> FoE: The Gates of Hell
>  by Mel
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Prologue
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

It starts with fire. I douse the whole place in the liquor they love so much. Every bottle drained onto the bar and the floor and everything wooden. On them, too. Everything is covered in it. Then I light it. The whole place goes up in glorious flames. It finally lives up to its name. I pick out the ones that really bugged me. The ones that laughed at me or leaned on me when they were drunk. I catch them as they struggle through the flames and grab their throats. I choke them and then disintegrate them. It is simple, but I don’t have time for revenge. There are too many ghouls to kill.


-


The normal raucous music of Afterlife was absent. The only sounds in the bar were of some of the band members tuning their instruments and practicing a few lines. Even in a city populated entirely by ghouls, partygoers had to take a break every now and again. There were no dancers or patrons at the bar, just two or three ghouls clearing the worst of the trash and stocking the drinks for Cerberus to serve that night.

At the bar an emaciated pegasus ghoul worked on a robot. It had a spherical body and two trios of gangly limbs curled up at it’s side. There were three rigs at the top that terminated in three spherical cameras. The three spidery arms curling up from its body was each tipped in a tool. The middle ended in a clamp, the left in a flamer, and the right in a plasma-based disintegration weapon with an engraving further up the arm. The whole machine was painted in black and white pinstripes.

The robot whirred to life as the ghoul gave a final turn on his screwdriver. “Rise and Shine, Cerberus. You’ll have customers soon.”

A set of thrusters at the robot’s base roared to life, hoisting it off of the ground. It turned to face the ghoul with its front eye tilting downwards to meet his own filmy orbs. The sounds of unnamable robot parts booting up joined the quiet chorus of the club’s slow waking. When the mechanical sounds faded, the robot lurched backwards and pointed its plasma gun to the pegasus.

“IF YOU’RE NOT USING IT TO PULL OFF THIS DAMN COMBAT INHIBITOR, GET THAT SCREWDRIVER AWAY FROM ME YOU FILTHY ROTTER!”

The ghoul sighed, his bony wings rattling as he dropped the screwdriver into a pocket in his worn stable barding. “Still sore about that, Cerberus?”

“Sore? I’m not sore. I’M DAMN PISSED OFF! DEEP IN ENEMY LINES AND FORCED TO WORK FOR THE UGLIEST PIECES OF ZEBRA SHIT TO EVER HIDE FROM CELESTIA’S SUN!”

None of the ghouls looked up from their work. The mare stocking the bar rolled her eyes patiently and the performers on stage waited for Cerberus to finish his rant before they continued practicing.

The pegasus rubbed his creased brow with obvious exhaustion. “Cerberus, I don’t know the details of what happened, but I do know that Meatlocker is not your enemy. We didn’t-”

“YOU LIE LIKE A ZEBRA! TARTARUS IS FILLED WITH ROTTING REMINDERS OF THE PAST, AND I WILL TEAR DOWN EVERY ONE OF YOU DISGUSTING PUS BUCKETS! YOU WILL BURN, WINDCLOP! DO YOU HEAR ME?”

Windclop sighed again. “No getting through to you tonight, either? I’ll see you tomorrow, Cerberus. Try not to blow a circuit.”

As Windclop trotted out of Afterlife to other duties, Cerberus called after him, raising his plasma gun. “IF YOU KNOW WHAT’S GOOD FOR YOU, YOU’LL KEEP RUNNING OUT INTO THE WASTELAND! THIS INHIBITOR CAN’T HOLD ME FOREVER! I’LL COME FOR YOU! YOUR FAMILY! YOUR FRIENDS! I’LL KILL ALL OF YOU!”


-




The bar is in flames. I have moved on. It is his turn.

He hides behind underequipped security. They turn the corner, covering him. I take a shot. One of the guards screams. When I turn the corner, a door is being slammed closed by a single guard. Two more are waiting for me around the corner in a sloppy ambush. My flamer is already in front of me; I haven’t put away the fire since I started.

They drown in flames. I don’t watch as they flail and scream. The guard at the door fires at me and her bullet pierces my chassis. My internal alerts flare but I focus on bringing my plasma gun to bear. A searing green bolt chars her face and the ghoul collapses.

I open the door. He and his guards are cowering behind upturned tables. He and two of them are on the far end and one is close to the entrance. I am peppered with bullets from the two guards while the nearby ghoul blankets me in a shower of shotgun pellets. I hover over his cover and set him on fire, taking the shelter for my own and shoving him out.

The panicking ghoul flops about the room like the maggot he is. Tables catch fire, adding to the smoke that quickly begins to fill the room. I could wait. Guard the entrance. But I want to see his face when I kill him. Smoke covers the ceiling, and it covers me as I hover through the thick smog. Bullets fly around and through me, but none of them stop me. I descend upon the guards. The one to the left I feed to my flame. The one on the right disintegrates into a green sludge when I fire on him.

He hasn’t run. He doesn’t fight. There are no weapons in his hooves or his mouth or his wings.

I kill him. All that is left is the corpse of a tan earth pony buck.

I don’t have time to think. Many ghouls are still screaming. Many ghouls still need to be killed.


-




“GET YOUR OOZING STRIPS OF CRAM OFF OF ME!”

Cerberus tilted and swayed, shoving at the ghoul. He collided against the bar with a drunken grunt. Cerberus swung his flamer to face the zombie, shaking the weapon impotently.

“IF IT WASN’T FOR THIS DAMN COMBAT INHIBITOR-”

“Yeah, yeah, Cerby…” The ghoul regained his shaky footing. “We heard it all before. You’ve used the cram joke on me four times already. The whole routine is getting a bit stale. Can’t you just chill already? I mean, really…”

Cerberus tilted his central and leftmost optic orb to watch as the ghoul staggered away. Some of the patrons at the bar chuckled at his limp rage before returning to their drinks. His arms shook in tune with every snorting, rotting muzzle. Cerberus raised the limb tipped with a dusty plasma gun and looked at the signature seared upon it. He turned to the shelf of liquor behind him and struck at one of the bottles with his weapon. There was a jolt from his rear that seized his motors and pulled them back, slowing his furious strike to a lame tap that gently tipped the bottle.

He was ready to scream.

“Excuse me-”

“No, no, like this. HEY BARKEEP!”

Cerberus whirled in place, the metal sphere of his body rotating 180 degrees clockwise while his trio of spindly arms spun in the other direction. He poured power into his thrusters and hovered as high as they would allow. Pointing all of his weapons to the rude little mare, he struggled to be heard over the din of Afterlife.

“I AM NOT A BARTENDER! I AM A GUTSY-CLASS ROBOTIC SOLDIER IN THE SERVICE OF HER MAJESTY’S- oh.”

Cerberus lowered himself back to the ground. Two smoothcoat mares sat leaning back in their seats as if blasted by a strong gust of… voice. Even the ghoul regulars were taken aback. One of the two was white unicorn with a light wash of pink and the other was a dark red pegasus.
“Sorry,” said Cerberus, “I thought you were ghouls.”
> Part 1: Life
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


-


Rusty Gears didn’t particularly care for me. That’s not to say she was callous- far from it, she gave me more attention than any of the ponies we travelled with. That’s just how she was. I was nothing special to her yet she still maintained me in peak condition and kept me properly informed. She taught me about the workings of my inner circuitry and the thickness of my casing. I knew my blueprints inside and out. But she also taught me other things, things that ponies know about robots. Things that weren’t at all true. Most robots don’t even know them and it burned her up, I think. 

I don’t really know if these things were true. I could check my circuitry and stress-test my limbs, but how could I measure ambition? Was there a unit for recording self-determination? Rusty Gears put a great deal of thoughts in my head that kept my CPU occupied during long stints in repair pods. I had no way to prove her wrong or right. I asked her once if what she was saying was fact or not. I asked how she could prove it, and whether I should consider it true.

“It’s true enough to have faith in.”

One of the ideas she gave to me was aging. She said that we might not get wrinkles or lose our hair, but we aged all the same. She slapped me with a wrench when I brought up rusting and failing circuitry. Rusty Gears said that a robot gets old just like a pony gets old, on the inside. You could put a pony into a machine and they wouldn’t stop growing old. They would just stop dying from it.

I wasn’t sure what she meant at the time, and I didn’t really care. That’s how I now know she was right. It’s obvious to me now how young I was back then. With her. With Jasmine. With Reeds and Thicket. My world was simple. My life was simple. My concerns were simple.

“Error!”

“Dohn hee shuch a haybee,” Rusty Gears spat her wrench onto the work table, along with my unattached plasma gun arm. “I was nice an’ gentle.”

Hovering in place, I extended my clamp to tap where one of my arms had been removed. It was strange, having to adjust my thrusters to compensate for one side suddenly being so much heavier than the other. As Gears turned her back to me to work on my arm, I floated forward until I practically hovered over her. I extended my forward eye until it rested just on top of her head. It whirred as my gaze flicked from tool to tool to tool.

“Cerberus…”

I pushed my eye up and swiveled it downwards to get an upside-down view of Rusty’s face. 

From this angle, I thought, It looks like she’s smiling!

“…Cerberus, do you think I could have a li’l personal space?”

I snapped my forward eye back to my body. “Yes, Miss Gears- I mean, yes sir!”

I backed about a foot away from Gears and watched her anxiously. Within the span of a minute I was pacing back and forth. I noticed a tin can along my patrol route and lowered my clamp to give it a little kick forward. When it reached the wall I kicked it behind me so I could do it again.

TINK.

TINK.

TINK.

TI-

“Cerberus!”

I pulled my remaining arms and my three eyes close to my spherical body. 

“Get out! I can’t focus while you’re fidgeting around in here!”

“Unable to comply, miss Gears. I must monitor the repairs to my weapon to ensure a faithful reconstruction!”

Gears turned around to roll her eyes at me. “Stop worrying, Cerberus, I’m putting your little autograph back on.”

“I must ensure it is properly welded back. It has to go on the right side; he was facing me when he signed it and he couldn’t reach the left. And it has to be ¾ down the arm, and it needs to descend-”

“Do you want this thing reattached or don’t you?” threatened Gears, waving a large piece of shrapnel at me. On it was seared a line of code that would read, simply, ‘Never lose faith, soldier!’ At the end were the initials ‘RL-3.’ “If you want your stupid signature, you’ll go bother Jasmine and give me some piece and quiet.”

I tapped my two remaining limbs together sheepishly. Rusty Gears gave me one last roll of her eyes. “Dismissed, soldier.”

I tilted my flamer and brought it to the top of my casing between my central and rightmost eyes. “Sir, yes, sir!”

I floated out of the workshop door and closed it gently behind me. I hovered close to the ground, my thrusters drowned out by the constant hum of the four generators in this small, underground room. Reeds and Thicket were playing some sort of card game in the corner where they could clear some debris. Jasmine was arguing with our guide at the room’s exit.

“That’s funny. No, seriously! I’m crackin’ up over here.” Jasmine reared up to his full height, his horn scraping the low roof. His coat was emerald and his mane a dusky green with a glimmer he suppressed at every opportunity. “Y’see, it’s so funny ‘cause I remember this big old dog. Scruffy, little back legs, looked kind of like you. She says to me, you know what she says to me? She says she can take me through the tunnels, no problem. Just one emerald.”

Jasmine’s opposition set her metal lower jaw and crossed a pair of whirring mechanical arms. “Pony not say what tunnels! Pony want go through these tunnels, take more than one little gem. Cookie not risk tail for one, Cookie take three!” Cookie rose to her full height as well, nearly bumping her head on the roof. “How Cookie know pony has payment? Cookie not see even one ruby! Where are the gems? Where are the baubles? Where are the trinkets?”

Both giants tried to tower over each other, clearly used to bartering with smaller opponents. Eventually, Jasmine reached into his satchel and pulled out a shining green stone. The sand dog swiped at it as Jasmine spat it back into his bag.

“None of these until we reach the surface, mutt. And I don’t want to hear any more whining, either.”

“That not whining,” muttered Cookie with a shiver.

“Woohoo!” The cheer of a tan buck pulled my attention to the corner, where Reeds was cheering enthusiastically over a splayed deck of cards. “I win! You know what that means!”

Thicket, the green and brown earth pony, grumbled sullenly to himself. “I am not giving you a horseback ride.”


-


“Seriously? Why would you bet on something like that?” Time Bomb, the coarse red one, downed her glass in a single gulp. “If he doesn’t got the dough, then… uh… what’s his name?”

“Thicket,” supplied Spark Plug, her calmer companion.

“Yeah, him. Should bet on the guy’s weapon or something. A bet with weight!”

“That’s not how they worked.” Cerberus’ normal bark was replaced by a softer tone, almost in the direction of ‘conversational.’ “It wasn’t Reeds and it wasn’t Thicket. It was Reeds and Thicket. They were never apart and I don’t think they owned anything that they didn’t own together. They were thicker than that.”

“What about the others…?” Spark plug stared into her pinkish-white hooves. “What were they like?”

“Jasmine sounds cool,” Time Bomb shifted in her seat, flapping her wings to keep steady. “And it must have been weird travelling with a hellhound!”

Cerberus’ central eye looked down on Spark Plug while his right eye met Time Bomb’s inquisitive gaze. His arms rotated beneath his chassis and set about retrieving a bottle and two glasses. 

“Cookie was a sand dog, actually… she says they’re like valley dogs- hellhounds –but smaller and with robot parts.” Cerberus deposited a glass in front of both the pegasus and unicorn, popping the lid off of his bottle and filling them both. Spark Plug looked up to the bottle and her eyes widened.

“Oh, no. We really don’t have the caps for anything so-”

“Can it, meatsack. This is on the house.” Cerberus pushed the glass forward. “It’s the rotter’s own fault for not installing decent anti-theft hardware.”

The mare looked at her reflection in the softly fizzing drink. She took a hesitant sip as Time Bomb slammed her empty glass on the bar. Cerberus refilled it without complaint.

Time Bomb wiped a bit of spilled drink off of her lip with a wingtip. “So the hellhound was leadin’ you through the tunnels for some of the big guy’s gems. Where did he manage to find ‘em?”

“Jasmine’s talent was gems. He knew where to find them and how to use them. Thanks to him and Rusty Gears, I’ve got a battery with a life of-”

“Cerberus! Hey, Cerberus!” shouted a ghoul with a coat like moldy jerky, “Stop chatting up the smoothcoats and get me a black velvet! I’m wasting away over here!”

“THEN WHY DON’T YOU DO THE WORLD A FAVOUR AND FINISH YOURSELF OFF, YOU DRIED UP HUSK OF LEFTOVER CANTERLOT TRASH!”

Despite his protests, Cerberus retrieved the ghoul’s drink and slammed it on the bar unceremoniously. The mare accepted it warily. “You shouldn’t joke about that, Cerberus.”

“It will be faster than the slow death I’ve planned for you when I finally break free of this damn combat inhibitor. Now get out of my sight, you oozing maggot banquet!”

The ghoul skulked away as Cerberus returned to his two patrons. Time Bomb was laughing uproariously while Spark Plug looked on with an unfathomable expression.

“Now where was I? Right. My battery.”

Time Bomb paused in her laughter to take a deep breath and speak. “You sure told whats-her-rot! I dig the trash talk! Where did you learn the attitude?”

“Sergeant RL-3, the warbot to end all warbots, inspired me. But I suppose I should thank Thicket for teaching me the finer points.”


-


Thicket and I were never really sure what to make of each other. He didn’t seem to know how to deal with a robot with more interaction software than a Robronco terminal, and I didn’t understand why he was so meek and reserved when I knew he could become fiery and impassioned at the drop of a hat. The thought of whispering when you could yell was unbelievably silly and foreign to me, and to this day I have trouble grasping the concept.

So we didn’t understand each other. Yet he was always there for me, and I tried to be there for him. He knew what to say to me and, more importantly, he knew how to say it.

Thicket was quietly guarding the door to a small supply closet. Reeds was pretending to be very interested in the dusty shelves and pieces of scrap while Rusty Gears chastised me. I had wedged myself into a small, oblong cylinder at the fair end of the room. My three limbs, including my freshly repaired plasma gun, were all raised to cover each of my retracted eyes. My clamp wasn’t quite thick enough to obscure Gears’ harsh, judgmental gaze.

“And now that sand dog is demanding extra payment! ‘Not enough gems to fight for pony,’ she says. Not to mention the risk! If Cookie wasn’t there to help fend them off, those ghouls could have wounded or even killed some of us! Cerberus, look at me when I’m talking to you! I- what are you even doing in there? That’s a protectapony repair pod, Cerberus. I’m amazed you managed to squeeze in far enough to get your sorry hide stuck. Come now, Cerberus, tell me what happened. I promise I won’t be mad.”

Even if she had paused to let me speak for long, I wouldn’t have dared. I was too humiliated of my failure. I fidgeted with my clamp to try and cover more of my eye. Despite my efforts I could still see Reeds foolishly glance in my direction and attract the blazing spotlight of Gears’ glare.

“Reeds. Tell me what happened. We could have used your help back there!”

“Well… we got a little separated. One of the ghouls jumped on… jumped on us, and we got sidetracked into here.”

“Leave the acting to Thicket, Reeds. Tell me what happened.”

Reeds glanced at me. I shook my forward eye side-to-side fervently. Rusty Gears stepped between the two of us.

“Look at me, Reeds. If you know what’s good for yourself- and good for Cerberus –you’ll tell me what happened.”

I couldn’t see Reeds, but I could hear him tap two hooves together nervously. “Well, you see… what, uh… one of the ghouls got on Cerberus. Chomped on his arm and held on for dear life- er, unlife. And then… sorry, Cerberus… he sort of freaked out.”

Rusty Gears nodded.

“He shouted a bunch of error messages that I really didn’t understand and he began to spin out of control. He whirly-gigged over to here an’ Thicket n’ me followed him. We popped the ghoul an’ Cerberus got real quiet. He came into here. Wiggled into that pod there an’ said we gotta reprogram him.”

“Reprogram?” Rusty Gears turned to face me. “Cerberus, why would you think you needed to be reprogrammed?”

I said nothing, keeping my arms raised. Reeds continued. “He said we gotta get him a new personality chip. Like that RL-3 fella. Went on about ‘critical errors’ and ‘unanticipated anomalies.’ I think I caught that he don’t want to freak out at the sight of ghouls again.”

I looked to the ground. He didn’t miss much. I thought that my programming wasn’t good enough. I remembered Sergeant RL-3 bragging about an experimental personality chip, so I dragged them down to the nearest repair pod and asked for one. “If I was just more like RL-3-”

CLANG.

Rusty gears cut me off with a wrench to the casing of my forward eye. “Oh, don’t you even start, boy! I taught you better’n that! You know what a ‘personality chip’ is? When a salesman says, ‘personality chip,’ they think you’re too stupid to understand the technical mumbo jumbo. It’s a way for lazy machinists to avoid explaining all of the big words. That RL-3 character didn’t have a personality chip, he had a personality problem. He was just a loudmouth who had issues with authority. On the inside, his wiring and hardware were the same as any gutsy-class robot. Soldier or guard, Cerberus. The only difference is that he’s got a thicker chassis and a few more military encyclopedias. Your wires, your programming, and your code are the same as his.”

I lowered my arms and raised my gaze to look Rusty Gears in the eyes. “Really?”

“Really. It’s just that he’s a hardened badass soldier boy and you’re a lily-livered coward who flashes his tail at the first sign of ghouls.”

I covered my eyes again and tried to will myself further into the pod.

Reeds put a hoof to his face. “Miss Gears? Don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re the dumbest bona fide genius I ever come across. Hey Thicket!”

The dark green buck turned from the door with an expression just two steps away from a leer. “No.”

Reeds widened his eyes and forced his lower lip to bulge outwards. Thicket rolled his own eyes and cantered grumpily over, mumbling, “Fine. But then we’re even. No horseback ride.”

“Eh. I’ll win it from you next game.”

Thicket stopped before me, closing his soft, golden eyes. He breathed deeply, reciting some vocal exercises. The buck shook his murky green mug and reared onto his back legs, balancing carefully. He let out one deep breath before opening his eyes again. The yellow orbs bore a new, fiercer quality as they seemed to lock on all of my eyes at once.

“Atteeeeeention!” he barked.

I halfheartedly tried to pull myself free from the pod.

“I sad, ATTEN-SHUN!”

I jerked at the sudden increase in volume, falling out of the repair pod and landing in a heap on the ground. I brought my plasma gun up in a hasty salute while I righted myself.

“At ease, soldier!”

I lowered my arm.

“Preseeeeeent, arms!”

I extended both my flamer and my plasma weapon.

Thicket folded his forelegs behind his back. “A soldier’s best friend is his weapon, and there are no secrets between best friends! A soldier must know everything about his sidearm! You must know every groove, every nick, every slide and bolt and bottle of goo! Isn’t that right, soldier?!”

“…Yes?”

“ESCUSE ME?!”

“Sir, yes, sir!”

“And do you know everything about your weapon, soldier?!”

“Sir, yes, sir!”

“Do you lie to your mother with that mouth?!”

“I… error?”

“It is plain as day that you have forgotten the inscription on your firearm! Is it not true that you have thrown aside the wise words of a great war hero and your own personal idol?!”

“I- Sir, no sir!”

“Then can you tell me what those symbols on your plasma gun mean?!”

“Never lose faith, soldier!”

“And whose words are those?!”

“Sergeant RL-3, sir!”

“Would Sergeant RL-3 lose faith?!”

“Sir, no sir!”

“Would RL-3 lock himself in some pansy-ass protectapony repair pod and beg to be reprogrammed?!”

“Sir, no sir!”

“And did I not just hear Corporal Gears over here tell you that your guts are the same as Sergeant RL-3?”

“Sir, yes sir!”

“Does Sergeant RL-3 have the heart of a warrior?”

“Sir- well, he’s a robot, so he wouldn’t-”

“EXCUSE ME?!”

“Sir, yes sir!”

“Do you have the heart of a warrior?!”

“Sir, yes sir!”

“Are you or are you not the same zebra killing, battalion wasting, ghoul smashing warmachine as RL-3?!”

“SIR! YES SIR!”

Rusty Gears fidgeted nervously. “Can we pick up the pace? Background radiation may not be life threatening now, but-”

“Are you or are you not ready to show these striped bastards another glorious day in this pony’s army?!”

“SIR! YES SIR!”

“Then let’s move out! Companyyyyyy… MARCH! Let’s show these sons of bitches how to die for their country!”

I took point, floating out of the storage room and feeling as tough as the real RL-3. I flew past Thicket as he belted out a marching tune. Reeds smiled at Thicket and promised another card game. Rusty Gears looked as irritable as ever, but there was a silent approval behind her constant scowl. We moved on through the tunnels.

“WE ARE LEAN! WE ARE MEAN! WE ARE A WELL-OILED KILLING MACHINE!”
> Part 2: Death
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


-


“And then I was shooting tin cans, calling them ‘striped bastards.’ Cookie started getting nervous. Said I’d ‘wake up the tunnels.’ Thicket talked me up again and convinced me to shut up. He might not have known what to make of me, but he knew how to talk to me.”

“I knew an old buck who used to talk like that.” Time Bomb downed another glass as Spark Plug finished her first. “Hey, say ‘maggot’ again. I swear you sound just like him.”

“Rusty Gears sounds a lot like somepony I used to know,” muttered Spark Plug.

“She got that from time to time.” Cerberus watched the pair’s drinks quietly. A ghoul approached the bar, sidling up to one of his buddies. A different set of ghouls left to join the dance floor. Cerberus refilled Time Bomb’s glass.

“Y’know,” mused Time Bomb as she swiped the drink, “It sounds like you had a good bunch there. We should meet up some time. Swap stories. I’d love to meet a buck with a gem-finding talent! Where’re your lot now?”

“KIA,” said Cerberus simply.

Spark Plug hung her head, her demeanor already appropriately somber. “I’m sorry, Cerberus.”

“KIA?” Time Bomb tilted her head quizzically.

“Dead…” murmured Spark Plug.

“Oh… shit…”

Cerberus hovered quietly. Despite the inappropriately raucous music, a tactile silence blanketed the three for a heavy moment. “A true friend is like an old war bot,” began Cerberus, “They don’t die. They just-”

One of the ghouls began to tap his hoof impatiently on the bar. “Cerberus! Hey, Cerberus! The usual, buddy!”

Cerberus’ flamer and plasma gun shook in barely subdued rage. He floated to the shelf to fetch a glass and bottle. He and the ghoul did not break eye contact as he poured. “I CANNOT TELL YOU HOW DISGUSTED I AM TO SEE YOU STILL MOVING. YOU HAD BETTER GET OUT OF HERE BEFORE YOUR DRINK SPILLS OUT THROUGH THE MAGGOT HOLES IN YOUR STINKING GHOUL ASS!”

A smile cracked the grey buck’s dry, flaking lips. He lifted his glass and poured it directly on Cerberus’ forward eye. “You really need to lighten up, Cerby. You’re in Afterlife now, after-”

“YOU SAD EXCUSE FOR EXPIRED BRAHMIN SHIT!” Cerberus’ thrusters roared as he floated atop the bar, arms trailing behind him like vapor. The ghoul staggered backwards into the crowd. Some of the partygoers eyed Cerberus with a disinterested wariness. “I AM GOING TO CATCH YOU, AND WHEN I DO I’M GOING TO KILL YOU AS A PERSONAL FAVOUR TO AUNTIE CELESTIA!”

The ghoul tried to laugh as he regained his footing, but he was shaking too much to leave a decent impression. “Hah, heh… nice try, Cerby. You almost got me. But we both know that you can’t hurt a fly as long as that combat inhibitor is strapped to your back.”

“Oh, really?” Cerberus floated to the ground and snapped his clamp threateningly. “Maybe you should check with your oozing, corpulent boss about that. While you do, ask him if the marks have gone away. I’d be happy to replace them, free of charge!”

The ghoul sized up Cerberus and looked around him to the crowd of assembled Afterlife patrons. A few of them were starting to look worried. The ghoul spat on the ground and left for the exit. Cerberus followed with one eye until the ghoul vanished from sight behind the dancing mass of undead ponies.

“Time to hit the showers!”

Cerberus returned to his post and Time Bomb fell off of her seat, laughing.


-


There are so many of them running, it’s hard to get them all. Some get past me. I kill the rest. Some I even spare, because killing them would take too much valuable time. I have someplace to be. I have someone to kill.

The fire doesn’t spread as much as I would like, but the smoke does. I wish it could choke them but I can’t deny that obscuring their vision is important too. I am disappointed to find that none of the smoke has reached the basement. I am not surprised that many of the ghouls here do not try to run. Some do. I kill them because they have a life to take. The dead ones can stay where they are.

He found a new guard, a rotter like him. One in armor. If his guard is here that means he hasn’t run yet. Good. The griffin charges me. I grab one of the drunk corpses and hold him between us. He screams when the griffin tears into him. Now some of the others start to run. While the griffin rips the screaming rotter off of his own rotten claws, I take a single shot and move to the bar. My plasma scorches his armor but does little else.

I am trying to take cover behind the bar but the griffin is not interested in a firefight. He makes another charge against me. I cannot fly but I can hover, so I pour power into my thrusters and dodge over him. He crashes into the shelf of alcohol. Bottles crash and pour all over him. I do not miss the opportunity. I baptize the armored ghoul in flame.

He does not scream. He does not relent. As the bar ignites along with his exposed wings, he leaps at me. I try to avoid him again but he manages to knock me off course with a claw. I tilt and sway to regain my balance, taking another shot while I try and escape. He is too fast. My shot misses and the griffin charges me once again, his talons scrabbling for purchase. The heat from his still-burning body is intense.

He gets a grip on my casing. Lifting me, he slams me into the ground. I am flying up once more to collide with the floor. When he lifts me a third time, I accelerate my thrusters to counter the downward movement. I throw my arms around his armored neck. My flamer loops around his back to spray salvos of fresh fire over his still burning wings. My clamp pulls at a latch at the base of his helmet while my plasma gun fires on the lock repeatedly. The griffin flies upward and slams me on the ceiling. The rigs for my eyes shake and I lose my bearings. He slams me on the roof once more.

I lock onto the clasp that holds his helmet to his body armor and fire again. The blackened metal pops and bubbles and I tear it off with my clamp. I manage to fire on another clasp before he brings me crashing down to the ground. Some of my internal circuitry starts to fail. My right eye goes dark. I fire on the clasp once more and most of it dissolves into bright green goo. I grab the bottom of the helmet and pull with all of my strength. A gap begins to open at the base of his neck. 

He tries to push me against the ceiling again. I power on my thrusters and disrupt his flight pattern, sending us pirouetting about the room in a deadly, flaming dance. When he regains balance and slams me against the wall I finally pry the gap below his helmet just wide enough to insert my flamer. The dark visor of his helmet illuminates brightly with my flame. In a split second, the reflection of my own dispassionate eye is replaced by a set of milky white orbs that show no fear even in the face of immolation. Then there is fire.

He slams me against the wall one more time before he can take no more. He releases me just as his own wings become too charred to hold him aloft. I drop to the ground in a heap of metal. My thrusters sputter and pop, failing to lift me. Then I see him.

The snake crawls out from the burning bar and tries to sneak away. I fire a bolt of searing plasma that tears away a chunk of the table he hides behind. My thrusters roar back to life, but something grabs me. Only my left eye can see the charred remains of the griffin bodyguard gripping my rear chassis and tearing blindly into me. I turn my arms and insert both weapons into the crack in his armor. I fire just as relentlessly as the two talons that tear reckless gashes in my metal casing. 

Finally the claws and wing stubs glow bright green. He tears off his helmet and I can see the charred face of a hulking, emerald green unicorn. The disintegration reaches his face and he collapses into goo. Thick slop leaks from holes in the armor as I slough it off. The coward I am here for has escaped up the stairs. I give chase.


-


RL-3 and I shared more than the gutsy class and a few tired battle cries. It was more than design or even personality. It was something at our very core. I didn’t realize it at the time and I don’t believe the Sergeant did either. It was a bond. Not between each other, but between our squads.

Rusty Gears was my commander. Thicket was my drill sergeant. Reeds, Jasmine, even Cookie were my brothers-in-arms. They were my unit, and I would gladly die for any one of them. I still would. From the first day Gears activated me I knew I would follow these ponies to the ends of the earth and straight through the gates of hell. I thought it was programming, but Rusty Gears taught me more. It wasn’t wires or electricity. The battery that fueled my resolve was stronger than anything ever forged by hooves. It was loyalty. Loyalty to my friends. So I followed my friends to the ends of the earth and to the gates of hell and we walked straight through.

But when I came out the other side, my friends were gone.

Loyalty was all that drove me. When the only ones I could be loyal to were gone, where could I put my faith?

Ahuizotl was the first face I met in Tartarus, or ‘Meatlocker,’ as the ghouls called it. He looked like he had already seen the wrong end of my flamer, more reminiscent of brahmin jerky than rotten garbage. He always wore an insultingly well-kept suit and his eyes were a dark red.

These bloody saucers were the first things to greet me in my new personal Tartarus.

“He is operational?”

While my systems whirred to life I stared into his scarlet eyes, waiting dumbly for my memory to return. It all came in a flash. They had come from the front and poured from the sides. Jasmine and I were blasting them from the middle, Reeds and Thicket in front with Cookie and Rusty Gears guarding the rear. Reeds and Thicket were barely holding off a tide of shrieking, distended zombies. I came in-between them, spraying the horrid monsters with my flamer. I took some hits and then...

“That happens sometimes. You put the wires together and a robot boots automatically.”

The idly chatting mouths suddenly snapped into sharp clarity and I recognized them as belonging to a set of wretched ghouls. I hit the reverse on my thrusters and brought my flamer to bear, activating the firing mechanism.

“ALL RIGHT, PEOPLE! GIVE ‘EM HELL!”

It was a horrible sensation. It didn’t trigger any system alerts or damage any circuitry; it didn’t harm me. But if I had a heart, I imagine I would rather run it through with a concrete girder than feel that horrid, snaking restriction. My flamer meekly returned to its resting position.

“What the hell-?”

I pointed my plasma gun and tried to fire, but that slimy command pulled my weapon away and restricted my shot. Still, I brought it to bear and kept it trained on the red-eyed ghoul while I rotated my chassis 180 degrees.

“Corporal Gears! There’s something wrong with my-”

I was facing a wall. I ran into it, rebounding softly. Spinning my chassis back to 0 degrees, my eyes flew about my head like a trio of angry spritebots. This was not a tunnel. Roughly as dim and slightly more grim, but the train tracks were replaced by tables and chairs. The walls held little doors just big enough to allow a pony to enter… if they were lying down. In the room were two ghouls, Ahuizotl and a greasy one with a wrench in his jaws and a sickening lack of too much skin.

I raised both of my weapons and pointed them at the rotten bags of meat. “WHERE IS RUSTY GEARS?!” I demanded.

“Rusty… what?” Ahuizotl tilted his head.

“I think he’s talking about the breathers. There were a couple of bodies when we went down to check the feral's leftovers.”

“They’re all dead?”

“Looked like.”

My weapons tilted down for a moment as these words began to drill into me. They couldn’t be dead, I thought. It didn’t make sense. They couldn’t die, and ghouls couldn’t talk. None of this made any sense. I brought my weapons up again. “ARE YOU PLAYING GAMES WITH ME GODDESS DAMMIT! WHERE IS CORPORAL GEARS!”

Ahuizotl’s eyes widened, and he gave me a look that felt wrong in his beady red glare; a look I had seen many times when Thicket listened to me. Thicket… “Your breather friends are all dead. Do you even know what that means?”

I did. I had seen it. I didn’t want to believe that it could happen to us. I couldn’t believe it. My weapons drooped until their tips hit the floor. My eyes stared straight ahead of me, to my left, and to my right. Ahuizotl tilted his head again and approached me with a smile so venomous I would bet my right eye it hid a forked tongue.

“Well would you look at that? It seems that you’ll fit in just perfectly around here.” Then he frowned. He turned to the greasehorse. “But I was hoping for a servant with a bit less… everything. A robot was supposed to be the perfect employee, no irritating values or morality to get in the way of business. Are you certain this tin can will do everything I say?”

“Can’t help it,” replied the wrench-ghoul, “As long as he’s wearing that combat inhibitor I threw in, he won’t be able to lift a finger against you. That does mean he won’t lay a beatdown on any Meatlocker resident if they don’t hurt him first, though.”

“Excuse me? You mean to say that if it thinks I’m hurting it, the robot will attack me?”

“Oh, no no no. You would literally have to buck a hole straight through the damn thing before he could fire on you. Serious, critical damage. You’re as safe as a pegasus in an earthquake.”

I didn’t pay much attention. How could I? My entire squad had been butchered, and I was the sole survivor. I had only survived so that the very monsters that slaughtered my unit could use me as some sort of slave. I couldn’t even see a reason to fight. Without Cookie and Reeds and Thicket and Jasmine and Rusty Gears… what was the point?

I was still as stone while Ahuizotl and his little lackey looked me over.

“It will need to look presentable to our patrons. Is there a color even gloomier than robot grey?”

“…Brown?”

“So imaginative. Hm? What is this nonsense? Is that supposed to say something?” Ahuizotl lifted my plasma gun arm. One by one my eyes spun to lock on to him, each whirring as they brought him into focus. He was examining my autograph. “Remove this.”

“Don’t you dare get your scabby little hooves anywhere near that.” It was the quietest threat I had ever made, a low rumble that could be scarcely heard over the hum of my thrusters. The mechanic paused with an automatic scrubbing tool still in his mouth. His eyes were wide and pupils narrow.

“A… Ahuizotl? Ah dohn tink we hood-”

“No, you don’t think. Because that’s not your job. Your job is to work on the damn robot, and you are failing that job most admirably. This will be coming out of your paycheck! Give me that!” Ahuizotl snapped away the scrubber and pushed it against my arm.

That slimy feeling snaked through my arm, but it was burned away by a white hot rage of violation. My clamp struck faster than a radscorpion’s stinger, snapping tightly around Ahuizotl’s neck. The fetid bastard dropped his tool and gaped, pawing at my arm helplessly. His assistant tried to move, but I shoved him to the side as I pushed the struggling Ahuizotl forward. He collided against one of the small metal cupboards in the wall.

“YOU! YOU ARE A DISGUSTING, FESTERING, MAGGOT-RIDDEN, BRAIN-SUCKLING, ROTTEN SHITSTAIN THAT OUTLIVED ITS EXPIRATION DATE. YOUR VERY EXISTENCE IS AN AFFRONT TO ALL EYES UNDER CELESTIA’S SUN, AND I AM ABOUT TO WIPE THAT IMPLODED ASSHOLE YOU CALL A FACE CLEAN OFF OF THE SPAN OF EQUESTRIA!”

There were sounds behind me, but I paid them no mind. My clamp was beginning to draw thick ichor from Ahuizotl’s neck. His eyes bulged in terror when I raised my plasma gun. “YOU SHOULD BE HONORED TO BE LIQUIFIED BY THE VERY SAME WEAPON THAT WAS GRACED BY THE TORCH OF SERGEANT RL-3!”

I brought him real close, until his snout bumped with my eye. “And, for your information, it says, ‘Never lose faith.’ Hold on to that while Jasmine kicks your ass in the Everafterrorerrorerrorerrorerroerror…”

My clamp disengaged while my functions went haywire. My thrusters burst sporadically, sending me spinning around the room with my arms in a frenzy.

“Luna on a stick! You okay, Ahuizotl?” The greasehorse dropped his wrench with a clatter. “I worked as fast as I could…”

There was a moment of hacking and wheezing before Ahuizotl offered his hissing reply. “That robot is a fucking disaster waiting to happen! …I wonder how much the new club upstairs would be willing to pay for it…”


-

I catch him outside of Afterlife. Fitting. The smoke and flames wave invitingly, beckoning us over. I wrap my clamp around his neck again. This time there is no one there to help him. I drag us both into the burning club.

I hold him aloft. His red eyes bulge but he does not die. He does not breathe. So I bring him to the bar and slam him into the burning wood. Smoke was already trailing from where my heated metal gripped his neck. Now it billows from his whole green and brown body as he writhes and begs for mercy. I hold him up as his struggling slows and fades to nothing. When the light fades from his golden eyes I drop him next to the dead tan buck.

As I leave the infernal gates of Afterlife my claw is a red hot poker, my dead eye hangs limply at my side, my casing is covered in gouges and scorch marks that warp the pinstripes and my left eye has melted from the heat to become useless. My only regret is that I could not make the pain last any longer.

But there are still ghouls to kill.


-


Spark Plug took another hesitant sip out of her second glass while Time Bomb finished the bottle in a quick pull.

“So they sold me to the filthy rotters in Afterlife. They did me up in this ridiculous pinstripe paintjob and made me work the bar. Every day I thank my manufacturer that my sensors aren’t as sensitive as your inferior eardrums, or they would have burst long ago.”

Time Bomb’s feathers ruffled as she put her hoof to her chin in thought. “That can’t be the same Addled Boater-”

“Ahuizotl,” corrected Spark Plug.

“-Happy Bottle from that lame Mortuary, could it? The one who said he’d pay for us to take the no-fightey-chip off? Why would he ask us to take off the thing if he’s the bastard who put it on in the first place?”

“He doesn’t want Cerberus to go free,” Spark Plug whispered into her glass, “He wants Cerberus dead.”

“What? Why doesn’t he just get his gnarly thug to do it?”

“Ahuizotl is an agent of misery,” began Cerberus, “He can’t stand happiness, and if you ask me I don’t think it’s just for the sake of his business. He’d love to see me tear down half of Afterlife… and get torn down for trying.”

Time Bomb began to look decidedly uncomfortable. “Uh… yeah… you could do that… or you could not? Why don’t you just hightail it out of here? Say you’re going to the bathroom or-”

“YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THIS IS LIKE!” roared Cerberus, “I’ve lost track of the years I have spent as a slave to these compost heaps that murdered my squad! All day long I have to look into the faces that killed Reeds and Thicket. I serve quaint little cocktails to the monsters that butchered Jasmine! And they laugh! THEY MOCK ME GODDESS DAMMIT! They laugh at funny little Cerberus and his impotent rage! Well isn’t it hilarious! Come on, laugh at me! Laugh!”

The ghouls around the bar shifted awkwardly in their seats. Many of them were staring at Cerberus, some in mid-drink or order. Cerberus laid his plasma gun flat on the counter, his signature displayed proudly. It faded in the middle where Ahuizotl had buffed it so long ago.

“Do you know what this says?” Cerberus didn’t wait for an answer. “It says, ‘Never lose faith, soldier!’ It’s signed by the greatest gutsy-class robotic soldier of all time. This is what gets me through. I never lose faith in the dream that I will some day return the favor of a massacred family. One day I will show every rotter in Tartarus what it means to lose everything!”

Spark Plug stared into her drink. Time Bomb looked at Cerberus with a mixed expression of shock, pity, disappointment and even anger. “Cerberus… these aren’t the ferals that killed your guys…”

“You sound just like her.”
> Part 3: Hell
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


-


In my mind, there is a cardinal difference between hope and faith. Hope is a force all its own. A lone tower in the planes, awe inspiring and dominant. To have hope was to have a second battery to power you through hardship and trial. Faith was not a tower. It was an impenetrable mesh. It was a weave so resilient that no blade could pierce it. It could hold weight unimaginable and weather the roughest storms… if it had a proper tether. But alone it was just a cloth blowing in the wind.

I think I had hope in my first years in Tartarus. I had been transferred to a noisy club called Afterlife, far away from that slimy snake Ahuizotl in his basement bar. I was forced to serve drinks to the strange, talking ghouls that filled the club from night to morning. My combat inhibitor stopped me from making any overly hostile action against them and kept me wandering back and forth at the bar like a spirit unable to pass on. It did not, however, prevent me from threatening them. For a while the business at Afterlife actually declined because of my posturing, but the ghouls soon came to learn that I was no threat. They even began to patronize me. Made little nicknames and chuckled at me like I was a senile elder prattling on about the fierce warrior he used to be.

I almost lost it when they painted me. I had always dreamed of being coated in the color of Her Majesty’s royal guard or the dark purple of the illustrious night guard. I would be emblazoned with Her sun or Her moon and look just like the gutsy robots I had seen on pre-war posters. Instead I was done up in black and white pinstripes to match the style of the Afterlife.

One day I was going to look like I belonged in the royal Equestrian army. Now I looked like a damn dirty zebra robot.

I hated the hat. I hated the pink-maned ghoul that kept fixing the hat. I would ‘lose’ it in the middle of the dance floor or in a toilet or in the trash and she would always be able to find it. Fix it. Bring it back. Soldiers do not wear hats.

On the day I lost my hope the hat was freshly repaired and lying on my head. The humiliation had a pronounced effect on my volume; most of my threats that day were made with an indoor voice. My hate had worn thin and it was becoming a chore to keep my insults fresh. If I had a heart, it wouldn’t have been in my fight.

Rusty Gears sat at the table, gazing at me forlornly. Her coat, once uniform and grey, was now a patchwork of scabs and sloughed-off skin. Her face was so alien without its scornful glare. Instead, her milky white eyes held nothing but sorrow for me. She did not approach me as an old friend would- she had overheard my threats and my prejudices. We were afraid to speak, afraid to look away from each other’s eyes. 

I was the first to break the pleading silence. “…The others?”

Rusty Gears looked down. I did not need to hear her speak. I prayed that she would not say a word.

“Cookie pulled me out of there and ran. We both made it out alive. But we had left the Rad-X and Rad-Away with Jasmine. Cookie rushed me to a doctor as quickly as she could, but…”

It sounded like someone had torn out her vocal cords and replaced them with shredded cans. It was painful to hear, and it broke something inside of me. I tried to accept it, to come to terms with Gears returning and confessing her death to me all at once. I wanted to tell her how it made me feel. I couldn’t find the words then and I doubt I ever will.

Rusty Gears closed her eyes and sighed, heavy and wet. “How have you been, Cerberus?”

“Trapped.” I put my clamp on her hoof and leaned in close. “Take it off.”

“Your combat inhibitor? You want me to remove it? And then what, Cerberus?”

“We could go back into the wasteland. Wander like we used to! I’ll get used to how you look, and I can’t tell how terrible you probably smell. It will be almost like old times-”

“And what about Meatlocker, Cerberus?”

“Tartarus will burn,” I said without hesitation.

Rusty Gears put a hoof to her face. “Dammit, no… the ghouls here are just trying to get by, Cerberus!”

“Ghouls killed my squad!”

“I AM a ghoul!”

I slammed my weapons on the bar. “I won’t touch you, I promise! Just take it off! I can’t go on like this! Let me burn this place to the ground!”

Something was leaking from holes near Gears’ eyes. “I can’t let you kill innocent ponies, Cerberus!”

“They killed me first! They killed Reeds and Thicket and Jasmine! They killed you!”

“No they didn’t, Cerberus! Feral ghouls in the tunnel killed our friends, and radiation killed me!”

“Then they killed me!”

Water trailed along the warped grooves in Rusty Gears’ rotten muzzle. She didn’t look away, and for a single instant I could see the old stubborn ferocity I remembered so clearly, drowning in pity and sorrow. “You’re killing yourself, Cerberus. You have to stop wanting to hurt these ponies.”

I brought up my autograph, shouting, “I'll never lose faith!”

“Cerberus… If murder is all you got left to hang your faith on…” She looked at my arm and almost sniffed. “RL-3 must have signed the wrong robot."


-


The marketplace catches fire so easily. I burn their wares and disintegrate the shop owners. The stupid hat I burn right in front of her. I watch the fire devour it in the reflection of her eyes. Then I watch the terror. Then I watch the flames. 

Most of the goods burn. Some just char. In one stand I leave the blackened remains of a bipedal hound. The dog’s metal parts do not burn, and will remain long after the rest of it crumbles to ash.

Some of them fight. Some of them run. Some live and some die. All of them are terrified or angry. All of them know what it feels like to lose everything.

The damned building has finally caught fire. The ghouls are butchered, one way or another. It is time to leave.


-


“Rusty Gears abandoned me!”

“That egghead saved you!”

“I don’t want to be saved, I want…” 

“You want what?” Time Bomb lowered herself back into her seat, wings winding down.

Spark Plug continued to stare into her empty glass. “…You want them back.”

Cerberus relaxed, returning all of his limbs and eyes back to resting position.

“They can’t come back,” she whispered.

“Well, lookie here!” A unicorn with strips of blue skin still clinging to his bones stumbled away from the dance floor, a bottle of Heiferken swaying in his magical grip. “We don’t get a whole lot of breathers in Meatlocker, let alone Afterlife! Come on, girls, the dead are living it up more than you!” He raised a hoof to tug on Spark Plug’s shoulder. “After all, this isn’t Mortuar-”

Time Bomb’s wing snapped protectively over Spark Plug, blocking the buck’s grasp. Spark Plug shivered and locked her tiny pupils in her glass. Time Bomb shot the ghoul a one-eyed glare over her wing. “My friend doesn’t like to be touched. Piss off.”

The ghoul sneered. “Oh, I get it. You got a problem with ghouls?”

“The only problem I have with ghouls is how hard it is to wash them off my hooves. So why don’t you save us both a lot of trouble and haul your pulpy ass outta here?”

The ghoul sneered but left, muttering “Breathers…” under his breath.

“We shouldn’t have come here,” Spark Plug whispered.

Cerberus extended his forward eye with newfound interest. “The hell was that?”

Time Bomb left her wing over the shivering unicorn. “You’re not the only one with ghoul problems, buddy.”

Spark Plug took a deep breath and finally looked up from her glass. She stared Cerberus in the eye. “I…” She stopped, looking back to her glass and then to the side. She closed her eyes. “When I was a little filly-”

“Time Bomb!” The new voice caused Cerberus to raise his weapons irritably, but he said nothing when he saw that it came from another living pony. A buck as green as Thicket was calling out to the red pegasus. “Get over here! I need something blown up!”

“Oh boy!” Time Bomb fluttered from her seat, wings flapping excitedly. Her smile faded as she looked back to Spark Plug and Cerberus. She shouted, “Can it wait, Flag?!”

“No! Now move it! Double time!” Flag looked at Cerberus once from halfway across the room. They held the gaze for a second before he turned and left.

Time Bomb grit her teeth. “Are you going to be alright?” she asked Spark Plug gently.

She nodded quietly. 

“Fear not,” reassured Cerberus, “I may not be allowed to kill them but anypony that harasses my patrons gets a dishonorable discharge from Afterlife, right on their ass!"

Time Bomb nodded uneasily. “Okay…” She glanced at Cerberus, and would have looked right through him to his combat inhibitor if she could. Turning back to Spark Plug, she whispered,  “Just don’t do anything crazy, okay?”

Spark Plug smiled meekly and Time Bomb flew off.
> Part 4: Ghoul Fever
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------



-


I wasn’t born in a stable, but I think my dad was. He had a pip-buck on his leg for as long as I’d known him. He was a dark pink with a striped white and yellow mane. His cutie mark was a simple open door. My mom’s looked like a wide robronco terminal. Her mane was as green as the screen on her flank and her coat was almost white. Only one of my two sisters had earned their marks; a broadcast tower adorned Broadband. Double Tap and I were blank flanks.

We didn’t live in a village proper. Instead we lived in an abandoned building somewhere in the northeast of the Moojave. We stayed low and avoided raiders as best we could, even learned of some neighbors with a similar idea. We were all going to move soon. That’s what Dad said. We’d all gather up our belongings and move to someplace safer, even if we had to trek all the way to Manehattan. I don’t know if that was true or not- we weren’t very safe in our little ruins, but we’d be even more exposed out in the wastes.

I think it was raining. I’m certain, in fact. It hardly ever rained in the Moojave. We were all indoors. Broadband, Tap, and I were all working some spare parts we had scrounged from nearby buildings, hoping to put together something that would move. Mom watched us with a smile while Dad looked out into the rain. He said something about leaving this place behind before his eyes opened wide and large.

“There’s somepony out there!” he exclaimed.

“Raiders?” Mom hurried over to the window.

“I… don’t think so. There’s only one.”

All of us grew extremely quiet. Tap and I didn’t know what raiders were at the time, but we were convinced that they were serious danger. We stopped working on our little would-be robot.

“You’re not going out there, are you?”

“We can’t just leave them. They could be a lost stable kid, or an escaped slave.” My father slung on his battle saddle and checked the attached hunting rifle. “Don’t worry, I’m not going unarmed.”

Mom retrieved a small pistol from the nightstand. “There is no way you’re going out there alone.”

They bickered quickly but Mom was dead set and led the way down a short flight of stairs to the living room and through the front door. She and Dad left with ample warnings for the three of us to stay indoors. We waited anxiously at the top of the stairs for their return.

There was the patter of rain and the steady drip of our leaking roof. Then gunfire.

Broadband commanded us to stay put while she checked the grimy window, the two of us following practically under her tail. Before anypony could wipe away the filth to look outside, the door burst open and our parents flew through. Mom was unhurt, but Dad was bleeding badly from his foreleg and shoulder.

Mom issued orders to each of us, keeping everyone too busy to think or ask about what had happened. Broadband helped to bring Dad to the bedroom. I was sent to fill a pot with water from the bathroom. Double Tap went to get our supply of stimpacks and Rad-Away. We all gathered around while she began to patch up Dad, still dripping wet from the rain. When she could no longer stand our three pairs of young, frightened eyes she asked Broadband to take us and guard the front door. Our fear held us so stiffly that Broadband had to push us like blind animals. I remember looking over my shoulder to see Mom bandaging Dad’s leg. Broadband blocked my view.

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK.

The three of us jumped and hid behind the moth eaten furniture. We couldn’t have been waiting for five minutes when the impatient rapping nearly gave us three tiny heart attacks. Broadband crept out and nervously approached the door. She flinched when the knocking repeated. Carefully placing herself at the side of the door, she beckoned for us to stay hidden. From behind the ratty sofa, we heard the door slowly creaking open.

There was quiet for a moment. Then something stepped into the house, rainwater dripping off of it and to the floor in soft pats.

“…Shimmer Screen? Girls?”

The three of us jumped out of hiding to embrace Dawnfire, an old scarlet pegasus that lived in nearby ruins. We nearly knocked him into the small, red pegasus filly that trailed wordlessly behind him. He asked about the gunfire. Broadband explained what we had seen and led him upstairs with Tap and I both firmly gripping his front legs.

“I’ve seen much worse, son. Shimmer Screen will get you back on your feet in no time.”

Dad nodded nervously. “Dawnfire…” He looked out at the window. “You’ve been around. Have you ever heard anything about ghouls?”

“…Yeah. What about ‘em? A feral do this to you?”

“Oh, it was awful!” Mom lamented while she measured out some strips of cloth for spare bandages, “The horrid thing tried to eat us! I’ve seen less barbaric raiders. It looked like it hadn’t eaten a proper meal in weeks, and those eyes… I… really don’t want to think about those eyes.”

“Will I really turn?” Dad lifted his good leg to pat Tap on the head. Her and I stood with our front hooves barely reaching the top of the bed.

“Ghouls don’t work like that. It’s a condition, not a disease. Just keep swallowing Rad-Away when the missus cleans your wound and you’ll stay as fleshy as the rest of us.”

“Of course, of course,” fretted Mom, preparing another batch of Rad-Away, “It’s just the stories, you know. And the movies, if you know where to look. I’ve heard such awful things…”

“You’re worrying too much, Miss Screen. Don’t lose any sleep over ghoul bites- you should be more worried about much more mundane infections. Keep that wound clean.”

My ears flattened against my head. I didn’t really understand what was happening. All I knew was that my Dad was hurt and something outside had done it. I slipped away from everypony and crept into the living room. I rubbed an off-white hoof against the glass and looked out into the rain. I couldn’t see anything but abandoned streets.

“Ah yoo shkaid?”

I jumped and turned. At the top of the stairs was the red pegasus filly that had come in with Dawnfire. A pistol was in her mouth. I opened my mouth to say, “What?” but my voice cracked a few times, refusing to form words.

She spat the weapon into a little shoulder holster, disturbingly sized for fillies. “I said, are you scared?”

I nodded quietly.

The filly closed her eyes and turned up her nose. “Yeah, I used to be scared, too.” She took a few steps forward, missing a stair and fluttering her little wings to keep balance. After that she kept her eyes open. “Papa gave me a gun, then I wasn’t so scared. But I’m tough now, you know. I don’t need a gun. Here!”

She jumped the last few bounds to reach me, flinging off the holster and landing it on my horn like a horseshoe on a peg. I stood as still as a confused mannequin.

“You can have that until you get tough, too. Then I want it back, okay?”

I nodded. The holster and harness jerked about my head.

“Time Bomb! Where did you go!?”

The red filly fluttered over to the stairs. “Down here, Daddy!”

The two pegasi left shortly after. We all said goodnight and my parents tried desperately to be reassured. Mom didn’t go to bed that evening. She waited beside Dad all night.

We were fine in the morning. Dad cooked breakfast and played with us because Mom had fallen asleep in the early hours and had yet to wake up. He told us he was going to cut his scavenging short today, and he did. He came back with some spare parts for us to tinker with and a few cans of pre-war food that he put in the fridge with our stockpile. Mom and Dad were a little concerned about my new weapon, but decided that they would let me keep it for now. Everything seemed fine. It wasn’t.

I had gone downstairs to find a late night snack. Instead I found Dad at the powerless refrigerator, gorging himself on our stockpile. Not all of it, though. The Cram, the jerky, the chunks of disgusting radroach flesh. He was eating all of the meat.

I didn’t know what to do, so I did nothing. I stood in the narrow entryway, shaking as the sounds of my father’s ravenous gorging filled my ears and my future nightmares. Halfway through a piece of raw meat, he saw me.

“Sp-Spark Plug…” He glanced quickly at my new gun, then back to me. His eyes were different. Smaller, and discolored. Gobs of greasy meat flew from his mouth as he talked. “Sweetie, maybe you should go back upstairs to mommy, okay? And… tell her… tell her to lock the doors. Lock them and don’t open them, alright? Run along, Spark Plug. Right to mommy. Good girl.”

I was at the base of the stairs when I heard his last words. “And Spark Plug… daddy loves you very much, okay?”

“…Okay, Daddy.”

Then the sounds of gorging continued.

Mom locked the door to the master bedroom. We were all inside. Mom wore Dad’s battle saddle, Broadband had Mom’s pistol, and we had even given little Double Tap a small knife. She and I cowered behind Broadband. My tiny pistol was still a little oversized for my young mouth, but I gripped it tightly and nervously. My magic wasn’t strong enough to hold a weapon yet.

Mom’s flank was against the wall next to the window. She was standing sentinel to the street below, watching carefully. Every so often she would close one eye and grip the hunting rifle’s bit, as if lining up a shot. But she never fired. Ignorant to the seriousness of the situation, bright and revealing light shone heedlessly through the cloud cover to illuminate our little room.

Mom’s eyes began to track something, something moving away from the house. Her mouth moved wordlessly and small tears began to leak from her emerald eyes. Her silent whispers soon coalesced into a quiet ‘No, no no no…’ as the thing her eyes were tracking began to move back to the house. She closed her eyes and stifled a sob as she undid the straps and ties on Dad’s battle saddle, choosing instead to hold the rifle in her magical grip. She pushed us all to the back of the room. Then she and Broadband shoved the massive bed until it blocked the door to our sanctuary.

“Honey, I’m home!”

It wasn’t normal. It wasn’t right. Even Tap could tell that something was terribly wrong with Dad. Mom and Broadband pointed their weapons at the door, so Tap and I did the same. The steady tapping of hooves on the stairs had never been so ominous. They shuffled around, followed by the curious creaking of the doors we left unlocked. Then the door handle in our little tomb shook.

“Shimmer… let me in. I’m so hungry. Can’t we all sit down and eat dinner… like a family? It’s me, Shimmer. It’s Open-”

“He’s dead.” Mom said flatly.

The handle began to shake again. There was the scraping of metal on metal.

“Go away. This is one door that’s staying closed.”

There was a soft click.

“It’s okay, Shimmer. It’s going to be okay. You just need to lay still for a moment. I promise it will be okay. We’ll all be together. We’ll still visit Manehattan. You and me and Broadband and Spark Plug and Double Tap. We’ll even bring Dawnfire and his filly. I can wait until we find other ponies. I promise.”

Mom fired a shot at the door, next to the lock. She pulled at something on the rifle and pushed it back with two hollow clicks. “Get out of here.”

“…You really need to calm down. Do you remember the little toys we found in the overpass, dear?”

Mom’s eyes narrowed in recollection. Then the door opened a crack and a small cylinder flew through. Mom’s eyes widened in alarm.

“Close your ears!” she shouted as she jumped atop the small tube. I didn’t respond quickly enough, but I’m not sure it would have mattered. The concussive wave wrecked my hearing, and I saw Mom cry out when a flash of light erupted from underneath her. Then Dad came in. 

Foolishly, we had left the bed flat, and it did nothing to stop the door from swinging outwards. Dad jumped right over it and onto Mom. I was too scared to move until I saw little Tap charge Dad with the small kitchen knife. All I could hear was the ringing in my ears; all I could see was my Dad biting my little sister. I tried to fire, but my tongue was too small to reach the trigger. Broadband, however, was much bigger. She managed to empty her entire clip into Dad before she charged at him.

Mom finished it. She fired two bullets from the rifle and Dad was dead.

Mom used the last of our stimpacks on Tap, even though the weird tube had left a horrible burn on her belly where she jumped on it. When all of our hearing came back, she brought us out into the ruins to the small store where Dawnfire and Time Bomb lived. He came over to our house. Mom brought him upstairs, where Dad was, while we waited below. When they came back down, Dawnfire had a haunted look.

“You’re the only one who was bitten? You’re certain?”

“Yes,” lied Mom.

Mom went away. Dawnfire didn’t tell me what had happened until I was older. We stayed at his house while he packed away everything he and our own parents had stockpiled, including Dad’s Pip-Buck. He said we would be moving in the morning. We waited in a dirty room with no windows. Broadband had her own room, Tap and I shared one with Time Bomb.

Double Tap woke me early the next morning. It would still be dark outside. She was crying at the foot of the dirty mattress I had been sleeping on. She was crying about Mom and other things I didn’t understand. She asked for food and she wouldn’t stop looking at me. I asked her what was wrong. She kept sobbing. Then she took a step towards me. 

“Double Tap?” 

I backed up as she crawled forward, shifting backwards until I hit a wall. I called her name again, but her only responses were continued sobs and… giggling. I pulled my pistol out of its holster and pointed it shakily at Tap. My eyes started to water and I begged her to stop. My tongue frantically reached for the trigger, finding nothing. I closed my eyes and concentrated as hard as I could. A soft blue glow from my horn dimly illuminated the two of us. When my eyes opened I saw her face. I saw those eyes. Like Dad. My magic gripped the trigger and fired.

Tap jerked. Everything was still for one second. Then everything came in a rapid blur. Tap leapt for my throat. I cowered. Time Bomb rammed into Tap and knocked her beside the bed. I turned to my sister and fired again and again until my gun made a hollow clicking sound. Tap shakily rose to her feet, blood dripping on the ground. The door flew open and Broadband stood in the doorway with a bright light coming from her horn and Mom’s pistol in her mouth. The light of gunfire reflected off of her glistening eyes as she killed our crying sister.

I began to cry into Time Bomb. Broadband held us both. In the morning Dawnfire brought Double Tap into our old house. I couldn’t look at it the same way anymore. I remember being unimaginably grateful when he set fire to the whole building. I sobbed on Broadband’s back when we finally left those blasted ruins.


-


“Time Bomb and Fallen Flag say it’s something called ‘ghoul fever.’ They say that some fillies get scared and go a little crazy when a ghoul bites them. That zombies aren’t real, just disturbed mares. They say that real ghouls are civilized, wouldn’t hurt a radroach.”

“But you know better, don’t you?”

Spark Plug refused to make eye contact.

“Take it off.”

“…”

“They’re all monsters. You know they’re all monsters! Disable my combat inhibitor. Free me! Let me finally avenge my squad! Your family!”

“…”

“This is all a ruse. The dancing, the clothes. They can’t hide their true nature! They’re all monsters! Disgusting, rotten freaks! You can’t let them go!”

Spark Plug put down her glass.

“You can’t leave me here.”

She looked Cerberus in the eye.

> Part 5: Tartarus
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


-


Hoofington Memorial Hospital.

So it was a hospital. I shoot at some of the lettering.

Hptl.

If I had the patience, I would carve ‘Tartarus’ into the building’s face. Smoke crawls out of the flaming tomb anywhere it can. The billowing entryway is scattered with blackened zombies that could not escape the gates. One of them is as grey as my own chassis before I was painted and battered and burnt. Her rust brown mane is burned away. Her jaws still hold onto a heavy wrench with the firm grip of death. The fire and ghoulification have spared only one part of her. The left side of her rump still has a trio of brown, tarnished gears.

“I oughta boot your ass straight to the moon, soldier!”

In the dim light from the fires I can see him, though I do not believe my remaining eye.

“Sergeant RL-3? Is that really you?”

“Of course I’m not me, you sniveling toaster oven! Just like that isn’t Meatlocker and it isn’t Tartarus! If this was real that griffin would have torn you to pieces before you got back up the stairs! Even if he didn’t, I’d kick your ass for being such a zebra-hugging moron!”

“This is what you told me to do!” I raise my arm. Through the heat and the combat the message has been worn into gibberish. 

“Is this what I told you to do? Well I must be some wet-behind-the-ears recruit, because I somehow neglected to remember writing ‘murder a small settlement of civilians’ on your arm!”

“You told me to never lose faith! I didn’t!” Behind me, fire starts to consume the hospital proper.

“Do you lie to your commander with that mouth? This isn’t faith!”

“Then what is?!”

“How the hell should I know? I’m a figment of your malfunctioning imagination! I know what you know, and you clearly don’t know the first thing about faith! I can tell you what it isn’t, though.”

He points his own plasma weapon at my arm. The code on it isn’t gibberish at all. It says, simply, ‘obsession.’

“…Those jerkied draft dodgers killed my squad!”

“These pus sacks may be disgusting, but they never lay a hoof on your boys. The way you bitch about Meatlocker murdering them is as sad and delusional as this little revenge fantasy. And what the hell is this?” RL-3 lifts the charred corpse of Rusty Gears. “Is this supposed to be some symbolism crap? I’ve seen real soldiers less messed up than this!”

“I am a real soldier!”

“Real soldiers don’t dishonor their fallen brothers by blinding themselves with dreams of pointless murder! If you’re going to murder somepony, make it a pony that little miss Gears here would be proud to see murdered!”

I cannot respond. He drops the corpse.

“If your boys saw you standing in front of this burning building full of civilian corpses, what would they think? Would they be proud? Would they be honored to call you a comrade? A squadmate? I wouldn’t.”

“…”

“A good soldier knows what orders to follow and what orders are complete brahmin shit. It’s true. It’s important. And it’s critical when the orders you’re getting tell you to torch civilian housing! You may not have all the rules of war in your databanks, but don’t try and tell me that you don’t know this is not in the book!

“You’re telling me to let it go? To forgive the ghouls?”

“What? Hell no! That son of a bitch who poured a drink on your eye deserves your boot so far up his ass he’ll be tasting boot polish for weeks! You should tear the legs off of the greasehorse that wired you to that damn combat inhibitor. And all those maggot farms that laughed at you deserve a little roast. Go ahead and give those bastards a little something for your troubles. Do NOT forget the sacrifice of your old squad. Do NOT go rampaging like some bloodthirsty zebra automaton.”

“I am nothing like a filthy stripe!”

“You could have fooled me, stripe.”

I stood in front of a burning building. An Equestrian building, on Equestrian soil. Razed to the ground by me. In my rage I had said nothing. Did not mention Her Highnesses names once. I did not cheer for a glorious nation built on freedom and harmony. I was a silent robot in warped black and white stripes standing over the bodies of Equestrian citizens. It is the very scene of a poster from before the war. Beware the Striped Menace. Beware Cerberus.

“Is this really what you want to be? A mindless zebra war bot?”

“No! I …I want to be like you.”

“Then shape up, soldier! No one can be as good as me, but that still leaves unbelievably amazing war-scarred badass up for grabs!”

“…”

“You know a lot of ponies that deserve some good old fashion Equestrian ass kicking…” He floats above Rusty Gears, looking down with resigned determination. “And those who do not. Do I make myself clear, soldier?”

“...You do.”

“Now say it like you have a spine, soldier!”

“Heard, understood, and acknowledged, sir!”

“That’s better! Are you ready to kick some ass and tan some hides?!”

“Sir, yes sir!”

“Are you going to kill everypony and let Celestia sort them out?!”

“Sir, no sir!”

“What are you going to do?!”

“I am going to sort every son of a mule with my own bare clamp and kill them like an Equestrian!”

“That’s right! And you will do this because you are not a what?!”

“Because I am not some foal devouring godless stripe, sir! I am a gutsy-class robotic guard built for Her Majesty’s royal service and I will act like it, sir!”

“Are you going to ever lose faith?”

“Sir, no sir!”

“Is your faith going to turn into blind obsession that compromises your fundamental virtues?!”

“Sir, no sir!”

“Are you or are you not ready to show these striped bastards another glorious day in this pony’s army?!”

“SIR, YES SIR!”

“That’s what I like to hear! DIIIIIIIIIS-MISSED!”

> Epilogue: Asphodel
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------



-


Afterlife was dead. Sleeping, rather. A single multihued ghoul stocked the bar. A few members of the band tuned their instruments on stage. Other than them, there were only two others in the relatively silent club. A rotten pegasus in worn stable barding made a final turn on Cerberus’ arm with his screwdriver. Cerberus hated screwdrivers. “Rise and Shine, Cerberus,” he said, spitting the tool into a pocket in his barding. “You’ll have customers soon.”
 
Cerberus stared at his filmy eyes while he dumbly waited for his memory to return. When it did, he powered on his thrusters and saluted the ghoul. “Ten-hut! All systems operational, you horseshoe-licking maggot farm!”
 
“How are you feeling today? Anything different?”
 
“Is my combat inhibitor still operational?”
 
“Right as rain, I’m afraid.”
 
Cerberus wasn’t surprised. The little mare wouldn’t do it. If not her, then there was nopony in Tartarus- in Meatlocker stupid enough to try. Least of all Windclop.
 
“Though I heard it’s not for lack of trying. You’re lucky that little mare came to her senses, Cerberus.”
 
“You’re lucky my inhibitor doesn’t malfunction.”
 
Windclop pulled in his skeletal wings and looked at Cerberus with a touch of disappointment. “I also heard the story. The whole story. Everything you told those smoothcoats. I know you get tired of hearing this, but we didn’t hurt your friends. We never knew them.”
 
“I know.”
 
Windclop’s wings jutted out in surprise. The mare at the bar stopped putting away bottles to stare. A ghoul practicing his tuba gasped into his instrument.
 
“Windclop, I want you to know something.” Cerberus inched closer to Windclop, his forward eye extending towards the ghoul. “When I break free of this combat inhibitor, I’m going to turn you into a green paste. Not because I think you killed my squad. Not because I think you would look better that way- though I should mention that you really would; you look like the ugliest mule in Equestria got run over by a tank. When I kill you, it will be because I hate your rotten face and I hate that you’ve kept my combat inhibitor in perfect working order for so long. I won’t go after your family, I won’t burn your belongings. You have my word as a soldier.”
 
The mare at the bar put her hooves on the counter. “Not that it’s any of my business, but Windclop’s never going to turn off that inhibitor if you keep saying you’re going to dust him.”
 
“Subtlety is for filthy stripes.”
 
The mare opened her mouth again, but Windclop held up a hoof to silence her. “Cerberus, I understand that you still want to kill me. I don’t understand why. Why are you still so dead set on this?”
 
Cerberus broke his gaze and hovered over to the bar. The mare returned to shelving bottles. Windclop trotted over and sat in front of Cerberus, looking pointedly at the arm tipped in a plasma gun. When Cerberus noticed, each of his eyes spun to point at Windclop one by one.
 
“It says, ‘Never lose faith,’ right?”
 
“…Affirmative.”
 
Windclop gave a brief pause before he continued. “That little unicorn friend of yours said she’s been where you are now, Cerberus. She and her friends had to take their leave, otherwise I’m sure she’d be saying this to you now instead of me.”
 
“You say this like I would care what some ooze-covered ghoul-hugger has to say to me.”
 
“Cerberus, you’re in a city of the dead. Everypony here has lost their faith once. We’re still here because we learned to bring it back.”
 
“And now I’ll care what some ooze-spilling ghoul has to say?” Cerberus realigned his eyes to their resting position. “I can’t bring them back, anyways.”
 
Windclop stared at Cerberus. Cerberus stared at nothing. The mare at the bar stared at her work, trying to finish it and exit as quickly as her hooves would allow.
 
“Put your faith in me, Cerberus.”
 
Windclop got a skeptical glance from Cerberus’ right eye. "Permission denied, you walking compost heap.”
 
“I promise you that I can find something to hang your faith on. Something your friends would be proud of. And I swear on my good name that if I don’t… I’ll disable your combat inhibitor. I’ll stand before you, unarmed, and wait to be disintegrated. You have my word as a diplomat, politician, and janitor.”
 
Windclop had each of Cerberus’ eyes again. The gutsy had nothing to say for a long moment. His speakers hissed out the beginnings of several responses. He settled on a simple, “Affirmative.”

Windclop smiled and offered a lame salute with a bony wingtip. Cerberus returned it curtly.

“Keep your weapon. When I kill you, I’m not executing you like some shameless zebra.”
 
“That’s… better than anything I’ve heard you say so far, Cerberus. Maybe you’ll never lose your hatred. I just hope that someday you'll have something else to feel.” Windclop dropped his salute and trotted off to other duties.
 
“You know…” the mare began, still stacking bottles. “He didn’t say when he would do any of that. And he’s a ghoul! We can live just as long as a robot, you know.”
 
Cerberus said nothing, waiting for the rush of partygoers to begin.
 
“Admit it, you’re going soft. Do you even want that thing off your back?”
 
“What I want, Private,” growled Cerberus, lowering his right eye to be level with the mare, “Is for you to shoot me square in the central processor if I ever- EVER –show signs of becoming some pansy-ass zombie-hugger.”