“Paladin Commander, I want to know how one of your ‘trusted assets’ went rogue and murdered two of my paladins on the way out.” Head Paladin Kohlrabi Slaw didn’t take his steely amber gaze off of Rumcake. He didn’t look it with his cream coat and his garishly pastel greenish mane, but the Head Paladin was well-known in the region for his unshakable resolve and it was working against us at the moment.

“I’d like to remind you that she killed my scribe,” Rumcake sourly added. “You’re not the only one with losses. And…” At this, his voice faltered. “…I thought I had her under control.”

“My losses matter, Paladin Commander. Unlike your contingent, two-thirds of my force up and deserted to join the enemy. I don’t have very many paladins left to fill gaps in my rosters.”

“I will make this right, I swear to Celestia.”

“And I don’t give a shit. Consider my hospitality revoked from this point forward. I expect the two of you to be out of our bunker by daybreak, or you will be shot on sight. If you survive, I will shoot you again myself.” The Head Paladin ended the conversation right there by turning his attention back to the terminal on his desk.

“Understood. I’ll gather my troops and—” Once again, Rumcake stopped short and I could tell he was slowly processing that I was the only one left from our original party. “We’ll be out of your mane by the end of today,” he weakly finished. Lowering his head in shame, he saluted and trudged out.

Following suit, I did the same. I still couldn’t believe that Tangerine was gone. It just… didn’t seem real. Why would Frosty ever hurt Tangie? Everypony liked Tangie. Even if she had deserved the throttling for the dog comments, that couldn’t possibly have been enough to push Frosty over the edge to…

…To kill her.

It didn’t seem real.

Besides, that didn’t make much sense anyway, since the contrary seemed to be true. Ever since Frosty had come back to us, it seemed like her marbles were almost all back in place. She hadn’t been muttering to herself as much and she’d even gotten a lot more normal.

Which was definitely not normal because this was coming from Frosty. “Hey, Rumcake?” I glanced over to him, speaking quietly. “Do you think Frosty was acting a little bit… suspicious? She really wasn’t acting like herself and that’s got me thinking.” The last thing that Tangie had told me weighed on me like a niggling injury.

“She killed Tangerine. That’s not like her at all.” Rumcake glumly stared at his hooves and choked back sobs. “I th-thought I’d gotten through to her finally. I thought I was helping.” Out of my regard and politeness for him, I took an interest in the wall until the sniffling stopped. “I’m going to bring Frosty back. If she won’t listen to my reasoning, then she will answer for her crimes.”

Alternatively, what if she’d gotten so crazy that there wasn’t anything left? “Um… what if the Frosty that killed Tangie isn’t, well, your Frosty anymore?” I was about to call Frosty a few cherries short of a pie, but decided against it.

“No. No, no, no,” Rumcake insisted. “I talked to her. Spent time with her. That was still my Frosty, and she knew full well what she did.”

There was a fragment of doubt that he was definitely delusional, but I felt like saying anything more would be out of line. That, and I wasn’t the one that spent every waking hour with Frosty for the last few days, so maybe she really had changed—for better or for worse. Definitely worse. “Um… if you’re sure.” And I still couldn't believe Tangie was gone. She was such a cute little mare with the littlest problems, and now she was gone. “I need to, er, take care of something.” Remembering that Rumcake and I weren’t welcome anymore, I added, “And get packed.”

“Be quick about it. I want to get on her trail as soon as possible or we’ll lose her.”

I was more worried what was going to happen once we caught up. I knew I wouldn’t have the guts to paste Frosty if the time came. “Yeah,” I simply responded.

Going back to the room that we—er, I’d been assigned, I began stowing away my kit and the few personal effects that I’d taken out of my armored bags. My hooves lingered on the battered lunch box that held all of my painstakingly-crafted miniatures. I gave into the urge and popped it open. Inside, among the sea of plastic, hair, and vinyl, I retrieved the mini of Tangerine and the mini of Frosty.

Even though some of these ponies weren’t with us anymore, I kept them on the basis of preserving their memories. Frosty, though… “What the shit am I going to do with you?” I asked the Frosty.

And then I looked at mini Tangerine. I’d given her a happy grin and a plain ol’ standing pose, but all it did was draw my gaze to her neck. It unnerved me to look at it, especially since I couldn’t get the sight of the gaping hole in Tangerine’s throat out of my mind. That was all it took for me to quickly tear off a corner of bedding from the cot and tie it around mini-Tangerine’s neck, giving it a little marking with a grease pencil so it looked like a bandage.

“Yeah, that’ll do.” I threw the two back into their carrying case and begrudgingly turned my attention into looting the belongings of the late Junior Scribe Tangerine.

As I crawled out of the imaginary fluffy cloud bed in my mind, I made a mental note to myself to punch out Violet when I woke up. This was all somehow her fault. That being an issue for the future, I moseyed on over into the living room of the cloudhouse only to come nose-to-nose with a very annoyed Ice Storm.

“We need to go deeper, and you’re coming with me,” he demanded.

There were all sorts of things wrong with that phrasing, so I assumed he was talking about digging a hole. “I don’t have a shovel.” Since this was my imagination after all, I took the initiative to think long, hard, and shovel. Presto change-o, there it was—one imaginary shovel the size of my hoof.

Obviously, that hadn’t been the answer that he had been looking for. “What are you going on about?”

I shrugged and trotted past him. “I need context.” Since Drunky was taking up the couch, I tugged her one protruding wing and rolled her off so I could lie down on it instead. She made a little noise of queasy protest on the way down, but that really didn’t matter.

Ice groaned and mashed his fedora into his face. “Earlier, you recalled something you definitely should not have. We need to find out more. Much, much more.”

The memory still bothered me. Seeing myself being so easily ordered around and mindlessly complying was frightening, but it did answer a few questions. Unfortunately, that only prompted even more questions—ones that I wasn’t sure I wanted answers to anymore. “It scares me. I don’t want to,” I halfheartedly grumbled.

Even with my lackluster response, Ice didn’t seem to be deterred. “For your own good, we should get to the bottom of this. If we figure out who messed with your brain, then maybe you can get some peace of mind.”

“I dunno…”

With an exasperated groan, he added, “And get the buck up already. I’ve leached enough mana as-is off of our dearly beloved Midnight, so you should have just enough strength to get around. I’m still trying to get all my barriers and shortcuts working again thanks to that little stunt of yours.”

By the logic of sight lines, I rolled myself over and buried my face into the squashed cushions of the couch to make myself invisible to Ice. “I don’t wanna.”

“Too bad.” And then something collided with the back of my head.

And just like that, I was awake. It was good to know I wasn’t dead, but I was more confused why my body felt like it had gone through a whirlwind. I was face-down in something slightly smelly but soft. As feeling returned to my extremities, it seemed like my companions had been nice enough to cover me as well. I could hear some kind of noise in the background, so that meant I wasn’t alone. It was that or I was crazy, which couldn’t have possibly been an option.

“Mlephtph.” The announcement of my waking was not met with fanfare or remarks of relief, so that meant I needed to physically announce my glorious resurrection to the world myself. Getting my hooves under me was becoming a much harder task than I’d expected, so I instead just cracked my eyes open. “Okay, legs. I don’t like you and you guys don’t like me, but work with me here,” I groaned to myself.

Pushing my butt off the ground wasn’t hard, nor was tossing the blanket off with my wings. When it came to getting my front steady, I just couldn’t get my balance. After three tries, I finally decided to take a look at what was wrong.

There were suspicions forming in my mind, so I couldn’t have said I was surprised. “Did lefty go on strike?” I asked my stump. My roboleg was nowhere to be seen, which mildly worried me. Peering at my underside, I also had to wonder why the fur on my belly was mussed and tangled. “And why are my ears wet?” I thought out loud, touching my damp and cold ears.

It also worried me that I didn’t recognize anything around me. Why did this always happen to me? I crawled out of the box—yes, a little cardboard box with my name poorly written on it—that I had been crammed in before and stretched. Joints popped, muscles creaked, but I felt fine, to an extension of the word. Looking around, it seemed like we were holed up in yet another bombed-out house, which meant we’d left magic university or whatever behind.

This must have been a living room or common area at one point, judging by the perforated couches up against one wall and collapsed coffee table in front of it. The only window in the room had been boarded up at some point. Maybe it was for the best, since I was about to stumble my way to the far end of the room and to the rest of the house when Riverbed strolled in.

There was an awkward air of silence in the room. Riverbed’s face seemed to be stuck between a dumb, almost satisfied-looking grin and surprise. It was probably either because she was carrying my missing leg on her back, or the fact that she was halfway through a snack cake. It was only after several seconds I realized I was drooling. And that I was hungry.

And it was cherry.

“Luna forbid that if you do not take that out of your face hole and put it in my face hole right now, I will take my leg off you and shove it where it doesn’t belong,” I threatened.

“But… it has my drool on it,” Riverbed weakly protested.

I narrowed my eyes at her and pointed at my mouth. “I don’t care. Snack cake. Face hole. Now.” The only reason I hadn’t already tackled her to the ground and eaten the damn cake right out of her mouth was because I could barely keep my balance as it was.

Begrudgingly, she plodded to me with the half-cake in her mouth and dropped it into her hoof. “You have a problem. You know that, right, guy?” That wasn’t going to stop me from eating that snack cake right out of her hoof.

“Yeah, my problem is that I’m hungry,” I returned, crumbs still dribbling from my mouth. “Now give me the rest of them.”

Riverbed gestured to herself, then at my unattached leg on her back. “Does it look like I came in here with anything else, guy?” She turned around and shouted over her shoulder, “Hey, Violet! She’s not a turnip!”

“I don’t believe you. I think you’re just trying to justify inappropriately touching your friend,” came the reply.

I collapsed onto my rump and gaped at Riverbed. My hoof went to my damp ears, then to my stomach. Then a little farther down, just in case. Thankfully nothing was out of place there. “You letch.”

“I’m sorry, guy! I couldn’t help it! You just look so adorable when you’re sleeping. So like, what if I rubbed your little tummy, nibbled your earsies, and batted your little hoovsies while you were out cold? Guy, I saw the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and I took it,” Riverbed matter-of-factly insisted. “What are you gonna do about it? Guy.”

“Well first, I’ll be having my leg back.” Without waiting for Riverbed to even try to give it to me, I snatched it off of her. “And now I’m going to slap you because you deserve it,” I growled. Riverbed shied away and leaned away from me, which is why I kicked in both of her shins instead. Well, I tried to anyway. Having one foreleg to stand on was making it difficult.

“Ow! Guy! That’s mean, guy! And that’s not slapping!”

Saying I was only a little disturbed about this whole affair was definitely an understatement. “Riverbed, I paid you to follow me, not to molest me.” While she was cringing in pain, I did my best to hobble away to a safe, un-molestable distance. .

“I had a moment of weakness, guy.” Riverbed caught the look I was giving her and admitted, “Okay, like, a lot of moments of weakness. Will a bowl of pegakibble make you feel any better?”

I paused in the middle of trying to put my leg back on with my remaining foreleg to be confused. “What?”

“Or are you a wet food sort of pegapet?”

“What? Okay, that’s it. Riverbed, what the butts is pegakibble?”

“Isn’t… isn’t that what you guys get fed? Like, standard issue birdhorse rations? What else would they put in your feedbags, guy?”

I looked at her like she was crazy. Guess that made two of us. “We get fed a manufactured type of… edible construct that includes the nutrition that the body needs. Three times a day, if we’re lucky.” Sure it was like eating a bowl of rocks sometimes, but every now and then they were flakes instead of little cubes. “Officers get normal pony food. Who told you that, anyway?”

“The griffins!”

“And you believed them.” I arched an eyebrow at her.

“Yeah, guy. Duh.”

“Just… what?”

Without taking her eyes off of me, Riverbed tilted her head slightly and shouted over her shoulder, “…Violet? She’s doing the thinking thing again.”

“With all of that rubbing you did, I’m more surprised she didn’t catch fire first.” I should have been a bit more annoyed at how bored Violet sounded, but me being the victim for once was both surreal and distracting.

Note to self: murder Riverbed. I wasn’t going to let this one go for a while. “Live every day like it’s your last, because I’m going to kill you. I’m just not very good with scheduling.” I threateningly glared at her and then motioned to my roboleg. “Now help me get my leg back on.”

Thankfully I was spared from any more dry commentary. She decided to shut up and hold my claw leg steady so I could properly connect my stump to it. After two or three clumsy attempts at reconnecting it, due to my lack of stump-eye coordination, I finally got attached. This time, the sensation of nerves interfacing with the things in my stump hurt a lot more than it usually did.

I barely held back a scream of pain by biting down on my lower lip. “Agh… Okay, that’s a lot better.” Forcing a grin onto my face, I tested my claw and found it to be in serviceable order. It tasted like I was bleeding a bit but that was fine by me—I was getting thirsty anyhow. “I’m going to take a five-minute nap, get some answers, and eventually the rest of those snack cakes,” I resolutely stated, then returned to the comfort of my box.

Back into dreamland I went. This time, however, Ice didn’t even bother letting me properly tumble out of bed before dragging me out the door. “Hey! What gives?” I demanded at him as I was pulled across the floor on my back. My next outburst was cut short when I collided with Drunky. Ice didn’t care—he tugged a little harder to dislodge me and kept pulling me along like a handicapped duck-on-a-string all the way out of the cloudhouse.

Once outside, I felt the magical tug around my shoulders vanish. That was my cue to roll onto my hooves and demand, “What’s the rush?

“I can’t find Officer. That puts us on a time cr—”

“Skip.”

“But I’m not—”

“Skip.”

“Your last memory could be the gateway to so—”

“Skip, skip, skip.”

“Don’t you want to find out what happened to you? What the Enclave did to you? Don’t you care about all the secrets buried in your memories?”

Why was he so fixated on digging this up now? “No, no I don’t.” In that moment, my rage and confusion boiled over. “I was perfectly okay not knowing that I was being used as a puppet, thank you very much. All of this shady shit just keeps happening and I just want to live out my tortured little existence for however long I have left because I don’t know what’s going on anymore, okay?!” With that off of my chest, I actually felt a teensy bit better. Huh.

My sudden outburst stunned Ice into silence. After a decent pause, he somewhat lamely replied, “Well, too bad. I need your help.”

So the boot was on the other hoof now, was it? “No.” I crossed my forelegs and put my back facing him. To sell the look, I turned up my nose with a huff as well.

“Would you do it for a snack cake?”

I paused in mid-angst and frowned. “You did not just try to bribe me with a snack cake. An imaginary snack cake, at that.”

The shifty eyes on Ice couldn’t have been more obvious if I wasn’t looking at him. “Well, I wouldn’t necessarily call it a bribe. More of an incentive, really.” That wasn’t enough to make me budge, so scoffed in his general direction and kept angsting to myself. “Okay, okay. Real talk. When the end comes and time runs out on you—and it will—I give you my word that I will do everything in my power to make sure you and your legacy will live on, with or without me. All I want from you is just a little glimpse into your past. That’s it.”

Seriously? That’s what he was going with? “And why should I care? I’ll be dead. Toast. Literally toast.”

Ice’s mouth opened, closed, then he seemed to die a little on the inside. With an exasperated sigh, he facehoofed and firmly stated, “Listen, Frosty. I have plans for us. You will either become an insignificant speck lost in the sands of time, or you will be worshipped as though you were a god. That may sound overly-dramatic, but it is the truth. I will make this happen, so long as you help me out here.”

Well, that sure upped the stakes. “What are these plans of yours, anyway?”

“...Don’t worry about it.”

“You piece of shit.” Even still, those were words to consider. The foreboding doom of my imminent demise couldn’t be ignored forever. At some point I’d have to face the light and deal with it, and Ice was giving me another way out. There wasn’t really any way to know whether he was even telling the truth, but…

It was an option. I didn’t really have much to lose, and even if he decided to double-cross me I couldn't possibly be more inconvenienced than dead anyway. With a decision this important, I felt that a dramatic slow turn was in order. “Your word?”

Ice solemnly nodded. “My undying word.”

Fat lot of good that would be, but anything was better than nothing. “Fine. Whatever. If you can save me or whatever nonsense you’re spouting, then I guess I don’t really care anymore.” Defeated, I de-angstified and instead fixated Ice with the most disapproving frown in my arsenal. “If you turn me into a zombie I will haunt you forever.”

“You can only have one or the other, but points for trying.” Matters settled, Ice patted my head. “C’mon, rocks-for-brains, let’s go on an adventure.”

A swirly, gaping pit oozing with bluish-green smoke appeared between us. Even though I had no idea what it was, primitive instinct told me to stay away from it and find a responsible adult. Unfortunately for me, I was the only responsible adult. Ice didn’t count since he wasn’t really my definition of responsible.

Heck, I wasn’t even the definition of responsible. Being me, I asked, “What do you want me to do with this?” Using my claw, I reached out and cautiously prodded it. It did exactly what smoke-spewing holes did—nothing. Good, just like how I liked my smoke-spewing holes.

Ice scooted over to its edge and began to swirl around the smoke. “Dream-link. It’s a little hasty and messy, but since you drained us of my stored magic this is all I managed to get thrown together for now. I’ve pre-surveyed the area but I need you to activate the dream sequence.” Without another word, he tucked his fedora into his coat and leapt right in.

“Oh, and leave me hanging?” I rolled my eyes again. “Not like I needed any more context or anything.” So I took a deep breath, squeezed my eyes shut, and jumped into the hole.

It wasn’t as bad as I thought—my hooves hit solid ground a second later. I opened my eyes and was completely nonplussed by the sight I was met with. We’d dropped into a dark, drab, dusty office packed to the ceiling with boxes and paper. Everywhere I looked—paper. Folders. Box. Half of a donut. Dust, too.

“There’s one in here somewhere. Just gotta find it.” A few of the boxes floated around, suspended by Ice’s magic. “Take a look.”

I shrugged and did just that, since I had nothing better to do while I was stuck here anyway. It didn’t take long—out of the piles of seemingly useless paper and stationery, I single pale yellow folder caught my eye. It had an official-looking picture of me paperclipped to the top, so that was probably it. I pushed everything else aside and flipped it open.

“Well, let’s see here. Miss Winds… exemplary marks in ballistics and energy weapons, scouting training, passing marks in tactics, completed basic, average psych evaluation…” The stallion violently huffed at the file in his hooves, then glanced at me. “And two substandard recommendations from enlisted officers.”

The folder snapped shut and I jumped in my seat. I could barely hold my hooves in place because of the uncontrollable nervous shaking running through my body. It really didn’t help that I hadn’t stopped sweating since the interview started either.

“All of this right here screams sub-par.” The stallion threw my painstakingly compiled folder into the wastebasket next to his desk, which only made me wince. “Of course, these are also simply words on a page. Tell me why you deserve a spot in our operations roster.”

“I-I mean, I w-wrote everything down already. Um, I’m a hard worker, I’m good at doing what I’m told, uh, I mean I don’t really know what else to say.” Out of desperation, I began grasping at anything I could come up with. “I’m your markspony if you need one, I’ll be a spotter if you need one, you know, I’ll—”

“Hmm.” The gray stallion teased his short goatee thoughtfully. “I can put you on our reserves roster—” He caught my hopeful grin and added, “But it’s all temporary until I pass along the details of our interview to my supervisor.”

“Really?” I sat up straighter.

Glancing at me once again, the stallion sighed. “I wouldn’t count on it. Our roster is pretty full at the moment, all things considered.” He paused to regard me and my dejected slouch for a moment. “Say, how badly do you want a position with us?”

“Badly.”

“How bad?”

“I will literally kill somepony for it.” Realizing who I was talking to, I hastily backtracked. “I-I mean, n-not, er, not literally literally. I will metaphorically kill somepony for it. Yes, that’s my final answer.”

His hoof trailed across his desk and tapped a button on the phone perched there. “Sorry to interrupt, sir. Are openings available in, uh, the list? I know you picked six operators for it already, but…” He paused to glare at me and motioned with his eyes at my file in the trash. “I mean, she’s nondescript enough. Not great, mind you, but at least we won’t be raising any flags for poaching this time.”

The darting look he was giving me and the frantic gesturing at the wastebasket probably meant he wanted my folder. I darted to the trash and snapped the whole folder up in my hooves, basically throwing it at my interviewer in my nervous fright.

A deep, slightly nasally stallion’s voice coughed out of the machine. “Elaborate.”

“Let me see…” It seemed like my interviewer knew exactly what he was looking for, and he began to read things off of it. “No actual combat experience, excellent marks in ranged and midrange combat. Clean psych evaluation, and…” He flipped through a few more pages to what looked like my application sheet. “Her platoon leader from basic says some very, uh, encouraging things about her.”

“What about her record?”

Flipping back a page, the stallion before me answered, “As clean as it gets, really. Missed a few inspections here and there, but nothing worth a formal investigation. Easy on the eyes, too.”

“Am I on speaker?”

My interviewer nervously coughed. “Uh… yes, sir.”

There was a extended frustrated sigh from the box. “Again?”

“Yessir.”

From the other side of the phone, the mystery stallion heavily sighed. “Missy? You listenin’?”

“Yes s-sir,” I barely squeaked out.

“Out of the goodness of my heart, I’ll give you a chance. Seeker, send her in. I’m starin’ at a mighty interesting communique, and this just might be her lucky day.”

“Of course, sir.” My interviewer got out of his chair and motioned me at the door.

I took the cue and stood at attention, saluted, then awkwardly and very shakily made it to the door. The idea of having a chance, a shot at being part of something better made me absolutely giddy. Then the realization struck me. I was going to see this guy’s boss, and I needed to be presentable! Again! The best I could do while I was ushered out of one office and to the door to the next was wipe the cold sweat from my face and re-tie my mane with the rubber band I was using.

It was polite of Seeker to at least let me finish freaking out before ushering me inside. The nicely polished wooden door swung open for me and I immediately scanned the room for anything that I could use to my advantage. Medals, potential likes or dislikes, anything that could help. Unfortunately for me, the entirety of this guy’s office was dark. There were a few indistinguishable pictures mounted on walls, which didn’t tell me anything. Beside the doorway, there was a novelty potted tornado quietly whooshing away on its cloud and a lonely gray umbrella.

At the back of the room, cloaked in darkness, was the vague outline of a desk. The only reason I knew there was a pony seated at it was because there was a pair of hooves casting a shadow from the solitary lamp on the table. One day, I wanted to be cool enough to sit in the dark and address everypony that wanted to talk to me.

“So, you think you have what it takes.”

“I know I have what it takes.” Unsure exactly who I was supposed to be talking to, I added, “Uh, sir.”

A chuckle. “Really now? Do you have the guts? The will? Can you look a pony in the eye as you pull the trigger?”

I gulped. “Only if you say so, sir.” Was that the right response?

Once again, the stallion in the dark chuckled. “I like her. Nice catch, Seeker. I’m sure we can free up some space at the bottom of the list. One more subject wouldn’t strain the project any further than it already is.”

With news sounding like that, I allowed myself a relieved breath.

“Miss? What’s your name?”

Immediately, I snapped to attention and saluted. “Recruit Frostivus Winds, sir!” A little quietly, I added, “But I go by Frosty.”

Hooves clopped on hardwood. “Well, Miss Winds. It seems like the, heh, winds of fate are with you today. I’m sure you’re aware of the power struggles underneath the surface of Enclave politics? Disgusting shit.”

“Um. Not really, sir, no.”

“One of our operatives intercepted a hustled order earlier this evening. Since burying it isn’t possible at this time, our only solution is to alter the terms of engagement to our favor.” Mister In-the-Dark explained. “An assassination attempt is scheduled to take place tomorrow evening. The target is one Ardent Vortex.”

Seeker, still standing just behind me, loudly coughed into the back of my head. “Isn’t he with—” There was a foreboding pause. “—him?”

“He has been informed. We’re intervening on his request, and this is a request that I cannot possibly refuse.”

The pronoun game always bothered me. I impatiently scrunched my muzzle and silently hoped that something would make sense soon. Of course, It didn’t help that the pronoun here seemed to be extremely important. And classified.

Darky’s hooves on the table might have crossed because the shadows on the desk moved. “Miss Winds, this is your chance to prove yourself to us. This will almost certainly become a trial by fire, and you will be expected to carry out orders from me or my subordinates unquestioningly. Can we—no, can I count on you to do this?”

“Y-yes, sir!”

“Good. I’ll send for Twelve Gauge to get you up to speed. You’ll be taking orders from him, Airpony Winds.”

With a little more determination in my voice, I answered, “Yes sir!”

“Consider yourself part of Deuces Wild. This is a strictly on-call position, so you will still be expected to enlist somewhere else until further notice. I’m adding you to our experimental squad, which may mean some different protocol in the near future. We’ll take care of the paperwork.”

Seeker weakly chuckled. “And by we, he means me.”

“Thank you, sir! You won’t regret it.”

“I’d better not. Dismissed.” I crisply saluted again, perfectly pivoted on my hooves, and marched to the door. “Oh, and Seeker? Get maintenance in here. I’m sick and tired of this goddamn light burning out. I haven’t been able to see my desk in days.”

The second the door clicked closed, I collapsed against the wall and allowed myself to hyperventilate. I’d done it. That had been the tensest moment of my life thus far, but I’d finally done it. I was about to drag myself out for a congratulatory drink when I inadvertently heard the two stallions in the room begin conversing again.

“Are you sure about this? I mean, she’s really green. Really, really, really green,” Seeker flatly stated. “I could put her in a salad and she’d blend right in.”

“When have I not been sure? If she’s as good as she thinks she is, there won’t be anything to worry about.” More paper shuffled. “Speaking of blending in, her cutie mark is a snow cloud. Her special talent is moving clouds. She's literally as average and nondescript as a pony can get, which is exactly what the project needs. Not like General Silverbolt’s kid—have you seen the wings on him? More red than a landing beacon, too.”

There was an annoyed sigh from Seeker. “I’ll go get Hallow on task just in case. Goddesses know how much flak we’ll get if we botch this.”

“If you want.”

“You really trust her?”

“Trust her? What do you think I’m playing at here? What I see is a desperate little filly seeking validation and ready to do whatever we tell her. She already conditioned to follow orders. Have you seen her psych evaluation? Under the ‘aptitudes and additional comments’ section—duty. It doesn’t matter if she’s experienced or not, we just need somepony that doesn’t insist on being a maverick wild card hero-type.”

Paper rustled, then Seeker chuckled. “It is mildly amusing that there’s a lot of lines left for additional comments. All it says there is ‘did well’. Did well on what?” There was a slight pause, but then he continued, “What if the experimental group is too much for her? She has no combat experience, and even if psych cleared—”

“Once we get into that little brain of hers, she’ll bend just fine when we put her through conditioning. Besides, if her evaluation is good enough for them it’s good enough for us.”

“I’ll go send a notice to have Miss Winds’ records sent to our squints. They’ll figure it out if she gets to that stage. First things first, though. It’s still not too late to send for one of our other operatives.”

“Send Winds. Besides, she’s a burnable asset as-is. Adding her to the roster gives us a control for testing. We throw her results at the lab colts and move on to phase two when advanced training is complete. She’s also a polite little mare that wouldn’t dare eavesdrop, would she?”

That was my cue to exit stage right hastily and silently.

Right as I thought I was onto discovering what I had been up to, a violent tug on my mane shocked me out of the memory. I was a little disorientated by the sudden change of scenery, so I wasn’t exactly sure what was happening until somepony conveniently explained everything for me.

“You’re not cleared to know that!” Officer bellowed into my right ear.

The hold vanished a moment later when I heard Officer let out a very unladylike grunt and collapse to the floor. Clutching the back of my head, I staggered backward onto my butt to the sight of Ice wrestling with evil me. At the moment, he was doing a pretty good job keeping Officer’s hindlegs pinned to her face, which almost looked like he was trying to fold her in half. Trying was a pretty good word, since Officer didn’t appear to understand what playing fair was. She was busy throwing awkward punch after awkward punch into Ice’s crotch.

And it showed. “I might not ha-gah! Have a physical form, but—ow! Seriously, what is your problem, bitch?” Ice painfully groaned between hits. “Concede, damn y-ow!” He struggled to move into a different stance while still maintaining his hold, but it seemed nearly impossible with her tail also slapping him in the face.

Officer kept thrashing in place, still swinging with her one free hoof. “Get your face out of my snatch!”

“You keep putting it there!” Ice weakly groaned through his teeth. “Grab the file! Get back into the thing, quick!”

“Don’t you dare!”

It took a second to realize that he was talking to me. “Oh. Right.” I quickly located the folder and dove onto it.

When I regained control, I was coming up to a nondescript cloud park. Several ponies were milling about, but I couldn’t make out head or tail of them. This time, I had casualwear on—a nice loose little dusty charcoal jacket, a dark gray visor cap, and a messenger bag draped over my back. The bag didn’t feel that heavy, but the sloshing noises coming from it probably meant there was at least one water bottle in it.

A standard-issue dark bluish pegasus was waiting for me as I approached. He had the same standard no-nonsense look about him as every experienced field officer did, the same default crewcut (in the brass flavor, for a change) that each one came with, and the identical slightly dead look in his eyes. “Hey, kid. I’m Twelve Gauge. Walk and talk.” He looked me over and observed, “Good, you read your mail. Are you ready for today?”

Satisfaction from his praise sent warm fuzzies to my cheeks. “As good as it gets, sir,” I proudly replied.

Twelve lightly chuckled. “Don’t bother ‘sir’-ing me. At the end of the day, I’m just a personal assistant.” He passed me a little wireless earpiece and a radio, which I quickly shoved into my ear and into one of my pockets, respectively. A moment later, I heard his voice echo, “Okay, we’re headed to the briefing and I’ve patched in Winds.”

“Copy that. We’re moving into position. Ten minutes to the roost.” That wasn’t a voice I recognized, but I assumed that this stallion was on our side.

“Going dark. Once I’ve got her in, I’ll be back to coordinate.” Beside me, Twelve Gauge switched off his radio and motioned for me to do the same. “Okay, Winds. Here’s the insertion plan—we’re going in as Enclave Intelligence. I’m your handler and you’re my field operative. Play by the book, and keep your comms open as often as possible. If things get hot, do not bug out. Proceed by the book until either I or one of our field operatives reclaim you. Got it?”

I had the tingling feeling in my ears that I was in above my head. Even so, I nervously answered, “Understood. But uh, sir, what if they ask for clearance? I don’t think I can—”

Twelve silenced me with a wave of his hoof. “Don’t worry about it. Boss pony has that covered for us, so they shouldn’t need to ask. Lacking that, just give your name and rank. Red Tape is good at his job, so your files should be inaccessible if they try. You’ll fit right into Intel at first glance.”

Nerves were getting to me. I felt my heart kick into third gear as I hesitantly answered, “I-I don’t know if I can do this, sir. Maybe I was wrong, maybe I shou—”

Once again, Twelve shut me up. “Now isn’t the time for doubt, Winds.” Ah, but doubt definitely had enough time for me.

We entered an official-looking building and were immediately waved past security by one of the guards—presumably working with us. My ears were twitching, and I only managed to wrangle them under control my pressing them against my head. “Are you, er, we even sanctioned? I mean, if we’re going to stop an assassination then why don’t we get the MPs? Maybe con—”

We were halfway up a flight of stairs when he stopped short and grabbed my face with his hooves. “Do you want the truth, or do you want to hear what you need to?”

Were both options the same, even if I picked one? For all I knew, the paper pushers in HomeSec had filed my papers in the wrong stack and this special operations group was up to no good. That reality was starting to seem more likely with every step. “Uh.” On the flipside, this group was actually going to give me a chance, so… “Tell me what I need to hear.”

“The pony we are protecting is the first of many steps for change in the Enclave. There is a will, there is a way, and there most certainly is a future for us. Happy? You want an inspirational speech, too?”

There wasn’t much I wanted to say against that. “Yes sir. And uh, yeah, that would make me feel better.”

Twelve Gauge looked up at the ceiling and groaned. “Uhhh… how about… Do not pray for an easier life, my friends. Pray to be a stronger pony.”

That did actually make me feel better. Nerves shaken, we quickly scaled the rest of the stairs and proceeded to our destination. Eventually, we stopped in front of a nondescript door to one of the many briefing rooms on this floor. Twelve Gauge placed his hoof and the door and paused. “One last thing,” he added, turning to glare at me.

“Sir?”

“Don’t call me sir. You’re making me feel old.”

I nodded, nerves soothed and confidence restored. “Of course, ma’am.”

Twelve let his head thump against the door. “…Okay, fine. You can call me sir.”

Just as it was getting good—again—the memory abruptly ended via Officer’s tampering once again. I found myself sprawled across the floor on my back, and the folder holding the memory leapt out of my hooves before I had a chance to react. “I’ve had it with your little friend’s interference. You’re done.” Looking a lot worse for wear, Officer held out her hoof and let the file fall into it.

I tried to roll to my hooves and snatch my memory back. “Tried” being the key word, since it vanished into a puff of nothingness before I managed to even cross half the distance. “That’s mine. Give it back!” I stuck out my tongue at her, out of lack of anything more witty coming to mind.

“You’re acting like a foal. Now get out!” Officer snapped.

It was pretty impressive how hard she could hit with those hooves from a standstill.

My first instinct upon waking up was to uselessly clutch at my face. “That uptight bitch hits like a truck. What the buck is up with that?” I groaned to myself. Since I was awake anyway, I rolled out of my box and propped myself onto my legs. Time to find some food and food accessories. For some odd reason, my claw wasn’t being nearly as responsive as it normally was and I gave it a solid shake. “C’mon, leg. Transform and roll out.” At my insistence, it clunked into working order.

Into the next room I went, and what used to be a dining room and kitchen combination had been repurposed into what appeared to be Violet’s temporary evil magic laboratory. The mare herself was in the middle of absent mindedly copying walls of text into an empty page slotted into her book when I politely sneezed at her. “Good afternoon, Frosty,” Violet remarked. Even as I approached, she didn’t bother taking her eyes off the manuscript she was copying.

In an effort to strike up conversation, I told Violet, “I retract my previous thought. I, in fact, do care about being a turnip.” I was actually more interested in where the rest of the snack cakes had gone, but I felt like grand theft lunch warranted at least five minutes of socialization.

“You know, Riverbed has really been a bit clingy recently. Don’t quote me here, but I think she’s in lesbians with you.”

…Was that a slip-up coming out of Violet? A dumb little grin began to form on my face. “I’m going to let that sink in.” I smugly sat there and waited for the golden moment to happen.

Slowly but surely, a crimson tint washed over Violet’s face. “I was thinking one thing and saying another and they just both—” she hastily blurted. After taking a moment to compose herself, she stated with an undertone of steel: “You are not allowed to quote me on that. This conversation never happened.”

See, now I was curious. “What were you getting at, though?”

The scratching of Violet’s quill stopped. “Let’s try to have an analytical discussion. Sexual preference. Riverbed. Go.” She expectantly stared at me and waited for a response.

I immediately voiced the first thing that came to my mind. “Octopus.”

It was always interesting to see somepony’s expectations turn into a smouldering crater of disappointment. “I didn’t expect anything less from you, Frosty,” Violet groaned.“Is there a serious answer? Because I’m going to assume bisexual. Pansexual, even. Either Riverbed has developed an attraction for you, or she has an uncontrollable lust for pans.”

“I mean, she did sort of offer her ‘services’ to griffins for a while. Who says Riverbed isn’t her own mare and don’t need no stallion-slash-mare-slash-octopus? Also she’s a creepy molester but that’s besides the point.”

“But it is the point. She stayed beside you for five hours just yesterday and all she did was gently rub your stomach and cuddle. It was kind of cute, actually. That is surely a sign of affection, isn’t it? The only reason she stopped was because something tripped a mine outside.”

The look on Violet’s face probably meant she wasn’t joking about it. “Can we agree that her sexual preference is ‘yes’?”

After giving it a bit more thought, Violet decided, “Fine.” With her concession still lingering in the air, she picked the quill back up in her magic and continued transcribing without another worry.

Victory! I’d beaten Violet at something, and that only raised my spirits. Using the newfound pep in my step, I trotted to the small pile of everypony’s saddlebags on the collapsed round wooden table and rooted around in them for anything edible. I was about to dig into the first box of snack cakes I found in Riverbed’s stuff (ew, banana custard) when a thought occurred to me.

“Vi-vi?”

That prompted an annoyed sigh from the mare. “You’re not going to stop trying to call me that, are you?”

Oh yeah, I forgot she didn’t like it. “…No?” I hesitantly replied. With information like that I could bug her all I wanted to. Saved to clipboard and backed up for future use.

The back of a wing flicked across my right ear. “Or she’ll turn you into a turnip if you do,” Gale urgently reminded me. “Cut it out.”

I rolled my eyes and confidently droned back, “She’s not going to turn me into a turnip. Chill.”

There was another, much more annoyed exasperated groan from Violet. “Frosty, do you have a question for me and not for yourself?”

Right, I was getting distracted. “Yeah—by ‘just yesterday’, what did you mean?”

“I meant ‘just yesterday’, Frosty. As in, the generally accepted definition of the last solar cycle or the previous twenty-four hours,” Violet matter-of-factly stated, nose-deep in her book again.

“That’s not—” I weakly protested, barely resisting the need to faceclaw. “You know what I mean, Violet. How long have I been out?”

At that, Violet actually put down her book and devoted her full attention to me. “Frosty, I know this might come as a shock, so you might want to find your favorite fainting couch.”

“Nothing can shock me anymore. I’m a sad little handicapped husk of a pony.” I matter of factly nodded to reinforce my statement.

After taking a deep breath, Violet slowly stated, “You’ve been out for four days, Frosty. You’re lucky Riverbed volunteered to take care of you.” And then she waited for my reaction.

The thought sort of rolled around in my head. Four days? Numbers… math… carry the nine… That was what, eighty hours give or take? That put a huge dent in my schedule. Maybe it was a good thing, since I hadn’t really had the opportunity for a nice long rest anyhow.

Still, though… I touched my ears and grimaced. “I dunno about that. I would have preferred the tender, loving, if not reluctant ministrations of Nurse Violet. Serial Molester Riverbed has poor bedside manner.”

Being the emotional iceberg she was, Violet didn’t even bother with coming up with a response. Instead, she went back to copying, writing, or whatever colors did with books. I took the opportunity to raid the rest of Riverbed’s storage of snack cakes as retribution for several days of bodily distress I’d been unknowingly put through. For nutrition’s sake, I also chugged down her last two cans of carrot juice and a can of mashed “potatoes”.

“While you were out, I managed to perfect the pony-safe summon totem fetish. No thanks to you, of course.” Violet strutted over to me and showed me the bone-and-twine abomination-on-a-string which had the new addition of a pair of shiny blue gems crudely duct taped to what was probably its backside. Or its front.

“Yes, let’s talk about that. I’m going to have to shut you down.”

“Excuse me?”

“I almost got turnip-ized for your ‘proof of concept’, for crying out loud! My union will hear about this.”

“Frosty, you can’t have a union with just one pony. That, and unions haven’t existed for well over three hundred years. Celestia made sure of that one.”

Feigning offense, I crossed my forelegs and huffed, “For all intents and purposes I count as multiple ponies.”

“That’s… not how it works. Besides, you can’t even find me liable in any event. You failed to follow directions and nearly blew out your own brains with the mystical power of stupidity. On the bright side, it’s going to be entertaining observing the effects of burnout on a pegasus.”

“What now?”

“Magic burnout. The spell circle sucked all the magic right out of you when you didn’t listen and tried to charge the entire spell on your own. I told you to start channelling once I gave you the ready signal—you started immediately.”

“What.”

“That was exactly my reaction as well. You’re lucky I managed to dispel all the charge safely without turning us all into mush.” Violet shuddered. “Or worse, turnips.”

“I’m still not over the fact that I could have been a turnip.”

“No, that was your—ugh, I can’t believe you can possibly be this stupid,”

I smirked and proudly held up my head. “Don’t underestimate me.”

Violet gave me a look somewhere between disgust and annoyance. “We should find a trading outpost soon. We’re running low on supplies, and having a useless unicorn around isn’t helping.” Violet motioned behind her at Butt Slave, who I hadn’t actually noticed until now. He was doing a surprisingly good job at being a clothesline for the laundry that Violet had somehow found time to do. Now that I looked at him, he wasn’t moving at all.

Curiosity overcame common sense, so I bit the bullet and asked Violet, “Hey, what’s with Butt Slave?”

Instead of an answer, I got a dismissive wave from Violet. “In a second. This is more important. Riverbed? Did you find somewhere yet?” she shouted.

Right on cue, Riverbed arrived with a solution. “Guy, there’s a trading junction not too far away. Value Town, I think? Maybe it’s on the map,” she called from the other room.

“Really now? First time I’ve heard of it.” At first, Violet seemed to consult her book but then she glanced at me. Her horn lit up, and before I knew it I was being dragged face-first by my PipBuck. Something thick and slimy clung to my face from the carpet, so I dared not open my mouth until I could wipe whatever it was off. I limited myself to shallow breaths out of the corner of my mouth until she was done with my PipBuck. “How’s it spelled?”

“Value as in value, and town as in town,” came the reply.

I didn’t even need be able to see in order to know that Violet was most definitely rolling her eyes. “Thank you, I didn’t know that,” Violet dryly responded. “I must have stupidity poisoning.” She paused, then continued, “Oh, there it is. it’s not even that far off.”

Beeping and booping came out of my PipBuck, and then Violet let out a victorious self-satisfied grunt. Suddenly, the force holding my foreleg up vanished and I ended up punching myself in the ear. Oh good, at least now I could get my face out of whatever was plastered all over it.

Out of habit, I violently exhaled through my nose to clear my sinuses in the event that something had actually made it up there. Unfortunately that also caused me to slightly inhale in the process, which I immediately regretted. It had a noxious, inherently wet and toxic smell that made me gag.

Once I had wiped off a good amount of the gunk, I cautiously cracked open my eyes and gagged at the sight of the orangey-green slime that was now all over my hooves. “What the buck is this stuff?” I caught sight of the furrow in the carpet that my face had left and exclaimed, “That is totally not okay. Ew, ew, ew. This floor is disgusting.”

Violet glanced downward and gently pawed at the patch of carpet she was sitting next to. “Oh, this isn’t carpet. This is actually just an impressively dense layer of mold.” In a fraction of a second, my bland distaste for interior decorating transformed into full-blown horror.

I blindly reached for Riverbed’s pack and rooted around in it for anything I could wipe myself down with. My hoof touched something soft and I immediately yanked it out. I gave it a cautionary sniff—smelled like gun oil, so probably clean enough. WIth that in mind, I vigorously scooped the stuff off my face until I could properly see and I only slightly smelled of rot.

Now that I could see, I realized Violet was smirking at me. “You know, I could have cleaned that off for you.”

“Then why didn’t you?” I impatiently groaned. “Come on!”

“You didn’t ask.”

I opened my mouth, closed it again, opened it one more time, then realized I didn’t really have a witty answer for that. Several thoughts blitzed through my mind—all along the lines of “Damn it, Violet”. If she wasn’t so right all the time I would have knocked her block into next week already. Heck, at this point I was going to hit myself for being a moron.

So now we needed a plan. Going to this Value Town place seemed to be the perfectly safe linear path. I wasn’t really sure where else to go at this point, but I was still on a clock. Where was I even supposed to go? It wasn’t as if Death had given me a convenient arrow to follow, otherwise I wouldn’t have been sitting around being confused. Maybe I’d eventually stumble onto a hint.

Yeah, that sounded like a cute plan.

I clanked my hooves together and made up my mind on the spot. “Okay, here’s the dealio. Let’s grab the molester, the slave, and our butts and get to the Station thing. If things go as planned, we can restock there and plan our next course of action then.”

A good a plan as any, but there was always a snag. Violet spared me a glance, then Middy. “Um. I don’t know if we can really do that.”

Of course it would be Violet. “Why?” I dragged out the word, just to display my supreme annoyance.

“I sort of petrified Midnight.”

“What do you mean 'sort of'?”

“Notice how he isn’t moving?”

Thanks, Violet. “Oh goddesses, if you hadn’t pointed it out I wouldn’t have even guessed,” I dryly snarked back.

“There was a math error because I wasn’t aware of a unit conversion. He should be able to scratch his nose in a few days, I think.”

A few days? I didn’t have a few days. “Screw it, you get to carry him then. If we run into anypony, we can use him as a distraction.” Boom, problem solved. “Pack your mumbo jumbo, let’s get out of this popsicle stand. I’ll get the molester.” I turned my attention to the other room where I assumed Riverbed was still at. “Hey! Pack your shit; it’s time to go!”

So we went back to the dangerous place called the “outside”. Riverbed took point since she knew where we were going, Violet followed in the center, and Middy sort of half-floated along the ground behind her. Being the responsible pegasus I was, I had attempted to fly along above the group. Attempted, being the key word here. Less than an hour out, I suddenly lost all lift and tumbled to the ground with a startled squeak.

“Hey, what gives?!” I angrily demanded to basically nopony. Giving my wings an annoyed flap, I snapped, “C’mon wings. Get it together.”

“You’re probably still overloaded. I was going to tell you to take it easy, but I didn’t really bother once you took off.” Trotting past me, Violet tugged my right wing with her magic and explained, “It turns out a pony isn’t as aerodynamic as we once thought, and it’s just latent pegasus magic that allows flight. Since you burned yourself out, your passive mana regeneration has been slowly restoring your reserves.”

The only words I cared to understand in that entire schpiel were “pony” and “pegasus”. “Okay, I’m just going to wait for the simple explanation because thinking is hard work.” I tugged my wing back from her and gave it another test flap.

As expected, Violet shot me a disapproving glance and sighed. “Never mind. You’ll figure it out. You’re a smart little vegetable, after all.”

After a bit of trial and error, I decided that walking was my next calling in life. I was annoyed that I couldn’t fly because of what Violet made me do, so I decided to take out my petty rage on Butt Slave, who appeared to still be mostly petrified. He had the ability to move his head now, but that was about it. At least he couldn’t talk back yet.

“If I’m going to trot, so are you. Come on, pick up those hooves!” I yelled at Butt Slave.

“Leave Middy alone, Frosty. I can only hover him along so quickly.” Violet sighed again. If she kept that up, she’d run out of air and pass out at this rate. She then tilted her head, looking thoughtful. “Actually…” On cue, Butt Slave began to bob back and forth in a very crude facsimile of what could be considered ‘walking’. “Better?”

Satisfied, I nodded. “Better.”

A while later, me having lost track of time because of how sore my everything was getting even in power armor, Riverbed finally stopped and enjoyed a short victory screech. “Ha! It’s still here! Welcome to Value Town, guy. Population buck-all and starring us.” She glanced over her shoulder at us and chuckled, “Nah, just kidding. Let’s go find a place to crash.”

So we’d been led to some sort of communal meeting ground for several dozen ponies and their pony stuff. A few of them were visibly part of a caravan—merchant, four bodyguards, cow-thing, and all of their delicious, delicious loot. The rest of them were a smattering of generic Wastelanders and apparently reformed raiders, which was mildly interesting. Other than that, Value Town didn’t have so much of a town as much of a small gathering. Besides the several stalls peddling goods at anypony that would listen, I couldn’t really figure out why this was a even called a town to begin with.

We trotted past one of the vendors (Radroach curry! Get it while it’s squirming!) and I distinctly heard Riverbed mutter, “Huh. This place got shittier.”

As we tried to make our way to wherever Riverbed was leading us, I caught sight of several heavy strongboxes bearing the Enclave’s stamp. A smaller logo—a two of diamonds overlaid over a two of clubs to create a cross was printed under the carry handles. Familiar, but I just couldn’t place it for some reason. Most Enclave storage had been siphoned out for standard-issue cloudboxes, so these were definitely peculiar. However, the old boxes probably had to go somewhere and somepony was probably making a pretty bit getting rid of them.

“Sir! Wait up, sir! We’ve hit a snag regarding the forward operating base you wanted our engineers to start working on. Did you ha—” The random yelling pony stopped in mid-panic and realized, “Hang on, you’re new. Sorry, all of you look the same from the back.”

Oh, he had been addressing me. “Uh…” I uneasily stammered, turning myself around as slowly as possible so I could come up with a response.

Whatever I was about to say screamed in fright and crawled back down my throat. This guy was big—as in, he must have been raised on nothing but meat and Rage. In fact, he looked a lot like a big yellow brick wall wearing glasses. What little hair he had was hidden under a robe-shaped tarp the size of a house. I didn’t even want to dare snap back something demeaning on the off chance that he’d bend me in half.

A hoof tugged on my collar. “Hold up, shrimp. I’ll take care of this,” came my voice, but not from who I was expecting. Officer Frosty stepped forward and confidently stared down the pony that had addressed us. Before I could squeeze in a confused statement of discontent, I had been shoved into my brain’s passenger seat.

“Who in the sam hell are you? How dare you address somepony of my stature in that manner? Explain yourself, now,” Officer angrily demanded. The sheer assertion in her voice was slamming any sort of rebuke coming from the other pony out of the air. “I was told to come down to this shithole to observe, but it looks like I’m gonna have to take charge. Who’s in charge? It better not be you.”

“I—euh-eh—” The pony’s eyes darted back and forth.

“Eh I eh euueh eh,” Officer sarcastically mimicked the pony’s confused noises and once again took advantage of the hesitation to push another offensive. “You’re a mess, dirt-muncher. I can stick a fork in you and bam—you’re done.”

“Ma’am, I wasn’t made aware of—”

Nearly shouting, Officer snapped, “Do I look like a ma’am to you?”

“Uh—y-yes? No? …Oh, sir! No sir!”

“That’s more like it. Take me to the command post. I know you’ve got one set up—there’s Enclave crates with our stamp on it.”

“All the other command elements are occupied elsewhere, sir. I don’t know who I can—”

“And I don’t care,” Officer insisted, then she gestured with a wing at my traveling companions. “And make sure these two find lodging. They were surprisingly useful in getting me here.” When the pony didn’t budge, Officer rolled her eyes and snapped, “Now. Chop chop.”

As I was allowed to regain control of myself, the pony had already darted off to do what Officer had told him to do. Riverbed was tagging along with him for the sole reason of finding somewhere to take a nap or somepony sleeping to molest. Once I had some privacy, I needed to figure out exactly how and why Officer decided to take the lead.

I wasn’t getting any more answers from Officer. She trotted out of my vision, smugly replying, “Foal’s play. I’ll be back later, so don’t worry your pretty little head about me.”

Just because it wasn’t confusing for me enough, a swirl of fog pulled out of the ground and coalesced into Ice Storm. He lowly whistled and chuckled, “Ooh, catty. I think she gets that from you.”

In the time it took for me to dredge up a witty response out of my rapidly dwindling supply of witticisms, the weird pony that Officer had yelled at came galloping back. He stopped just before me to catch his breath for a moment before gasping, “I’m so sorry, ma’a—er, sir. If you’ll follow me, we can find out what to do. I’ll take you to the command tent.”

Oh good, so Officer was good for something after all. Now that my cover had been assured, I waved off Riverbed and gave her the motion to stay put with Butt Slave. She gave me a silent look of worry and a frown, but that didn’t really mean anything. Besides, I was going to be fine, especially with Violet adamantly tagging along, so I let her. What could possibly go wrong between here and a tent?

And speaking of which, there it was. A standard-issue Enclave field tent, complete with a redundant decontamination bay that was propped in the open position. I was expecting a treasure trove of all sorts of goodies including but not limited to: gear, weapons, actual food, and information. At the silent, somewhat frightened polite urging of Stammer Pony, I went in first.

What I hadn’t been expecting was a pegasus mare, lazily reclining in an old, beat-up sofa. A long safety-orange leash attached to a thoroughly trussed-up pegasus was wrapped around her robo-talons, and her other hoof was holding some kind of wood cup-like object—presumably full of liquid. Evil gloating liquid. Set to monologue, no less. I knew that evil look, those ridiculous mane stripes, that dumb face.

So, who was this jerk? She didn’t look as crazy as Toasty, but she was clearly another one of my evil sides. Joy. “Yo, get out of that chair. You don’t exist so you don’t deserve to sit.” As I got a little more annoyed, I demanded, “And where did you even get a leash?”

A mixture of shock and annoyance crossed my face. And by my face, I meant my new chair-stealing personality’s face. “You have a knack for showing up in the right place at the wrong time,” she scowled.

“I don’t care. Get out of my chair.”

Chair-thief Frosty rolled her eyes. “We meet for the first time—again—and this is how you greet me? For shame, Frosty. To think you had manners.”

Why did this one want to be such a smartass about it? “Manners? You mean ‘wash behind your ears, say please and thank you, and hail Tirek’? Yeah, I have those.”

The other Frosty shook her head in amusement. “Ah, you haven’t changed at all.”

I felt a tap on my shoulder. “You do realize that you actually are sitting over there too, right?” Violet dryly commented.

…Oh. Oooooh. “Well, that’s still my chair, and I’m going to sit in it.”

Footnote: Level up!
New Perk: Dissonance – The “Confused” sub-perk now boosts a select S.P.E.C.I.A.L. attribute by 1 when active. New speech options are available to a specific character.
Current Sub-perk: Confused – You gain +1 to Perception.