• Published 27th May 2012
  • 5,543 Views, 845 Comments

Fallout Equestria : New Roam - Delvius



The city of Roam is tortured by ambient and open hostility. Finally, a Praetorian arises to protect the city like the Legionnaires of old, and nothing will stop him. Nothing but himself, that is.

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Chapter 10 - Reunion

Chapter 10
Reunion
"I'm not the sort of person that leaves things unfinished. I'll see this through, I promise."






I woke up, feeling lightheaded and dizzy. My wounds were still bleeding heavily, which I suspect greatly contributed to how bad I felt at that moment. My body was dripping with water as I was being slowly dragged along concrete pavement and away from where the river flowed somewhere in the middle below the bridge. I was leaving a path of blood in my wake, far too much blood than had to be healthy. I also heard gunshots, sharp and few. In front of me, the bullets struck the pavement and sent little fragments flying off in all directions.

My eyes winced and twitched, and I was barely able to keep them open. My body still felt limp, and my back stung terribly, so whatever had been done to it had not been addressed. I could turn my head slightly without pain, though, and I could place my forehooves on my chest. That allowed me to try to remove the astoundingly large pieces of metal that had pierced into me. Of course, that didn't work, and my efforts only served to bring me pain as I tried to wobble the pieces free.

Eventually, I was dragged to a corner where the wall beneath the bridge met a support column. Myst was soaked, but despite her fall didn't seem injured beyond having trouble breathing -- Lucky mare. I grunted as I slumped against the wall, feeling my broken and bloodied wings press against the wall as well as my back push against the sharp dent in my armor. Myst looked around for a moment, and dodged a shot that struck the column next to her.

"Goldwreath, get up! We have to get out of here before more of them show up!" She said in a rushed, worried tone. All I could do was look at her and grunt in agony. She seemed confused at first, looking at me weirdly. I turned with whatever strength I had, hissing loudly as I went, and showed her the huge dent that was painfully pressing into my spine. It was then that she seemed to understand.

With a look of extreme worry and an audible gulp, she trotted to me and frantically unstrapped all of my protective gear. In the process, she also removed all the large pieces of shrapnel from my body, and I yelled aloud, wanting to pulverize her for so painfully removing the pieces. Still, I was grateful that I no longer had a piece of blackened metal in me chest. When she had finished, letting the heavy metal plates and pieces slide off me, she laid me down on my stomach. My eyes looked around as I wondered just what she was going to do.

I felt her breath on ear before she spoke, "Okay... um, there's a vertebrae sticking out of your back. It looks..." She shuddered, and whispered, "This is going to hurt just a little." Wait, what would?

She wrapped a forehoof around my shoulders and pressed the other against a bone on my back, and drew me back slowly. My eyes popped wide as I suddenly realized what she was about to do. I let out whatever protest I could, but they were all just pained grunts and cries. I breathed hard, preparing myself for what was about to happen next.

With a soft grunt, she pulled me backwards so quickly and so abruptly that my spine gave off a whole slew of cracking noises that made me sick just by listening to them. Also, her reassurance of it hurting ‘just a little’ was complete bullshit; the moment I felt my mouth working again, I screamed for all I was worth, emptying my lungs of whatever air they had.

“GAH! Goddesses fuck me with a kilometer long horn! Myst, that fucking hurt!” I yelled after my initial pained scream. I looked forward, and I saw about three hostiles spot me from some railings on the road that was meant to keep people from falling into the gorge we were in. I also spotted a gate somewhere at the top that they were trying to force open to get to us. The three opened fire, and I was barely able to roll away before they peppered my former position with automatic rifle fire.

I glared at her, but she replied with a firm tone, "You're lucky that was just a set of shocked nerves and a dislocated bone; I should know, I once saw my dad hit a wild cat on the spine with a shovel. If it was any more serious..." Well, at least it wasn't something more terrible like, say, paralysis. It really would have sucked if it was...

I leaned back against the wall, still in a lot of pain despite my back no longer feeling like a piece of meat that had been put through a shredder. I was still a little pissed off at her, but I guess I did scare the crap out of her when I dropped her, so I guess we were even at that point. At least now I could move around without feeling like I was grinding my muscles to a pulp. My pelvis still felt a little painful when I tried trotting, though -- probably a nerve somewhere that wasn't fixed just right. I tried to get up and move a short distance, but then I collapsed from the unwillingness of my pelvis to work.

Myst dragged me back to the wall. “Well, um... I-I could drag you! We need to get out of here right now.” I shook my head in response while I much less frantically strapped on my armor again. That sharp dent in the back proved a nasty puzzle, but after hitting it with my plated hooves for a moment, I managed to bend it such that it did NOT feel like I was having a spike shoved into my flesh. “What are you doing?” She asked, both confused and apparently a little annoyed that I was putting on my gear.

“I’m going to need my stuff for when they break through.” I told her as I finished strapping on my gear, and pulled out a healing potion and downed it. My flesh wounds closed, but my wings still felt broken and useless, and the healing removed whatever numbness my body was utilizing to reduce my suffering.

“W-what do you mean ‘when they break through’? Come on, let’s get out of here!” She was even more worried and frantic than she was before, twitching at the increasing number of shots that were landing near us.

I sighed as I once more slumped in the corner, facing the stairs leading down from the gate. I pulled out Vengeance and made sure it was loaded. “Myst… look at me. I’m in no shape to move, or to fly, or to do... anything. The one thing I can do is shoot. If you leave now, I’ll be able to buy you enough time to escape.” I told her. Her eyes widened so much that I thought they would have popped out of their sockets.

What? Are you trying to tell me to leave you behind? No way, u-uh. I’ll drag you away from here if I have to.” She trotted to me and tried to pull me away from my corner, but I guess I was really heavy with all my gear on.

I sighed once more, and focused on breathing for the duration of her trying to pull me away. When she finally stopped, looking desperate to find some way to get me out of here, I spoke. “I’ll just slow you down, and then we’ll both get caught. It’s better if you get out of here, maybe get to the camp and meet up with Zaita. Just leave me here.”

“B-but they’ll kill you!” She told me, a tone of sad desperation in her voice. She narrowed her tear-filled eyes at me, locking me with a stare that made me feel horrible about the decision I was making. After all, she had promised to stick with me no matter what, and here I was trying to make her break that promise.

I chuckled a little. “Ha! No they’re not.” I gave her a confident smile and continued, “I’m going to kill so many of them that they’ll want to get back at me. Killing me won’t give them the satisfaction, so they’ll torture me. Tie me to a chair to hang upside down for a day, maybe. Or maybe even cut off my hide and strangle me with it. But they won’t kill me.” I assured her. She sobbed a little, placing her face on my chest and whacking me with her hoof again and again as she muttered various obscenities that I had never expected from her.

She finally pulled away and locked me with that stare again. “If… if I do this… you’ll still be here when I get back? You’ll still be alive?” She asked me with a tone that suggested that if I lied, then she’d beat the crap out of me. I gulped, thinking about what I was about to do. Would I? Would they really keep me alive so they could torture me until they got tired of it? And would I be able to hang on long enough for Myst to get back with help? Oh, I really hope so.

“Oh, yeah, no doubt about it. This is my plan, remember? Since when have my plans ever gone wrong?” I smiled at her again. She looked at me with an expression that told me she thought I was absolutely crazy. Maybe I was, or maybe I wasn’t. Either way, if it didn’t work, then at least I was the only one who was going to suffer for it.

The gate gave a resounding ‘pong’; a sound that suggested a vital support of some kind had been broken away. I looked at the entrance worriedly, then back at Myst. She was trying to suppress her tears.

“Go, Myst. I’ll be fine. Trust me.” I told her, but all she did was look away and shake her head slowly while a few of her tears dripped onto the ground.

“Damn you, Goldwreath.” She said quietly, then pulled out her stealthcloak. She looked at me one last time before she placed it on and disappeared in a blue glow.

“Yeah. Damn me.” I snickered, smiling as I shook my head. I’m a complete idiot.

‘You’re fucking crazy!’ Yelled Tom, suddenly appearing in my mind.

‘Hey, it’s his choice. Are you going to take that away from him?’ Asked Tod, in one of the few instances where he seemed more reasonable than Tom.

I didn’t interrupt them as they started arguing in my head. I just waited for the gate to break down and for them to come flooding in. In fact, I only shook my head and thought one thing:

‘My head is so fucking screwed up.’

The gate finally gave in, crashing forward and falling into the river. The crowd swarmed in, wielding their flamethrowers and weapons. As they started running down the stairs towards me, I lifted Vengeance and aimed.

One of them was charging down the steps faster than the others, and judging from his maniacal laughter, he was eager to burn me to a crisp. Unfortunately for him, his shoving and yelling and general disregard for my potential threat, as opposed to most of his companions, made him a fairly easy target.

'BLAM!' Headshot.

His headless form slumped and fell off the side of stairs, nearly pushing off one of his comrades in the process. If any of the others had also disregarded my ability to aim and shoot, they now knew I could. They raced down the steps faster, and those that did immediately scattered. Thankfully, due to my position, I was not an easy target for any of them. Probably because they couldn't aim properly because they were too close to each other to maneuver. I aimed again.

'BLAM!' 'BLAM!' The first round tore a zebra's entire left shoulder away, and possibly hit his heart in the process. The second hit another's hoof; a painful but non-lethal shot.

They took cover behind the pillars, taking shots at me whenever they could. If I hadn't decided to put on my armor after Myst did what she did, and if their weapons were of any higher caliber, I would have been dead. As it was, each shot simply caused me a little more pain. Unless one hit me in the head, then I'd be dead.

I got up, hard as it was, and aimed once more while I slowly moved forward. Their un-aimed shots mostly struck my vest and armor, but some of them seemed to be actually aiming for me in that I felt some low caliber rounds ricochet off my helmet.

'BLAM!' 'BLAM!' BLAM!' I sent out the remaining shots, downing two and missing another. With Vengeance out, I swapped it for something much more suited to my situation: my ever handy anti power-armor shotgun.

As I pulled out the shotgun, a weapon of larger caliber fired at me and pierced my vest and armor and buried itself in my side. I staggered and jumped for cover, nearly falling down as my frozen pelvis struggled to keep me up. I breathed in deeply, gathering as much air for my damaged lungs before I threw myself into the fight again. I downed a healing potion; my last and only one. Myst had the rest of them with her, and there were still some in the supply box in Zaita.

Feeling slightly better, I threw myself back into the meat grinder. They were pushing into the area from all directions in front of me, the flamethrower armed ones trying to close the distance while those with guns stayed back and opened fire. Their rounds struck me with such force and frequency that I could feel new dents appear in my armor, and they too were pressing against me painfully.

I blasted away, downing two stupid enough to charge me head on. With them down, I turned my attention to the others, who, for some reason, weren't simply swarming me. Either they just really wanted to stay where they were, or I was such a fierce combatant that I was forcing them to stay put. Either way, I continued forward, downing two more as I slowly pushed towards them.

Then a felt a blistering heat erupt from behind me, and the flame washed over me with such intensity I nearly fainted from the pain. I turned quickly, finding that one of the flamethrower guys had somehow gotten behind me. He continued to blast me with searing flames, and I could feel every detail of my coat and hide sizzling and burning from it. I gasped, which only served to bring hot air to my failing lungs. Through the hazy orange flame, I pointed Tankbuster at him and fired.

He staggered and collapsed, as I had only blasted away one of his forelegs. I fired again, finishing him off, before I noticed that there was another gate on the other side of the gorge where more of them were coming in from.

'Why the fuck didn't I see that earlier?!' I yelled in my mind.

Okay, so I was surrounded. I staggered back to my original cover, hissing in pain as I felt the burning hot an metal of my armor sizzle and blister whatever coat was beneath it. My breathing hurt, and every step I took sent a wave of pain through my body. Whatever part of me that wasn't covered by my gear when I had been burned looked like some kind of maze of cracked flesh and burnt fur.

I thought of just how the filly felt back in that burning cabin. She was in that burning wreckage far longer, and the flames were much more intense. I shuddered, sweeping the thoughts aside before turning my attention back to the fight.

I fired off whatever shots were left in my shotgun, downing only one of them in the process. Finally, I collapsed onto the ground. I dragged myself back into my corner, and slowly reloaded Tankbuster, one shell at a time. I had only loaded three shells when another flamethrower guy appeared from around the corner. I didn't even have time to cock the mechanism before he pulled the trigger on his weapon.

So I charged him. I screamed in agony as I bolted through his blazing jet of fire, but I charged him. It was a move so unanticipated that he didn't react until I was more than halfway to him. And when he did, there really wasn’t much he could do any more. I pulled out my gladius and crashed into him. When we were both down, I stabbed deep into his neck and he stopped struggling.

After that, there was the very obvious problem of being surrounded by around thirty or so hostile bandits. They were moving in slowly and cautiously; apparently I had gotten the point over to them that I wasn’t so easy to take out. Still, even I wasn’t stupid enough to just charge the incoming crowd with nothing but a blade just for the sake of buying someone, who was probably long gone by now, more time.

Or was I?

“Fuck me!” I yelled as I got up and charged, galloping as fast as my severely injured and burned body and frozen pelvis would allow me. This move, however I thought of it, was one of the most idiotic things I had ever done. If Myst were still watching from somewhere, I could only imagine what she would have been feeling. From her point of view, it would seem like I was committing suicide.

My attackers seemed so downright baffled by this ludicrous move that those who were moving in on me only noticed I was charging them when I was already close. I jumped next to one and stabbed him in the neck, and he fell down with a dull thump. The next one I downed managed to blast me once in the forelegs with a shotgun before I slit his throat with a quick slash.

In one of the few times I ever used it, I entered S.A.T.S and targeted the heads of about four of them. I executed my killing stabs and slashes with what must have appeared to them as lightning speed. When I had finished, the spell had exhausted itself. Apparently, I could stay for S.A.T.S longer if I didn’t do anything in it. Probably why I was able to stay in the spell so long the last time.

But even with my bold move, I really didn’t expect to actually be able to escape. Already, those coming in from behind fired shots that bit into my flanks and tore at my wings, causing my already busted appendages to go numb from the sheer amount of pain coming from them. I collapsed right there, underneath the fire of more than twenty hostiles. I covered my face with my armored hooves, shielding it from their barrage of painful shots. Most didn’t penetrate all my protection, but the ones that did hurt so badly that my body was resorting to numbness to spare me the suffering.

After what must have been an eternity of savage shooting, there was a shout that boomed over the noise of their guns. They all stopped, the absence of them reloading their weapons suggesting that they didn’t relent due to ammo shortage. Hell, even the flamethrower wielding bandits that I was within range of didn’t burn me to a crisp.

Amidst my haggard breathing, I barely managed to spit out, “Th-that all you got? Heh, what a bunch of senile, inbred, cock-sucking…” I tried getting up again, but finally my body wasn’t letting me push myself any further. No matter how hard I tried, my legs just wouldn’t let me get up.

‘Well, fuck.’ I thought as I gritted my teeth.

“Come on, you dickheads. That all you got?!” I yelled at them, an action which my lungs paid for in heavy and pained breathing. If my lungs really were injured, then how was I even able to force them to keep up with me during the fight?

None of them seemed to care about what I called them, and only laughed amongst themselves as they yelled out all sorts of insults and swears at me. Those who were on the stairs shifted to the sides, as if making room in the center for something. Somehow, I thought I knew what was coming.

The appearance of a zebra clad in red-painted power armor with accompanying helmet and dual flamethrowers on the sides told me all I needed to know. Obviously, this guy was ‘the boss’ that I had heard about back in Pyro Kinetics. As he came down the stairs towards me, the heavily spread-out crowd gathered behind him, while a few walked directly beside him or even a little ahead of him.

He stopped directly in front of me, the crowd fully gathered around him. The ones behind me stood where they were, eyeing me sadistically. That was in contrast to the power armored zebra, who stared down at me with an expression I couldn’t see. He gestured to some of his subordinates, and they laughed maniacally as they trotted to me and, picked me up, then held me against a wall.

One of them moved towards me without the boss’s permission and drew a pistol. He pointed it at me as he growled, “You killed my friends and my brother, asshole. You’re lucky I’m giving you a quick fucking death.” He pressed the barrel against my helmet.

No,” Said the boss as he kept up his blank gaze; something that worried me greatly. “I can think of many ways to make him pay for his intrusion.” He gestured at some of those standing behind him, and about ten of them came forth, laughing and giggling gleefully, and trotted towards me. The boss turned and began trotting away, but stopped for a moment to look back at me and say with a tone of disinterest and with a dismissive wave of his hoof, “Beat him senseless.” Then he went back up the stairs, while the crowd grudgingly followed him up, a few of them chuckling. Clearly, they all wanted to beat the shit out of me instead of move away.

I didn’t have time to process any of that before they grabbed me and hauled me off to to a corner, and threw me against the wall. I groaned as they laughed, insulting me and throwing profanities my way.

I turned to them and murmured under my breath, "Yeah, that's right, laugh. Laugh for a whole hour... that's just what I want." I smirked.

One of them looked at me with confusion. "Why the hell are you smiling?" He went over to me and applebucked me down, and I fell splashing into a puddle. "Guy's fucking insane..."

I forced a laugh, "Oh, I'm not insane! I'm just laughing at how so many of you guys it took to take me down. What, were you guys holding back? Pfft, wussies..."

Another of them growled menacingly and stomped over to me, and planted a kick to my face. "Shut up!" He yelled, and grabbed me and said between punches, "You. Fucking. Killed. My. Brother! I'm gonna pop your head open like a fucking pinata!" Then he started punching me in the face again and again, and soon I found it hard simply to keep my swollen eyes open.

When his flurry finally died down, one of them said, "Alright, enough screwing around. Let's just take care of this asshole and throw him over to our place; I've had enough of him." Everyone seemed to agree, nodding their heads. I guess that, whereas other raiders would want to keep beating me up for doing what I did, these guys wanted to get over some kind of emotional pain I had caused them. Except the guy beating me up; he just glared at me and threw a few more punches my way, before finally dropping me. "Fine," He murmured.

Then one of them brought out a small hammer, and the others brought out small utility knives. The one who had bean beating me up grabbed a piece of concrete from nearby, and tossed it into his hooves over and over.

My eyes widened as much as they could, being swollen. ‘This is so going to suck…’

And with that, they all came down on me, weapons savagely pounding and stabbing me from all directions. They struck me in ways that caused the most pain, but only seldom in a way that would have been fatal if I hadn't wearing armor and a vest. Still, I didn’t scream. Not at the obviousness of my bones cracking on the surface and threatening to break to their relentless attacking, and neither at their sharp stabbing. And when they noticed that I wouldn’t they only attacked more savagely, and then I really did want to scream.

‘No,’ I thought. As much as I wanted to, I wasn’t going to let them have that satisfaction. And that only infuriated them further as they continued beating me, aiming for whatever unarmored part of me they could get at. I did my best to stay on my back the whole time; I didn’t want them to get at my wings. I hated them, but I didn't try to stop them. The longer they spent beating me up was more time Myst could use to escape.

They laughed insanely, taking obvious joy in whatever sign of pain I let them see. And when I finally just lay still and let them strike me, now feeling only my rough breathing and bruised flesh, but no pain, I closed my eyes.

‘I’m a fucking idiot.’ That was all I managed to think. In fact, amidst the noise of their laughter and their continued assault, I myself wasn’t quite sure if I thought that.

And then one of them brought the sledgehammer down onto the side of my head, and the last thing I felt was my metal helmet caving in on my skull.

* * * Magnus et Potens Roamanus * * *

I woke up, feeling even worse for wear than I had under the bridge, especially my head. I was laying in a small pool of my own blood, mixed with other substances that gave the normally red colored liquid a disturbing shade of gray. All of my injuries had only the slightest of medical attention in the form of bandages or some weird looking green goo coated on them -- most likely some kind of alchemical anti-bacterial substance.

I was in a filthy and small room, just barely big enough to hold five ponies. All around me were scattered various miscellaneous items, mostly in the form of old torn papers, old scrap metal, a few empty syringes, and quite a lot of foul smelling piles of... stuff. I didn't touch those.

"Still alive, huh?" I said to myself as looked around me. At that time, I was actually rather surprised that I had survived their beating.

The door to the room opened with a metallic creak, and a zebra that I remembered as Janix stood at the doorway, flamethrower slung to his side.

"My, my," He said, shaking his head in mock disbelief. "The Praetorian, trapped in my little jail like a rat. How patheric." He snickered, "I'll give you one thing, though. You killed quite a lot of us in that little outburst of yours. If the boss would allow me, I'd beat the shit out of you right now, and I wouldn't care if you screamed or not." He scoffed, slamming his hoof against the wall of the room. "I don't even know why the hell the boss wants you alive. I suspect he wants to personally make you pay for your intrusion." He leaned against the doorway as he stood on his hindlegs, touching a hoof to his gasmask in thought.

A voice called out from somewhere outside, "Janix! If he's awake, just give him the damned potion already. Boss wants him alive for a little beat-up session."

The zebra in the doorway glanced behind him, "Yeah, yeah! I'm on it." He reached behind him and pulled out a healing potion and tossed it to me. "Just take the damned thing. You won't get anything else from us, except maybe some more broken bones."

I glared at him, then looked down at the healing potion. I wanted to take it so badly, but I didn't want to accept anything these people gave me. My body's throbbing muscles and broken bones protested, begging me to ease my suffering, while my mind told me to get up and spit in his face.

Eventually, by body won over my mind. I opened the vial and drank, all the while cursing myself in my head for participating with these people. Afterwards, my body felt significantly better. Not free of pain, there was still quite a lot of that, but better. Unfortunately, the healing must have caused my broken bones to heal in the wrong manner. While they definitely weren't broken anymore, they felt... wrong. Like they had come back together in the wrong places. Thankfully, my skull had at least healed properly, or as properly as it could get. I hoped that my brain hadn't been severely damaged by that blow.

Janix turned away, and called two other zebras to come in while he sat down on a chair somewhere. They picked me up off the ground and brought me out of the room. In the middle of the dimly lit room, there was a sort of machine. It had a platform of sorts, and next to that was a bunch of medical-looking machinery. On the platform was a wounded earth pony, one of the raiders. From the machine protruded about a dozen tubes ending in needles which pierced into the pony's body. The transparent tubes had this glowing blue energy passing within it. As I watched, the pony's wounds began to heal at a steady rate.

"That's an Auto-doc." Janix explained, putting some mock in his tone as he trotted along beside me. "Fine piece of equipment, aint' it? Heals injuries damned well, whether it's flesh or bone." I stared at the machine with longing, wishing it was I who was on that platform. The zebra noticed my look and smirked. "Heh, yeah sure, keep dreaming. Only we use the thing, and only on those who really need it. Thing takes a lot of power to use." The two dragging me along approached a door and opened it, then shoved me through.

They hauled me away and up several flights of dimly lit stairs. Along the way they shoved me hard into the walls and bucked me in the chest, and this time my body didn’t go numb to suppress the pain. Eventually, we reached a metal door that I suspected lead to the ground floor of the building (I thought that the floor we were in was some kind of basement).

We emerged onto the first floor of what seemed to have once been a hotel, within a hallway that lead to a lobby. I spotted several others wandering around the building; sitting next to barricades, talking, or just idling around. At my appearance, though, they all shot me hateful glares which I mostly ignored as the three lead me to an elevator. Once inside, they pressed the button that lead to the top floor.

We arrived at the top, and it was revealed to be a spacious room that was significantly less screwed up than the rest of the building. It showed obvious signs of stress: cracks and dirt stains, mostly. Still, it was better than almost every other place I had seen, except perhaps Decarius’ house and the hospital room in Verge.

And there, standing behind an old and worn looking desk and looking at a painting of the sky that was mounted on the wall, was the boss. He noticed us and turned, locking his visor onto me in an unfathomable stare.

“So, boss, what do you want us to do? Should we beat the crap out of him again? ‘Cause a lot of us would really LOVE to try again.” Said one of those holding onto me, and he laughed a little. The two other guards in the room, both mares, snickered. They obviously liked the idea, even more so the longer they thought about it.

A little, yes. He has yet to pay for his intrusion.” He replied with an edge in his voice, and behind that visor of his I was just sure he was glaring at me.

The four of them, the two guards and my two escorts, all turned to me and giggled gleefully. Once again, I was the subject of getting beaten with all sorts of weapons, ranging from gun butts to bare hooves. Unlike last time, where my body had already been hurt so much that just a little more didn’t really matter, this time I really felt the pain. I kind of regretted taking the healing potion, as now my body felt each blow with brutal clarity. I still didn’t scream, and that seemed to annoy them all the more. They kicked and punched and stomped harder, but the most I gave them was pained grunts and groans.

'Ugh... do-FUCK! ...ugh, do all my plans suck this much ?!' I yelled in my head. Thinking to myself was the only distraction I could indulge in while they continued their maniacal beating.

Alright that’s enough.” The boss said, seeming satisfied at seeing me curled up on the floor like a little foal. My attackers stopped tentatively, one of them stomping me in the face one more time before he stopped. I just groaned. “Leave us. I would like to test his endurance myself.” The boss said with a low chuckle.

‘I’m screwed.’ I thought as I looked over his power-armored hooves. As much as the zebra Specter’s bucks had hurt, at least his limbs weren’t encased in solid steel.

“Aww, you sure, boss? A lot of the guys downstairs haven't gotten a turn yet, should we call them up?” One of them complained, but shut his mouth when the power helmet’s visor locked him with the same unfathomable yet threatening gaze.

Just. Leave.” He said slowly, threateningly. The five got the message, and immediately entered the elevator. The door closed, and I was left alone in the room with the power-armored zebra.

I sighed. “So, what now? You gonna try to beat the shit out of me, too? You can try, but you won’t find me to be an easy fight.” I told him with a tone that I hoped suggested I wasn’t afraid of him, even if I was. In truth, I really didn’t think I could take a lot more of this; the pain from recent events still wore me down, and even I couldn’t take down a power-armored zebra without my stuff.

To my surprise (and IMMENSE relief), he reached both his forelegs onto his helmet and said with an annoyed sigh, “Nope.” He tapped something on the back of the helmet, most likely some kind of switch. There was a ‘hiss’ of pressurized air, and he removed his helmet.

He wore a black balaclava over his head, but little strands of brown mane fell into the eye-space. “But I do want to know why the hell you’re interfering with my mission. And were you TRYING to blow my fucking cover? Idiot!” The earth pony said as he put the helmet down, and his armor gave off a similar pressurized ‘hiss’. The armor fell off onto the sides, revealing his legs to be wrapped in leather and him to be wearing a very familiar heavy Kevlar vest. My mouth dropped onto the floor, out of surprise, relief, and confusion.

“You’re a… Specter?”

* * * Magnus et Potens Roamanus * * *

"So what the hell are you doing all the way out here?" I asked the grey earth pony with a scraggly brown mane, who had identified himself as 'operative Balaclava'. He returned my question with another annoyed sigh while he cracked his neck several times.

"I'm on a mission; one that you nearly ruined. Were you actually trying to get yourself killed down there? Because if you were, then I would have had to break my fucking cover to save your sorry flank, and then the plan would've gone to fucking hell..." He groaned out of irritation while he rubbed his temples furiously. "Anyway, I've been tasked with keeping these savages from using their weaponry and numbers to threaten the surrounding areas." He looked at the ground in thought for a moment, then said in a slightly disappointed tone, "Although, my original task was to eliminate them. But that's much more difficult than I had anticipated."

I glared at him suspiciously while he thought. I didn't like Specters; after all, the image I had been given of them of them so far was almost as bad as the one I had of the Legion. Both were killers, more so the Legion, of course. Though at least the Specters didn't level towns. To be fair though, most of my distrust for them stemmed from my hatred of that one bastard zebra. Balaclava noticed me, and gave me a confused expression.

"What?"

"Nothing. I just don't really like Specters. What I've seen of you guys hasn't really been the stuff of inspiration."

"How so? We spend days, sometimes weeks helping people. Hell, some of us even spend months out in the wasteland running operations that has probably kept most of these people alive," He said defensively, in a tone that suggested he thought I should have been grateful for something.

"Yeah, like setting a transport filled with dozens of people on fire." I said sourly, recalling the event.

Balaclava looked both horrified and disgusted. He shook his head, then said, "What? B-but we don't do that. We don't kill unless it's necessary. Who could have..." He paused for a moment as he seemed to realize something. He closed his eyes and sighed, "Oh... I... see you've met Predator."

'Who?' Asked both of my psychological entities at the same time.

"Who the hell's 'Predator'?" I asked.

Balaclava looked around awkwardly for a moment, scratching the back of his head with a leather-encased hoof. He finally turned back his attention to me. "Ah, ok, how do I put this delicately..." He once more thought for a bit, before he made up his mind. "He's a bastard; a fucking murderer and a coldblooded killer. He's the apocalypse incarnate: merciless, remorseless, relentless, and never, EVER stops, no matter what be's been through. He tells anyone whom he meets, and DOESN'T kill, all his fucked up philosophical beliefs, as I'm sure he's done with you. The guy's a fucking psychopath." He said all that in a tone of utter disapproval mixed with disgust.

"So why not just... get rid of him? Kill him, loose him, or send him on a suicide mission or something. If he's that bad, why not just leave him behind?" I tried to make myself sound sensible and calm. In truth, though, my mind was racing to process all of this new information.

'So, that fucker has a name after all. Predator... I'm gonna fucking kill him.' I thought, and both Tod and Tom voiced their approval. I was beginning to envision ways I would end him the next time we met, if at all, before the operative spoke.

"We... can't. Not only because we really couldn't even if we tried, but he's also an irreplaceable asset. He may be the worst damned person you'll ever meet, but you have no idea just how much he's achieved for us. He can break down walls, hunt a target for weeks in ways so elaborate he puts just about the rest of us to shame, survive things none of us could, and despite all that, he can be more quiet than a dead equine. I'm not even sure if what's beneath that suit is a pony, a zebra or... something else entirely."

I smirked. "Heh, well if he's that good, how come he hasn't killed me yet? What, am I too good for him?" I asked with a cocky smile, drawing a wide-eyed look from Balaclava.

"Oh, if he wanted you dead, he'd have placed a trap somewhere days before you visited the area. And if you didn't go to the place, then chances are that he expected you not to because he knew you thought you knew he was waiting." He shuddered, as if the very thought of his fellow Specter gave him nightmares. "And in truth, you thinking you're safe is just part of some elaborate and sadistic scheme of his to toy with your head before he puts you down. And if his agenda really is to kill you, then you're dead. No question about it." He said with finality.

I thought of that. I'd met Predator, after all. Twice, to be exact. And each time I couldn't kill him. Was that meeting of ours on the bridge planned? Had he known I would go that way? Because if he did... well, did that mean he knew I was here in this building too? And if what Balaclava said was true, then did that mean Predator wanted me alive? If so, for what? Great, a fucking all-powerful stalker with a plan for just about everything. If that doesn't make people paranoid, I don't know what will. And just when my life couldn't get any more fucked up.

Anyway, in total, I'd seen him get shot eight times in the head with large caliber weapons, many times in the chest, and he even survived a hundred foot fall off a cliff. If he were a regular pony or zebra, which I was sure at this point that he was not, then there was absolutely no way he could have survived any of that.

I turned back my attention to him, letting my brain process all of that. "So... what now?" I asked, wanting to steer the conversation away from 'Predator'. My situation was bad enough without souring my mind with thoughts of that bastard.

He sighed, almost as if he were exhausted. "Honestly, I don't know. I've spent the last month here, looking for a way to eliminate this band of savages ever since I disguised myself as their leader.

"But I'm taking too long. Already, my superiors are getting impatient, and those barbarians downstairs are starting to question me. If I don't get this done soon... I honestly don't know." He admitted, hanging his head down.

I felt a little sorry for the guy. He was obviously a person who looked like he had gone to great lengths to help people. I could see it on him; the way his body trembled and sagged from exhaustion, how he staggered slightly from the weight of his equipment, and how desperately he was trying to think of something.

"Well, thanks for not letting them kill me, by the way. I know a lot of them wanted to. Although, you couldn't have gotten me on the Auto-doc? I feel like shit right now." I said with a smile. The healing potion may have caused me to feel all of my pain with brutal vividness, but at least I wasn't bleeding out. Still, I would much rather have felt a little more pain if it meant that all my bones and injuries would be healed properly.

He perked up, looking at me with surprised eyes. "Oh, uh... you're welcome. And no, I couldn't have gotten you on the Auto-doc. That would have made them question me further, and then they might have called for a new boss or something, and that would have blown my cover. I did convince them to give you a healing potion, though. It was all I could ask them to do without sounding like I wasn't on their side. Some of them complained, though. They wanted to just put a bullet in your head and be done with you, especially after you killed like twenty of 'em." He snickered, and shook his head a little. "But I know who you are, and I wasn't going to let the Praetorian die, not while I was there."

I gave him a thankful smile, one that he returned with a little nod. Then he just resumed his sullen, lost thinking. I had thought of something else to say, when I heard the soft sounds of the elevator coming up.

Balaclava's eyes widened, and he quickly pulled out an assault rifle from... somewhere. It almost seemed like his rifle just popped onto his back. Was that possible?

"Fuck, they're coming up!" He hissed quietly to himself, and he galloped to the side of the elevator door and prepared for their opening.

I was about to reach a hoof to pull out Vengeance, when I realized I didn't have my equipment with me.

"Where's my stuff?" I asked in a rush. Balaclava responded by eyeing the table, and so I trotted to it quickly. There, right beneath it, were my saddlebags filled with my stuff. There was a cloth sack here, filled with my armor and vest, from the look of it. As I couldn't see what was inside, I just placed both hooves in my saddlebags and rummaged through them, trying to feel for anything that felt like a weapon.

The door opened with a ring, revealing two hostiles, one a flamethrower wielding zebra stallion with a mask, the other a brown unicorn mare with a messy caramel mane and a cloth over her muzzle and an assault rifle slung across her back. I felt my hooves touch something that resembled a gun handle, and I yanked it out just as the two started trotting into the room.

"Face death by re-" I pressed on the spot where the trigger was supposed to be, but there was nothing there. I wasn't even holding Vengeance, as I thought. Rather, I was holding my gladius and pointing it at them. The blank expression they gave me suggested they knew I couldn't shoot them with a blade, and so saw me as no threat. "-volver..." I finished lamely, reducing to a whisper a statement I had intended to be a shout.

The mare pulled out her rifle and trotted forward quickly, and instead had her riffle pushed back down before getting bucked in the face by Balaclava, who snapped around the corner in one quick motion. She fell down hard, and her companion rushed to her aid, handling his weapon in such a way that told me he was going to use it as a staff. I wondered why he didn't just shoot flames.

While I just stood there, pouring out all the contents of my saddlebags in search of my weapons, the three of them engaged in vicious zebra-style hoof-to-hoof combat. I saw Vengeance drop into my pile of possessions on the ground, and I scrambled to pick it up.

There was the sound of a wall cracking, and I turned back just in time to see the mare bury her hoof deeper into a wall. Balaclava stood in front of her, his head right next to her hoof, and eyed the hole in the wall with a look of disbelief. He jumped into the air using his hindlegs, kicking the mare in the face and knocking her away in the process. I looked back to the pile once more, barely catching the zebra moving in on the operative with his flamethrower held like a spear.

I picked up Vengeance, and struggled to load a few rounds inside the chamber. Behind me, I could hear the sounds of their fighting; the cracking of floor tiles, metal objects snapping in two, the wall cracking again, and the sound of a gun mechanism. There was a pained groan, then silence. But that only made my eyes go wide in worry as I loaded the last of the rounds. I felt so useless, not being able to help.

I closed the chamber and turned, ready to finally pitch in on the fight. I took in the scene, and at once all of my worry dissipated. Unfortunately, so did my hopes of being able to join in on the fight.

The area was a mess. Just as I had suspected, the floor tiles were indeed cracked, with holes wide enough for hooves to fit in them dotting the ground. The walls were cracked as well, having many marks where they had thrown each other into the concrete. Yet somehow, despite the viciousness of their fight, there was no blood to be seen.

The operative breathed heavily as he stood on his hindlegs and held out a heavy pistol with a hoof (how, I couldn't imagine; it seemed like the gun was just sticking to his hoof) and pointed it at the zebra stallion, who was lying on his back on the ground. The zebra's flamethrower was snapped in half, but so was Balaclava's rifle.

The mare brought herself up, coming out of a pile of rubble near the wall, which she had apparently been thrown so hard against she created a pony-shaped hole. With one swift motion, she brought out a revolver with a hoof and pointed it at the back of the operative's head, and the hammer made a noise as she pulled it back.

Balaclava's eyes went wide, and he slowly turned his head to look down the gun barrel of the mare's revolver. He looked at the mare with disbelief. "How are you STILL alive?" He asked, looking so dumbfounded that he focused no attention on the stallion on the ground. The zebra pulled out a pistol and pointed it at Balaclava, who was still staring at the mare with disbelief. He must have heard him pull it out, as beneath his balaclava I saw what must have been his ears twitching.

I pointed my gun on the mare, and just then the zebra stallion brought out another pistol and pointed it at me. I looked to him with bewilderment bordering on annoyance.

My action did get the mare's attention, though. She brought out yet another revolver and pointed it at me; an action that made me wonder where the hell they kept getting their weapons. In the one moment where both her and her companion focused on me, Balaclava pulled out ANOTHER revolver (Seriously? More pistols? We didn't need more pistols! We already looked like some desperado gang turning on each other!) and pointed it to the back of the mare's head, which seemed to surprise her as much as the operative had been.

The next moments were tense, each of us seeming eager to press the trigger of our weapons. Our breathing was heavy from the exertion, although their's was much more so than mine, as they actually fought while I was just trying to prepare a weapon. That made me feel slow, like a snail, when compared to how quickly they had settled the fight. The three of them glared at each other, but behind Balaclava's steely gaze I could sense his tension. I would feel scared if two guys pointed heavy pistols at my head from two different directions, too. Sweat dropped off from all their heads as they all wavered under each other's gaze. The zebra had not moved from his spot.

That tension was finally broken when the mare suddenly laughed aloud. The look Balaclava gave her suggested he thought she had gone insane. Then the stallion laughed aloud, too. I looked at them like they were retards, which they probably were, considering how heartily they laughed under threat of guns. Balaclava looked scared, like he thought he was in the presence of maniacs, but he kept his weapons on them. I did, as well.

"Haha-huh... aha..." The mare laughed, catching the operative's full attention. "Good to see your Fallen Caesar hasn't gone rusty, Bal. But you couldn't have lightened up on the spine breaker? Good thing I twisted on that last moment, otherwise I'd be dead." She said casually, placing a revolver away and using her hoof to pull away the cloth on her face. Balaclava's eyes went wide, not in horror, but in surprise.

"S-sister?! W-what are you doing here?!" He stammered, seeming so caught off-guard by the sudden revelation that he dropped both his hooves, in the process pointing his guns away from the two. "And who the heck are you?!" He said to the zebra, who got up casually and trotted to the corner of the room.

"Just a fellow operative, sir. Don't mind me." I gave him a quizzical look, but he didn't seem to have any bad intent as he sat down. Seeing as everyone else in the room did so, I too lowered my weapon. Somehow, I felt disappointed. After all, I had spent the entirety of their fight preparing a single weapon, and I didn't even get to use it.

The mare smiled, apparently enjoying the look of crazed annoyance and confusion on her brother's face, or at least what was visible of his face through his mask. Looking at him, I actually couldn't blame her; Balaclava's mane stood straight up and made him look like he was wearing a clown's wig beneath his mask, while his eyes held such a priceless look of confusion and annoyance I wished my pipbuck had a camera function.

The mare started to laugh again, but stopped before she went hysterical. "Heh, sorry about all that, Baley, but..."

"It's OPERATIVE BALACLAVA, sister." He said, frustrated. His sister rolled her eyes with a fond smile.

"Alright, BALACLAVA. I'm your sister, you know. We don't always have to go with the code names." She turned to me. "Ugh, honestly, he was like this ever since he was a foal. Always with the names..." She shook her head. "Like this one time, he dressed up in some cloth we found and called himself 'Mister Robes'..." Balaclava's eyes widened, and the coat visible on his face turned a pinkish coloration.

"Oh no... Please, Butterscotch, don't..." But his sister didn't hear him.

"And this other time, he climbed a tree that was almost as tall as a three story building. When we tried to call him down, he said he wouldn't unless we called him 'Lord Branches'..." She continued, and Balaclava covered his face with both hooves as he cringed. The zebra and I barely suppressed a laugh. Seriously? 'Lord Branches'? What kind of name was that? Despite her brothers's obvious discomfort and embarrassment, she still didn't relent.

"And then there was the time he found some old bondage gear..." The moment she said 'bondage', Balaclava thrust his head up, the coat near his eyes looking absolutely red from embarrassment. The zebra fell over laughing, seeming like he could just laugh until he died. I had somehow completely completely forgotten about the situation, and so I too collapsed with laughter, banging my hoof on the ground as I exhausted my still recovering lungs.

"Oh no! No! No! You are SO not bringing that up! J-just tell me why you're here!" He shouted, clearly wanting to steer the conversation away from his childhood. His face turned to a ridiculously deep shade of red at the laugh his sister let out, and even more so when he looked at our hysterical forms.

The mare took a while to calm down, and when she did so did we. The zebra wiped tears from his eyes, before Butterscotch said, "Alright, alright. Now that I've got everyone's attention, I'll get straight to the point." She said with a much more serious tone. She looked at her brother, who was glaring at her with brotherly hatred. Still, he had gotten himself together enough to listen.

"Let me guess; command sent you here?" He asked with a tone that suggested he both already knew the answer and still wanted to kill her for saying the things she did.

His sister nodded. "Ayep. They're getting pretty impatient about your mission here, so they sent me and operative Doomtune over here to help you out." Balaclava and I both looked to the zebra.

"Why do they call you Doomtune?" I asked, and Balaclava's head turned to face the zebra with a look of curiosity in his eyes. I also wondered what the mare's operative name was.

The zebra had removed all of his raider looking garments, and was now wearing the same heavy vest with the logo and armored gasmask that I had come to associate with Specters, although how he wore all that under his disguise without anyone noticing, I don't know. There was also a heavy backpack in the corner, partially covered by stealth cloaks. It looked like it was big enough to contain all my equipment five times over.

He looked at me, and then pulled out a headset with speakers on both the inside and on the outside from the backpack. It had an old logo, most likely the name of the company that made the headset. Unfortunately, it was so faded it was beyond reading. The only thing left of the logo was a stylized 'R'. The headset had a dial-like switch on the side, with the options for the dial being 'inner', 'outer', and 'both'. Right now, it was on 'inner'. It was also connected to a small, screened device of some sort. He placed the device in one of his vest's pockets, then placed the headset over his helmet, making sure the speakers were aligned with his headgear's listening apparatus.

"Because I bring the music of death, that's why," He said in an amused tone that suggested he was grinning madly under his helmet. Then he pressed on the device's screen once, and immediately he started bobbing his head up and down rhythmically. I looked at him strangely, as did Balaclava. What the hell did he mean by that? Even Butterscotch looked a little confused, but she kept up a little smile before she turned to face us.

"Anyway..." She started. "Command sent us here to help you take these guys down." Her expression darkened forebodingly as she looked at me, then turned back to her brother with the same expression. "Something bad's going on, brother. Something really bad. Not just war; these people have faced that their whole lives. Something's happening. And you can call me crazy, but I can almost...feel it. Something...terrible. Even the Legion seems to know it. We need all the operatives we can get, so we're pulling them back. Canterium Prime even sent us another wing of operatives to counter this threat, whatever it is. Hell, we even sent out a team to try to find Predator. And you know how desperate we'd have to be to actually WANT him with us."

Balaclava took all that in with a grim expression, seeming to have forgotten his embarrassment completely. Even Doomtune seemed to be listening in through his music. "I'm sorry, sister. I don't really have a plan on how to take them out. There's too many of them, even for the three of us..."

"Four of us." I corrected, and they looked at me. "Hey, they beat the crap out of me for fun, and I want payback. And even if I didn't, it's not like I'd let these guys live to threaten people." The mare smiled thankfully. I couldn't tell how the other two felt, though.

"Actually, Praetorian, it's five of us." Butterscotch corrected. What did she mean by that? Let's see... One... Two... Three... Plus me... That's four. Maybe her brother had busted her head?

"What?" Balaclava asked, seeming just about as confused as I. In the corner, Doomtune had pulled out several rifles and pistols and was attaching what looked like silencers to them. Even with all that out, the backpack still looked bloated beyond what I thought possible. The mare looked a little confused for a moment, before she seemed to understand something.

"Oh, right. I almost forgot." She looked over at the zebra behind her, who now had far more equipment and ammo about him than I thought possible for the bag to carry. Doomtune tossed her a helmet and a rifle from the pile, along with a LOT of ammo. "Doomtune and I ran into some mare on our way here. She looked pretty banged up, and she had a stealthcloak slung across her back as she galloped into this area. When we stopped her, she said she was some friend of yours and that she had some plan to bust you out." What? Myst was trying to bust me out? And she was here? Oh no...

"Yup. She was being chased by two hostiles. We took 'em out and put on their clothing. Then she asked us the strangest thing..." Doomtune said, and my ears perked up as I listened intently. "She asked us to cover for her while she went around these buildings for a few minutes. After that, she told us to bring her here, tied and beaten, so she could bust you out. Guys downstairs were delighted, and told us to go tell 'the boss' that the 'cunt with the sniper rifle' was here."

My head was in turmoil, conflicted as to feel either angry or thankful. On the one hoof, she was risking herself to bust me out, and I should be thankful for that. On the other hoof, she was throwing herself into a very dangerous situation. And what the heck was her plan? And what if it failed? Wait...

"You said they were 'delighted' that she was here. Would you happen to know why?" I asked, hoping that the thought forming in my mind was just my fucked up brain acting up. Balaclava looked to Doomtune while Butterscotch removed her raider clothing, revealing that she was also wearing the same vest as her fellow Specters, and put on her helmet. Doomtune thought for a moment, tapping his gasmask's breathing apparatus with a hoof.

"Meh, I don't know. It's mostly stallions down there, with a few mares. She might get raped or s-..." He stopped abruptly, looking at my horrified and worried expression with wide eyes visible through his visor. The Specters looked at one another, as if trying to confirm something. At last, Doomtune seemed to understand. "Oh, fuck no..."

I ran to the elevator worriedly, my heart racing in my chest and my breathing heavy. I slammed on the buttons, shouting, "NO! No no no!"

* * * Magnus et Potens Roamanus * * *

I finished strapping on my vest, and so I went to loading all of my weapons. Balaclava had told me to just use one of his several silenced rifles instead of my shotgun, and he even gave me some ammo. I took it, placing Tankbuster away.

Around me, the three of them were sprawling to finish final preparations before we arrived at the first floor, pulling all sorts of equipment from Doomtune's backpack. Balaclava had left the power armor behind because, and I quote; 'It was real tight around the nuts. Makes sense, since the original leader was a mare.' Finally, the backpack started to show signs of emptying. Each of them held their weapons with their forehooves as they stood on their hindlegs. All their guns, rifle or otherwise, had silencers, optical attachments, and laser sights attached onto them. Doomtune also had his headset set on 'outer', so all three of us could hear his music. It was rather upbeat, in fact the other two danced to it a little as they stood where they were.

But I didn't care for that. I was much too worried about my friend to care. I was worried at what I would find the moment these doors opened. I was worried about what was happening to her right now. Wether she was being used or not. Because if they touched her... if they did anything to her...

'Damn it, Myst! I told you to get away from here! I was trying to protect you!' I screamed in my head, and I almost did aloud. Instead, I just winced and closed my eyes, trying to get my breathing under control. I was sweating madly, the mere thought of what might be going on driving me insane.

Doomtune touched my shoulder with a hoof as he came down onto three legs, the last reaching to the device and lowering the volume of his music. "Relax, Praetorian. Think clearly and focus. We'll get her out, don't worry. And if they've done what we think..." He tensed, and I could see his eyes narrow through his visor. "Then I'll personally chop off their dicks." He said that as if he had personal experience about rape.

He stood back up, looking at the floor indicator, and set his music back to 'inner'. The other two looked to him, then at each other, then at the floor indicator, then nodded once at one another. They reached up a hoof to touch a small button on their helmets, and at once their visors turned from transparent to opaque. Doomtune did the same, looking at me one last time before I lost sight of his eyes. As one, all three of them also touched a small dial on the base of their helmets, right beneath the breathing equipment.

I breathed in deeply. He was right. Myst had done this to help me. If I died because I wasn't thinking clearly and focusing on the task at hoof, then it'll all have been for nothing. The only thing I could do now was make sure I was prepared.

Balaclava looked up at the floor indicator once, then said, "Ten seconds. Lock n' load, people." His voice was deep, just a tiny bit rough, and definitely louder than what it would have been if he wasn't wearing his helmet. His fellows did a few last things; tightening a strap, cocking their guns, and wiping the dust from their visors before getting into a battle stance.

And me? I just waited, taking in every breath with nervous anticipation. Then Doomtune counted down in a raspy version of his own voice: "Three... Two... One..."

"Let's do this." I said quietly, and I too readied my rifle's mechanism.

The doors slid open with a ring, and the first thing I saw was the heavy rain drops falling onto the pavement on the road outside the building, making a lot of noise as the drops struck the road. The next thing I saw was the small red dots of the Specter's lasers on the far wall. I looked around at the outside, scanning the area.

Twelve hostiles; four on our floor, the rest near the railings of the second. A quick glance at my E.F.S confirmed they were all that were here. All of them but one were looking away from us, completely unaware of our sudden arrival. The one that did see us and got up from his sitting got a shot to the head from Butterscotch.

We moved forward, me clearing the first floor while the other three branched off and went up to the second floor through different stairwells. As I turned a corner, I found a pair talking about something. Unfortunately, one of the two was facing my direction. As he brought up his weapon, his partner unaware of what was going on, I shot a burst of silent rifle fire that ended them before they could shoot.

On my E.F.S, the red bars were disappearing rapidly as the Specters continued their silent killing. I turned around another corner where the stairs started for the second floor, and saw the remaining pair descending the steps, completely oblivious to what was going on.

To my dismay, both already had their weapons up and needed only to spot me before they posed a threat. When they inevitably did, I downed one from a headshot before he reacted. The other fell down onto the steps just as I opened fire on him. I recognized him; he was the piece of shit who hit me with a rock earlier. His weapon was a submachine gun, and as such the rapid stream of lead he sent at me stung painfully as each round struck my vest. Luckily, it also wasn't strong enough to pierce through two layers of protective garment, and wasn't loud enough to be heard over the heavy downpour; even more luckily, whoever had been in hearing range of that was either dead or was about to be dead.

When he ran out, I grinned darkly at him. His face turned horrified. With immense satisfaction in my head, I pulled the trigger. Three rounds to his head later and he was dead, and as I turned away, I couldn't help but smile at that fact.

I went back to the first floor, waiting for us to regroup. The last red bar disappeared, leaving only three blue bars within the spell's range. The three came down a stairwell in single file, the last one facing backwards in case any other hostiles showed up.

As they reached me, Balaclava asked, "Alright, wher'd they take her?"

"Last we saw, they hauled her to one of the lower levels. There was a machine there: a model 7000 Auto-doc." Doomtune replied with that raspy voice his helmet assigned to him. He snorted in disgust. "Probably using the damned thing to hold her down. Fuckers." Okay, that was so not a mental image I liked having in my head. Considering how empty this place was, except for a few guards that I could make out in the windows of buildings through the rain, the great majority of them were probably down there... touching...

'No, don't think about it. Focus.' I thought to myself as I gulped. Butterscotch noticed my look of anxiety, and turned to her fellows.

"Well, then let's go get her." She said in an electronic voice that I couldn't determine as male or female, and sounded as if whoever was talking was pinching their nose."If we hurry, we can stop them before they..." She turned her head to me and continued slowly, as if she was trying to not make me more uncomfortable. "um... 'take the load off'." Despite her effort, I couldn't help but feel even more worried than I already was.

Balaclava and Doomtune looked to one another, and then Balaclava gestured for us to move. Once more we moved in single file; first Balaclava, then Butterscotch, me, and finally Doomtune. We trotted quickly across the wet hotel floor, my metal plated hooves slipping and sliding much more than their leather encased ones. They had disabled their laser sights, perhaps thinking that the red dots would expose their positions.

We arrived at the door leading down, and we found it locked. When we tried to kick it down, the metal simply bent inwards. Using their awesome melee skills to break the door down would take too long or cause too much noise, according to Balaclava. Butterscotch trotted over to a broken window and pointed her weapon out. Balaclava kneeled, facing the way we had come, and pointed his rifle down range. With those two locations secured, Doomtune pulled out a pair of rods. He attached each rod to both the top and bottom corner of the door, and then pulled out a detonator.

"Alright, be ready to breach!" He yelled over the sounds of the downpour going on around us. I didn't know what to do, so I just got next to the door and as far away from the breaching charges as I thought necessary. While I was no good at all this tactical breaching stuff, Balaclava and Butterscotch got up and went rather close to the door; much closer than I thought they should have. I was about to voice my concerns of being so close to the explosives, when Doomtune suddenly shouted, "Breaching!" Then he pressed the trigger on the detonator.

The next moments were blurry. The detonation was also far less noisy than I had thought, but I still heard the ringing in my ears. The moments themselves were a mix of getting pushed into the doorway, getting shoved along down the stairwell from behind by Doomtune, accidentally running into walls, and hearing noises. The noises were either the regulated breathing of the Specters, the noise their hooves made as they moved along with me, my own hooves stomping onto the ground, the sounds of the rain coming in from the open doorway, or muffled grunts and screams from below.

I wanted to stop for a moment. Not only because all of this had happened so quickly my mind needed to catch up, but I also needed to hear what was happening. In between the sounds of our hooves, the most I could make out were screams, obscenities being shouted aloud in either pony or zebra, the occasional crunch, and the sounds of physical combat. Unfortunately, the Specters were moving at such a viciously fast pace that I would have been left behind if I were not being shoved along. I couldn't even glance at my E.F.S to take in the number of hostiles down here.

Eventually, we reached the bottom floor. The Specters suddenly stopped, almost making me crash into Butterscotch in front of me. I didn't really mind; I needed to catch some air. Behind this door was where I had been held about an hour ago, and was now where a physical confrontation was being held. Finally, I was able to look at my E.F.S, and what I saw surprised me.

There were quite a lot of red bars surrounding a single blue bar. However, there were much fewer than I had thought. There were, what... twenty of them? While that was still a horrifying number to imagine assaulting Myst, I had expected the entirety of them down here. I guess not all of them were sex crazed lunatics.

But that didn't make hearing her screams and grunts of pain any easier to bear. I was absolutely aching to turn break open the door and kill them all. I wanted to tear them apart with my bare hooves; rip out their spines and beat them to death with it. I tried to move, but Butterscotch gestured me to stay put. I could just imagine what they were doing... holding her down while they pounded her... again and again... The mere thought of it all sickened me, and already I could feel a dark rage filling my mind.

'Well, what are you waiting for?' Asked Tod. 'Go get her already!'

'He has to wait; there's too many of them in there, and he might get killed. When they move, he moves.' Tom said in my head, but I actually wanted to agree with Tod. Why the hell was I waiting? She was right behind the damned door, getting screwed over by fifteen savages, and here I was waiting!

I looked behind me at Doomtune, who was beginning to shake. From what, I couldn't tell. He seemed perfectly fine to me. I squinted, trying to see his facial expression through his visor, but turned up with nothing. His breathing was significantly more uneven than that of the other two, and about as rough as mine.

"You alright, Doomtune?" I asked quietly, temporarily turning my concern to him. The other two heard my question, as they too turned their heads towards their comrade.

"When do we take them out, sir?" He asked Balaclava. "I can't take it, and neither can he. Just listening to this is torment for us. Let's go in there already!" I wondered just what he meant by 'torment for us'. As far as I thought, I was the only one who should be truly worried about what was going on. After all, he didn't really know... did he?

Butterscotch looked to Doomtune and me, then to Balaclava. "Come on brother. Let's kick their flanks."

Balaclava looked away, and opened the door just a little before popping his head out for a second. When he pulled away, he hung his head in resignation. The sounds of what was going on were now louder than ever though the open doorway, and that only made me want to kill them all more. I almost lost it and just jumped in when I heard the sound of a crunch, but relaxed a little when I heard a stallion scream in pain. Doomtune moved closer to stand right next to Balaclava, and reached over to the device in his vest. Next, he touched a hoof to the dial on his headset.

"Alright, let's get her. Just remember that this is gonna alert them, one way or another. Once we get her out, you two get out of here." Balaclava finally said, and I let out a great sigh of relief. I prepared myself to turn the corner, as did Butterscotch and Balaclava, when we all seemed to notice something about Doomtune.

"What are you doing?" Butterscotch asked in a rush, seeing her fellow Specter turn the volume of his music to the maximum. Doomtune chuckled, and turned to us.

"He said they're going to find out about us anyway, so we might as well make it awesome. You two don't need to worry. You, though, should put this on." The final statement was addressed to me, and he pulled out what looked like earmuffs and handed them over. "The music's gonna be loud."

"This why they call you Doomtune?" Butterscotch asked in a tone that suggested she thought what he was about to do was stupid. Even though I couldn't see his expression, I could tell that Balaclava didn't think it was a good idea, either. Balaclava facehoofed while his sister shook her head disbelievingly, saying, "Command really HAS to brief me on who they send me with next time. I swear, if I get killed because of this..." I couldn't care less so long as I got Myst out of here, so I just took the earmuffs and put them on.

"Come on," He said in response, "Surely you know that EVERYTHING is better with background music." We all shook our heads idly. "Ugh, never mind, then. Alright, I'll go in first to distract them. Poor suckers are gonna have their ears stung," He said with a dismissive wave of her hoof. Then he snickered, and yanked open the door and jumped though, firing his weapon and turning the dial on the headset to 'outer'.

The music that blasted out was LOUD. Really loud; much louder than I thought possible for those speakers. In fact, it was so loud that I felt the ground and walls vibrate from every beat and note. I couldn't help but look in awe at the pebbles and debris bouncing off the ground. This was weaponized music, and the power it displayed was as terrifying as any gun. And even through my earmuffs, I could still hear it clearly.

Balaclava turned to us and shouted. At least, I thought he did. Even if he didn't, he at least gestured for us to move. We sprang around the corner, and I saw the remaining sixteen or so hostiles clutching their ears, though a few pulled out their weapons. One of them was standing on the Auto-doc's table, fluids coming off from a certain area. I saw Doomtune moving to the corner, opening fire on the crowd. We opened fire as well, the aim of the operatives proving to be far superior to my own as almost every shot they fired off struck either the head or necks of the hostiles. They tried to return fire, and nearly hit me in the face through all their mad firing, but they were either unprepared or couldn't aim properly with the pain being caused by the music. I spotted Myst's sniper rifle laid against the Auto-doc.

Doomtune had also proven himself correct; they were indeed using the machine to hold my screaming and thrashing friend down. I gasped in horror the moment I saw that they had used the needle-tubes to pierce into her sides, causing immense bleeding and I assumed was meant to discourage movement with pain. As soon as she was visible through the crowd, Doomtune turned down his music such that I no longer needed the earmuffs. With any stragglers being put down left and right, I galloped to Myst like a madpony. She was screaming in pain, tugging at her shackles in a futile attempt to cover her ears. I seriously hoped that she wouldn't go deaf because of this, because if she did... well, suffice it to say you couldn't listen to music with your head gone.

But as I ran, I smelled something in my nostrils. It was a familiar musky smell; one I was all too familiar with. It was almost overwhelming, and I had to breathe through my mouth to avoid gagging from the stench. I slipped and fell, finding myself in a huge puddle of...

"Fuck! Get off me, get off me!" I yelled as I shook the disgusting semen off, feeling completely revolted and altogether angry. I got back up and made my way to Myst, who no longer tried to cover her ears because the music had stopped completely. Rather, as she lay there, she began crying. My anger was replaced with immediate concern, and I stomped my way through the white, wet mess to get to her.

"Goldwreath..." She sobbed in between her wretched and hoarse breathing. "... I'm so sorry..."

"Shhh... lay still..." I said softly, and pulled out a healing potion. Oh, wait... damn. I was out. If I remember correctly, I had used my last one on myself underneath the bridge. I began to look around desperately, even turning to the bloody and self-lubricated corpses in search of even the most meager healing supplies.

I had rummaged through the moist body of the closest raider, when Balaclava threw me a vial of the precious healing fluid. "I figured you'd ran out, seeing how screwed up you looked under the bridge." I smiled to him thankfully, while Myst looked to me with a tired yet concerned expression. I reached over to the machine and turned it off. With the sound of hydraulics, the needles withdrew and I began cutting her free. I held the vial over her muzzle and she began drinking, all the while looking at me with half-closed eyes.

"You have nothing to be sorry for, Myst. This was all my fault. I should have done... something. I should have gotten here sooner." Self loathing flooded my thoughts, and so I said, "And now those... beasts... did things to you." I couldn't help myself. As the weight of my failure became more apparent to me, I began to shake. "I failed you, Myst. I'm the one whose supposed to be sorry."

She looked at me with a look of pained apology. "No..." She rasped, throat probably sore from all her screaming. "They didn't get me. They tried, but they didn't." I got her forelegs free, and she wiped her face with them.

"What? But... but how?" I asked, feeling my mind split into either confusion or a feeling that resembled relief. She sniffed, then looked down at herself. I did, as well.

Her coat was was torn and rough, and her hide was covered in countless bruises, with some bodily fluids -- mostly semen and what I assumed was saliva -- on a few areas, especially on her tattered camouflage jacket and in between her hindlegs. Thankfully, there were no such fluids in the one area I had feared to find them the most. Seeing that alone was like having an iron slab lifted off my head, and I sighed in relief. There were marks of hooves, too. Perhaps where some of them had stomped on her to keep her from struggling.

"I fought them," She said softly. "I tried to buy you time." Her lips curled into a pained smile of pride. "And it worked. The plan worked."

"I don't understand..." I said as I shook my head.

"This was part of my plan, Goldwreath. To distract them so they could get to you." She glanced behind me, at the three Specters watching the doorway. While Butterscotch and Balaclava focused on the stairwell, Doomtune's head was facing us. "This whole thing was part of my plan."

"WHAT?!" I asked aloud, making her eyes go wide. She glanced off to the side again, perhaps seeing the three Specters turn their attention to us. "Are you saying you WANTED to get raped? That you WANTED to get beaten and attacked? That you wanted to worry the fuck out of me?!" I shouted, angered. Damn it, I had gone through all this to prevent her from being hurt, and she did the exact opposite of what I wanted her to do! I had trusted her to keep herself safe, and instead she threw herself into danger!

I finished cutting her loose, and as she got onto the ground, she looked down at the floor in shame. "No. I didn't want any of that." She admitted meekly, but I still grit my teeth in frustration. I resisted the urge to shout at her again, and allowed her to continue. "In fact, the reason I'm sorry is because I know you think I betrayed you. That you think you went through... whatever you went through for nothing." She looked up at me with tears in her eyes and the most apologetic look I ever saw from a mare and said, "I'm sorry because I scared you."

I snarled in irritation and brought up a hoof to cover my face. I lowered it, just enough so I could see her. Her expression was practically begging me to forgive her, and her eyes threatened an immense sobbing session. I groaned, putting my hoof back onto the ground.

"I'm still very pissed off that you did this. You should have looked for Zaita and then busted me out, not this." I said sternly, and once more she hung her head in shame. She shouldn't have done this. She shouldn't have put herself in harm's way for me. Still, I understood her intent and her situation, and I am not ungrateful.

"But... thanks." I said in what I hoped was friendly tone. But beneath my smile, I still harbored my anger and feelings of betrayal. Now just wasn't the time to get distracted.

She slowly raised her head and looked at me with wide eyes. Despite the effort, I kept up my smile. In return, I saw her lips curl into a smile as well.

Then she hugged me. Either she thought it necessary or she simply felt immensely relieved, but either way it was a hug. I felt my cheeks burn from the unprecedented action, and my mind went blank, causing me to lose all feelings of betrayal and anger. My embarrassment was only worsened by the fact that all three Specters each let out a long 'aww', which sounded rather scary from their altered voices.

I don't know how long it lasted, but she finally pulled away with a smile on her face. I smiled back, much more genuinely this time. She intentionally put herself in danger to bust me out. She nearly got raped in the process. And she also got herself unnecessarily injured along the way. But she did all that because she was my friend; something I could only say about a few other people. And I'd be damned if I let that friendship get damaged by my fucked up way of thinking.

* * * Magnus et Potens Roamanus * * *

We began trotting to the three, when a gigantic number of bars appeared on my E.F.S, all of which were red. The Specters must have noticed the sudden presence of our very unwelcome guests, as they each turned their attention to the stairs. Perhaps they also had an E.F.S? Balaclava looked to me and Myst and said, "Alright, reunions time's over! Doomtune, sister, you're with me! Praetorian, watch over your friend!" He turned a knob on the side of his rifle, then turned to the other two. "Alright, let's take 'em out!" Then they charged up the stairs, while what sounded like a really loud bass drop came from Doomtune's speakers at a loud enough volume to vibrate the walls.

"Now's a really good time to tell me what that plan of yours was!" I yelled over the sounds of rapid gunfire mixing with screams as I pulled her up. On my E.F.S, the Specter's three blue bars were moving into an enormous mass of red ones.

"We have to get to the road. The signal... can't... can't reach from down here..." She panted as she clutched her side, a pained expression on her face.

"Signal? For what?" She didn't answer, instead focusing on her breathing. The most she gave me was a quick glance before she collapsed, breathing hard. I picked her up and wrapped her hoof around my neck.

Explosions shook the building, causing small pieces of rubble and dust to fall from the ceiling. From the stairwell came the nearly drowned-out sounds of multiple bodies slumping onto the ground. I looked at the stairs anxiously, then remembered the volume of Doomtune's music. I got her rifle and slung it across my back and removed the earmuffs and put them on her before beginning the trot up.

The blood that came down the stairs like a stream made my ascent slippery, while the dozen or so bodies made me watch my footing carefully. Doomtune's music coupled with the detonations of what was most likely rockets shook the building hard, and was definitely not making going up easier. For all the mess they left behind which I had to trudge through, I couldn't help but respect them for their combat prowess. If it were me in their place, wether with my friends or not, could I so easily cut through all these raiders to escape? Somehow I didn't think so.

I emerged into the lobby, leaving the two dozen dead zebras behind. I noticed that the rain had reduced to a mere drizzle. Taking that in mind, I turned my attention back to the Specters. The three of them had formed a sort of ring in front of the doorway, firing shots at anyone trying to approach with deadly precision. When they noticed that I had emerged, Balaclava gestured for us to move. I brought myself and Myst to the other side of the lobby as quickly as possible while they moved along with us, providing covering fire. Only one shot struck me despite the immense number of hostiles opening fire on us from outside, either because of blind luck or the three of them taking the shots for us.

When we hit the other side, I put Myst down and laid her against a column, which I took cover behind. While Doomtune and Butterscotch kneeled and resumed firing, letting their heavy vests do their job, Balaclava came over to me.

"So what's her plan?!" He yelled over the near deafening noise around us, mostly Doomtune's music. Before I got to answer, he turned to his comrade and gestured to his headset. Doomtune responded by lowering his music's volume. While at least now our hearing wasn't being threatened, neither was that of our attackers. Even as he turned back to me, a greater number of hostiles appeared out of their cover to open fire on us, some charging in with flamethrowers. In response, Butterscotch pulled out a little clay jar. She flung it at the doorway, and as it landed in their midst, she shot it. With an unnatural looking violet light, it detonated and coated the blast radius in violet flame and bluish dust. Those who breathed in the dust fell to the ground, apparently unconscious.

I waited for the ringing in my ears to subside a little before I responded. "Don't know! All she got to me was that we needed to get to the road. Something about a signal." His opaque visor turned to her, almost as if trying to extract more info than that with his gaze alone. He stomped a hoof on the ground in irritation.

"Damn it!" Even through his altered voice, he sounded quite annoyed. He turned back to his music-blasting ally, and tapped him twice. When Doomtune turned his head, Balalclava gestured to me, particularly my ears, and then at the headset on Myst's head. Doomtune pulled out another set from his heavy backpack and tossed it to me. After I had placed it on, my ears thankful for the relief, Balaclava gestured for his companions to move. As one, they got up and began moving slowly towards the exit, trading automatic fire with their opponents. The violet flame had subsided, so the doorway and the windows nearby were practically swarming with hostiles peppering the lobby with deadly lead. Still, the three's heavy vests did a really good job protecting them from the storm of rifle fire.

With the distracted crowd focusing on my heavily protected and well armed allies, I picked Myst up off the ground. She had fallen unconscious from exhaustion, and I worried how that would affect her plan. But I had no time to wake her up. Even the Specters couldn't hold the crowd down forever, even with the unfathomable amount of ammo and equipment in Doomtune's backpack and on their vests. Where as earlier they showed no sign of pain whenever they got hit, now with every bullet that struck them they staggered and flinched.

"Doomtune!" Yelled Butterscotch.

"Quod est?!"

"Sunt solveret in tergum ostium!" She yelled in a concerned tone, one that I barely made out through her altered voice. Let's see... something about our rear?

"Ego cura est!" He turned back, darting down a hallway behind the lobby's counter.The flashes of automatic fire the moment he went in told me all I needed to know.

"Sister, Praetorian, movere deinceps, nunc!" Shouted Balaclava as he jumped through the doorway, knocking down three hostiles in the process. He recovered quickly and opened fire. Okay, something about... moving forward? ...Oh, ok!

I hobbled along behind them, dragging Myst with me. The ground shook more intensely, signaling that Doomtune was coming back to us. I hoped he had indeed cleared the area behind us, because right now I could do nothing but use myself as a shield for Myst, and I couldn't even shoot. A rocket flew through the window, nearly blasting Doomtune to pieces as the operative hit the deck.

More missiles hit the building, blowing out chunks of the walls and the doorway Balaclava and Butterscotch were near. The building groaned, threatening collapse. I began to panic; we were still in the damned thing, after all. When the bloody red fog had cleared, revealing the area to be littered in about two dozen blasted and mutilated corpses, Balaclava pulled himself out from underneath a concrete slab with a groan while his sister crawled behind cover, leaving a trail of red behind her. For once, they looked like they couldn't exert themselves or their equipment any more, what with the smoking embers and the many bullet holes on their vests together with their battered helmets. Doomtune rushed to their aid, turning off his music as he ran, while the rocket wielding hostiles reloaded. On my E.F.S, they formed a near solid wall of red.

"We're so fucked." I muttered darkly as I hurried for cover, but I still got shot in the flank with what felt like a sniper rifle. I staggered the rest of the way, and I almost threw Myst next to Butterscotch just to get her safe. I resisted that urge, and for my slowness got shot in the leg. When I reached the cover, I laid her next to the injured operative and collapsed next to them.

They opened fire again, blasting out more sections of the wall in the process. Balaclava had gotten away and was now with the rest of us, while Doomtune helped Butterscotch get her helmet off before pulling out a healing potion. One rocket struck the segment Balaclava had just gotten behind, tearing away the flesh of his left foreleg just under his knee and sending him flying into the now exposed lobby.

"Baley!" His sister yelled, trying to get up to get to her brother. Doomtune kept her down and forced her to down the rest of the potion, and after she did he jabbed her with a needle filled with the same clear fluid Zeneta had used on me back in the hospital.

Balaclava grunted, trying to get up. Upon using the bone of his foreleg to try to stabilize himself, he collapsed, screaming in agony. Butterscotch watched with a look of utter horror as two rounds struck her brother's vest as he once more tried to get up, as did I. One round bounced off harmlessly, while the other blasted out of his stomach and buried itself into the floor, and he fell down with a thud. A pool of blood quickly formed around him as he turned his head to us, using what remaining strength he had to reach up to the button on his helmet. The visor slowly became clear, and through it his eyes locked onto his sister's before he closed them. Butterscotch choked, doing her best to not break down, now of all times.

I was exhausted. All I had the energy to do was tap Doomtune, who was currently the only one of us who was capable of combat. He turned his attention away from the cringing Butterscotch and faced me. "We... need to wake her up..." I breathed, trying to get as much air in my lungs as possible.

I could hear the laughs shared by our attackers, and it frightened me. Somehow, I knew the moment we were all down was the moment they rush in here and do horrible things to us before they killed us. The thought made me shudder. Doomtune perked up at the noise, and immediately picked up his rifle and poked his head out of cover. A moment later, he exposed himself just long enough to empty a whole magazine, and five red bars on my E.F.S disappeared. As he reloaded, he pulled out a syringe and threw it to me. "Give her this, it should get her up. At least for a while." Butterscotch lay against the wall, having lost the fight to not cry. I felt for her. She didn't even get a chance to be by him while he died. For some reason, that angered me. It felt so unjustified, like... like when I was forced to leave my stable for the crime I didn't commit.

But as much as I wanted to help her, I had to get Myst up otherwise we'd all die. Right now, my friend's plan was the only hope we had to not share Balaclava's fate. I jabbed the needle into her leg, and slowly she opened her eyes. "Myst! Your plan, now!" I yelled at the top of my lungs to get my message across. The sounds of bullets and rockets filled the air, almost as deafening as Doomtune's music at max volume.

She blinked twice, almost as if clearing her mind as much as her vision. She reached into one of the pockets on Doomtune's backpack in a casual manner, from the non-troubled look in her eyes. Doomtune looked to her and nodded, almost as if he knew what was in there. Which, since it was his backpack, was likely the case.

My eyes shot wide at what she pulled out. The zebra operative glanced over his shoulder at us. Myst herself looked around calmly for a second, then at me.

"This is your plan?!" All she did in response was nod.

Doomtune dove away from his firing position, covering the still crying Butterscotch with his body. My mind was still racing to catch up -- mostly to think of what to do, considering what was just revealed to me.

Then she pressed the detonator, a small screen indicating the number of explosives linked to it. That number was twenty-five -- specifically, twenty-five pieces of highly explosive ordinance. In the distance, I heard numerous, thunderous sounds. Those sounds were getting closer and closer with each second.

"Hit the deck!" Doomtune yelled as the sounds of the dozens of explosives came even closer. I did so, just a moment before the explosives nearest to us detonated, blasting fire and shrapnel through the gaps in the wall. As I lay there, waiting for the deafening choir of detonations to seize, I watched the majority of the red bars on my E.F.S disappear.

After the detonations, there was an eerie and uncomfortable silence in the area. The blasts had blown so much dust into the lobby that the blood on my coat was matted with the stuff. Doomtune stirred, wiping the dust from his visor. Beneath him, the shock of what had just happened had caused Butterscotch to cease her sobbing and look around her with wide eyes.

"So THAT was her plan," Doomtune said in wonder as he got up and trotted outside. He leaned forward, then got onto his hindlegs. "That a hostile?" Then he pulled out his rifle and walked out of sight into the dust. Butterscotch got up and ran to her brother's bloody and dusty corpse.

I turned to Myst with amazement bordering on relief. "You know, I have to say, even if you're plans are damned ambitious, at least they work." I laughed a little, "Hey, maybe you should become our strategist from now on! Wouldn't that be great?" She looked at me with wide eyes, then gave me a weird expression as she shook her head. My heart deflated a little. Then again, I wasn't really expecting her to agree. "Oh well. Still, at least your plans work, unlike mine." She looked back at me with a comforting expression.

"Goldwreath, this was my first time. Maybe it was just beginner's lu-..." That was all she got out, before a rocket smashed into the wall right behind me, singing my coat and nearly knocking me off my injured and tired legs.

Doomtune jumped back behind our cover to join us, a shot ricocheting off his helmet as he landed. "Yes, definitely a hostile!"

I turned to Myst with a smirk. "Well, I guess not all beginners are lucky." She smiled sheepishly in response.

"We still got about eight missile launchers, and another dozen on assault. We can take them, but..." He looked to the sobbing Butterscotch, who had dragged her brother's body behind some cover, then at me and Myst. He sighed and shook his head. "Well, it seems like I'm on my own." He began to turn the corner back to the outside.

"Hell no!" I grunted as I pulled myself up off the ground, placing a hoof on his shoulder. "You're not doing this alone. I'm going to help you out; I don't want another casualty." I told him firmly as I pulled out Tankbuster, slinging my new rifle across my back.

"Well, someone has to watch these two. And no offense, but I don't really think you can take all these guys out. Hell, even I'm not sure if I can, but I'll try anyway. No one kills a Specter and gets away with it." He replied as he touched a hoof onto his headset, which he had not taken off the whole fight.

"No." Myst interrupted, catching both of our attention.

"No what?" Doomtune sounded confused.

"No, you don't need to go out there." She elaborated, and the zebra cocked his head sidewards in confusion. I gave her a confused look, as did Butterscotch, her bloodshot and puffy eyes pulling a melancholy chord in my heart.

Doomtune laughed, "Haha! Oh boy, that mix I gave you must have messed up with your head!" He chuckled a bit, but Myst didn't show signs of joking. "Uh... okay, how do I put this..." He got up onto his hindlegs and gestured around him. "There are bad people here; people that need to die. I'm going to kill them." He explained slowly, putting emphasis on each word.

"I know." Myst responded evenly. "But you don't have to. I have some friends coming." Wait, what? Who?

Doomtune facehoofed, groaning in apparent annoyance. "I really should reduce the Mint-Al content of those mixtures..." He put his hoof down with a sigh, and turned to see me giving him a questioning look.

"Mint-Als?" I asked.

"Yeah, it's a kind of drug. Makes the subject think more clearly for a time, allowing them to concentrate even in battle. The mix I gave her..."

"You gave her drugs?" I asked menacingly, pointing a hoof at my friend, who watched us with disturbing calmness. "So what are you implying? That because of those drugs, she's going delusional?" I looked to my friend in concern, but she just leaned against the wall and watched us with minimal concern.

"Uh... no?" I narrowed my eyes at him. "Hey, look, you wanted her awake, and the only thing I had to get her up was my own personal mix of various drugs. As long as she doesn't take too much, she won't get addicted, if that's what you're worried about. I don't know why the hell she's talking about 'friends' coming here, though. " He peeked outside, then immediately pulled back as the wall got peppered with assault rifle fire. "Look, now really isn't the time to discuss this. If we survive..." A grenade landed in our midst, but he just picked it up and threw it back outside. A scream accompanied the detonation. "... then I'll personally remove the drugs from her system, if you're that paranoid about it." I relaxed a little at that. He'd better, because I was going to hold him to that.

He peeked his head out again, but this time didn't get shot at. The rifle fire had continued, but not in our direction. On my E.F.S, red bars were disappearing. "Quod in inferno..." Doomtune muttered to himself as he took a few slow steps out. The sounds of an engine emanated from around the corner, most likely from a vehicle. "Oh, shit!" Once more, he jumped back behind our cover as the ground where he had stood was pounded by heavy rounds.

'BUG-BUG-BUG!' Oh, that was a sound I recognized. And one I was very very glad to hear.

Doomtune didn't view it the same way, evidenced by him pulling out the same blue-glowing cylinders Predator had tried but failed to use in the past. "No." I said as I stopped him from flinging the cylinder. He looked to me with confusion. Or at least I think he did; I couldn't see through his visor, after all. I smiled as I said, "Friendlies." I trotted outside, and was greeted with the sight of our armored transport's gun pointing at me. "Hey, Zaita."

* * * Magnus et Potens Roamanus * * *

All of our opponents had been decimated from a combination of Myst's explosive surprise and the sudden appearance of our APC, which, after some questioning, was revealed to also be part of Myst's plan to bust me out. Doomtune and Butterscotch (I still didn't know her operative name) had taken the time of ceasefire to prepare Balaclava's body for some kind of funeral.

"...and that is where she ran into us; about a mile away from here." Said Zaita, who was explaining just what Myst's plan was. Ok, so apparently her plan had been to distract the raiders (a part of her plan which I still felt a pang of anger over) and wait for me to bust her out together with the Specters. She had met them after she had run into Zaita, whom she told to wait for a signal before coming to our help. After Myst was free, she would signal our transport with the explosives she had set up before getting herself captured.

Doomtune looked at our APC with amazement, marveling at it. Honestly, if I hadn't been INSIDE of the vehicle when I first met Zaita, then I too would have watched the talking vehicle with amazement. Butterscotch didn't share his wonder, sitting next to her brother's corpse with a blank expression.

"Oh, and, uh... as for the explosives... well, um..." Myst started, once more uncomfortable, most likely due to the number of people around her. "...well, I had to sneak into their armory, where they kept their weapons. I almost couldn't believe how much ordinance they had down there. It was probably enough to blow several tanks to pieces." She sighed with a small smile of pride, perhaps taking joy in her accomplishment. "So I blew it all up."

"What? Why would you do that? We could have used that stuff!" Interrupted Doomtune, who had began scanning the area for any remaining hostiles after finally losing interest in our APC. "Just because we Specters got good equipment doesn't mean we don't need to scavenge. And with the fighting in the city, we need all the ammo and weapons we can get."

"And how would you have brought all of it with you, hmm?" Myst questioned with a tone of smugness. Doomtune, whose visor was no longer opaque, looked a little shocked. Perhaps he wasn't used to being questioned so.

"Well, I could have called Home Base and asked for some transports. Ordinance with the variety and quality these guys possessed could have been invaluable to us. Destroying it all was wrong." He replied with an edge in his voice, one that suggested he was ready to defend his point.

That assumption of mine was proven true when the two began debating about whether or not it was right to blow up all the equipment. I really couldn't care less, so I turned to Zaita as a source of conversation; the eerie silence accompanying the area's destruction was a very good incubator for my habit of talking when things are quiet.

"So, Zaita, when do you think we should leave? This whole trip has been one distraction after another, and we really should get back to Verge after we get you upgraded before Skyfire gets up." I thought of how simple the plan had been: go out, get the APC upgraded, go back. Yet another of my plans going so wrong so quick.

"Ah, yes, about that..." She turned around, letting me see the back of the APC. The gun tracked me for a moment, then oriented itself to face where the vehicle was facing. I suddenly realized something.

"Wait... I didn't know you could operate the gun on your own."

"I can't."

I looked at our transport with confusion. "Then who's operating the..."

The hatch was thrown open, and an orange pegasus wearing an armored tank crew vest and a hat popped out, smiling at me with an overconfident and proud smile. On her sides were twin plasma rifles, both of which looked recently polished and cleaned. I stared at her with my mouth hung low. She got up onto the vehicle, then jumped into the dust, causing the stuff to fly off in all directions as she landed.

"Sooo, you missed me?" Asked Skyfire.

* * * Magnus et Potens Roamanus * * *

"What the hell is going on here?!" I yelled aloud, sandwiching my head with my forehooves. My question coupled with Skyfire's appearance had gotten the attention of everyone, Butterscotch included. "You... you... when did... where'd you get... uh... GAH!" I fell onto my haunches, still clutching my head.

"Honestly," Skyfire started, seeming amused at my behavior despite her expression. "I would have thought you'd be glad to see me again." She sounded offended, but whether or not she was being overdramatic, I couldn't tell.

"I am! It's just that, well..." I got up, shaking my head and organizing my thoughts. "...I just thought that you'd, you know, stay in the hospital in Verge to..."

"Fuck no!" She snapped, interrupting me mid-sentence. Her friendly and confident demeanor suddenly changed to one of anger and frustration. "I thought I told you I don't like being in one place for too long. Speaking of which, you guys left me behind! What the hell?" She trotted closer, and pointed a hoof at me accusingly. "Do you realize how scared out of my mind I was? I nearly had to kill the doctor because I thought she was lying to me about you leaving!" She sounded angry, and that was reflected on her expression. All I could do was mouth the words 'nearly killed the doctor' while I thought of the time she had threatened another doctor back in Road Town.

"Oh... sorry about that Skyfire. But we had to..." Myst's voice was quiet, yet could be heard, if faintly. Skyfire turned to her with a menacing look.

"Yeah, yeah, something about getting Zaita upgraded or some shit. It doesn't really change the fact that you left me!" She sniffed and blinked her eyes hard. Myst wisely kept quiet and just allowed her to continue. Butterscotch and Doomtune had momentarily turned their attention to us. "Damn it, I don't want you guys to go anywhere without me. If... if you get in trouble, then I want to be there to help out. I don't want to lose you."

Zaita's camera turned to me. "For some reason, this conversation interests me. It's almost like the ones my former crew had, except with more shouting." I looked at her strangely. What the heck did that mean? I understand if she felt involved in the conversation, seeing as she was our transport, but... seriously, what? "And as for your original question, I believe we should leave as soon as possible."

I turned my train of thought back to my pegasus friend, who was glaring daggers at me and Myst, and the occasional glance at our APC. "I'm... sorry, Skyfire. I... we shouldn't have left you behind. That was wrong of us. If there's anyway we can make it up to you, we'll do it."

She relaxed a little, closing her eyes and sighing. When she opened them again, she looked at me with a hard stare. "Promise me that we won't split up like that again, and I'm good." She said with firmness.

I was really about to say 'I promise', when I took in just what I was about to do. The gravity of what she was asking was tremendous, after all. What if we really did need to split up? Would she hold it against me then? And what would she feel if I wouldn't be able to keep that promise?

My hesitation brought a frown to Skyfire's face, but then Myst said, "We promise." She turned to me, and locked her eyes to mine. In her gaze, I could almost feel her nudging me to make the same commitment. "Right, Goldwreath?"

"Um... yeah. I promise. No more splitting up. Bad stuff happens when we split up." I felt a little disappointed, making that promise without much thought. Then again, I wanted to keep my friends safe. And if they were so set on coming with me into the city, then the most I could do to protect them was be with them at all times. Hell, half of my brain even applauded me for the decision. The other half felt rather disappointed.

"Good." She breathed in deeply, placing yet another confident smile on before turning around and getting back up onto the APC. I found myself staring at her hindquarters, and I averted my gaze before anyone caught me. Just as she was about to jump in, she turned to face me and asked, "Well? Aren't you coming?"

"Wait, where are we going?"

She looked a little surprised, raising an eyebrow at me. "We're getting our ride pimped up, right? Well, let's go already!"

"Oh, right." I felt a little stupid, not knowing what she had meant. Well, I did get my head smacked more than once in that fight, so maybe that contributed to me feeling really sluggish. Either that or it was my fatigue. I turned to Myst, who had resumed her argument with Doomtune. In front of the hotel, Butterscotch had set her brother's body on a pile of old wood. "Come on, Myst. We've wasted enough time. After this, we go back to Verge to resupply and finally head into the city."

Myst looked disappointed, but then tore herself away from her debate. As she trotted away, Doomtune raised a hoof in the air and whooped, like he felt he had won the argument. Right before Myst got into our vehicle, she stuck her tongue out at him, rather childishly, if I do say so myself. Doomtune's head jerked backwards at the act, and he slowly lowered his hoof as he glared in our general direction.

I too was about to jump in, when I realized we were leaving the two behind. "Hey," I called back, catching his attention as he trotted away. "You two need a ride or something? Maybe we could drop you off somewhere, if it's along our way."

He shook his head before replying, "Naw, we got it from here. We'll wrap the place up, see if there's anything to salvage. Maybe there's enough stuff here to call Home Base for. Maybe that Auto-doc..." He paused for a moment, then shook his head. "Then we'll spread the word to the nearby settlements, if there are any, that this place is clear. After that, we're heading back to the city." He glanced behind him, at his fellow Specters, both dead and alive. "Besides, there's still the matter of taking care of my superior's body."

He turned away, taking off his helmet. I was about to get in once more, before he called back to me. "Oh, I almost forgot." He said in his natural voice, un-altered by his helmet. "You might need this." He pulled out a small device, not the same one he used to play his music, and flung it at me. I caught the small radio-looking device in my forehooves.

"What's this?" I asked as I turned it over, looking at it.

"A communicator. We Specters use it to signal any other operatives in our vicinity that we need help. That one's mine, but I can just use operative Balaclava's." I took that in, thinking it wrong to take the possessions of the dead. Then again, scavenging was a must in the wasteland. And Butterscotch didn't seem to care, so I assumed she was fine with it. "Besides, we do have you to thank for helping out with the mission. If Balaclava were alive, I think he would have given you his." Seriously? What did I do that whole time that was helpful? All I did was get shot at and carry Myst around, they did all the actual fighting.

With a wave of our hooves, we went our separate ways. I got into our transport, feeling my body beg me to lay down and rest after my ordeal. The cool air coupled with the lack of much else to do helped me find a feeling of safety and comfort in slumping against one of Zaita's walls. Only one last thought occurred to me: Doomtune's words.

"We Specters use it to signal any other operatives in our vicinity that we need help."

Now, I realized just how dangerous this thing could be. If I ever used this thing, I might get help. And I might bring someone else to me as well.

'Predator.' I thought in my head. I also wondered if, perhaps, Predator had expected Doomtune to give me his communicator. The thought scared me, mostly because that if he did, then he could use it to track me down.

With a tired sigh, I put that thought away. Myst had already fallen asleep in her usual spot in the corner of the vehicle, covering her nethers with her forehooves. Even if she seemed fine, I expected that she would have nightmares about what had nearly happened to her. I felt concerned for her, but that concern was drowned out by my own exhaustion.

I closed my eyes as Zaita started moving once more, to the ZSI HQ. My body felt on the verge of collapsing, and I was just about to fall asleep when Skyfire said in a cheery and energetic tone, "So, what did I miss?"

I groaned quietly, covering my face with my hooves. When I removed them, I put on a mock smile of enthusiasm. "Okay, I'll tell you." I said with a false tone of cheer. "But it'll take a while, maybe an hour or two."

"Sure. I missed a lot, and I need to get back up to speed as soon as possible." She said with a smile. My eye twitched, as she obviously did not understand that I needed to rest. I was about to tell her as much, when she asked, "Oh, and who was that filly Zaita brought in?"

And with that, I knew I needed to tell her. I knew I had to tell her about what we went through without her. I couldn't put that question off, not without some whining from Skyfire (whining which I would not be able to take).

I sighed and readied myself, thinking of just how to start. "Ok, let's start from the bridge..."






Footnote: Level Up
New perk gained: Unwavering Endurance, Level One -- Your brutal experiences have taught you that if you can endure, you can survive. You gain an additional point to your 'endurance' attribute, as well as gain an additional 20 points of health.