Why am I so goddamn stupid?

“Maybe I'd be able to go faster if one of us wasn't carrying our entire ammo pack,” Dawson panted sarcastically. The duo continued their gruelling sprint through the desert. Sending dust and debris flying in every direction with each step. They continued deeper into the badlands and began to see signs of civilization around them.

“There's a few wells around here, there must be a town or something nearby. I bet you that's where he's headed,” Patrick remarked, slowing his pace slightly. He noticed a set of tracks in the sand, probably the stranger's which led over a nearby sand dune. “Looks like he left us a nice little trail too,” he continued. The stranger was panicked and had obviously thrown caution to the wind, Patrick could use that to his advantage.

“Thank you captain obvious,” chirped Dawson sarcastically between laboured gasps for air, “Damn...I really should've listened to my gym teacher when he said I'd need to have good cardio later in life!” Dawson continued to take increasingly laboured breaths, hunched over with his hands resting on his knees.

“Yeah, yeah. It's probably not too far, these tracks are fresh. Just try and drag your lard-ass over this last hill,” Patrick joked. He then took off over the sand dune that lay ahead of them.

Dawson rested momentarily. Making vain attempts to control his breathing and make the searing pain in his sides go away. He woefully gazed at the gargantuan sand dune that lay before him. Dawson stood there staring down the dune as if he could will it to dissipate in the desert breeze. He had no such luck. “I hate hills,” he mumbled as he grudgingly continued over the dune. As Dawson clumsily stumbled down the other side of the dune, he could see Patrick eying something immediately ahead of them with suspicion. He tracked his gaze to a road sign that read “Appleloosa”. Dawson continued to gaze a bit further ahead and noticed an abandoned old western style community that lay ahead of them. The community seemed to be untouched by the ravages of time and the elements. If it weren't for the lack of anyone around to maintain or populate it, one might have thought that this was a bustling oasis in the desert of sorts. There were food stands of all sorts in the streets, boxes of food, water and many other essential survival items, as well as a giant saloon in the centre of the town. Only they were all eerily abandoned.

“This doesn't look good. No way would anyone just abandon a town filled with supplies. Keep your eyes open and stay in cover. I think we might be in over our heads here,” Patrick stealthily slid behind a stack of shipping containers all labelled “XXX”, Dawson followed suit.

“That...is a lot of booze!” Dawson reached into one of the crates and began greedily stuffing bottles of god knows what into his rucksack. Patrick was quick to slap his wrist away from the crate and shoot him a scolding glare. “What?”

“Dawson! For all we know these people could've been using those bottles as latrines! You could be drinking a bottle full of piss! And besides we could be in the middle of an ambush here! The last thing I need is for you to get drunk!”

“Well, right now I'm thirsty as hell and past the point of giving a shit...So cheers my dear sir,” Dawson's voice dripped with sarcasm. He quickly tilted his head back, closed his eyes and tipped the bottle until the sweet and hopefully alcoholic nectar flowed into his mouth. After a quick chug, his eyes shot open in surprise and he spat out the concoction in utter disgust.

“Told you so,” snarked Patrick. Dawson continued to spit and frantically scraped his tongue with his fingers before wiping his mouth and saying.

“No, that was worse than piss. It was apple cider! Who in their right mind stores crates upon crates of apple cider?” He spat onto the ground once more in an attempt to rid his mouth of the awful taste that remained from the cider. He proceeded to toss all the bottles he had stuffed into his bag out onto the sand haphazardly.

“Yeah, well I can't say you didn't deserve that,” Patrick whispered, “Now let's get on with retrieving our supplies. Just follow me and stay close. We'll stick to the alleyways for now and sweep the town,” he continued. Patrick and Dawson silently stalked through the nearest alleyway of the deserted town. There was still no sign of life anywhere. It seemed to be populated exclusively by tumbleweeds and the occasional abandoned covered cart. It was dead silence, not even any animals could be heard. Some say that silence is golden, but to Patrick, the silence was dark and foreboding. Like a black shroud enveloping the world around him with its' malevolence. For in the past, silence always meant one of two things: danger, or that everything around him was dead. And based on the condition of the town, he was betting on the former.

“Jesus...What would make people who were set up so well just...disappear?” Dawson  quickly glanced around at the empty looking buildings and barricaded doors. He was unnerved by the silence and desertion as well. Dawson could feel goosebumps slowly creeping up the back of his neck. The sound of something being slammed hard could be heard at the end of the alleyway. The noise echoed through the deserted streets. Dawson whistled and Patrick stopped dead, crouched down and readied his assault rifle. Dawson unholstered his scoped hunting rifle as well.

“Dawson, how many mags do we have between us?” Patrick pulled out his rifle magazine to check its' contents, “I only have ten bullets in this one!” Dawson quickly checked his rucksack and frowned.

“Same story as always, we don't have enough. Let's just try and stay away from a head on confrontation,” Dawson suggested as he scanned his surroundings for any possible hostiles. The town was still deserted, no one was in sight.

“No shit Sherlock. I heard that noise come from the saloon. Maybe we can sneak in there and catch a glance at what we may be up against,” suggested Patrick as he motioned towards the back door of the saloon. The duo silently crept up to either side of the door and slowly pulled it open. The entered the building in complete silence. Staying low and keeping their footsteps muffled. They acted almost instinctively, checking their corners and clearing the hallways that snaked around the building like robots. This was routine for them. They knew what they were doing and they planned to get it over with quickly and cleanly. In their minds, there was no room for error. Any slight fault could mean certain death, or worse, for both of them.

“Well here's the door to the bar. I say we take a peek inside. See what's waitin' for us,” urged Dawson in a hushed tone. Patrick obliged him, he slowly opened the door just wide enough for him to look through and he pressed his head to the small opening.

“Holy shit,” Patricks said with a hushed chuckle.

“What is it?”

“Dawson...you're not gonna believe this,” he whispered, “There's our thief and he's hanging upside down from the ceiling, must have gotten caught in a trap or something.” Patrick moved away from the door to allow Dawson to take a look at the hilarious scene. The stranger was hanging by his leg, upside down from the ceiling of the saloon. He flailed around feebly in an attempt to free his leg, but it was to no avail. It was almost too perfect to be true.

“Wow...It's like christmas! All that's missing is a nice little bow and some gift wrap,” Dawson snickered softly as he moved away from the door, “No one else seems to be in there. We might as well pay him a little visit,” he added wryly. The two barged into the bar area and approached the struggling thief.

“Sorry to bother you, but I think you have something of ours...and we'd like that something back,” demanded Patrick as he knelt down to be at eye level with the terrified man. He pulled out his bowie knife and pressed it to the man's throat. “Would you care to oblige us?”

“Look man...I'm sorry,” the man stuttered, “Please! Just...just take the bag back and get me down. Please don't kill me,” he begged.

“Oh don't worry...we won't kill you. We just might have to teach you a lesson or too. Didn't your momma ever tell you it isn't right to steal?” Patrick asked while running the blade slowly and gently along the man's neck. He could see the terror in the man's eyes as he pressed harder, and harder, on the blade.

“Please! Please don't,” The man was now basically in tears, begging for his life. He begged again “Please do-,” the man was cut off by Dawson cutting through the rope that tethered him to the ceiling which sent him crashing to the floor.

“Look bud. Let's strike a deal here; you give us our stuff back and we'll let you walk...Only if we ever see you come anywhere near us, or our supplies again. I swear I'll kill you myself,” Dawson hissed menacingly, “Deal?”

“D-deal...Thank you,” and with that, the stranger relinquished their belongings and slowly backed away. He then, in a fit of panic, burst out of the saloon and hit the ground running as fast as he could. Dawson and Patrick had a feeling he would not be targeting them anytime soon. The satisfaction  of watching the terrified thief sprint away faded quickly as Dawson and Patrick realized that they might have just kicked a metaphorical hornet's nest. The sound of what could only be described as a small group of horses galloping could be heard from the second floor of the saloon. The duo looked at each other, befuddled as to what horses could possibly be doing inside of a saloon. A light suddenly caught their eyes at the nearest staircase to the second floor of the establishment and they both turned to face it.

What they saw, could not be described as “normal” by any means. There were at least seven of them. Pastel horses of all colours dressed in full western garb stood at the bottom of the staircase. Patrick could make out some normal ones, pegasi, and unicorns who were somehow holding up laterns using what seemed to be an ethereal spell of sorts. What in god's name...

Dawson let out a snicker and then proceeded to cup his hand over his mouth in an obvious attempt to stifle himself. He began turning red and a wide grin crept onto his face as his eyes began to tear up. He eventually could not contain himself any longer and began laughing maniacally and clutching his stomach. “Oh my god...That cider must have had some pretty good shit in it!”, he managed to blurt out before going into another fit of laughter.

“S-stop right there monster,” stammered a yellow horse in a stetson hat and jacket. It was then that Dawson stopped laughing and let his jaw drop.

“D-did you just...” Dawson trailed off and continued to gawk at the strange horses.

“...Yep,” Patrick reassured him.

“Well...at least I'm not headed straight for the loony bin!”

“Oh I think going crazy is the least of our worries now,” Patrick whispered. He stood his ground and attempted to show no emotion to the horses. They may have looked strange to him, but that didn't mean they weren't dangerous, especially in a group as large and imposing as this one.

“Well I've lived through the end of the world...survived in a wasteland for the better part of five years...and now, I'm probably about to be trampled to death by a herd of cowboy horses...I think this just might be life's way of sending me a giant 'Fuck you!',” Dawson chuckled to himself.

The duo turned to each other as if to ask “What now?”, only neither could answer that question. For once they were in a situation that they couldn't weasel their way out of. The were two fish in a barrel, waiting to be shot. “Dawson...I think our only option here is to talk our way out,” suggested Patrick in hushed tone of voice.

“What? Have you gone insane? Do they look like the negotiating type? Hell...they actually shouldn't even be talking, but that's beside the point!”

“You're going to have to trust me on this one ok,”

“And why, pray tell, should I trust you?”

“Because...I used to be a used car saleseman before the Event, remember?...I know how to bullshit people.”

“Alright fine...just this once. But I swear if this goes awry it is your ass on the line!” And with that the duo laid down their weapons and prepared to negotiate with the strange pastel horse creatures.

Negotiating with talking cowboy-horses...Alright, now I've seen everything!

* * *

The past few hours of Gaige's life had been all but a drug infused haze. He vaguely remembered being wheeled through white hospital corridors. He could remember hearing voices, so many voices. He wasn't able to make out what they were saying but they sounded panicked. He had heard the familiar squeak of a medical cot's wheels, he knew he had been moved somewhere. Maybe he was back in Haventon and the events of the past few weeks had all been part of some sort of psychedelic dreamscape. Maybe he could see Carson again and hopefully he would be safe.

Enough speculation...time to wake up, he told himself. Gaige willed himself to painstakingly open his eyes. At first he saw he saw only a bright flare across his field of vision. The room was too bright for him, he had to shield his eyes with an arm until they slowly began to adjust. As the world began to come back into focused he noticed the room he was in was pristine and neat. It was too clean to be in Haventon. He was probably somewhere  still in the city he had fallen unconscious in. Probably a hospital and a very exquisite one to boot. There were fancy works of  art that dotted the walls. Portraits of important looking ponies throughout the years gone bye. The wallpaper had intricate designs woven into it. Gaige could make out flower's, garden's and villages among the many things on the mural like wallpaper. His bed felt like it was fit for royalty. Though, considering he had been sleeping on the hard ground and a tarp the past few weeks, anything even slightly more comfortable was heaven for him.

Alright, get up. You can do it, Gaige reassured himself as he threw the bed covers off of himself. He noticed that when he extended his legs there was not mattress to support them below his knees. Probably because his bed was optimized for a pony and not a giant bipedal ape. Gaige could now also see that he was stark naked. Of course...they're ponies, they probably can't even fathom the concept of clothes. He slowly began to pull his body up into a sitting position on the bed. He was still disoriented, it was probably a side effect of whatever drugs they had pumped into his bloodstream.

Gaige inspected his body. The large, jagged gashes that had dotted his body were now all either bandaged or scar tissue. He couldn't even tell that he had any wounds. He noticed a long IV tube snaking from his wrist to a pole, holding up a bag of some sort of liquid drug that he did not recognize. Whatever drugs these ponies used were pretty miraculous. They accomplished more than he could have ever hoped to with sutures, dirty bandages and antibiotics.

In the state Gaige was in now, he figured he could probably get up and move around. Despite the slight disorientation he felt pretty confident in his motor skills. He slowly and shakily rose to his feet. His began to feel light headed and the world around him began to blur in and out of focus once again. Just a little head rush, no big deal. He clutched the IV pole that he was attached to him and slowly began to move forwards, one baby step at a time. As he shuffled his way towards the hallway, he noticed a mirror that hung on the wall. Couldn't hurt to take a look.

He looked horrible. His hair was dirty and matted, his beard long and unkempt. He was scarily thin, he could count each of his ribs and his cheekbones were deeply sunken. His eyes were the feature that unnerved him most. They were dark, tired and sunken, almost like those of an animal peering out of his skull. He brandished a set of scars down his left arm and torso, in addition to the open wound across his cheek that had some sort of liquid bandage on it. He looked like a savage, a desperate wild animal. He reminded himself of the bandits and other villains he had come across in the wasteland. He looked like a monster. Was he becoming one too? You will not face the truth...will you Gaige? You will not-

“I was beginning to think that you would never awaken,” cooed a soft voice from behind him. Gaige slowly turned himself around to face the voice. There behind him sat the white alicorn with the flowing multicoloured mane and the navy alicorn with the flowing star dotted mane. Gaige let out a yelp of surprise and quickly yanked his bed covers over his nether regions. The white alicorn cocked her head and asked, “Something wrong?”

Gaige was at a loss at what to say. He just continued to stand there, gawking at the two alicorns and making feeble attempts to cover himself with his bedsheets. His silence was obviously making the alicorns uncomfortable. The navy one especially. She shifted awkwardly as she sat on her haunches observing him. “He's not much for conversation is he?”

“I feel like I've been hit by a train and I'm stark naked. Give me a moment would you?”, Gaige  groaned and massaged his temple as he attempted to turn his bedsheets into a makeshift toga to cover himself.

“Naked? My my, this isn't a formal occasion by any means! You need not be dressed up,” scoffed the white alicorn. She didn't seem to be phased by his nudity. Gaige now figured that clothes were only of any importance to these ponies if it was some sort of formal occasion or appearance. The only problem was that for Gaige, clothes were necessary all the time. He didn't think he could bear walking around naked for the rest of his time on this planet.

“Look I know clothes might not be of the utmost importance to you, but where I come from, it's pretty frowned upon to walk around stark naked. They're kind of a custom among us.” The alicorns look puzzled by this sudden revelation. The navy alicorn let out a soft snicker but was quickly silenced by the white one jabbing her in the side with her forehoof.

“Oh well that can wait, we have many questions for you. How about we finish with them first. Hmm?”, persuaded the white alicorn. She seemed to consider him as one would consider a small child or domestic animal. Gaige felt offended by this, but held off on voicing his displeasure. He wanted to avoid any confrontation at all costs. He was at their mercy after all. Perhaps it was for the best that they underestimated him.

“I'm going to need clothes first. I'm sure those questions can wait,” He insisted.

“Oh alright fine, we will go meet with our finest tailor and have him make you your special garments,” the white alicorn huffed, annoyed by this unexpected delay in her schedule. “We will return shortly. Just remain in your bed until further notice. I do not wish for you to incite more panic than there already is in Canterlot,” she continued as she trotted out of the room with the navy alicorn in tow.

“Before we go, may I ask one question?” , asked the navy unicorn, pausing momentarily to look at Gaige. He initially remained silent and shook his head. “Just one,” the alicorn persisted, doing her best to replicate a puppy eyes.

“...Fine, just the one. Shoot,” Gaige replied with a sigh.

“Does it...always dangle like that?”, she asked gesturing to his crotch. Gaige had the right mind to lash out with vulgarities as he normally would back in Haventon. He had to restrain himself due to the fact that he was in the presence of royalty and creatures he did not wish to see angry. He simply let out an aggravated sigh and pointed towards the doorway.

“Out,” he commanded, doing his best to restrain himself from adding in a certain four letter word that began with “f”. The navy alicorn obliged him and trotted out the door after her companion. He could hear the white alicorn's voice scolding her in a hushed tone.

“You mustn’t talk to that...thing...in such a way. We do not want to anger it we want to get information out of it. I will not allow you to ruin this interrogation for us!” Gaige could hear their hoofsteps growing fainter as the continued down the hallway. He slowly brought himself to his feet and attempted to follow them out of the room, but two guards, armed with spears, quickly materialized and blocked the doorway.

“Stop right there! You heard the princess, return to your bed. We can't have the likes of you prancing about wreaking havoc on the city,” spat one of the guards.

Something tells me these ponies are not too fond of me, Gaige thought to himself as he turned around and shuffled his way back to his cot. He laid himself down on the cot and shifted into a comfortable position. He was so tired.

Part of him wished that he had died back on the street. His only reasons to press on through his hardships were Carson and his group and the fact that he was responsible for keeping them safe. Now that was gone. What reason did he have to continue? Everything he  had ever cared for was dead and gone now. Lost in the days gone bye. What was left. No I mustn’t say that...I am not letting myself give up, he told himself. Gaige now had let his eyes flutter shut, he could not hold them open any longer. As he drifted off a voice echoed in his head.

You know it's the truth...you just won't face the truth. Only that wasn't the only voice in his head. He could hear another. This one sounded feminine. It was unfamiliar and malevolent. It cooed something over and over to him. No one else seemed to hear it.

“Oh don't leave yet,” it said, “We have so much planned for you Gaige. It will be worth your while to stick around. We can help you.” Gaige brushed it off, figuring it to be his unconscious mind toying with him. It was not until it responded to his thoughts with, “Oh this is very real. Just like the danger you're in right now. We're the only ones you can trust here. You must find us if you want to survive.” The voice began to fade away. Gaige attempted to focus entirely on the voice itself and making out what it had to say, but it was already long gone. It was now but a soft echo inside of his head. Gaige was beginning to suspect that there was much more than he had thought to his sudden arrival on this world. That he was but a pawn in a grandmaster's game. The question he had to ask himself now was if he was willing to play along.

Ballad of a Tortured Soul

The building was damp and cold, but it would have to do. Gaige could hear them drawing nearer. The sound of claws scraping on concrete and faint snarls. They had killed everyone else and now they were coming for him. Gaige couldn't be sure what “they” were. All he knew was that they were coming and they had a bloodlust that could not be sated. Carson slept on the remnants of a mattress in the corner, oblivious to the imminent danger they were in. Gaige blew out his oil lamp, the light would probably attract them to his refuge. The night brought a blinding darkness upon the land. Even if he tried his hardest he could not see them if they came.

As he sat in the pitch darkness of the world, he experienced the cruel reality of it all. Darkness implacable. The blind dogs of the sun in their running. The crushing  black vacuum of the universe. And somewhere two hunted animals trembling in their cover. Borrowed time, a borrowed world and borrowed eyes with which to sorrow it. How much longer do I have?

Gaige looked at the boy. He slept soundly on the makeshift bed, wrapped in blankets  and his parka. He was shivering violently. If Gaige didn't get a fire going soon, they would probably die. Only fire meant light, and light meant revealing his position. He couldn't risk that. He didn't have an alternate way to warm themselves up, the heat packs were gone, along with everything and everyone else. Either way death would creep up and steal them into the night. There was no hope. Gaige had only one last decision to make.

He checked his revolver. One bullet remained. He cast a sorrowful glance at the sleeping child. When the time comes, can you do it? Gaige could hear the pack drawing nearer. He could almost smell their bloodlust. When the time comes there will be no time. The neon sign on the front of the building mysteriously sparked to life. Illuminating the street before Gaige. The sound of powerful paws pounding on the ground grew louder and louder as they flooded onto the street. A mass of pelts as black, as the night sky, squirming and tumbling over one another in a frenzied dash for their prey. Their claws sharp as razors and their fangs long and filthy. Their horrible yellow, reptilian eyes fixated on him and sent a wave of pure terror through his body. He could hear the scrabbling of claws and their laboured raspy grunts as they converged on the building Gaige had stowed away in. There was a pounding on the door as they let out their horrible cries. Now is the time. Curse God and die.

Gaige strode over to a now awakened Carson and shakily levelled the revolver at him. The boy was terrified. He watched the door as he trembled in his cocoon of blankets. He turned to Gaige as if he expected him to know what to do, to have a plan. Only there was no plan this time. No exit strategy. This was a one way trip to a dead end. “Gaige what are we going to do? We can't let them get to us,” cried the boy. He was beginning to sob uncontrollably in fear. Gaige's eyes began to well up with tears.

You deserved better than this Carson. Gaige steadied his shaky aim with his other hand and trained the gun on the silhouette that was Carson's head. “Don't worry,” he said, “Everything will be alright. I won't let them take you,” Gaige looked away from the boy. He could not stand to meet his gaze. He did not think he could hold himself together if he looked into Carson's piercing blue eyes.

  The boy had turned to hope. Hope was all he had left to turn to. But she had died along with the rest of the world. He lowered the gun and went over to the child. Gaige knelt down and embraced him. Hold him close. Just so. It'll all be over soon. He pressed the gun ever so gently to the child's temple.

“Gaige?” tentatively asked the child, looking up at him. Gaige was fighting back his tears to the best of his abilities. He had promised Dale to protect his little boy, no matter what. Now, he was protecting him in the only way he could.

“I'm sorry...I'm so sorry,” Gaige whispered in between sobs. He tensed up and and pulled the trigger. The muzzle flare lit up the room for a split second. Just long enough for Gaige to see the child go limp and his brains splatter over the wall behind him. The child didn't even scream. He felt no pain. To do either of those he would have needed a frontal lobe and things with names like Broca's area and  neocortex. Only those were now soup.  Gaige cradled the child's lifeless body in his arms. An empty shell of what once was. His tears slowly ran down his face and dropped onto the corpse, mixing with the blood and viscera. The sound of splintering wood could be heard down the hallway. A horrible stench filled the room as the creatures scrambled down the hallway. They smelled of death and pestilence. Gaige felt their jagged fangs sink deep into his flesh and tear away at him.

It's better this way.

* * *

Gaige woke with a start, screaming. He shot up out of bed and clutched his left arm reflexively where he had felt the phantom fangs sink in. There were no wounds. The nightmare was over. Two pony guards stood warily at the door, shooting him confused looks. They didn't understand. They were sheltered and knew no suffering. They reminded him of the aristocrats of the old world. Privileged and condescending. “What do you think you're looking at?” he spat. The guards huffed and returned to their posts outside the door.

Gaige put his head in between his hands. He had abandoned the one he was sworn to protect. He lay comfortably in paradise while Carson suffered in the wastes. He didn't deserve the luxury that had been bestowed upon him, but what could he do? He no longer had a say in his life. I didn't ask for this, Gaige thought as he cursed the force that had stolen him away from his world. Gaige could only hope that he had prepared Carson to take care of himself properly. He had taught him all he needed to know; cooking, weapon handling, sneaking. Gaige knew that even though Carson knew what to do, he wasn't fully prepared to face the world alone. He could remember the last time Gaige considered sacrificing himself to save the child.

* * *

They lay silently in the grass, separated from the group. Alone and hunted. Gaige watched the marauders sweeping the fields. “Here take the gun,” Gaige told Carson, pushing the revolver into his hands.

“I don't want it”

“I didn't ask if you wanted it. Now take it. If they find you you're going to have to use it. Remember how I showed you. Use two hands and brace yourself. And if they get you, you know what you have to do. Put it in your mouth, press hard and pull the trigger. Got it?” The child didn't respond, “Do you understand?”

“I don't know.”

“I said do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“I want you to say 'Gaige, I understand.'”

“Gaige, I understand,” Gaige remembered observing the trembling boy. Shakily holding the revolver. Tears streaming down his face.

“Of course you don't. Give me back the gun.”

“But I can do it Gaige!”

“No you can't give me the gun. I was going to run for it and try to lead them away, but I can't leave you. You're not ready...We're going to have to stay low for a while. Until they leave.” Gaige held the trembling child tightly as the marauders passed them by. There will be a time when you are no longer there Gaige and you're going to have to make sure the boy is ready for that time, Gaige told himself.

* * *

He isn't ready enough. He never was and he never will be. There was nothing you could ever do to fully prepare him, Gaige thought to himself. You can get ready for tomorrow all you want, he continued, but tomorrow isn't getting ready for you. It doesn't even know you exist. His fretting was pointless. It was for a world he no longer had a say in. He would have to move on. He had done it before and he could do it again. It was all water under the bridge now. He had to keep moving. Gaige's train of thought was cut off by a beige unicorn entering the room, bearing a package.

“Your clothes, sir,” said the Unicorn in her trembling voice.  Gaige rose from his bed and shakily walked over to retrieve his package. The Unicorn flattened herself to the floor and covered her head with her forehooves. “Please don't hurt me,” she stammered. Gaige knelt down beside the mortified unicorn and placed a comforting hand on her shoulder. He could feel the unicorn tense up and he heard her whimper softly.

“Thank you,” he said as he retrieved his package and slowly backed away. The unicorn remained tense as if she expected him to pounce on her and begin tearing her apart. Only that never happened. She brought her hooves away from her head and cautiously stood up. Cocking her head at Gaige.

“You're not going to try and eat me?” she asked

“Nah, I've tried horse before. Never really had a taste for it,” Gaige jokingly replied. The unicorn took on a look of pure disgust and terror as she froze mid stride, “Relax, it was a joke,” he reassured her.

“Oh...a joke,” she stammered. The mare let out a few nervous, fake sounding laughs as she discreetly backed up towards the door. She didn't break eye contact with him and gave a half hearted smile before dashing out the door screaming. Gaige let out a heavy sigh as he returned to his business.

Well, old habits die hard, he told himself as he unpacked his new clothes. The clothes were made of what seemed to be dyed cotton. There was a plain olive green hoodie, a pair of blue cotton pants and what looked to be his old sneakers. Only the sneakers were fully repaired, cleaned and were not haphazardly held together by para cord and cardboard. It was definitely and improvement from what he had. As he put on the clothes, he felt a certain comfort that he had not felt in a long time. He could not remember the last time he had worn clothes that were not ragged, damp and stained with blood and viscera. It was an old world comfort. Long forgotten along with the rest of the old world. He glanced at himself in the mirror. It was strange to see himself looking some semblance of clean after so long.

“I see you are enjoying your new garments.” Gaige turned around to see the white alicorn entering the doorway. Flanked by two royal guards, “I apologize, they are quite simple, but they will have to do for now.”

“Oh no, they're great actually,” chirped Gaige. He noticed that the alicorn had taken on a more serious tone than before. “Something tells me you didn't come here just to see how I was doing.”

“You are correct. I intend to gain information on your two escaped friends. You are my only source. This is no longer a visit, this is an interrogation,” she said. The armed guards followed the alicorn into the room the room and stood at either side of her. Her horn glowed a brilliant yellow and the door behind her was enveloped in a yellow aura and was sealed shut. Gaige could hear the clink of padlocks locking from the other side of the door.

“That's what I figured. Well, let's get on with it then.” Gaige instinctively reached for where his holster should have been, only to remember that it was not there. The ponies had obviously learned from their last encounter.

“As you wish. We're are going to get the formalities out of the way first. Name?”

“Gaige, I don't think we ever got properly acquainted.”

“Well, pleasure to meet you Gaige. I am Celestia, princess of the sun,” she said in a rushed voice.

“Charmed,” Gaige said sarcastically.

“Yes quite. Now your age?”

“Haven't kept track in a while. I think I'm 30.”

“Haven't kept track? How does one simply lose track of their age?”

“You'd be surprised at how little time matters when the world ends.”

“What do you mean 'when the world ends'? What happened to your world?”

“That's a good question. No one really knows what happened. The world went away. Simple as that.”

“What do you mean it 'went away'?” Celestia shot him a suspicious glare as she took a step towards him. Gaige let out a sigh and then sat down on his bed.

“You might want to find a seat for this one. It's a long story,” the ponies obliged him and sat in the visitors seats. Gaige took a moment to collect his thoughts before continuing. “I remember when it all started. There was a flash in the sky, followed by a series of loud concussions. Then the world started going to hell. Those first few days it was just explosions, debris falling from the sky and ash clouds. As the days went by the ash clouds ascended and enveloped my world. Nobody has seen the sun since. Without the sun, the world slowly started to die. All the plants and animals are long dead... There's not much left on my world,” Gaige sadly explained. The ponies were taken aback by his tale of destruction and ruin. They looked at each other in awe. None of them quite knew how to continue from that point.

“I-I'm sorry to hear that,” consoled Celestia, “Were your leaders able to restore balance in nature with their magic? You creatures use magic to keep the balance of you world, correct?”

“No actually. Where I'm from there is no magic. We don't have control over our world. But hell if that doesn't stop us from finding ways to destroy it ourselves,” Gaige said with contempt. He had always figured the Event was the world hitting back after humans had done nothing but take from it for millennium. The world was within its' rights to do so. Maybe it was for the best.

“No magic? Well then pray tell how your world can function! How does the sun rise in the mornings? How is the weather controlled? How can you support life on your world without magic?” Celestia was obviously flabbergasted at the fact that a world could function without magic. Her guards were equally astounded. Each of them sat gawking at Gaige, their mouths hanging open in awe.

“All those things just kind of take care of themselves. Nature works on its' own, it keeps its' own balance...Why? Is that not how it works here?” Gaige asked

“...That is not of any importance right now,” said Celestia in an attempt to collect herself and move on, “How many of your kind were on this world?”

“There used to be a lot of us,” Gaige trailed off and began blankly staring out the small window in the room.

“Used to?”

“Yes...used to. Most of us are dead now,” Gaige began reflecting on his first years in the wasteland. He could remember the thousands of refugees travelling the roads in their dirty rags. Heading for where they had heard 'things were better'. Thinking there was an easy way out. That there was a sanctuary in somewhere in the harsh, unforgiving wasteland. Only when they arrived at their destination there was no paradise. Only desolation. The truth was that there had never been a paradise to begin with. There was no easy way out. There was no escape from death. He could remember as the years went by, the refugees disappeared. Swept away into the icy clutches of death that they longed to evade.

“Dead? What killed them?” the princess asked in a fearful voice. Gaige could tell that these ponies had never come face with such destruction as he had seen back on his world. They lived in an unspoiled, perfect oasis. He envied them.

“Starvation, dehydration, disease, hypothermia,” Gaige paused momentarily, “Each other.” The ponies reacted to this with pure shock. Had they never heard of a species killing its' own?

“Why would they do such a thing? Why would they turn to...to,” the princess was at a loss for words, “murder.” She uttered the word as if it were some sort of horrible taboo. Like a small child who had cussed for the first time.

“Same reason as I did. They had to,” the ponies looked at him in horror, “There weren't enough supplies for everyone. People got desperate. They stole. They killed. Some even committed worse atrocities. I even participated in some of those atrocities. I didn't want to but I had to do it to survive! I didn't have a choice.” Gaige's voice began to tremble, “During the first year...I remember I was a dead man walking. I didn't have any food or clean water. I was with a group of five other people. We came across a father and his teenage daughter. They had a large rucksack. We fantasized about the precious goods they probably carried in the rucksack. Food, water, medicine, everything we needed. We threatened them for their supplies. We were desperate. I remember I pulled out my knife to speed up the process and the father drew his gun. I lunged at him and stabbed him in the throat. He didn't die right away. I kept stabbing him as he looked up at me desperately as if to ask 'Why? Why are you doing this to us?',” Gaige trailed off and fell silent for a long time, “When he stopped moving I cut his pack loose and we started going through his things. All the while his daughter was cradling his body and yelling at us. 'You fucking vultures!' she kept saying. Turns out they had about as much, supply wise, as we did,” Gaige's eyes began to water, “I killed a man over a can of baked beans and an empty revolver,” he paused to reflect on his horrible deed and then buried his head in his hands “Oh god,” he said, “Oh god”

The ponies were in shock. They did not know what to say. Or if there was anything to be said for this tortured soul. Should they treat him with pity? Or contempt. Should they even trust him? Should he be exiled? Celestia was getting more questions than answers out of this interrogation. “Those others who escaped Canterlot...were they who you were with?” tentatively asked the princess.

“No...no the people I was with are long dead. I don't know who those two are,” Gaige replied, not raising his head from between his hands. “but they're dangerous. Hell we're all dangerous. There are many more of us on this world than you think. You need to protect yourselves from us.” Gaige looked up at the princess with reddened eyes and a deadly serious expression.

“And how do you propose we do that?” Celestia asked, cocking her head.

“I know how these people think. I know how to fight back against them. Hell I used to be like them. I could protect your people as well. If you so choose. It's just...I can't let my people be the death of another world. I just can't,” Gaige explained. He had seen the destruction of his own world. He could not bear to see the destruction of another. Not after seeing its' perfection. Its' innocent beauty. It reminded him of a small child. A small entry in the harsh vastness of the universe. Unspoiled by the cruelty and harshness that surrounded it. “I can't bear to watch your people become like us,” he continued, meeting Celestia's gaze. “Please...Let me protect you,” The princess remained speechless. She opened her eyes wide with surprise. She could not seem to fathom why a monster such as Gaige would want to help her. It was justified that she felt this way. After all, Gaige's people had done nothing but terrorize and brutalize her people since their arrival. She didn't have a reason to trust him with their protection.

“We...we should leave. It's getting late and you should be left to rest,” the princess stammered, smiling nervously. As she was escorted out of the room she added. “I'll consider your offer,” and so they left Gaige to his own devices once more, shutting the door behind them. He calmed himself down and brought himself back to the present. Shoving the past into the back of his mind.

Water under the bridge Gaige. Remember, that's all it is. Don't dwell on it. Gaige removed his clothing and lay back down in his bed. The room was warmer than he remembered. His head was pounding and the world was coming and going out of focus. He was exhausted.

As he closed his eyes he felt the odd sensation that he was being watched. There was a pair of eyes somewhere burning holes through his skull. He lazily turned his head to the window and came face to face with the navy alicorn who hovered on the other side of the glass. Staring at him with intrigue. It took her a moment before she realized that Gaige was staring back. When she did she let out a shriek of surprise and her cheeks burned a bright crimson. She then shot off into the sunset. Why does she hold such an interest in me...Could she be the voice I heard earlier? Gaige had so many questions left unanswered. He let out a yawn and his eyes fluttered shut. Well I'm sure the answers can wait until tomorrow. I don't think I'm going anywhere for a while.

* * *

“How can we trust him to aid us. Look at him! He is already collaborating with the enemy!

“Relax! Don't get your feathers all ruffled yet. He hasn't collaborated with anyone. He's still the wild card we need. We just need to convince him.”

“And if he cannot be convinced?”

“Then we have some...leverage...on him so to speak.”

“Do you really believe your plan will work. None of us have the same confidence in it as you do.”

“If I could escape from Princess Celestia's garden, replace myself with a decoy and have no one notice. I think that I can tempt a simple creature to join our ranks. You have such doubts Chrysalis. I'm beginning to wonder if you are truly loyal to our cause,” The changeling queen shifted uncomfortable  and looked at the ground.

“It's not that...I just want to avoid another repeat of the Royal wedding. I cannot stand being humiliated by those fools any more,” she growled, stomping her hoof on the ground.

“And I can assure you that it will be anything but a repeat of the Royal Wedding. Fortunately they are not easily defeated by the 'power of love'. Unlike some of us,” Discord said sarcastically. Chysalis flattened her ears and narrowed her eyes angrily at him.

“How can you be so certain?” she hissed.

“Because these 'Humans' have the one thing that we have been missing in every scheme we have ever attempted. Brutality. Cold, unflinching brutality. That's what we've been missing all these years and that's exactly what they'll bring to the table. They're going to make daddy Discord proud!” Discord said with an uncanny certainty. He was amazed that such wonderfully perfect beings existed in the universe. He had seen their planet. It was beautiful. It was perfect. It was complete anarchy and chaos. Just what he wanted. He could remember almost shedding a tear at its' perfection.

“What if they use the elements on them?” Chrysalis remained skeptical of the plan.

“My dear Chrysalis. The elements only work on beings of this world. These creatures are from another part of the universe altogether. They have no weaknesses to the traditional methods of elimination the monarchy employs. They can use the elements or the power of love as much as they want to. It will all be for naught. They will come face to face with their ultimate demise and they will pay for what they did to us,” Discord hissed, slamming his paw on the table. His off quilter eyes had taken on a wild look. They burned bright with the flames of rage. “It was been too long since the world has known my rule. They need to be reminded about what they've been missing out on.”

“Even if they impervious to the elements, we did not bring enough of them to overthrow the entire royal guard! Even with all their fancy 'firearms' they do not stand a chance against a legion of highly trained, heavily armed ponies,” Chrysalis retorted. Any direct assault on the royal guard would essentially be suicide. She was beginning to wonder if her partner had gone off the deep end and would simply end up throwing lives away fruitlessly. After all his last crushing defeat had taken a toll on his mental stability. He scoffed at her retort.

“Of course I don't expect them to take them head on! They are much better suited to working in the shadows. Guerrilla warfare if you will. You see, using their tactics and brutality, we don't even need to defeat the guard in battle. We just need to shock and awe them. When we have worn them down, both mentally and physically, you will start to see deserters, traitors and even anarchy if we're lucky. They will be their own undoing! It's just too wonderful isn't it?” he asked, a wide grin creeping onto his ashen muzzle, “Do you remember our little observation of the Humans' planet?”

“Vaguely,” she replied, tapping her chin with her hoof.

“Then you remember when we saw that siege of a large commune by a teensy tiny bunch of bandits?”

“Yes, what about it?”

“Do you remember how the outnumbered and overpowered group won?”

“Yes. They hung the eviscerated bodies of the slain around the commune's walls for all to see, until the commune surrendered. They used shock tactics...Wait you're not implying-”

“Yes that is exactly what I'm implying. We need to do something to unhinge them. Something to leave them trembling in their boots. Something like...that,” suggested Discord. He clapped his paws together in satisfaction, “Now all we need to do is get this show on the road! Now if you'll excuse me Chrysalis, darling, I'm going to need some me-time. I'll keep in touch.” and with that, he turned back to his desk and began rummaging through a stack of papers. Chrysalis briskly exited the room. Even by her standards this plan was a bit on the extreme side. Only a voice in the back of her mind kept assuring her that he was absolutely right.

On  her way out of the hidden complex she could overhear some of the rag tag ruffians they had allied with whispering to one another. “I heard the poor old guy's lost it. Fallen completely off his rocker,” one said.

“Well you have to give him credit. He's getting us further than we could ever hope to get on our own...and who knows, maybe crazy is a good thing. Maybe it's just what we need,” replied a pony wearing a black cloak.

As Chrysalis boarded her changeling drawn carriage she cast her doubts to the back of her mind. She convinced herself that Discord had the situation under control...and took comfort in the fact that she would get the final word in with that whore of a princess otherwise known as “Cadence”. When the time came. When the time came her vengeance would be sweet. She would make it last and savour every last moment. Cadence would pay for every last minute of the embarrassment that was Chrysalis' defeat at the royal wedding.

I will hurt you for this, she thought,  I don't know how yet, but give me time. A day will come when you think yourself safe and happy, and suddenly your joy will turn to ashes in your mouth, and you'll know the debt is paid.

Dysfunction in Canterlot

“Any word from the Badlands yet?” The man paced anxiously around the room. His hands folded over his chest.

“We have received a message from the hive...but I don't think it's something you want to hear,” Discord said, rubbing the back of his neck nervously.

“Go on,”

“Well, there's a slight problem. Chrysalis has “opted out” of our operation. She does not consider her payment to be sufficient,” Discord tensed himself in preparation for taking on the full brunt of the human's bulding rage.

“What?!? We gave her everything she has now. Without us her 'Hive' would be nothing but a hole in the ground. A filthy fucking ruined hole! And this is how she repays us? I thought we went over this with that greedy bitch. All deals are final! We had a contract for fucks sake!” hollered the man, slamming his hand on the windowsill. He was furious. The changelings were an essential part of his operations. Without them his entire scheme would come to a standstill. For him, this was not an option. He would not lose his key to redemption. He would not lose his power. It had happened once before. Never again.

“Well I'm sure we can go on without her. I mean come on it can't be that big of a deal. After all you always have been the man with the plan. You can just make up another o-” Discord was cut off by the human lunging towards him and pulling him in close by the neck. Their faces were almost touching. Discord was sweating profusely. He could feel the man breathing down his neck.

“You don't understand. Not only do we need her. But what she did to us is insubordination! Disloyalty! Do you want to know what happens when you just let things like that go?” the man growled. He pushed Discord away and lifted his pant leg to reveal a prosthetic leg from the knee down and pulled down his hood to reveal his scar dotted face. “This is what happens. You see...when you don't react to things like this, people will start to think your weak. They'll doubt you. They might not obey you. They'll think you're a pushover and they might even try to take everything  from you. That's something we can't risk.” The man muttered something unintelligible to himself and stomped off towards the storeroom door. Swinging it open so hard that the knob left a prominent dent in the plaster wall. He began stuffing tools of all sorts into a duffel bag sitting on a desk. Saws, scapels, syringes, hammers and knives of all sizes.

“And what do you intend to accomplish with those?” Discord asked, poking his head into the room. The man stuffed the last of his tools into the bag and zipped it shut. He pushed past Discord, the bag in hand and headed towards the exit in a rush. Like a buisnessman who was late for an appointment.

“I intend to pay  our little queen a visit. We're not done with her yet,” the man growled kicking the exit door open. Discord's heart sank to his stomach when he inferred the human's planned actions. He rushed after him in an attempt to stop him from going too far.

“Now we really don't need to do that, do we? I'm sure she'll come around eventually. Just give her time,” he suggested. What the human was planning to do was complete depravity. Discord may have been a corrupted soul, but even he had his limits.

“Time is something we don't have,” the human hissed, whipping around to face Discord, “We need her and if she won't help us willingly then we're just going to have to 'convince' her,” he continued, motioning to the duffel bag. Discord shook his head. He did not agree with the methods the man was employin, “I'll have you know you're still walking on thin ice Discord. My patience is wearing thin with you and your doubts. I need to know now that you are completely with me. If you are not, then you are against me...and you do not want to be against me!” Discord paused momentarily to consider his options. He would have to agree with the man's methods. It was either that, or face certain death at the hands of his companion. He feared what the man might do to him should he disobey his order.

“...You're right,” he said regretfully, “Go...do what you have to,” he stood and watched the human fell  at ease, knowing that he had, once again, ensured his companions loyalty.

“Good. That's what I thought,” Discord refused to meet his gaze. “Well, if you'll excuse me, I have a date with our dear Chrysalis,” his tone softened and a smug grin crept across his face. “I wouldn't want to keep her waiting...And Barbara is just dying to meet her,” he motioned to his cherished old collector's baseball bat, wrapped in strips of bloody barbed wire. The man tipped his hood to Discord, turned and casually took off towards the installation's exit. Discord watched him leave. Slowly burying his head in his hands in shame. He knew what horrible suffering he had condemned Chrysalis to. Part of him was disgusted by the new moral low that he had sunk to.

No I cannot condemn my actions. These deeds are necessary. Just like he said. We don't have a choice. We have to do them or we lose everything, he told himself. Only some voice from the back of his mind kept calling out to him.

“There's always a choice,” it said, time after time.

* * *

“I can't believe you invited that...brute...to dine with us today!”

“Cadence please! Have some respect. He saved my life and I am in his debt for that. It is the least we could do. Now please...stop complaining,” whispered Shining Armour, hushing his significant other.

“Complaining? You are letting a wilder beast into a formal luncheon with the royal family! Have you gone mad?” demanded Cadence. She could not say that she was a fan of Shining Armour's decision. She shuddered at the thought of what the creature might do, should things go south.

“For the last time, he is not a creature. Do not refer to him in such a demeaning way.”

“Well then what is he?” Shining Armour opened his mouth to answer, only to find that he himself did not know what to call his otherworldly saviour. He frowned and glared at Cadence, who was smily smugly at him. Revelling in her small victory.

“Cadence, just treat him with respect. That's all I'm asking,” pleaded Shining Armour. Cadence pouted and crossed her hooves. Her eyes suddenly became very wide and she took on a concerned expression. She was gawking at something directly ahead of her. Shining Armour turned to face what was bothering her so. There, at the doorway to the banquet hall, stood a slender, bipedal, pale figure slowly shuffling into the room. “Look, there he is now. Now quit your whining,” he whispered with certain authority. Cadence opened her mouth as if to say something, but quickly silenced herself and resumed her childish pouting. Taking care to look away from Shining Armour in over exaggerated contempt. He could already tell that he would pay for his behaviour later. Looks like I'm sleeping on the couch for the next little while.

Gaige stood at the entrance the the banquet hall, eying his surroundings carefully. Almost as if he was searching for a threat that was not there. The room fell silent and all eyes fell on Gaige. They stared at him until he became uncomfortable and slowly backed away. The fact that everyone's full attention was now directed at him was unnerving. He had never been one for being in the limelight. He could feel his cheeks beginning to burn crimson. He had a feeling that, contrary to his formal invitation, he was not very welcome here. He could hear them muttering to each other.

“What is that thing doing here?”

“First this, next time we find ourselves dining in the company of a manticore!”

“What a disgusting sight. Do those creature not know what 'personal hygiene' is?” Gaige could hear one voice over all the others, beckoning him over.

“Ah, Gaige you're here. Come. Sit,” called a voice at the end of the table. The voice belonged to a white stallion with a dark blue mane. He was motioning to a chair next to him. Patting the seat with his hoof invitingly. Gaige obliged him and slowly meandered over to the empty seat. As he neared the table, the ponies looked away from him and did their best to return to their own business. Occasionally glancing nervously at him, as if he would pounce on them at any moment. As he sat himself down the white stallion gave a brief introduction. “Now you all might be wondering who our guest of honour tonight is,” the stallion said, projecting his voice throughout the banquet hall. All eyes turned to him. “This is Gaige. If you have not noticed, he is not a pony such as we. He's a....a,” the stallion's voice dropped to a whisper as he discreetly leaned over close to Gaige and asked, “This is really embarrassing...but what exactly are you?”

“Human...just say I'm a human,” Gaige whispered back, smiling nervously at his pony audience in an attempt to put the crowd at ease.

“He's a human,” the stallion said assuringly, “and he saved my life,” Gaige instantly recognized the stallion as the one he had saved in the abandoned house a few days back, “He is a hero and I think that he is deserving of a warm Canterlot welcome. I propose a toast. To Gaige!” he bellowed.

“To Gaige,” the other ponies nervously repeated. Gaige did not say anything, he simply lifted his unusually small wineglass. Gripping it awkwardly in his bony hands. It was barely larger than his palm and held a miniscule amount of wine. Gaige looked around, all the other ponies had taken a tentative sip out of their small wineglasses and sat holding them in their hooves.

How the hell are the doing that? Gaige looked around for hidden fingers, a magnet, superglue or anything the ponies could be using to grip the glasses, but he found none. The glasses seemed to just be magically sticking to their hooves due to some unseen force. You know what...I'm in a world where talking horses, unicorns, pegasi and magic exist. I really should just stop questioning any anomalies in this world. Gaige pushed all questions and uncertainties into the back of his mind and focused on enjoying the moment. Everyone else had taken a sip of their rich looking wine. He figured he was obliged to do the same. As he turned back to his glass he could hear the white stallion say.

“Go ahead, drink it,” he lightly pushed the glass towards Gaige's mouth with his hoof, “It's good,” Gaige slowly brought the glass to his lips and did his best to slightly tip the glass into his mouth. Due to his shaky hand movements that 'sip' ended up emptying the entire glass into his mouth. His throat immediately began to burn intensely and he scowled at the surprising bitterness of what he thought was “wine”. He let out a stifled cough and his eyes began to water. “Are you alright?” inquired the white stallion, concerned by Gaige's poor reaction to the drink.

“Yeah...Yeah I'm fine,” Gaige sputtered, “Goddamn that is strong,” Gaige stifled another cough. His throat was on fire and the concoction left a bittersweet aftertaste in his mouth. He could almost feel the sweet alcoholic nectar coursing through his bloodstream and probably wreaking havoc on his liver. It was glorious. He had never drank anything so satisfying in years. Save for the occasional bottle of dirty, ash laden, home brewed whiskey. “Whatever that was...give me another one!” Gaige's positive remark set the crowd a bit more at ease. The silence was broken and conversation re-started around the table. Gaige was beginning to feel marginally more accepted by the ponies. There were still worried  glances shot at him every once in a while, but generally the ponies were beginning to warm up to him now that they knew he had no desire to consume them, only a desire to consume all the alcohol in the room.

In between guzzling copious amounts of whatever alcohol laden concoction lay in front of him, Gaige could vaguely remember learning the names of the white stallion and his not so enthusiastic wife. Shining Armour and Cadence. Gaige did not pay them much mind and responded to each of their remarks with a simple “Hmm,” or a nod. He had much more important things to focus on. There was a big, radiant bottle of a god sent nectar for him to consume. And he intended to savour every last drop.

Gaige's vision was beginning to blur as he finished off the bottle. He got some concerned looks from the guests as he swayed back an forth in his chair, merrily humming old world jingles to himself. When he looked down at his plate he realized that some saint had deposited a small mountain of exquisite looking pastries and what looked to be a green sludge with various foreign objects mixed int onto his plate. He could feel himself drooling as he froze, awe struck at the luxuries that he was being provided with. He felt the eyes of the guests burning holes in his skull once again but he was far past the point of caring. He almost immediately dove into the mountain of pastries. Stuffing the small gourmet cakes into his mouth until he could fit no more. He chewed them with much difficulty, as bits and pieces of the pastries tumbled out of his mouth and onto the floor. There were many hushed discussions of his crude mannerisms, but their words fell on deaf ears.

After Gaige had gulped down the last of the pastries, he reached for another bottle of liquor on the table to wash it all down. As he grasped the bottle and began to greedily bring it into his chest, a pink hoof wearing an exquisite golden slipper grasped the bottle as well. Pulling it away from him and back towards its' rightful place on the table. It belonged to Cadence. “Now I think you've had quite enough of that. We have to leave some for the other guests,” she reminded him, “Now let's just put it back and-”

“What are you my mother?” Gaige protested, slurring his words. Now under any other circumstances, Gaige would have respected the lady's orders and relinquished the bottle. In fact, he would not have drunk as much as he had to begin with. Unfortunately, consuming copious amounts of liquor has not been known to aid one's judgement very much. Such is the case of Gaige.

“Excuse me?” exclaimed Cadence, offended by his disrespectful remark. Gaige took this opportunity to yank the bottle away from her and cradle it protectively in his arms.

“Why've you gotta be such a bitch about it? Can't a guy drink to forget once in a while?” he asked, taking a large swig of the drink and swaying in his chair. Cadence attempted to grab the bottle once again, but Gaige thwarted her, swatting her hoof away and pulling the bottle in close to his chest. Gaige sneered at her, revelling in his success. His actions elicited a few surprised gasps from the crowd as silence overtook the room once again.

“Oh you brute!” she yelled, “I have the right mind to-,” Cadence cut herself off and let out an exhasperated cry.

“Give me a fuckin' break woman!” slurred Gaige, “My family'sh dead. I've been living in a washteland for the past five yearsh. And I haven't seen a drop of good fuckin' booze for as long ash I can remember,” at the mention of these events, the crowd let out even more astounded gasps. Cadence felt no sympathy at the mention of this. She figured he was using a made up story to gain leverage on her and make her seem like she was in the wrong. She glared at him fiercely. As if to will him to drop the liquor. “You know what?” he continued, “If you don't fuckin' like me then I guessh I'll go back to my room and drink up! I don't need you assholes,” he mumbled with much difficulty. His mouth worked imperfectly as he spoke and he devolved into muttering and rambling to himself as no one could understand his speech past that point. It almost sounded as if he were speaking some strange alien dialect, in which belches and slurred gibberish consisted of most of the words.

Gaige took another swig of liquor and promptly got up from his chair and went on his way to drink alone. He swayed and stumbled from side to side as he hummed a disjointed rendition of “Bohemian Rhapsody”. He took a few more steps forward before tumbling face first onto the hard tile floor. He lay there moaning for a moment before flopping lazily onto his back and slurring, “Could...could shomebody help me up...I...I'm a bit tipshy.”

* * *

“Well that's the last of that damned cider,” Dawson tossed the empty bottle at a tree, shattering it completely. He was overjoyed that they finally had a reason to seek out other fluids to drink that was not that cursed beverage brewed in the seventh circle of hell. He smirked cheekily as he watched the glass bottle shatter. Good riddance, he thought.

“Hey! Quite complaining about it. We were lucky enough to have those ponies let us walk. I don't want you fucking it up by insulting them in any way,” Patrick hissed. They were on a dirt path in the middle of nowhere, far away from the pony settlement, but Patrick was not going to take any chances. It was a blessing unto itself that they had not been killed on site, he did not want that to change now.

“Oh come on! It's not like there's any of those freaks around to hear it,” whined Dawson.

“Loose lips sink ships, asshole,” muttered Patrick. The duo continued to trudge on down the dirt path. They were no longer surrounded by sand and desolation, but by thick woods and looming ancient pine trees. Civilization had been scarce in these parts. They passed the occasional empty, dilapidated  cottage every once in a while, but it seemed as though no one had lived anywhere near them for years.

“Ow! Shit!,” yelped Dawson as he clutched his foot in pain. He hopped around on one foot like an oversized demented rabbit as he cursed and swore at whatever sharp object that he stepped on. Afterwards he sat down on the ground and pulled a sharp sliver of glass out of the bottom of his boot. He slowly and painfully pulled his boot off. The shard had cut deep.

“It stuck you pretty good didn't it?” Patrick tossed Dawson their dwindling roll of bandages. Dawson quickly went to work dressing his foot. First disinfecting it. Then bandaging it. And laying down and wallowing in his overdramatized “agony”. Patrick scoffed at him. “We can't stay here. It's too dangerous to be in the middle of the wild at night. The sun's already setting. Suck it up and let's get going.”

“Easy for you to say,” Dawson grunted as he laboriously brought himself to his feet, “You didn't have two inches of glass stuck into you foot.”

“Quit your bitching. We have ground to make,” Patrick grunted. He realized that they were now as good as lost in the forest and that did not put him in the best of moods. They were about to set out again, when Patrick noticed something strange about the bloody shard of glass Dawson had left on the path. It had a serial number and the letters “GENTEK” etched into it. Patrick stopped dead. “Dawson,”

“What?”

“Where was the last known location of Gaige's helmet?”

“The last signal it gave out was about twenty metres above...,” Dawson paused and his eyes shifted back and forth between the ground in front of him and his radar, “Oh my god...It's here. He's here!” He scampered over to where he had stepped on the glass shard and began looking through the tall grass around the area. After a short while of searching he froze once again. His face was hidden by his helmet, but Patrick could sense dismay radiating of him. “Patrick...I...He didn't make it,” Patrick's heart sank to his stomach. He couldn't believe it. He didn't want to believe it.

“Show me,” was all he could manage to say. Dawson looked at him and then slowly brought a half smashed hazardous environment helmet and bits of Gaige's leather duster up from the tall grass. Both were encrusted with old, coagulated blood and they had been blackened by some sort of extreme heat.“Oh christ...,” Gaige had been his friend since childhood. His brother in arms. One of the only people he could trust in a hostile world. And the man who saved him from himself. And now he was gone. Just like that.

He did not cry. It wasn't because he did not want to. It was because he had no tears left to shed. When his father had died he had cried for hours and stood vigil over him for an entire day. This time, the feeling was different. He just felt empty. His best friend was dead and he didn't shed a single tear. And that scared him. Am I too far gone? Patrick slowly collected himself and softly said, “We should bury him.”

“No body.”

“What  do you mean 'No body'?”

“That's it...There's nothing else. Animals must have gotten the rest,” He looked over the bloody bits and pieces of Gaige's attire, “He didn't deserve that,” his voice was beginning to quiver, “No one deserves that,” the two stood in silence once again. Paying their respective silent respects to their fallen comrade. Or rather, what they thought was left of him.

Dawson stared ponderously at the shattered helmet, “Must have taken one hell of a drop to smash this thing. Where could he have...,” Dawson looked up and went slack jawed. There, above him, was a massive city built high into the side of a mountain.It looked as regal as a palace of a Sultan of the old Middle-East. He could make out a bustling hub of pegasus drawn carriages flowing in and out of the city. “Oh my god...Patrick you aren't gonna believe this,” Dawson let Gaige's helmet fall back into the tall grass as he stared, awe struck, at the bustling utopia above him.

“...Fucking hell...,” the duo continued to stare up at the marvellous city, taken aback by the sheer scale and beauty of it. They had never seen anything like it, even in the old world. Patrick eventually snapped out of his stupor and realized the potential dangers that could arise, being as close as they were to the city. He took Dawson by the arm and dragged him off the road and into the forest. “We have to go. This place isn't safe anymore,” Dawson nodded in acknowledgement and the two trekked further into the woods. The woodland terrain was hell on Dawson's bandaged foot. He hobbled over roots and through thick brush with much difficulty. They did not make it too far before he had to sit down and rest.

“We're not getting out of here by nightfall, are we?” he worriedly asked. Already knowing the answer.

“No. Not on that foot of yours. We're going to have to camp here. Maybe we can find a tree to sleep in,” Patrick looked around for a suitable tree to set a hammock up in. As he scanned the area he noticed a rather tall, burly, black man approaching them through the underbrush. He had short hair and a long bushy beard. He wore a brown duster, with all sorts of pockets and compartments to conceal weapons. The man's eyes had a certain unnerving brightness to them. Patrick levelled his assault rifle at him and the man slowly raised his hands into the air.

“Don't worry. I'm not here to hurt you,” said the man with a warm smile.

“That's what they all say,” spat Patrick, “Where's the rest of your group?”

“They're not far from here. We have a wounded man. You have bandages. It'd be worth your while brother,” the man slowly continued to approach Patrick, his arms raised above his head. By this time Dawson had fumbled around and drawn his hunting rifle. He propped himself up on his rucksack and steadied the gun, making sure the crosshairs of his scope were trained on the man's head.

“Don't call me that,” Patrick growled and he backed up a few paces, “Who the fuck are you?”

“Who's anybody anymore?” the man rhetorically asked, chuckling softly at his own remark.

“Cut the shit.”

“Alright, alright. Name's Eli. I'm from a small group. They're good people,” Patrick still was not convinced, “We've got a kid.”

“Is that what you tell people so that they don't hurt you?”

“No. I've got two guns pointed to my head. I'm not really in a position to lie to you,” Patrick considered the man to be sufficiently sincere and dropped his guard just slightly. He still was not too sure of Eli's true motives.

“And if we help you...What do you do for us?”

“I'll tell you where the world went.”

“What?”

“Nothin'...Never mind. If you help us we have some extra food we could give you. Like I said, it'll be worth your while,” Patrick paused to consider the offer. He looked at Dawson, expecting some sort of counsel from him. Only Dawson had his eye glued to his scope and had no intention of moving a muscle.

Something in Eli's sleeve caught Patrick's eye. It was glimmering in the sunlight. It had a metallic sheen to it. He instantly recognized what it was. “And your not gonna stick us with that hidden knife you've got there?” Patrick spat sarcastically. Eli gave him a confused look in return. “Don't play dumb with me. Drop it,” he hissed, motioning to Eli's raised arms with his gun.

“Oh that thing? That's for emergencies only.”

“Yeah, my ass it is. Toss the knife over here,” Eli did not oblige him. He slightly lowered his left arm, letting the blade tease its' way out into his palm subtly.

“Now I don't think that'll be necessary. Do you?” Patrick did not respond. Eli could now feel the tip of the blade resting on his palm. He began to crouch down lower, preparing to launch himself into action at a moment's notice. If the two men were not going to help his group. They were a danger to it. And his job was to eliminate threats to the group,“Let's all just calm down here and-”

“Toss us the fucking knife...or I swear to god I will end your miserable fucking life right now!”

Just then a soft rustling could be heard in the bushes behind them. Patrick swiftly turned to face the disturbance, expecting an ambush and came face to face with a small child. He looked familiar. “Carson?” the little boy was very afraid at first. Timidly backpedalling into the underbrush he had come out of. He looked terrified.

“Christ! Carson I told you not to follow me!” Eli took a step towards Patrick before Dawson shakily stood up and discouraged him by yelling.

“Another step and I blow your brains out!” His rifle slowly swayed from side to side as he attempted to hold it steady.

“Holy shit...Carson is that you?” Patrick threw off his helmet so that the boy would see his face and hopefully recognize him, “It's me...Patrick,” he said softly. Carson's fearful expression almost instantaneously turned into one of pure joy.

“Patrick!” the boy yelled as he ran up to him. Excited to ask him all kinds of questions. He looked around and noticed that only Dawson was with him. “Where's Gaige?” he innocently asked. Patrick grew worried. He was not sure how to respond to the child.

“He...uh...He,” stammered Patrick nervously, Should I tell him the truth? He turned to Dawson as if to get an answer. Dawson only shook his head. Patrick acknowledged his gesture and turned back to Carson. “He went out for a while. He'll be back later.”

“Ok! I can wait,” chimed Carson.

“I take it you two know each other,” said Eli. Lowering his hands from over his head and becoming more at ease.

“Yeah. We used to be in a group together. How'd you find the kid?” asked Patrick turning back to face an ecstatic Carson.

“Found him on the road alone a few days ago. Decided to take him in. He's one helluva kid. He's been a big help to our group,” replied Eli.

“Yeah! Eli and his people are really nice. I like them a lot,” Carson glanced at Dawson and Patrick's drawn guns, “You aren't going to kill Eli are you?”

“No...We're not gonna kill him. Don't worry,” Patrick patted Carson on his head and slung his rifle over his shoulder.

“...About that help you're givin' us,” Eli gestured to Dawson's first aid kit.

“Yeah. We'll help you. Lead the way,” For the first time that day Patrick was actually smiling.

“Great! If we get going now, we'll be back before sundown,” Eli pivoted around and began casually strolling towards his camp. Dawson, Patrick and Carson followed suit. Carson was going on and on about the adventures he had had with Eli and all the people he had met. Dawson had removed his helmet and bore and expression that said “How did Gaige ever put up with this?”.  Patrick listened attentively to the child and was even laughing at some of his stories. It had been a good day for once. And for the first time in a long time, a sliver of Carson's childish optimism was infecting Patrick. Maybe things don't have to be so grim anymore, he thought to himself, Maybe this can be a new beginning.

* * *

“Sister, I swear on our mother that I have seen goodness in him. This evening was but a small mistake on his part! We need him. Ponyville is unprotected. We have no more guards to spare...We could use him to protect it from this new menace we are dealing with. Just as he suggested. I could even watch over him. To ensure he stays in line.”

“That is what you said so that I would allow him to go to the royal dinner and now he has gone and made an ass of himself in front of the entire Canterlot aristocracy! We cannot tolerate this sort of behaviour. I trusted your word on Gaige's 'goodness' before and look what happened!” Celestia yelled. She was fed up with Luna's childish pouting and sympathy for the vile creature that she should not have even taken in in the first place. She had the right mind to go along with her military advisors plan of exterminating any of these “humans” on site, as to prevent further disturbances.

“Sister please!” begged Luna, grovelling at Celestia's hooves. Celestia was becoming increasingly fed up with her sister's childish antics. Her entire empire was threatened and she did not have the time to babysit her grossly immature sibling. The stress of the past few weeks was wearing her patience thin. Celestia ground her teeth in her closed mouth as the her bitter frustrations boiled over in her mind. She could not stop thinking about Discord's escape and his organized insurrection, the death threats, the humans and the sudden political tensions she had faced in recent times. And now her own sister was becoming a problem. As she grew angrier, the temptation to take her frustration out on her sister grew increasingly enticing. She could feel herself breathing heavily and she could no longer hear what Luna was saying, she only saw her mouth moving. In fact, she couldn't hear anything, save for a terrible ringing in her ears and her own, rapidly accelerating, heartbeat. Her mind was screaming at her to let it all go. Finally, the pressure was too much, and she lashed out.

“Luna this creature is not your pet. You are not a filly anymore. Do not continue acting like one!” she swatted Luna away from her hooves. She shot upright, rubbing her cheek where Celestia had struck her. Celestia had left a bright red mark on her face and it was already starting to swell. Luna was in shock. Never had her sister struck her. Not even if Luna had been on her worst of worst behaviours. She could not fathom why she would go so far as to strike her now, “Our entire empire could crumble around us at a moment's noticed and still you sit here with your foolish desires. This creature is what could be our doom. Discord is organizing their kind into and army to vanquish us. This “Gaige” is not our friend! He is our enemy! And still you defend this scum and condone his actions! Have you gone mad?” Celestia was towering over Luna imposingly. Wild eyed and red with rage. For the first time in her life, Luna was legitimately terrified of her sister.

“But sister...I-I swear. I can still prove to you that Gaige is pure of heart. I have walked his dreams. I know he-”

“Don't give me your pitiful excuses! I have had more than enough of those Luna,” roared Celestia, “Every time one of your little stunts fails it's always 'but sister' this and 'but sister' that and I'm sick of hearing it! Just admit it, you are worthless! You cannot do anything right! Whenever I have called upon you to perform the simplest of tasks you fail miserably! I cannot believe I trusted you with gauging a dangerous creature's character! Even now I had simply asked for you to be co-operative but that was too much to ask of you wasn't it?” Luna had tears welling up in her eyes. Each of her sister's harsh words stung her with the force of a thousand needles. “Do you want to know why I wouldn't let you go save the Crystal empire with Twilight Sparkle? Hmm?” asked Celestia, putting her face right up to her sisters and forcing her to shrink down even more. Luna didn't respond, she could only look into her sisters spiteful eyes in shock, her mouth agape. “It was because I knew if I did, the Crystal empire would have been lost and my most faithful student probably killed by some idiotic stunt of yours. And something as severe as that, maybe even worse to that will happen if I agree with you now.” hissed Celestia.

A great rage was now beginning to well up inside of Luna as well. Replacing her previous feelings of sadness and betrayal. She scowled at her sister and forcefully pushed her away. Celestia looked shocked by this act of defiance and was further enraged by it. Both of them stood angrily glaring at each other for a long time. “Like you're such a perfect princess...At least I would have tried to do something useful for once,” growled Luna.

“Useful? Ha! You are one to talk about being useful,” retorted Celestia.

“Why is that?”

“I have essentially been ruling this entire planet single handedly for a millennium. I have taken on raising both the sun and the moon for a millennium. I have been the force that holds this planet together. And I could be everywhere I am now without you,” she spat the word scornfully, “You call yourself the 'Princess of the Night'? You can barely raise the moon and the stars at dusk. You're useless! I should have sent you back to the moon while I still had the chance...It's where you belong.”

Luna had returned to a state of pure shock and dismay. Normally she would have tried to respond rationally to the best of her abilities. But the banishment to the moon was very much a soft spot for her and Celestia had done the equivalent of driving a knife deep into it and twisting the hilt.

“H-how...could you,” she sputtered, trembling with resentment for her sibling. Tears flowing down her muzzle.

“What? It's not like anyone would miss you. Everypony would be better off without a failure like you,” shouted Celestia loud enough for the entire palace to hear.

“ HOW COULD YOU?!?” Luna launched herself forward and tackled her sister. She landed on right top of her. Celestia lay on her back in a daze. She had hit her head on the palace floor and everything seemed to be blurry and out of focus. Luna forehooves quickly became a blur and seemed to be moving rather quickly. Celestia was coming under a flurry of hoof strikes, mostly on her face. Celestia quickly regained awareness and sharply kicked her sister in the stomach. Prying her off and winding her. Luna let out a winded groan of pain and hit the hard palace floor on her side.

Celestia scrabbled to her feet and turned to face Luna just in time to see her discharge a cobalt ball of energy towards her. She ducked down to avoid it. Celestia could feel it connect with her flank. A sharp pain shot through her body. She winced and her eyes shot over and met Luna's now terrified gaze. “You,” she spat, panting heavily and gritting her teeth in pain, “You'll pay.”

Celestia then went about casting her own spell in retaliation. A fireball spell. One of her extremely limited non-passive spells. She charged it, aimed for Luna's midsection and cast it. The fiery yellow orb flew straight and true. Sailing towards a petrified Luna at lightning speed. It hit the navy alicorn square on her shoulder, singing her and sending her toppling over onto the floor. Luna wailed in pain as her shoulder burned with a searing pain. It was singed, but not horribly singed. Celestia had held back on her.

Before she knew it, Luna was suddenly suspended upside down in mid-air. She was surrounded by her sister's yellow aura. She could see an Celestia slowly approaching her. She attempted to focus. To escape from the levitation spell. That only got her dropped, head first, onto the hard tile floor. She cried out in pain and fell to the floor in a heap with a great “thud”. She could hear hoofsteps approaching her. She started to bawl uncontrollably. Celestia leaned in close and Luna could feel her hot breath on the back of her neck. “Sympathizing with the enemy,” she spat, “Defying my word,” Celestia's words dripped with a terrible hatred, “And even assaulting me?” she paused for a long time, before whispering, “I have no sister.”

Two royal guards, battle ready and armed with spears, burst into the room. “Your highness! We heard a terrible ruckus and came running at once!” the duo looked around the room momentarily, still on high alert, “Where has the assailant made off to? We shall follow him in hot pursuit your highness. We shall capture whoever committed this-”

“That will not be necessary guardsman,” Celestia smiled quaintly at them, betraying her current emotional state, “My dear sister had just gotten a little...out of hand...that is all,” the two guards looked at her in confusion, “Please...make sure she does not exit her quarters for the remainder of the day to prevent further disturbances.”

“As you wish, your highness.” Celestia slowly exited the room, flanked by the two guards.  She paused in the doorway. Some part of her immediately regretted all the things she had just said and done to Luna. The same part of her wanted her to turn around and apologize to her. She scolded herself for thinking like that. Celestia convinced herself that she had only said what her sister needed to have said to her. Luna would probably thank her later. But another part of her knew that she had gone too far. That she might have broken something between them in such a way that it could never be put right again. And that scared her.

“Are you alright your highness?” asked one of the guards, eying her quizzically.

“Yes...Yes everything is fine,” only Celestia knew that everything was far from fine. She collected herself and exited the room. The doors were sealed tightly and Luna could hear them being locked from the outside. She looked up and could see two guards standing watch on her balcony, ensuring that she would not find alternate means of escape. As if her room was not enough of a prison already.

She slowly brought herself to her feet and hobbled over to her inviting bed. She winced in pain with each step and she could feel tears still streaming down her muzzle. She finally flopped down on to her soft bed and resumed bawling like a child.

Luna's mind was racing with feelings of betrayal, anger, sadness and even a bitter feeling  of resentment towards her tyrannical sister. She pounded her pillow repeatedly. Cursing Celestia with each strike. She hated her beyond words. How could her own sister act so abusively towards her. Luna could not think of one thing that she had done to justify such cruel actions.

She kept trying to analyze what would provoke such and act on her sister's part. And the more she analyzed her motives. The more self resentment she began to feel. She was re-living past incidents involving her. The two Nightmare Moon crises. The numerous Nightmare Night misunderstandings. The Stalliongrad incident (During which she indirectly caused the death of twenty royal guars). The more she thought about it, the more she began to think that maybe her sister was right. Maybe she was worthless. Maybe everypony would be better off without her.

When she revised her actions she realized that she was, in fact, the problem in all of these cases. She had caused so much destruction, confusion, terror and death in her lifetime. Most of what she had done, she did inadvertently, but that did not change the fact that she was the cause of it. I'm a menace.

She remembered the old stories she heard the guards whisper amongst themselves. Tales of her transformation into Nightmare Moon. How she had gored and incinerated legion upon legion of guards. Decimating their ranks and burning their facilities to the ground. The guards never saw her as the same mare after that.

She also recalled their frequent criticisms of Luna's action throughout the Stalliongrad incident. How she had collapsed a bridge, much to her sister's chagrin. Only to end up crushing a squadron of elite royal guardsmen who were scaling said bridge. The  guards whispered the story over and over to each other. In hushed tones, behind the monarchy's back. Little did they know that Luna had caught wind of the story...and every last detail regarding it. How they gone so far as to call her a murderer. How they fabricated her cackling with delight afterwards. How all the guardsmen hated her with a burning ferocity afterwards.

She was a pariah in her own kingdom. A misfit. And outcast. No! Do not think like that. You are being weak. This is just what Celestia wants you to do. Do not give her satisfaction, Luna scolded herself for wallowing in her own self pity so foolishly.

Luna brought herself to raise her head from her pillow. She glanced towards her balcony and saw the two guards on duty there chatting amongst themselves. They were pointing at her and shooting glances her way. She knew right away by their body language that they were ridiculing her. Luna grew furious with them and her hoof shot over and grabbed the empty vase on her nightstand. She drew back her hoof and tossed the vase at the glass balcony door vigourously. It hit the door and shattered into millions of tiny shards with a great clatter. Both of the guards shot three feet straight up into the air. Eyes wide with surprise. As soon as they touched the ground, both realized their error and immediately snapped to attention. Facing away from Luna's chambers. All conversation between the two had ceased and was now replaced by an unnerving silence.

Luna's emotions got the better of her once again as she rolled onto her stomach and buried her face in her pillow, bawling once again. She lay there for a long time. Cursing her sister and the world around her. She had lain there so long, in fact, that she lost track of time altogether. Hours passed before she was roused by the sound of her door opening and closing quickly. She craned her neck to see what the commotion was all about. Only to see an empty room and a sealed letter resting on the floor, next to the door.

Luna willed herself to slowly limp over to the letter and open it. She dreaded what the letter contained. Could it be another banishment notice? She worried herself sick, fearing that her sister would send her to the moon for another millennium. She never wanted to endure such torture again. As Luna unfurled the scroll and read it her jaw dropped. She could not believe what she was reading.

Gaige shall be transported, via. chariot, to Ponyville to serve as its' temporary guardian against the growing menaces to our empire. You shall accompany him on his journey and serve as his handler throughout his service. You were right sister. I apologize for my behaviour earlier. It was most brutish of me. I hope that you may give us a chance to start anew.

-'Tia

Made to Suffer

“Alright which one of you ugly sons of bitches can tell me where I can find the royal convoy?!?”, shouted the crimson stallion. His voice booming and raspy. The group of dazed changelings before him gave no reply, “No one? You're telling me nobody here has a goddamn clue where the your beloved queen is?”, he brought his face in close to a terrified changeling who was trembling uncontrollably. “IS THAT WHAT YOU'RE TELLING ME?”

“N-no...we don't know...I swear,” stammered the mortified changeling.

“YOU LYING FUCK!,” the stallion struck the changeling hard across the jaw, breaking it in the process. The changeling lay flat on its' belly, involuntarily slack jawed. It made a feeble attempt to crawl away, inching itself along it with its' forehooves. The stallion looked on as it attempted to make its' futile escape. He paused for a moment, watching his victim writhe along the ground helplessly. Just the sight of it made him smile. For the first time in his life he felt powerful. Alive even. He was much more satisfied with his new occupation than he was with his dead end job at the rainbow factory. He had found his true calling, violence.

The stallion stomped hard on the changeling's head, fracturing its' skull. He could hear it squeal as he heard the satisfying crunch of pulverized bone. He pulled back and pounded the changelings head again, striking harder and faster this time. This time, the changeling's skull began to cave inwards and he stopped screaming and began twitching and struggling meekly, in a daze. The stallion drew back and stomped on the imprint he had left in the back of the changeling's skull. He struck him again and again. His vision began turning red. He could feel the changeling's warm green blood splattering all over him along with bits of viscera. It felt so good. The ponies accompanying him had gingerly backed away from the gruesome scene. Some in fear, some in disgust, some because they did not want to have to  spend hours cleaning blood out of their uniforms, but he didn't care. He was going to enjoy every minute of what he did.

He eventually slowed himself down and ended the his frenzied mutilation, taking a step back to admire his work. The changeling lay motionless on its' belly. Its' head now but a pulpy green mush. A slushy mix of green blood, skull fragments and bits of mashed brain matter. To the stallion, it bore a striking resemblance to his ex-wife's cooking. He hated his ex- wife. His trailing thoughts inspired him to give what remained of the changeling's head another good stomp, for good measure.

“Now...is somebody going to talk? Or am I going to have to keep pressing?” none of the changeling's responded. They would not meet his gaze and simply sat either staring at the ground, gawking at their mutilated comrade or looking nervously at one another. “I could do this all day you know,” still no response. “Do you think this is some sort of fucking game?!? Are you going for the high score or something? Because there isn't one! You just die!” he motioned into the crowd of changelings. “YOU'RE ALL GOING TO FUCKING DIE!” he screamed. He stood there panting, his head swinging from side to side, sizing up his next victims.

As he finished his rant he heard one of the changelings murmur something unintelligible. The stallion's eyes locked on the changeling who he had heard the murmur emanate from. He stalked up to the changeling and towered threateningly over him. “I'm sorry, I don't think I caught that,” he cupped his hoof next to his ear listening closely. The changeling did not oblige him, it simply stared at the ground, swallowing nervously. “That means speak up you little shit!”

“Her carriage is headed to the-,” the changeling trailed off into incomprehensible mumbling.

“I can't hear you!” the stallion struck the changeling hard across the muzzle. The force of the blow nearly spun the changeling clean around and left him reeling. Blood slowly trickled from his nostrils. He slowly recovered from the blow and continued.

“Her carriage,” he paused to swallow nervously, “Her carriage will be at North Point pass in two hours,” the changeling looked down at his hooves in shame. He could almost feel the resentment radiating off of his fellow changeling's.

“Finally someone with a modicum of common sense,” the stallion's tone had softened considerably and he lay his hoof comfortingly on the changeling's shoulder. “And since you were the smart one of the bunch. You get to take the easy way out,” he brought the changeling's chin up with his hoof, forcing eye contact between them. “Would you like that?” The changeling stared at him, wide eyed. He was perplexed by the stallion's sudden act of mercy after his fits of brutality. He gingerly nodded his head  in response. “That a boy,” the stallion patted him on the shoulder as he slowly reached back into his saddlebags. He appeared to be slipping something on his hoof. “Don't worry, it only hurts for a few seconds,” before the changeling could fully realize the gravity of his situation, the stallion swiped across his throat with a mechanical blade attached to his hoof, slicing deep into the changeling's throat. His eyes widened in fear as he clutched frantically at his severed windpipe. He choked and sputtered on his own blood and stumbled around wildly before finally falling to the ground, face first. A pool of bright green blood was forming under the gash in his throat.

“Feed the rest of them to the timberwolves. We won't be needing them anymore,” As the stallion turned and trotted back towards his carriage, he could hear the changeling's causing quite a fuss. Kicking, screaming and begging for their lives. It was music to his ears. He couldn't help but chuckle to himself. He could hear the sound of a bolt clanking open and the door to the timberwolf cage creaking open. Then came the noises of snarling timberwolves and snapping jaws, followed by the sound of tearing flesh, cracking bones and that ear piercing wail the changelings made when they were in pain. The stallion didn't even have to turn around to get his satisfaction from the deed. Ah, the sound of a good day's work.

As the stallion reached his carriage and swung the door of it wide open, he make out his human companion lovingly tending to his weapon. A wooden club like object wrapped in sharp barbed wire. The human cleaned and maintained the bat as if it were his own child. He was oddly protective of it. Never wanting to allow anyone other than himself to handle it. The stallion found this to be strange, even by his own standards. Though, despite his slight obsession with an inanimate object, the human had proven to be a good companion. He was reliable, intelligent, ruthless and strong in battle, despite having a prosthetic leg.

“What was all that ruckus about?” asked the human.

“Ruckus? That was progress Lucius.”

“Hmm,” Lucius looked up at him and chuckled, “Sounded like you got what you needed. Where's the chariot going to be?”

“North Point pass. Two hours.”

“Ah, good,” Lucius patted him on the shoulder, “I knew I could trust you with getting the job done. You just have that...look....about you Blitz.”

“I aim to please.”

“You see,” Lucius' expression changed to a more serious one, “That's what I was planning to bring up next.”

“Why?”

“I remember telling you to secure all of our assets.”

“Yes? And?”

“There's ten missing,” Blitz looked down at his hooves, he could not hold Lucius' intense glare, “I thought I told you to get them all ASAP.”

“And I did, there's only, what? Ten out of a few hundred missing?”

“And now those ten are going around being holier than thou white knights! Canterlot has taken one in and we have nine others running around like Robin Hood and his band of fucking merry men! Going around and killing our men to save a few 'innocents'. I think it's about time that we fucking recruited them! Before they can be swayed further against us.”

“Okay Lucius. You wanna know what I think about our Robin Hood and his Merry Men?” Blitz paused for a moment, trying to recall a human saying he had once hears, “How did you say it?” he tapped his hoof on his chin, “Oh right. I don't give a fuck about them okay?”

“Well I do! Otherwise why the hell would I be mentioning this to you?” Lucius slammed his hand on his seat.

“They're ten men. We don't need them. What's stopping us from cutting them down and ending this?”

“They're our star players! That's why! They were brought here to be our fucking A-team,” Lucius yelled, “and I'm not going to lose them because some fucking lowlife was too incompetent to find ten people and recruit them! It really isn't that hard?”

“No but-”

“Then why haven't you gotten it done???”

“I-,” Blitz fell silent, he did not want to risk further angering Lucius with his insubordination. He didn't want to think about what Lucius could do with that bat of his.

“That's what I thought,” Lucius opened the door of the Chariot, “Now, I've got a rendez-vous to make. I hope I can trust you with getting the job done while I'm out.”

“...Yes sir,” said Blitz hesitantly.

“Good,”  Lucius ushered him out of the chariot. On his way out Blitz felt Lucius pull him in close and heard him whisper in his ear, “I swear to god, if you don't get this done, I will kill you. I don't have room for failures,” and with that he ushered Blitz out of the chariot and shut the door. He  stood and watched the chariot take off for North Point Pass.

“Blitz?” one of his companions asked, “What next?”

“Get hold of The Watcher. We're going on a Merry man hunt.”

* * *

“You're sure you know how to do this?” the man asked, meekly lifting his head to inspect his wounded leg. The early morning sun gave everything a yellowish tinge. It reflected off the blood seeping out of his wound. It looked bad. He could only hope that his “doctor” knew what he was doing.

“Nope. Not a clue,” replied Dawson, still rifling through the med-kit. The man cocked his head at him in confusion for a moment, then nervously laughed.

“Y'know I've really gotten to like you Dawson. You're always cracking jokes,” he slowly stopped laughing when he heard no response from Dawson, his smile was replaced with a look of dismay, “You're not joking...are you?”

“Nope!”, said Dawson with a smile as he turned around, brandishing a scalpel. The man began scrambling to get off the makeshift bed and flee the medical tent. Frantically screaming for help.

“Patrick! Get the sedative,” no response, “Patrick!” The man flopped off the bedding and scrambled along the floor in a frantic crawl. “Goddamn it,” just then Patrick appeared from around the corner and clobbered the man with the butt of his rifle. Dawson was taken aback as he stared on in surprise, “What the hell did you do that for?!? You could have killed him!”

“We were out of sedatives,” grumbled Patrick, rubbing his eyes groggily,

“You still didn't have to go so far,” Dawson scolded, picking up the man's limp body and throwing him over his shoulder. “I think I can handle it from here. Why don't you go find something else to do...before you try to whack anyone else,” Dawson scurried back to his makeshift “operating bed” which wasn't much more than a pile of jackets and blankets and set to work on his patient. Reading through medical manuals as he performed his hack job surgery, if you could even call it a surgery.

“You're welcome asshole,” mumbled Patrick as he shuffled lazily out of the tent. The morning air was crisp and refreshing. He breathed it all in, then sighed. It had been so long since he had felt like this. Safe, at ease. So much had changed since he had arrived. Things are so different now, he stood facing the sun with his eyes closed, so different. He reached into his pocket and brought out an old, tattered walled. He opened the ancient thing and went through its' contents. His old I.D card, he could hardly recognize himself. He reached into one of the pockets, and pulled out an damp, swollen and torn photograph. He could barely make out the figures in it anymore. Even though it was his family, they looked almost alien to him. He gently rubbed the dust off of where one the largest male figure's face was. "I wish you could have been here to see this", he smiled, “It's beautiful here. It's perfect. It's all you ever wanted for me,” he suddenly stopped himself and wiped the smile off his face. “No,” he said, placing the photograph back in his wallet and stuffing it back in his jacket, “I'm not talking to a fucking photograph.”

Patrick grumbled to himself about his mental state as he strolled around the perimeter of their camp. Nothing interesting. No bandits. No mutants. Nothing. Only the corpses of a fanatical gang they had encountered the night before lay in the field. And they weren't much in the way of a threat. Even still he continued his diligent patrol. He could not go back to sleep even if he wanted to. If he did, the nightmares would come to haunt him once again. Visions of silhouettes and voices beckoning him. Something stalking him in the woods. Suddenly a still silhouette appeared in his peripheral vision, against the early morning sunlight. He jumped and turned to face it. It was only Carson. He was staring emptily off of the ridge they had camped on. “What are you doing up so early?” asked Patrick.

“Gaige isn't coming back,” Carson turned around, tears streaming down his face, “Is he?” Patrick remained silent, he wasn't sure what to tell him. The boy glared at him accusingly. He knew that he had been lied to. Without Carson saying a single word, Patrick could almost feel that he was asking him “How could you?” with that misty eyed look of his.

“Carson...,” Patrick tried to reason with him, but it was for naught. Carson took off into the woods, wailing and sniffling.

“Jesus...The kid lose his shit like that often?” asked a deep voice behind Patrick. It was Eli, he must have came up behind him when he wasn't looking. The man had a knack for that.

“No. First time,” Patrick responded.

“Should we-,”

“No. He'll be back. Don't worry,” assured Patrick, catching a final glimpse of Carson disappearing into the bushes.

“This Gaige person. Was he his father or somethin'?”

“No. His father is dead. Gaige has just kinda been taking care of him since then.”

“Damn,” exclaimed Eli, rubbing the back of his neck, “I don't know how the hell the kid's made it this far after all that. I mean, most kids his age would've just given up.”

“You can't just give up because it's hard. It won't bring back what you lost,” explained Patrick, unknowingly clenching his fists and scowling, “Nothing will,” Eli picked up on Patrick's sudden change of attitude and grew uncomfortable.

“Um...Are you okay?” he asked putting a hand on Patricks shoulder, “Something seems to be bothering you.”

“What?” Patrick quickly unclenched his fists and put on the best fake smile he could, “Me? Bothered? I'm fine. Don't worry about it.”

“You sure? We've all lost people here. If you wanna talk about it-”

“I'm fine,” Patrick insisted, his tone held a subtle menace about it.

“Alright,” said Eli, lightly shrugging. They both stood there in an awkward silence. Staring our over the ridge. Eli was the first to break the silence. “We have a lot of ground to cover.”

“Thank you Captain Obvious,” muttered Patrick. Eli chuckled softly, amused by his sarcasm.

“Any idea where we should be going?”

“Well, that depends. Which way did we come from?”

“I have no idea. This whole forest looks the same to me.”

“Well, no worries, I'm sure I can try to locate us on this map some ponies gave me a while back,” Patrick pulled an old, browning map out of his pocket and unfolded it. It was title “Greater Appleloosa Valley”. Patrick traced the map with his finger until he came to a large bunch of woodland on the map. “Aha! We must be somewhere around here. I'll look for some landmarks we might be able to see,” Patrick scanned the woodland part of the map. Gathering a few landmarks to look for. “Alright. Do you see a really big tree?” Eli raised his head up and looked around as far as he could see.

“There's a lot of really big trees.”

“No, I mean like a really big tree.”

“What do you mean really big? Like...Eiffel Tower big?”

“I don't fucking know!” exclaimed Patrick, growing frustrated with his lack of success, “Just look for a big ass tree.”

“Well you're gonna have to be more specific? What kind of tree am I looking for? Oak? Fern? Pine?” Eli asked, scratching his head in confusion. There were no prominent trees he could make out.

“The treelike kind of tree,” Patrick replied sarcastically, “You're asking me this like I'm supposed to have all the answers! It can't be that hard to find a massive tree.”

“Well I-,” Eli cut himself off and sighed in exasperation, “This isn't working. Is it?”

“...No. How about I just read the names of some of the closest towns to the forest. If we keep going straight until we're out of the forest then we might be able to find our way to one of them,” Patrick began to skim over some of the writing that was on the map. His heart sank as he came to the realization that the map did not have any normal numbers on it. The measurements on the map consisted of strange hieroglyphs. There weren't even any numbers on the map. Only the names of towns. He also quickly realized that the map was not near detailed enough for him to even come close to spotting their approximate position, “Well, some map this turned out to be!” muttered Patrick, stuffing the map back into his pocked. “Looks like we're going to have to wing it, head straight and hope we find a town soon. We don't have enough food to last much longer out here.”

“Guys! I think I may have found something,” hollered Phillip, one of Eli's group members as he ran up to Eli and Patrick. His sunken green eyes were lit up with delight. The man was ecstatic. “I saw a sign!” he announced proudly.

“Please tell me it was a sign for a tavern! I could really go for some booze right now,” joked Patrick.

“No, even better than a bar! It's a sign pointing to a town,” Eli and Patrick exchanged glances, “It's called Pony-town...No...that doesn't sound right,” he said tapping his chin, “Ah yes! Ponyville! That's what it's called,” he continued, wearing a big smile on his face.

“Well,” Patrick said, fixing his jacket, “I guess we know where we're headed. Pack up camp,  we leave as soon as we can. We're wasting daylight as it is.”

* * *

Chrysalis couldn't focus. Her head was pounding and her vision was blurred. Nor could she hear anything, save for a faint ringing in her ears. Her entire body was throbbing with pain. It felt like she had been struck by a train. She groaned and tried to remember how she got into such a dreadful state. It hurt to focus. The ringing was getting louder. The chariot was flying. Now there were muddled voices mixed in with the ringing. It fell...Why did it fall? She could hear a stallion's voice raised above all the other voices. It was calm, warm and soothing, in an odd way. Explosions...there were explosions, the voice sounded familiar. Where had she heard it before. Guns were going off too. There was now a bipedal figure materializing in her vision. Guns mean humans, the figure seemed to crouch over her and wave it's hand over her face, and humans mean...him.

“Wakey wakey! You and I have a lot to talk about,” he cooed. She knew the name. Lucius, yes that's what it was. He was a deceiver. He seemed fairly warm and harmless. Having a prosthetic leg and a kind (yet scarred) face that always bore a deceitful smile. Only behind all of that, lay a sadistic and masochistic core that had long gone rotten. Even by Chrysalis' standards, it was nothing short of despicable.

“You,” she rasped, “I'm done with you and your boss.”

“That's what you think dearie,” he snickered, “Unfortunately...that isn't what your contract says.”

“What contract,” hissed Chrysalis. Her vision was returning and she had started to regain her senses. Lucius scoffed at this remark.

“That's what they all say,” he smiled at her and drew nearer to her face, “Y'know, people tend to lie when they're afraid. Are you afraid yet?” he asked threateningly.

“Of you? No. Never!”

“Well you should be,” he corrected, “You've been a very naughty mare, haven't you Chrysalis?” he rose up from his crouch and grabbed nearby bag, bringing it close to Chrysalis, “Now, when I do a favour for someone, I expect the reciprocity to come from them afterwards,” The bag was now unzipped and he was methodically organizing its' contents, which Chrysalis could not make out, “That didn't happen with you. My boss and I put our heart's and soul's into helping your poor hive get back on its' feet. And what do you do afterwards? You run off and leave us lying in the dust. That really hurt my feelings y'know,” he explained as he mock pouted. “It just broke my heart knowing that you didn't care for us after we did so much for you,” he pretended to be on the brink of tears, bringing out a small red handkerchief and drying his eyes.

“Leave now,” growled Chrysalis, “Or I swear I will strike you down where you stand,” her horn began to glow a bright green.

“Go right ahead!” he yelled, opening his jacket which left his bare chest exposed, “Strike me down! But know that if you do, I'll become more powerful than you could ever imagine,” Chysalis charged up her most powerful life force draining curse, aiming directly for the human's chest. It was then that she saw the rest of them. At least thirty heavily armed and armoured ponies, ready to strike if she so much as tried to cast her spell. She decided that the human's death was not worth losing her own to see. The aura around her horn slowly dissipated and she stared down at the ground in defeat. Lucius saw her act of good judgement and proceeded to close his jacket and say, “Actually I was just kidding about the whole 'Becoming more powerful than you could imagine.' thing. My buddies here would just kill you and I'd get a good laugh,” he chaffed. Lucius pulled a, rather large, barbed club out of the bag he had been rummaging through.

“What do you want?” Chrysalis asked, her voice trembled with anger.

“What do I want? Well I want you to fulfill you're side of the deal. I  want your changeling army at our disposal, I want the right to set up bases of operations in the Badlands and I want you to use those special little skills of yours to help us out,” Lucius stated, “Regardless of whether you choose to agree or not, I'm going to get what I want...I always get what I want,” he continued, his voice hinting annoyance, “Now we can do this the incredibly boring way. Where you just say yes and everyone goes home, leaving Barbara and I incredibly disappointed,” he lamented in imitated sadness, “Or...we can do this the fun way,” he exclaimed with a deceptively warm grin, “Where you say no and you, Barbara and I sit down and have a nice long chat and cup of tea,” Lucius was stroking the bloody barbs on his club lovingly, tracing his fingers along the encrusted blood from what must have been hundreds of victims, “So what's it gonna be?”

“I'm not agreeing. I'm never agreeing,” miffed Chrysalis, scowling at Lucius contemptibly. She spat at his feet.

“Oooh! Getting feisty already, are we?” Lucius put his club over his shoulder and walked right next to Chrysalis and crouched down, “Barbara doesn't like sass you know,” he motioned to his club, “Barbara and I are going to have to fix that, won't we?”

“You're sick.”

“Well, I have been coming down with a bit of a cold as of lately. Is it really that obvious?” he mockingly asked, “You know they say laughter is the best medicine...so how about we do something fun hmm? Would you mind that?” Chrysalis didn't respond, she just glared daggers at him, “Aaaw, is that a no? That's a damn shame...but all work and no play makes me a dull boy, so I'm going to have to overrule your disagreement here,” he put both hands on the handle of his club and held it at the ready, “Thankfully for you, I have a game in store that even a funsucker like you can enjoy. I like to call it 'Two for Flinching',”

“What?” Chyrsalis fumed, confused by what he meant by a “game”.

“Go!” Lucius struck Chrysalis in the small of her back as hard as he could with Barbara. She yelped in pain and arched her back. As Lucius pulled the club out of her back, she could feel small chunks of flesh being pulled out with it. “Two for flinching!” he exclaimed excitedly, striking her another two times. Chrysalis' back was now burning with pain. As the club scraped across her back she could feel large strands of skin being shorn off. She wailed and flailed about, trying to get up. When Lucius brought his club up again, she could see it was covered in her own blood and had bits of her flesh dangling loosely from the barbs. “You flinched again? Wow, I honestly thought you'd be better at this game,” sneered Lucius, “Oh well. You know the drill!” Lucius brought his club down hard once again, this time, he struck Chrysalis' flank. She squealed and squirmed as the barbs sank into her flesh. He pulled his bat out of her flank and kicked her hard in the jaw. Her head snapped sharply to the right.

That last hit had stunned Chrysalis. She fell over sideways, completely desensitized. She could feel herself slipping away from consciousness as the world grew blurry once again and the ringing returned to her ears. “Slipping away on us so soon?” said Lucius, “We can't have that now, can we?” Chrysalis felt a needle jab into her flank and felt a cold substance enter her bloodstream. Within seconds she had been brought back from the brink of unconsciousness and was now fully aware of her surroundings. Lucius had gone back to rifling through his bag, his club now cast aside on the ground. “Now, much to my chagrin, Discord has asked that I leave you mostly intact while I'm 'convincing' you to join us,” said Lucius, his voice riddled with disappointment, “Since you seem to be very fragile as it is...I'm beginning to think that this is a job for a scalpel and not a bat. No offence Barbara,” Lucius cooed as he patted his club. He continued to rifle through his bag, now growing frustrated. “Where's my fucking scalpel?!?” he yelled.

“I have it here sir,” said one of the ponies, quickly rushing up to Lucius and handing him his scalpel.

“Thank you,” said Lucius, fixing his hair and regaining his composure. “Now that that has been resolved, let's get back to business,” he reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out another syringe, “I know you're not very fond of needles, but since I'm not allowed to hurt you too badly, I've decided that I'll just magnify any pain you feel for the next two hours!” he strode over to chrysalis and noticed that she had stopped struggling to escape. Now she only lay there, looking up at him in fear. Her chest was rising and falling abnormally fast, “Oh don't stop struggling now,” he insisted, “I like it when you squirm,” he whispered, his voice sounding menacing and sadistic.

Lucius bent over Chrysalis and held her down. She squirmed feebly, but he had her pinned down firmly. He searched along her left foreleg for a vein and then slipped the syringe in. Chrysalis felt the liquid enter her bloodstream, only this time, it felt like it was setting her body ablaze. Her entire body was enveloped with a searing pain. Even the smallest scratch felt like a deep, infected gash. She gritted her teeth and moaned in pain. “Ah, I see it's kicking in! Now we can have some real fun,”

Lucius slid the scalpel in under Chrysalis' skin, shearing a small square of it off of her flank, “I'm sure you won't miss this,” He quickly grabbed up the patch of skin and brought it around to Chrysalis' mouth. He forcefully opened her mouth and shoved the skin in. Holding her mouth shut afterwards. Chrysalis tasted salt and the coppery tang of her own blood and viscera. She gagged in disgust, swiping at her muzzle with her forehooves in an attempt to break Lucius' grasp. She pried his hands off and promptly spat out her flesh, wiping remnants of it off of her tongue with her forehooves. “Didn't your mother ever teach you any manners?” Lucius retrieved the hunk of flesh from the ground and forced it back into Chrysalis' mouth. Holding it shut once again, this time more violently. “Just chew...then swallow,” he ordered. Chrysalis refused, she kept trying to spit the flesh out and pry Lucius' hands off her muzzle. He quickly put an end to her struggles with by dropping his knee on her ribcage. Chrysalis heard a great crack and let out a muffled scream of agony, it felt like her side had been gored by a manticore. She was in such pain, she could hardly focus. Reluctantly she gulped down the square of flesh. It felt warm, salty and wet, sliding down her throat. She felt disgusting.

“That wasn't so bad, was it now?” said Lucius, “It's just a taste of what's to come,” he chuckled to himself, but stopped when he noticed no one else was laughing with him, “What? Was the joke really that bad?” Chrysalis scowled at him, “Hmph, tough crowd,” he mock pouted and folded his arms across his chest, “Alright, look. If you're not going to enjoy yourself and suck the fun out of this for me, you could at least just say 'yes' to my demands so that this doesn't last any longer than it has to.”

“No...I won't...Ill never let you-,” she had to cut herself to cough up bits of viscera that had gotten caught in her throat, “Never let you...control me. You're scum...I'd never take orders from you,” Lucius frowned upon hearing her response.

“Wow,” sighed Lucius, “They really weren't kidding when they said women were difficult. Like, seriously...what's it going to take? Do I need to buy you dinner? Take you out on a romantic date? Pay your rent?” Lucius stood there momentarily, scratching his chin, deep in though, “Oh! I know,” he pulled a hunting knife out from the inside of his jacked, “This should do the trick!” he said excitedly as he slid the knife under Chrysalis' skin and jerked it hard to the left. Chrysalis didn't even have time to cry, she almost instantaneously blacked out from the pain. An sharp, intense pain, then nothing.

When Chrysalis came to, she could barely make out the banter between Lucius and an unknown stallion.

“We don't have long.”

“Give me an ETA,” said Lucius, his voice had an underlying anxiousness to it.

“One hour.”

“Damn, well we're going to have to get this over with quickly. This was supposed to be a hit and run mission, we can't afford to let that change. We're not equipped to fight off an army, even if they are all changelings.”

“Well whatever you're going to do, do it quick.”

“Bring him out.”

“Who?”

“That servant, who the hell do you think I was talking about?”

“Are you insane? Discord told us to minimize collateral damage.”

“He also told us to get this done, whatever the cost. That's what it costs, so bring him out.”

“...Yes sir,” she could hear the stallion trotting away as she wearily opened her eyes. The first thing she noticed was that her pain was gone. She couldn't feel anything. Her flesh was numbed. She felt woozy as well, they must have used a strong anaesthetic on her.

“Ah, I see our sleeping beauty is finally awake,” Lucius smiled warmly at her, “We've prepared a very special surprise for you while you were taking you nap. Bring him out!” Two stallion's pushed their way out of a crowd of guards, dragging the semi conscious body of a changeling with two distinct white markings on his muzzle. “I'm sure you'll recognize him. You've had quite a few...intimate...moments with this one,” Chrysalis heart sank as she realized who the changeling was. It was Khaz Modan, her personal servant, “Don't look so surprised, you aren't exactly the best at hiding the saucy little things that go on behind closed doors,” Lucius raised an eyebrow at her. “Unfortunately, this isn't a big happy reunion for you two, ol' Kaz is here for business...My business to be exact.”

Lucius strode over to Kaz, tapping his bat against the ground each step. “You may have been indifferent to your own pain, but let's see how that holds up when it comes to the pain of another,” Lucius snap-kicked Kaz hard in the stomach, causing him to tumble backwards to the ground, doubling over in pain. He gasped and clutched at his stomach. He writhed around on the ground as Lucius stood over him, grinning in satisfaction. He quickly grew bored with watching his prey squirm, “Alright, enough faffing about, pick him up,” his two stallion assistants obeyed and dragged Kaz back onto his hind legs, their forelegs propped under his shoulders. “Time for round two...unless the lady's changed her mind,” Lucius looked over at Chrysalis expectantly.

“Don't do it. Don't-” Kaz tried to cry out to Chrysalis, but was quickly silenced by a swift haymaker from Lucius.

“I didn't ask you,” Lucius scolded, “Jeez, didn't you ever learn not to butt in?” he asked mockingly, “Okay, now that he's learned his lesson, has the lady had a change of heart yet?” Chrysalis said nothing, she only glared at him, “Well, I guess that means I have the green light. Batter up!” he readied his bat and wound up for a swing.  “Play ball,” he swung down hard, his bat connecting with Kaz's shoulder. A powerful crack was heard and the bat's barbs buried themselves in Kaz's shattered shoulder blade. He screamed in terrible agony, his hooves futilely scrabbling at the ground to get away. Lucius tore the bat out of his shoulder and swung at him again. This time it was a horizontal strike to the chest. The bat's barbs dug in once again and the snapping of ribs could be heard. Lucius glanced over her shoulder at Chrysalis. He was disappointed to see that she was now looking away from the “show” he was putting on.

“Somebody hold her head and make her look, I'm about to take this up a notch,” a stallion dove on top of Chrysalis' back and locked his forehooves firmly around her head. “And slap an inhibitor on her just in case she tries anything stupid,” she felt a hard metal cover slide over her broken horn and lock into place. “Now time for the real fun to begin,” Lucius threw his arms up into the air, “Break his forelegs!” The stallion's restraining Kaz briskly brought his forelegs over their shoulders and yanked down on them hard. His knee joints bent the wrong way and snapped, Kaz awoke from his half conscious state, wailing in agony and flailing his remaining good legs, weaker this time. One of the bones was jutting through his flesh. It was jagged and coated in green viscera. “Okay, that's enough,” Lucius began digging through his pack once again. He suddenly stopped and sighed in aggravation,   “Get me the bone saw! Jesus Christ, is it too much to ask that you pack things where I can find them? It's really ruining my flow here.”

“Right here sir. Sorry sir,” a smaller stallion came rushing up to Lucius and pulled a bone saw out of his saddlebags.

“About time,” mumbled Lucius, “Now on with the show!” the stallions laid Kaz flat on his back and splayed one  of his hind legs out away from his body. Lucius bent over it and brought his saw level with Kaz's leg. Kaz raised his head weakly, fearing what was in store for him.

“Don't...cut,” he rasped. He could feel the cold, serrated blade make contact with his flesh, “Don't cut! Don't-,” he let out a blood curdling wail as Lucius began violently sawing away at his leg. The blade was rusted and brittle, Kaz could feel bits of it breaking off and lodging themselves deep in his flesh, only to be dug in deeper by the saw's movement. He gritted his teeth in pain and moaned.

“I'm sorry, could you repeat that? I couldn't hear you over all that screaming your doing,” Lucius snarked as he sawed away at Kaz's leg. Slicing through flesh and muscle as he sawed more and more vigorously. His hand was slowly getting caked with a pulpy green mix of viscera and blood. He didn't mind, it only made the experience more enjoyable for him. When he hit bone, he sawed more slowly and deliberately, gradually cutting through the bone and causing Kaz immense pain. Lucius could almost hear the sound of the saw grinding against the bone. It was euphoric.

Kaz was screaming again, louder this time. He was thrashing about, making vain attempts to escape the clutches of the stallions and Lucius. Amongst all the racket Lucius could hear someone yelling, “Stop! Please just stop! I'll do it! I'll do whatever you want!”

“What was that?” Lucius immediately let go of his saw and turned around, leaving it embedded bone deep in Kaz's leg. “Did I hear what I think I heard,” Lucius raised an eyebrow at Chrysalis. She didn't respond. She was looking away from him. He shrugged and turned back around. Grabbing his bone saw and jerking it violently. Kaz let out a shrill cry.

“I'll do what you want!” yelled Chrysalis, “Just don't hurt him anymore,” she had completely lost her composure and descended into hysterics. Crying and snotting all over the place. Lucius perked up at hearing this.

“Good, that's what I wanted to hear,” he stood up and brushed the dust and gore from his jacket, “Job well done boys, time the head home!” he bellowed. On cue, his stallion warriors began to pack up their chariots and prepare to leave. Kaz Modan was left a bloodied mess on the ground. Still moaning and feebly shifting his legs. He was a mess. Caked in his own blood and half conscious. Lying belly up in the dirt. Chrysalis shakily brought herself to her feet and willed herself to stumble over to him and hold him tightly.

“Consider him our collateral,” hissed Lucius as he snapped off her inhibitor and began to walk back towards his chariot. Leaving a broken Chrysalis to try and comfort her severely injured lover.

“I won't let them hurt you again,” she shushed Kaz's moaning as she did what she could for him with her basic healing magic, “I promise,” she was crying uncontrollably. She managed to choke out one last sentence before descending into complete hysteria, “I promise they'll die for this,” she held onto Kaz tightly, and hoped that a changeling rescue would arrive soon. When the time comes, she told herself, When the time comes, they will *suffer*.

* * *

Gaige clutched tightly onto the edges of the chariot, bracing himself against the slight turbulence. The chariot was a mere fifty some feet from the ground, but that didn't make any difference at all. He was still terrified. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He knew that he was anxious flier on a plane, but on a small, open top chariot? He had been brought to a whole new anxiety ridden level and he did not like it one bit. Why didn't I just choose to walk?

Gaige could feel the chariot touch down and jerk to a halt. He slowly pushed himself off of the edge of the chariot and stumbled out onto the ground. “Are you okay?” asked Luna, very concerned with the sudden downturn of Gaige's health. He was pale and looked disoriented. He stumbled a few feet further, then had to bend over and vomit on the ground. After heaving and wretching for a few moments, he slowly brought himself to his feet.

“Yeah...Yeah,  I'm fine. It's just that me and flying don't really mix if you can't already tell,” Gaige wiped his mouth gently with his sleeve. He brushed past Luna and continued into the town they had landed at. He glanced at the town sign, “Ponyville. Strange name for a town,” he shrugged and continued on, not bothering to wait for Luna. She galloped up beside him and trotted to keep pace with him. They went on in silence. Gaige was trying to take in as much information as he could. Positions of stores, districts, houses and other housekeeping matters he would need to figure out if he was going to live in this town. After a while of walking Luna broke the silence.

“So...what now?” she asked. Gaige stopped for a moment to ponder the question.

“I guess I settle down here and move on. That's what you and your sister wanted? Wasn't it?” he scratched his chin and then resumed walking, luna trotted after him, struggling to keep pace an retain her regal composure.

“How can you?”

“How can I what?”

“Move on,” she said, “After all you've been through. All that death, tragedy and darkness.”

“There's no point in looking back or staying where I am...what's there to see?” Luna cocked her head at him in confusion. She obviously didn't understand his point. He sighed and said, “Nevermind.”

“No tell me. I want to know what you mean.”

“Alright look...everyone is born to die you can't change that. But what about that part in between, the one where you live. I'm here for that. I'm not here to suffer,” Gaige explained, “I can choose to suffer, but I don't want to. I want to move forward, make a better life for myself and who knows, maybe there's hope for me yet,” he took a moment to pause and look over the serene landscape, tinted in the golden in the evening sun. Everything was so calm, so nice. There was order and stability. People, or rather ponies, could roam freely and live without fear. It was a world he hadn't known for so long.

“You know, every day of my life for the past long while have just been hell. Always running, always afraid, hungry and desperate...Maybe that isn't how it has to be anymore,” he sighed and continued walking into the town, “This might be a chance for me to start over with a clean slate. No bandits, no mutants no disease,” he stopped and turned around to face Luna, a warm smile plastered on his face, “Maybe I can finally stop surviving, and start living.”

Stranger Danger

“My friend here asked you a question!”, hissed the Gaige, “Where the hell am I? Start talking!”, the white alicorn remained silent, “Look lady...er...pony...I don't think you understand the gravity of you situation here.”, The alicorn glared straight into his eyes and hissed,

“You dare threaten the princess of the sun? You do not know of the power that you trifle with, foul creature!”

“Oh I do,” Gaige bluffed, “and thankfully I came prepared! Do you have any idea what this thing I have pressed to your head right now is?”, the alicorn remained silent and continued to glare at Gaige, “I didn't think so. This is what I like the call a .44 magnum. It will fire a 10.9 millimetre long chuck of metal into your skull at 391 metres per second. You'll be dead before you can scream,” the alicorns glare turned into a look of pure terror, “We're on the same page now? Good. Now answer my damn question,” Gaige growled, pressing the gun firmly on the white alicorns temple. He could only pray that the other alicorn did not regain consciousness during his interrogation of the other. One alicorn would be hard enough to handle if things went sour.

“You're in Canterlot, where else posses' this sort of exquisite architecture?,” stammered the alicorn.

“Canter-what now?”, Gaige asked raising a brow under his helmet.

“Canterlot, the capital city of Equestria. Oh of course should not expect a foul creature of the Everfree to know such things,” the alicorn condescendingly replied, lifting her snout pompously into the air. Gaige felt a sense of familiarity at the mention of 'Canterlot' and 'Equestria',

Where have I hear those names before?, Gaige dug through his memories in an attempt to remember where he had heard the strangely familiar names. After a moment of thinking to no avail, he shook his head and refocused on the task at hand. “Listen, you better stop with the whole 'holier than thou' shit alright 'princess'! I'm looking for answers, not to get told off by some pompous jerk bag!” Gaige raised his other hand and balled it into a fist in preparation to strike the alicorn.

“I would not do that if I were you,” the alicorn cooly stated. Gaige paused momentarily with his fist frozen in mid air.

“What's stopping me?”, Gaige retorted. The alicorn let out a soft chuckle, this unnerved Gaige. There was a moment of total silence in which Gaige attempted to decipher the reasoning behind the alicorn's sudden gain of confidence. She had a gun pressed to her head, what reason was there for her to be laughing? Gaige heard the sound of a set of heavy doors opening and then it hit Gaige. This is the capital city, I'm in the palace of a planet's ruler, shouldn't there be more..., he could hear the sound of  what must have been a platoon of ponies galloping into the room,Guards!

“Did you honestly think that your little outburst would not spark an armed response?”, the alicorn asked wryly with a smug grin plastered on her face. Gaige glanced over his shoulder to size up his opposition. There were about fifty of them, some armed with spears and some relying on magic. “If you plan to surrender yourself, I would suggest you make haste,”

Gaige was conflicted as to what he should do. If he kept the gun pressed against the princess' head one of the guards would surely kill or incapacitate him, but if he turned to face the guards, there was no telling what this powerful creature would do to him. After all it had transported him many miles in an instant, he did not want to test the extent of its' abilities. After a a moment of thought, he decided that surrender was his only feasible option, any other choices would surely lead to his demise. So he proceeded to holster his revolver and walk with his arms raised behind his head towards the platoon of guards.

“Smart choice,”, remarked a guard who approached him, “Now surrender your weapons!” The guard looked expectantly at Gaige holster. With a heavy sigh, Gaige began reluctantly pulling his revolver out of its' holster and placing it on the ground. His radio suddenly came to life with a series of crackles and pops. This surprised Gaige as nobody had attempted to transmit anything since his arrival on this alien world. The guard eyed Gaige suspiciously and motioned for him to relinquish the radio to him. Gaige obliged him and pulled the radio out of his duster's front pocket.

“Get down...Now,” commanded a gravelly voice coming from the radio. Gaige and the guard glanced at each other for an instant and then Gaige proceeded to throw himself onto the floor. He could hear the familiar “thwip” of a crossbow discharging its' bolt and he could hear the guard scream and fall to the floor.  Gaige heard his radio crackle to life once more as he quickly stood himself up. “Run towards me!”, commanded the man on the radio. Gaige looked around in confusion. At first he didn't see a soul in the room other than the guards, but a flash of movement caught his eye and he focused on the point where he had seen it. As he took a closer look he could barely make out a black clad, human sized silhouette in the nearest windowsill. “Do it! Now!”, it insisted with newfound urgency. Gaige could now make out that the silhouette had a bunch of explosives crudely strapped together and he was preparing to throw them.  Gaige took off as fast as he could towards the mysterious stranger.

Fuck me, Gaige could felt the crude package of explosives skim over his shoulder and land on the floor not too far behind him. He had a few seconds at most to get clear of the explosion, so he pushed himself to his limit. The stranger stood very cavalierly by the window, making no attempt to aid Gaige in escaping the blast zone. He obviously had more confidence in him than he should have. Gaige did not get very far before the makeshift bomb detonated and the successive shockwave bowled Gaige over and sent him crashing to the floor. His left shoulder felt like it was on fire and he could feel warm blood trickling down his back. He had probably been hit by shrapnel, but he had no time to dress his wounds, he had more pressing matters at hand.

The guard platoon had been sufficiently stunned for Gaige to make a swift, stealthy escape, with most of the guardsmen tending to the wounded or forming a protective barrier around the princesses. Gaige finally had a chance at freedom, he looked back at the open window where the silhouette once was, but it was no longer there. The only evidence they had left was a rappelling cable hooked on to the windowsill. That's my ticket out of here! Gaige stumbled to his feet and dashed for the open window. He swiftly vaulted over the windowsill and firmly grasped the rappelling cable in preparation for his descent. Rappelling would not be an easy job. Between an almost useless left arm and the lingering disorientation from the explosion, you could say that the odds weren't exactly in Gaige's favour.

As Gaige began slowly rappelling down the edge of the palace, he noticed it was not too terribly far from the ground. Just a short few metres between him and the cobblestone roads below. He carefully slid down the cable As he rappelled down, his left arm felt like it was on fire. He wouldn't be able to hold on for long. He pushed off the wall of the palace and began descending slightly faster.

“He's gone out the window! Alert the guards on patrol,” hollered a voice from inside the palace.

Dammit! As if this wasn't hard enough already!, Gaige pushed off the wall with his feet once again and resumed rappelling. As he was pushing away from the wall his left hand slipped off the cable, completely destabilizing him. He slipped off the cable completely and was sent careening towards the ground. He hit the cobblestone on his back with a sickly thud. He could feel the piece of shrapnel in his left shoulder being driven deeper into his flesh and he let out a moan of agony. After a moment of lying  completely still on the cobblestone he willed himself to get up. As he brought himself to his feet he noticed a door that lay on the cobblestone street in pieces and an empty doorway of a house where it used to reside. Not very discreet, are you stranger?

Gaige slowly made his way into the house that he believed the strange had torn through. It appeared to be empty, there was no furniture or anything of the sort, he assumed it must have been up for sale or abandoned. He could make out very clear footprints in the thick layer of dust that lay on the dirty floor. He traced them into a room that lay directly in front of him. He cautiously continued into the room, making sure to stay low and make as little noise as possible. There, at the edge of the room, by an open window overlooking the valley below, stood the mysterious stranger. Gaige slowly pulled out his hunting knife from his boot, in case this had all been an elaborate ruse to kill him.

“So...you finally came,” The stranger did not even bother to turn around to face Gaige whilst talking to him. He just continued to stand there in his  tattered black cloak, admiring the scenery.

“Who are you?”, Gaige demanded.

“He's here too Gaige.” The stranger did not seem to acknowledge Gaige's inquiry.

“What do you mean?”

“He's here Gaige...and he remembers. He's coming for you,” the stranger stated, his voice shifting to a more sinister tone.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Gaige began slowly approaching the stranger, knife at the ready.

“You're going to need all the help you can get,” the stranger paused momentarily as Gaige drew nearer, readying to strike if necessary. The stranger whipped around and grabbed Gaige firmly by the wrist, prompting him to drop his knife, “and you won't need that...yet.” the stranger then pushed Gaige a safe distance away from himself, “This isn't the wasteland Gaige, the rules have changed. You're going to need to earn these...things' trust,” he continued, motioning to the front door of the house.

“Why's that?”

“You're going to need them to stay alive. When he comes for you don't think he won't have an army behind him.” Gaige was about to inquire about this mysterious man the stranger referred to, but they were interrupted by a lone royal guard bursting into the room, clad in golden armour with intricate designs etched into it. The stranger reacted quickly, putting a crossbow bolt into the poor guard's flank. The guard crumpled to the ground screaming and bleeding profusely from his wound.

“What the fuck!”, Gaige exclaimed, “You tell me I have to gain these things' trust and then you go and shoot one? What the fuck is your problem?”

“You can still save him, you've had medical training,” the stranger cooly stated, reloading his crossbow.

“Yeah one year of medical school and a few first aid courses!” Gaige went over to inspect the wound of the incapacitated guard, “What's that going to do for me now? I'm no surgeon!” Gaige stopped dead and reflected on what the stranger had said to him, “Wait...how did you-,” Gaige cut himself off as he turned around, only to see that the stranger had vanished into the night. There was no evidence that he had ever been there, save a note that lay on the ground. Gaige picked up the note and examined it, it read:

“Ten days, have your radio on you.”

Well that isn't cryptic at all, Gaige sarcastically told himself, stuffing the note into his pocket. I'll figure out who this weirdo is later, right now I think I have more pressing matters at hand. Gaige could hear the sound of ponies drawing nearer to the house. It sounded like they were grouping outside the house he was in. They probably knew he was there, after all, he hadn't done a very good job at covering his tracks. Fuck, there's no way I can deal with this many! Maybe if I save this guard they won't kill me...or at least make my death quick. Gaige thought it over for a few more seconds before coming to a realization, I'm going to have to ditch my identity if I want their trust.He knew that it was very unlikely they would trust a “monster” who had been terrorizing their race for the past few weeks. He had to figure out a way to change his appearance, and fast.

Gaige sighed and reluctantly began removing his helmet. The ponies had never seen him without his hazardous environment helmet or his old scavenging outfit on before. He figured if he could get rid of that along with his current set of clothes, he might have a chance at fooling them. Only one thing that I can do now...not that I'm gonna like it.

Gaige fished through his bag for a change of clothes. He managed to pull out an old tattered green hoodie and some dirty, torn jeans. Good enough, he thought to himself as he changed into his new attire. As he stripped down, he noticed his wounds were more severe, and more numerous than once that. His left arm was covered in laceration and there was now a dull throbbing pain in his shoulder. It's ok...I'm ok, I have time, he reassured himself.

The wounded guard was now unconscious, Gaige wouldn't have to worry about him revealing Gaige's ruse later. Gaige approached the window of the house that overlooked the valley below. As he peered out of it he noticed that there was nothing but a sheer drop outside the house. The town must have been built into a mountain or something of the sort. Gaige took one last sorrowful look at his helmet and old black duster. “Well it's been fun,” he said as he reluctantly dumped his attire out of the window. He felt a pang of sadness as he saw it all get swallowed up in the darkness of the valley. After a moment's pause, he quickly whipped around and began setting out his medical supplies. He had more urgent matters at hand.

Gaige knelt over the unconscious guard and began addressing the severity of his wound. No arteries hit, hasn't lost much blood, Gaige grasped the bolt that stuck out of the guard's flank firmly with one hand, I should be able to yank it out. Gaige slowly began pulling the bolt out of the guard's flank, which elicited some horrendous moans of pain from the guard. After a short amount of time and some careful, precise movements, Gaige successfully removed the bolt. It exited the colt's flank with a stomach churning “squelch” and brought with it increased blood flow from the wound. Gaige instinctually applied immediate pressure to the wound in an attempt to slow the bleeding. He reached over to his supplies and gathered a needle and some surgical sutures. Time for  the real fun to start, Gaige thought sarcastically.

Gaige's hands worked gracefully like those of a veteran factory worker. He did not have to think much about what he was doing, his body's natural instinct guided his hands, suturing and closing the wound. The guard had lost a fair amount of blood at this point, his white fur on his flank was now stained a deep crimson. Gaige would have to work fast. He finished suturing the wound and pulled the sutures taught before clipping and knotting them at one end. Alright....maybe I can pull this off! Gaige briskly reached over for his bandages. As he lay them down next to the guard, he noticed that they had already been stained red. It only took him a few seconds to realize this was because his hands were now caked in the guard's blood. It didn't unnerve him much, this was all part of the regular routine. Though he figured it might not look too terribly good to introduce himself to the ponies with bloodstained hands. Oh well, he thought, I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. With that he resumed treatment of the guard's wound. He began wrapping the guards flank in a layer of soft white bandages. He applied many layers of bandages, but the guard's blood continued to seep through each subsequent layer. He's gonna run out of blood before I run out of bandages.

Gaige began to panic. The situation looked grim for the guard, he would probably go into shock and die. If he did, his blood would be on Gaige's hands (literally and figuratively). Gaige wanted to do everything he could to avoid this outcome. He had one option left. I have to use the epinephrine...it's the only thing that can keep him alive. Gaige brought out one of his few remaining needles of precious epinephrine. When applied to humans it stopped them from going into fatal shock and would give them an adrenaline boost for a short while. Gaige had absolutely no idea what it would do to a pony. Well time for some medical trials, he thought to himself as he popped the cap off the needle, Sorry bud, this is gonna hurt. Gaige drove the needle deep into the flank of the guard. Almost immediately afterwards the guard awoke momentarily to let out a rather loud cry of pain, prompting Gaige to jump away from him in surprise. As the guard settled down once again in a state of semi consciousness, Gaige could finally rest easy. I think that was the sound of progress.

“We know you are in there! Surrender yourself know and you will not be harmed!”, boomed a voice from out on the street.

Gaige had no time left. The guards would storm the house at any minute and the fact that there was a wounded guard on the ground and Gaige was covered in blood, would not do much to help with his situation. His only option would be to attempt to drag the guard outside, hopefully towards some better medical care and then surrender himself. With any luck the ponies would not recognize him without his normal attire and seeing that they had never seen him helmet-less, his ruse would be fairly easy to pull off. He would just have to be very cautious. Stealth and trickery were some of his talents back in the wastes, after all he had done his fair share of incognito infiltrations for supplies. Hiding behind disguises and an intricate web of lies was not an unfamiliar concept to him and he was confident that he could fool these fairly simple minded ponies.

Gaige hooked his arms under the forelegs of the guard and slowly began dragging him towards the door. Being careful to keep his wound from touching the ground. Every slight movement was a challenge unto itself. Everything seemed to weigh twice as much as it should have and Gaige was struggling to pull the guard's limp body along the floor. “You could stand to lose a few pounds bud,” Gaige grunted as he lugged the guard along the floor. He was nearly at the doorway at this point. Gaige did not want to stumble out of the building unannounced and possibly get himself killed. Instead he opted to take cover next to the doorframe with the body, making sure they were both out of sight.

Gaige closed his eyes and hoped that his plan would work out. He had no other option and not much to lose. It's time. Gaige took a deep breath and yelled as loud as he could. “I'm coming out alright! One of your men in here is wounded. I patched him up as best I could but he'll need a medic. I'm coming out with him now. Do not attack!” There was no response, only silence. “I'm not the monster your looking! He parachuted out the window!” Gaige figured that the ponies could not possibly know the extent of his abilities and gadgets. In fact, they seemed to lack any sort of knowledge about humans. What he had told them would probably seem believable. He let out a sigh and reluctantly began dragging the guard outside.

As Gaige exited the house and dragged the guard onto the cold cobblestone streets, he began to feel dizzy and faint. Strange, I only received small wounds from the shrapnel, I can't be going into shock...can I? Gaige continued out a little ways onto the street before clumsily losing his hold on the guard and stumbling backwards. His head was spinning and the world around him seemed to be pulsating and warping before him. He could barely make out what must have been a large squadron of guards rushing over to their comrade. They appeared to be forming a protective barrier between him and their fallen guardsman. Gaige couldn't tell if they had weapons, nor did he care.

He could feel his body going into shock. As Gaige slowly backed away from the squadron of guards he stumbled backwards and slumped down on a lamp post. That's funny...my arm doesn't hurt anymore. This was the point that Gaige realized he, not only didn't feel pain in his arm, but he didn't feel his arm at all. His wounds were much more life threatening than he'd perceived them to be. Gaige's hoodie was now soaking with blood and his there was a small river of crimson flowing out of his sleeve. He now noticed that he was bleeding from multiple points on his torso as well. The shrapnel and physical exertion must have opened up his old wounds and created some new ones as well. I was working off adrenaline, I should have known, Gaige scolded himself as he feebly rummaged around his medical supplies for an epinephrine injector.

Gaige pulled out his final epinephrine injector. Yes! Sweet salvation! Two of the guards had broken away from the rest of the squadron and were headed towards Gaige, battle ready and yelling something he could not understand. Gaige popped open the needle, which caused both guards to stop in there tracks. The guards obviously anticipated an attack from Gaige. One of them crouched down in preparation to launch himself at Gaige, but before he could, Gaige jabbed the needle into his thigh and yelped in pain. The guards were taken aback by this sudden act of self harm. Gaige's vision slowly began returning to normal as the haze he had been seeing the world through dissipated. The squadron of guards stood in front of him, looking very fearful, almost as if they expected the injection to perform some sort of horrible alchemical feat. Much to their relief nothing happened other than Gaige temporarily regaining his awareness and fending off shock for a short while longer.

Gaige stared down at his arm, it was still bleeding profusely. He would need immediate medical attention. Luckily for him, what looked to be medic ponies were already on the scene. They were all busy congregating around the wounded guard, hurriedly discussing what actions should be taken. “Hey,” Gaige croaked, “Can I have a little help over here?” The medics immediately turned to Gaige and looked at him in dismay, some of them even began backing away. He noticed the doctors were eying his bloodstained sweater. “Don't worry its' not as bad as it looks.” Gaige began coughing until he spat up blood, “It's nothing but a flesh wound. Don't worry. Alright,” and with that Gaige trailed off and began to fall unconscious. As he drifted away from reality he managed to hear one last snippet of a conversation in the cacophony of voices around him.

“No! It is of the utmost importance that we save this one! The princesses have...plans...for it.”