Nightmare...

It was the only word that I could think of…

The entry chamber of the Stable still bore all the scars of that terrible fight all those weeks ago. Right outside the door, off to the right and away from the short stairway leading to the main level, was a literal pile of rotting corpses. There were easily a dozen ponies stacked up there, perhaps more, all of them four weeks dead… all wearing tattered bloody remains of Stable 181 barding… and I remembered them…… the victims of two miniguns wielded on a saddle by an earth pony raider… his laughter… the roar of the guns… the screams…… Their blood caked the floor in a wide solid stripe from where they’d been thrown to the base of the stairs, where the majority of them had fallen. And there, on the main level were three more bodies, each one cut wide open with their innards on display for anypony who entered, and tied side-by-side to the railing that separated the main level from the lowered entrance floor with thick rope. Those three wore security armor, the normal blue color barely recognizable anymore through the blood that had fused into the fabric. Past them, I could see what was left of the housing that had once held the turret that had aided in our evacuation. There was a single splash of blood on the side that faced us, but the weapon as a whole was long gone, disassembled and taken by the Black Blood.

And yet, while I couldn’t see more…… there just had to be more in this room……

Oh Goddesses……. dad…

“DADDY!!!”

I heard my own scream again… piercing my ears mercilessly, then fading away in a chilling echo…

“Let’s go.” Once more Saber rallied our attention with collected focus; if he was daunted by the atrocity that we beheld… he wasn’t showing it now.

“Goddesses… they did this…”

Ivy was the one who spoke then, her own voice hushed to but a terrified whisper. And for a long moment, nopony replied as Saber stepped inside, our leader ignoring the mound of bodies he had to pass to reach the stairs to his left. Joker followed after him, taking Sierra’s place as second in line. Both he and Daisy bowed their heads to avert their eyes from the terrible sight. But the rest of us, for a moment longer, were too paralyzed to move on.

“I told you.” Gunny finally replied to the grey unicorn, stepping up beside her as Sierra, staying quiet under her helmet, finally got the courage to follow after the others.

“I’m… I’m so sorry, Gunny.” Ivy muttered back to him, looking him in the eye; Gunny only gave a little shake of his head.

“In my many years… only once have I seen barbarism on such a scale as this.” Raemor spoke up, moving forward and likewise heading for the stairs. “This is……. this is what is left behind only by the hoof of true evil…”

“Can you do this, Ivy?” Up ahead and to my left, diverting my attention from Raemor, Gunny was bowing his head to try and meet Ivy at eye level. “You can turn around if you want.”

But right away, the unicorn mare shook her head, sniffling as she wiped a foreleg across her eyes. “No.” she answered, her floating rifle drifting back up to shoulder level where it had formerly drooped from. “No, I can do this. Come on.”

“Alright then.”

And together they moved into Stable 181.

“We’d best go too, Nova.” And just off to my right, Shore spoke… finally spoke, looking past his left shoulder to me as he adjusted his reading glasses. “There’s no sense in standing here when we know that we will see more of this.”

“I know…” On impulse at hearing Shore’s own thought on our arrival, I did take a step forward… only to stop again. “But… Shore, my dad… died in this room……” He died… in this… room… “What if he’s still in there?”

“You shouldn’t look for him, Nova.” Shore replied gently, taking his own step forward to encourage me onward. “Just keep your mind set on the task at hoof as best you can.” Though hesitantly, I gave him a small nod, taking another couple of steps… and making sure to keep my eyes focused on Shore, and not the bodies beyond him. “I can’t say I know how hard it is losing a parent.” he said, drawing in closer to me as we approached the entrance together. “But that doesn’t mean I’m incapable of understanding the toll it takes on somepony. And to put it simply, I do not wish to find out how you would fare if… well, you know.”

“Yeah…”

“Come on, Nova.” he gently urged. “We’re here to find something good to bring back to the others. And we need your help to do that.”

“Yeah… yeah, okay.”

And by then, we had passed into the Stable, turning to the stairs… unable to avoid treading on the dried blood of the victims behind us. And as soon as I climbed up the steps and came around the railing, the timid bravery that I had managed to scrounge up was immediately put to the test, as once more, I stopped at an even grizzlier sight. The battle that had ensued as we evacuated One Eighty-one had been focused solely on this room. After four weeks, the barriers that had shielded the guards and held back the enemy advance were still in their place, both them and the floor behind them spattered and smeared with dried blood, marked with the explosives residue of grenades, littered with bullet casings. But beyond that, tucked into the far corner of the room just to the right of the entrance toward the reactor chamber, was a second pile of bodies… over twice as big as the first, and undoubtedly the prime contributor to the near unbearable odor of decay. The bodies in this pile, however, were largely the raiders that we had killed in the reactor hall, those who had been slaughtered in their reckless attempt to break through our line, with just a couple of Stable guards mixed in. It seemed that, after their victory, the raiders had merely stripped their fallen comrades of their weapons and essential gear, and then stuffed their bodies into the corner, thus clearing the reactor hall to make it useable for travel. Still, there were other bodies that had been left here, separate from the piles. They belonged to the guards who had been killed in the firefight, defiled and mutilated like the others, then thrown into the opposite corner and left to decay… perhaps as some evil act of vengeance.

But no matter how hard I tried, I found myself looking off to my left, back to where a half-ring of sandbags yet remained, positioned just outside the demolished door control console… the one my dad had destroyed to save us from pursuit.

“Nova.” Though softened to help the group keep a low profile, I could still hear Gunny’s call as he tried to get my attention. “Nova, Saber’s getting us together in the atrium, come on.”

“I just…” And I turned toward the sandbags; my eyes were locked on them. “I just need a… I just need a second.”

“Nova, this is not wise.” Shore piped up concernedly.

But I moved ahead anyway, gathering up my courage with one push. And I stepped around the right side of the barrier in one hurried move, finding the very place where my parents and I had fought together in the evacuation.

Blood lightly spattered the floor here…… but…

“He’s gone…”

“Gone?”

My dad… wasn’t here…

Gunny was at my side, eliciting a slight jump from me as he peered over the sandbags with me to behold the empty space. “He was shot here…… but he’s not here…” But when I repeated myself… my mind drew up a dreadful conclusion… “Do you think they… moved him somewhere else?”

“I don’t know…” Gunny replied after a longer pause, looking to me with sympathetic eyes.

“Or… or what if he-”

“Hey.” A sharper voice called then, drawing my eyes over to the entrance to the atrium, where Captain Saber was the one waiting for us, with Shore standing beside him; at seeing me, however, his stern look eased up. “Come on you two.” he said, careful and with a level of respect that I appreciated. “We need to go over a strategy so we can get out of here quick as we can.”

Though my mind was dead set on that one question of where, I got myself to back away from the sandbags and comply with Saber’s order… with a new motivation guiding my steps for me. Together, Gunny and I made our way to the atrium entrance as Saber stepped inside. “There are more bodies in here.” Shore warned as we drew up to him. “I’m afraid it’s unavoidable to be among them.”

Into the atrium we went, together, and right away, I discovered what Shore had meant. The atrium was a sight of equal carnage to the entrance room. What had once been a place for our weekly dinner gatherings, for food and drink and laughter, was now the resting place of dozens. Like the entrance, dead raiders littered the floor, almost all of them having lost limbs when they stumbled across the mines that had delayed the enemy advance. These corpses were likewise discarded along the edges of the room, thrown against the walls to leave the center of the atrium clear. But up above… up above, over two dozen corpses were hung by the neck from heavy chains hammered into the ceiling… and only two of them were Stable guards. The rest…… the raiders had taken joy in defiling the dead that they had murdered while they slept… or cowered. The rest of the ponies up there – they were civilians, non-combatants… those poor souls who hadn’t made it to us in time to be evacuated…

I turned to the floor as I moved toward the others, growling as I fought to keep myself composed in the face of such savagery. Up ahead, the others had gathered at the atrium’s center, careful to avoid standing directly beneath one of the suspended corpses… for obvious reasons. “Are we still good, Sierra?”

From behind us, Saber came trotting in and passed us by to join the group. And after a brief pause, where Sierra turned her attention to the hall leading to the Stable’s living quarters, she gave the Captain a nod. “E.F.S. is still clean.”

“It might be that the Stable has been completely abandoned.” Raemor voiced.

“Whether it has or not, I’m going to be making this venture as short as possible.” Saber replied as Gunny and I joined the circle. “I’ve already seen more than I’d like.”

“What do you want to do then, Captain?” Gunny asked.

“I’ve been thinking this up as I go… but I’ve got an idea.” he began. “For safety’s sake, we’re going to be staying out of the living quarters, or at least until everypony is in the Stable and we know the rest of it is safe… and those of us who know why are the only ones who need to know. Outside of that, we’ll be searching through the rest of the Stable in a quick but thorough sweep, and we’ll be doing this through two stages. The first – we’re going to split off into three groups of three. I want Joker and Daisy with me, and together the three of us are going to clear the reactor room and the maintenance wing. Next, I want Sierra, Ivy, and Gunny to make their way to the orchard and then move on to the mess hall and the kitchen back here, making sure that each of these rooms closest to the atrium are raider-free and see if there’s anything salvageable in each. And lastly, Nova, Shore, and Raemor – the three of you are going to look through the armory and the research lab. If the Stable has truly been deserted, then this should take us no more than ten to fifteen minutes, tops. After that, there’ll be two final areas I’ll want to look through as a collective group.”

“Which are?” Joker ventured.

“For now, let’s get through this first part.” Saber replied with a shake of his head. “Clear out any remaining hostile presence in these rooms so that we can secure the atrium for the other team and get to scavenging. When you’ve cleared your assigned chambers, meet back here. Understood?” After a round of confirmation, he nodded his approval. “Be careful in here, everypony, especially you three.” he added, pointing to me and then Shore, looking to Raemor at the same time. “You’ll be at a disadvantage without a pipbuck. After Hopeville, we ended up with seven of them. But now we’ve only got four, so we’re one short for this trip.”

“We’ll be okay, Captain.” I assured best I could… despite how his warning reminded me of my own lost pipbuck.

“And Gunny,” he added, turning then to the brick red unicorn. “you’ve got two new ponies to the Stable with you, and the orchard is a big room. Take care of them while you’re down there.”

“Yes sir.”

“Alright then, disperse.” Saber ordered. “Be back here soon as you can.”

“Ladies, follow me.” The first to depart, Gunny led Ivy and Sierra away through the rest of the atrium, moving past me and towards an already open door placed at the far wall, the flickering electronic placard reading, Orchard.

“Joker, Daisy, let’s get going.” And next, Saber led his followers back the way we had come in, passing back through the atrium entrance and heading right toward the maintenance wing.

“If you don’t mind, Nova, I would like to lead us through the lab.” Turning back around, Shore met my eyes with a firm stare, assertive despite his wording… but rightly so. When Stable 181 had been alive, the research lab had been Shore’s domain, and his alone. Shore had grown up around that lab and gained his great wealth of scientific knowledge between his workings there, within the maintenance wing, and around the Stable’s reactor altogether. But though he did help tend to the Stable’s reactor and the maintenance of its other systems, and did so with distinction, the lab was where he had forged his greatest contributions to our community. It was, in that sense, his home inside his home, and so I knew better than to do anything but agree to Shore’s request, not that I would have done anything other than that to begin with.

“Of course not.” I responded, passing a timid but what I hoped to be encouraging little smile to him. “Go ahead. I’ve got your back.”

“And I will go ahead and keep watch behind us as we move.” Raemor spoke up, turning his fire axe in the air with his telekinesis. “Without a pipbuck with us, we will need to be especially careful.”

“Then let’s get going.” And without further delay, Shore turned for the main hall at the far end of the atrium and advanced. With a short leap I caught up with him, settling into a brisk trot as he pushed his way through the atrium with a tenacious eagerness. But upon reaching the main hall, Shore caught himself, slowing down to a better more cautious pace as he stepped onto the collapsed security door, watching where he stepped to avoid the grooves that had been warped into the metal from the raider’s arc welders and flamethrowers. Past the door, I found nothing but an empty hallway, clear of enemies all the way to the turn we were to take. Like the one in the atrium, the electric signpost here was still active, showing that the branching hall a few yards into the main corridor did indeed lead to both the armory and the lab. Ominously, though, there was a solid stripe of black that stretched from the end of the main hall, from the living quarters, to turn down the same path we were headed. And around it, against the walls, there were other splotches of hardened blood. Each of us kept our eyes on the end of the main hall as we rounded that corner, both Shore and I wary of what lay in that direction… the sector where the greatest number of the casualties we had taken had come from.

But we remained in the clear as we pressed ahead, set on our task despite the blood trail that continued towards our target rooms. And a short distance later, we came to a fork, where continuing straight ahead led to the lab, and turning left led to the armory. Down the latter hall a collection of assorted trash lay strewn about the floor, the only evidence of the raiders who once lived here, but Shore kept us moving straight, focused on his laboratory above all else. The dried blood trail continued in this direction, but apart from that, and the occasional tin can, wrapper, or empty bottle littering the floor, this hallway was clear as far as I could see. The collection of trash that began halfway down slowly increased the further along the hall we went, until we came to a stop at a flight of stairs, a longer set made of twelve steps, at the end of which was another open door; the electronic signpost above designated it as the research lab itself.

For a short moment, we stood in our place, Raemor and I waiting for Shore to begin down the stairs. Only after a few seconds of silent observation did my earth pony friend finally move, lowering his mouth to his firing bit before heading down. With light quiet steps I followed after him, careful not to bump my hoof against the assorted tin cans and glass bottles that were scattered among the stairway. As I drew closer, passing over the bottom steps as Shore slowed by the lab entrance, I let my lips hover close to my own firing bit, keeping my eyes on my friend as he prepared to clear the room. And he gave no warning to us before he moved in, taking hold of his firing bit in his teeth and snapping to the left to sweep that side of the lab, then just a second later, turning right to do the same with the other side. His haste prompted me to follow after him, and I likewise took hold of my firing bit as I rushed in behind him, looking along the left side of the lab to check for hostiles as Raemor stepped in behind me. But after scanning through the room, turning right to check over the other side as Shore had done, I was grateful to see that the lab was likewise a deserted room.

Together, Shore and I released our firing bits, and the both of us took a good look around… for different reasons. For me, this was, unfortunately, the first time I had been inside Shore’s laboratory, and not just in the four weeks that had come and gone on the surface, but for months before that too. The last time I had visited the lab was when Shore had invited me to view one of his projects at the time. Being the tinkerer that he was, he had often times invited either myself, Gunny, or Grace to the lab to get opinions on his works. Back then, the lab had been an organized and peaceful area of study, and despite its small size and the natural clutter that had come with Shore’s work, it had been a rather cozy place, one where the mind could run free and explore and grow. But now, nothing like that remained here. Instead, the raiders had been a literal hurricane of greed as they demolished the place looking for useful items. The metal floor was buried with what was nearly a carpet of scattered papers, old files and schematics and notes from an assortment of file cabinets, which had been toppled over and stuffed into the corner upon being emptied. At the far left side of the room, a number of storage shelves which had formerly made two rows in the center of the room there were likewise knocked over, and all the scrap and mechanical components that had once been stored there were gone. Against the back wall, three separate desks remained side-by-side. Each had been emptied, and their drawers thrown every which way. Atop them, each was paired with its own computer terminal; all three of them had been demolished, their screens blown out and their frames deformed and charred. Next to the desks was the remains of what had been a smaller mainframe, the main terminal for the lab. This too had been destroyed, and even though it remained standing against the wall, the body had been caved in by blunt force. Against the opposite wall, two large workbenches remained standing, their function to allow Shore to tinker with energy weapon ammunition, whether it be various energy cells or gem cartridges. Though bereft of their respective tools, they still remained standing and ready for use. Directly ahead and to the right, one large table still remained standing on its iron legs, once home to energy weapons that were either disassembled or on their way to being fully restored. Now it was the resting place of a fallen Stable guard, her corpse having been tied to the table belly down. And throughout the rest of the wrecked lab I found three other bodies, two stallion guards, both unicorns, one lying in the center of the room and the second against the far wall where they had made their final stand. The last was an earth pony mare, not a guard, having been dragged behind the workbenches… likely having already been dead when she had been, judging by the realization that the long streak of blood that I had seen smeared across the floor led to her final resting place; no matter where we went in the Stable, even in the halls clear of the dead… that same foul smell stuck… a plague all on its own.

In front of me, Shore let out a defeated sigh, a wounding sound. In response, I moved up alongside him, leaning forward as I did to try and see his face. In the crimson of the Stable’s emergency lighting, I could see a single tear coming from my friend’s closed left eye, trailing down his cheek as it passed by the frame of his reading glasses. And he made no effort to wipe it away, merely letting it fall freely as he let the image of what became of his life’s work set in. “Goddesses… I wish things could be like they had been a month ago.” And for the first time since Buckley, he spoke on his own, without a mission drawing in his attention to force him to talk. He spoke as himself… the voice I wanted to hear… in a moment that pierced me to the heart… “If they were, this lab would have been full of new technology for us… Who knows what we could have accomplished in One Eighty-one…”

“I wish things were like they’d been too.” Reaching over, I hooked my right foreleg around the back of his neck and pulled him into a hug, bumping my muzzle against his cheek as I closed my eyes with him. “I know you had great things in mind for the Stable.”

I was glad when Shore let me hold my embrace around him, my friend even leaning into it as he openly welcomed my support. “When I came to inherit this lab, I told myself that I would use it to improve the lives of everypony under our roof. In my efforts, I never made any miracles… I never created an engine or a reactor, or discovered how to replicate power armor, or designed a cure for radiation… but the things I had learned and created in this room… they did matter… they did help, just like I wanted them to. But out there on the surface, I can’t apply what I did in here because I don’t have the means to do so… and that’s the frustrating thing… knowing that the information and the technology I had here could have let me take my knowledge to the surface and help ponies… except now, what wasn’t destroyed is all in the hooves of a group of degenerate savages who will stop at nothing to use it to harm others…” At this point, all I could do was listen as I kept my muzzle against his cheek. “At the very least, it could have kept me from being involved in all the violence up there. I would have been able to stay in Hopeville, continue my work to try and improve how we lived, how secure we were. If I had even one terminal from here, I could have picked up where I left off and kept my old self alive out on the surface… but without it, I’ve had to focus solely on survival, on killing to live… on becoming harder… tougher… and it’s changed me so much that… that the pony I was in here…… I’ve felt more and more like that stallion died when the Stable did…”

With a gentle tug, I hugged Shore a little tighter. “You’ve only changed because you’ve had to.” I remarked back. “Like you said, you’ve been forced to adapt, just like we all have. But the real you hasn’t changed. You’re still every bit the pony you were in here… just without the material things you once had.”

“But just seeing this place again, reminding myself of what could have been up there… about how much I’ve changed without my work to keep me occupied…” But what was beginning to sound like a steady train of thought fell into silence when Shore tried to respond, and in the end he only shook his head against me. “I suppose it doesn’t even really matter.” he said instead. “I’ve lost more important things than my laboratory…”

To that, I couldn’t keep myself from sighing as I slowly let my foreleg fall away from his neck. “I understand you and Grace started getting pretty close.” I gently pried, nuzzling him across his cheek to try and comfort him.

He made no effort to deny it, giving me a nod.

“Yes… yes we were. With how things were going back then, we found ourselves working together and sharing the duties we had. I would assist her in the clinic, fetching whatever she needed, even helping her patients from time to time. In turn she would join me whenever I was assigned guard duty, patrol the streets with me. And we would always find a time to talk, just about whatever was on our minds.” With a sluggish stride, Shore finally stepped away from me and begun to move deeper into the lab, his thoughts driving him into motion, leaving me staring after him with saddened eyes. “The surface… it changed us, to be sure. It hardened us, more and more. But the important thing was that we changed together, and we both knew how we changed. And if one of us had worries or doubts about what we were becoming, or what we might have become later on, or how our friendship would be affected… we would be there to comfort one another… just sit there together, quiet…” Here, he stopped, bowing his head as he looked sidelong to me. “I suppose that, in the end, you could say we developed a bond together, and that we did indeed become more than friends. Perhaps it was an influence of the surface… perhaps an instinct it gave us with the threat always present that we would live a short life, and that with whatever time we had left between then and whenever some raider would do us in, we should find somepony that we could get close to, somepony that we could open our hearts to, love as more than friends. And while we never grew intimate or revealed what we felt for each other to anypony else… we really did love each other… as lovers love…” And when he turned away again… I closed my eyes; simply saying sorry was nowhere near adequate. “One night…” My ears perked as Shore picked up where he left off; slowly, I let my eyes open again… only when I was sure a tear wouldn’t make its way out. “We were in Proudspire’s clinic just as she was getting ready to pack up her medical gear and go to sleep. It was right after we returned to town after we wiped out those camps the Black Blood had set up.” Though staying clear of the bodies in the lab, Shore begun to scuff a hoof along some of the old papers on the floor… not really paying them much mind other than to move them about. “Our time in that town gave me my first real taste of battle.” he continued. “Back in the evacuation of the Stable, I ended up being one of the escorts, and so didn’t partake in the fighting. And even when we found that raider outpost, where I got my first kills – that was still just a skirmish. After Proudspire though, I returned with over at least a half dozen kills to my name… and I was actually beginning to worry about myself. Between the camp and the enemy post, I had killed quite a few raiders… monsters… but ponies, either way. But when I brought that to Gracie’s attention… she reminded me that we were living in a very different world. She reminded me that with how naturally glued we were to the past, we were still emerging onto the surface as ponies who were, by and large, wholly unaware of what occurred out here, despite everything we had learned in the Stable. And what stuck with me the most… she said that this world, the wasteland… she said that it takes, just as we all already knew, but she said that it also gives in return, no matter how much ponies try to think otherwise. She said that, in my case, I had had my home taken from me, my lab, all my work, my ideas, and all my progress. But at the same time, what I was being exposed to was making me stronger, even if at first I did not want to believe it.” Taking a couple more steps into the lab, Shore ran his hoof over another sheet of paper, briefly eyeing some of the writing before turning away. “But she was right, you know. Even if I didn’t want it, I was being given the experiences that would provide the tools I needed to survive, to live. Through everything I experienced I was becoming stronger and faster, more alert and cautious and focused. It was steeling me, shaping me into a pony who would actually be able to live out there… and the last thing Grace said about it was that everything the wasteland was giving to me, it was going to fuse with everything I had pulled out of the Stable with me, all the things I had been taught, all the things I valued. She said that it was giving me the means to protect those values in this new world so that I would be able to help others. She said it was going to make me into the kind of pony that the wasteland needed to rebuild… just so long as I didn’t give up on myself.” And now, he turned back to me, reaching a hoof up to adjust his reading glasses again. “She had that kind of faith in all of us, that all of us had a part to play in helping the wasteland become something better. But the way she said it to me… it gave me… so much determination. And over the past couple of days, that was really all that I could think about… Now I’m trying to put all the pieces back together in my head so that I’ll believe what she said like I once did… Without Grace… it’s been very difficult… but I am trying.”

“You know she would’ve been very proud of you, Shore.” I said with instant confidence, taking a step toward him.

“For what?”

And to that, I let myself crack a faint smile to him, one I had wanted to give him ever since he had told of what Grace had said; I had actually been kind of hoping he would have asked that question. “For exactly what you just said. For not giving up… for taking her words to heart, and for fighting against your grief to try and move forward, to believe her words again. She would have been proud to hear you say what you did.”

“Perhaps…” But despite his rather modest response, he wasn’t able to hide from me the sliver of a smile that formed up on his face before he turned away again, letting out a short sigh… but one with a subdued yet audible tone of relief… or at the very least, content. “You know, Nova,” he said. “if you eventually find a special somepony out there, whoever he might be, I hope that you will be able to tell him what Grace told me. And I pray that if and when he might hear those words, that he would take them with him and learn by them.”

And despite everything… for the first time in days, if not weeks, I actually found myself blushing just a little, smiling a little wider at my friend’s words. “Well… there’s no telling when that might happen… or if it will at all. If I do, it might not be until I start getting grey hairs in my mane and wrinkles on my face.” I replied, unable to hold back a little giggle. “But if I do happen to find that special somepony while I’m still young and pretty… I have a feeling that they’ll take those words to heart just like you have.”

*clink

*clink

From back in the hallway came two sudden light notes one after the next. Together Shore and I spun to look upon the entrance, facing the stairs again just as the same sound reached us for a third time, then a fourth. And from within the crimson light, we both spotted the glass bottle as it tumbled down the stairs, landing with one final ring against the floor at the base of the steps, where it rolled forward to stop by the door.

“Hide!” From off farther into the lab came the sharp whisper, startling my attention over to the front wall as Raemor came to a stop a few paces short of the door, his weapons hovering close to him; though having stood away from us during our talk, he had heard the bottle just as clearly as we had.

Together, Shore and I moved as quick and quiet as we could to stack up behind the old unicorn, keeping the open entrance ahead of us to watch for anything hostile. All of a sudden, I found myself dearly missing my pipbuck, much more than I had before, especially since the three of us made the one team of Saber’s three that didn’t have the advantage of E.F.S.. Without it, we had to resort to listening… and waiting… both of which began to let the adrenaline circulate.

I desperately wanted to call out, to speak a familiar name and have that pony respond…

“I heard you in there…”

But the voice that came… a dark, sinister… chilling voice… it didn’t belong to any of the others, and I knew Shore and Raemor caught it too.

“Why don’t you come on out so I can get a good look at ya?” The same stallion from outside spoke again, and past his words, I could hear his hooves on the floor as he slowly descended the stairs. “I sure hope you all belong with me,” he added, a treacherous little snicker coming from the Black Blood buck. “otherwise there’s going to be quite a mess left behind when we’re done with you.”

There were more… yes, there were definitely more; I could hear two other ponies moving, farther behind, but still coming closer.

From behind me, I felt a tap on my back. Craning my head around, Shore was looking me in the eye, promptly gesturing toward the back of the lab when he had my attention. And though he didn’t speak, I quickly caught on to what he was trying to convey as he begun backing up, separating himself from the wall and heading towards the computer desks at the opposite side. It was a move I needed to follow, simply for the sake of spreading out. Reaching over, I similarly tapped Raemor’s back to make my next move known to him. Though he didn’t look back, he gave just a slight nod as he focused on the entrance, his automatic pistol already floating into place before him to take aim. But from just outside, the enemy was getting ready too, as was announced by the ominous pulling and pushing of a rifle’s cocking arm, chambering the first round of a clip.

“Silent eh?” A mare’s voice was the one that took up the question, followed by the racking of a shotgun shell; a soft wave of eager cackling followed her statement.

“Too bad for them, I guess.” came a third voice, another smug stallion.

“Times up.” the first stallion called tauntingly.

I didn’t know where Shore was when I had begun backing away from the wall. But just as I had made it nearly halfway across the lab, I gasped as the front half of an assault rifle swung around the entrance, wrapped in telekinesis and coming down to point right for us. And then the room was filled with a terrible roar, the confined space amplifying the intensity of each shot, as the raider behind the weapon blind fired into the room. One round struck the left side of my chestplate before I could throw myself back toward the wall I had come from, sending a frightened jolt through me… but still I felt no wound as I skidded along the floor. Just as I came to a halt, the weapon went silent, the clip spent. But as it pulled away, a new threat emerged, a unicorn raider springing into the open with a wild cry, bringing a ten millimeter SMG to bear. But as soon as she emerged, her head snapped violently black as a splash of crimson painted the wall behind her. Raemor had kept his pistol on the entrance, the first raider’s barrage missing him entirely. But he promptly discarded the pistol as the unicorn mare fell, launching it away as he brought his fire axe before him. And as he did the third raider, the owner of the assault rifle from before. He met Raemor with a hateful glare, trying to bring his weapon around again. But Raemor’s axe was quicker, swinging upward to smack the weapon back out the door and onto the stairs as he collided with the enemy. Raemor’s momentum alone carried them both into the wall, the two of them stumbling over the fresh corpse of the first Black Blood pony to enter the room. The two of them locked together in an instant grapple, and with a mighty heave Raemor pulled them both back and away from the entrance, only a second before a shotgun blast erupted through the room, the floor sparking violently as the buckshot struck where they had just stood.

Raemor was tangled up with the stallion now, wrestling for leverage against a now unarmed opponent. I made to help him, seeing as how the black and red armored raider was trying to roll himself over to put himself on top. But just before I moved, another enemy emerged, and in his telekinesis was a black tactical pump-action shotgun. I adjusted myself to face him as I raced for my firing bit, clamping down on it as I put a line-of-sight on him. And without waiting, I pulled the trigger. One shot, the pair of bullets sparked sharply on the floor at the raider’s hooves, a second, and the stallion stumbled back as both rounds punched into the armor protecting his left side. And then, from behind me, a pair of bright red lasers lashed out for him, the both of them punching clean through his armor to hit their mark, and in a brilliant flash of light, he collapsed into a pile of smoldering ash.

But just as Shore made the kill, and I lay off my firing bit to turn back for Raemor, a fourth raider came racing in, an earth pony stallion equipped with a dual shotgun saddle. And in one move, he both leapt into the open and came to face us, the two combat shotguns lighting up as soon as he landed on all fours, catching me unaware. I took a solid hit from his shot, the blast nearly blowing me off my hooves. It knocked the wind clean out of me, my chest lighting aflame with a crushing wave of pain as I barely caught myself from my staggered step. But through the ringing in my ears and the burning in my torso, I could still hear the firefight around me. Shore caught the raider before he could get off another shot with his saddle, firing three times to push the raider back to the door. Following quickly after was a pistol round, followed by a second, Raemor having picked up his sidearm again, winning the wrestling match between the first raider. The shotgun saddle pony managed to fire again, and as I finally got myself aligned to face the enemy again, I saw as Raemor was blown back, having taken a near point-blank shot to his right side, and was sent sprawling to the ground. But Shore stayed on him, another pair of lasers striking the far wall just above the raider’s head, forcing him back yet another step as I took hold of my firing bit again. Without trying to sight in, I took another shot to keep the enemy busy, one of the two bullets catching his left foreleg to get him to stumble in his step. And just a second later, and his head jerked back as one of Shore’s lasers struck him there, and like the mare before him, his body glowed a bright red before dissolving away, leaving only a pile of ash where he had once stood.

And finally, silence returned. The skirmish was over.

“Stay out of my lab…” To my left, Shore kept his glaring eyes on the entrance as he growled his warning, watching, waiting for any signs of others who might have also been hidden among the group of, what we had first thought to be, three.

But with him focused on the entrance, having escaped the surprise attack with no injury, or at least none that I could see, I took the opportunity to check myself over. And I promptly stumbled again, unable to keep back a pained grunt as I felt the terrible stinging in my chest. When I dared to look, I saw that my chest plate had been ravaged by the shotguns that had targeted it. The pad itself had held, thankfully, but not without a whole mess of new indents and tears. I could see some of the material that made the inner layer of the armor, blasted open by the force of what had to have been Stable-issue shotguns.

It was torn up pretty good… but what was worse was trying to catch my breath, that terrible ache pulsing with every inhalation; though I suffered no open wounds, I knew I was going to be feeling this one for a while.

Suddenly, another energy blast sounded through the room, two more lasers lashing out through the door to strike the wall behind it, startling me to duck my head down. And it was then that I heard hooves against the steel, moving swiftly away. “Shit, you’re crazy!”

Another raider!

“Get back here!”

“Shore, wait!” But I was too late, and I looked only in time to see the black stallion as he galloped back through the door and out onto the stairway.

“Raemor, are you okay?” I called quickly, making my way across the lab and to the door. “Can you run?

“I’m fine.” The old stallion, thank Celestia, was pulling himself back up to his hooves; he was moving with some difficulty… but so far as I could tell, he hadn’t been wounded. “But you head after Shore. I’ll catch up with you when I put myself back together.”

From within the hallway, Shore’s energy rifle and pistol reported together, two shots; I didn’t have time to argue.

Best I could I pushed aside the pain in my chest and ran, passing the stairs three at a time to swiftly return to the hallway. Making my way down, I heard one more shot from Shore’s energy saddle, coming from the right as I approached where the hallway split into two directions. I knew right away that he had chased the runaway towards the armory, and as I came across the turn, I skidded around the corner and down into the armory access hall. But soon as I did, sparks suddenly erupted from the wall where the new hall turned to the right, a semi-auto rifle returning fire from farther ahead. And when I came to a stop, leaning up against the wall, Shore came running back… or rather staggering…

And I saw the blood that snaked its way down his left side.

“I got the runaway. But there was one more in the armory.” With a pained grunt, Shore hobbled his way over to draw up beside me. “That must be where the others had come from.”

“Are you out of your mind?!” I hissed lowly, promptly forcing my way in front of him to take the lead. “How many times were you hit??”

“Only once…” Shore answered as solidly as he could. “I think she has armor-piercing rounds.”

“Those were my friends you killed, asshole!” Down the hall, a mare called out for us, her rifle reloading with two heavy clicks. “Come out! Or do we need to do this the hard way?!”

I kept my mouth shut as I made my way up to the corner, focusing around the wall to listen. The mare’s steps were faint, but I could still hear the slow, cautious pace she had set for herself. She was close already, her weapon likely trained on the corner… but only at ground level. Looking up, I took note of the ceiling, low, but still holding enough room for me to maneuver; the hum of magic coming from around the bend told me who I was facing… being in the air would be the one way to get the jump on her.

“Back up.” Whispering soft as I could, I looked over my shoulder as I took a couple paces back. Shore was close behind me, breathing heavily but otherwise standing, and upon bumping into him, he followed my move, wearing only a questioning look as he recovered his breath; a quick nod up to the ceiling, and he began to focus, following my lead.

Leaning down, I scooped up my sidearm, Shimmer’s pistol, and held it tight in my jaws as I let my wings come unfurled. And crouching, I prepared myself to launch. I had limited room here, but all I needed was to confront the raider from the ceiling, the far upper corner of the hallway, and then shoot at the same time… and hit. I set my sights on it, bracing myself, and with a leap and a beat of my wings, I threw myself forward and up, turning mid-pounce as I caught the air. That’s when I saw her, a dark-colored unicorn with a full black mane, a markspony carbine, Stable hardware, floating close by. She fired once on instinct, her round striking the wall below me just as I predicted. And as I fell into position, her eyes came up to meet me with alarm as I returned fire. With a mighty blast of sound, the pistol sent a startling bolt of pain through my jaw as it fired its teeth-chattering shot, and the raider screamed as the fifty caliber bullet found home in her right front leg. But at the same time, my left wing clipped the wall, my momentum carrying me farther than I meant to, and though I stumbled in the air, losing my pace, I just managed to put my hooves back under me as I fell. I landed roughly, but still kept myself from falling, and quickly I got my iron sights back onto my target. But the raider mare was not on her hooves… especially considering that one hoof was now severed from the rest of her. Now she only writhed and groaned in agony, unable to focus on anything but the catastrophic damage that one round from Shimmer’s pistol had done… shocking even to me.

But in her tormented squirming, the mare’s closed eyes passed over me just before they opened… and met me.

And to my alarm… she actually stopped moving… “Oh… oh no way…” And then she begun to chuckle… she… she actually started laughing!! “Oh, this is just too good!” she yelled, hissing back her pain as she fought with all her might to keep from looking at her ruined foreleg. “I knew that one day you Stable ponies would come back to your precious home! I knew you’d never be able to leave it alone forever! But I never actually thought I’d be seeing you again!”

And again she laughed, a near maniacal cackling that more suited the psychos of Marefax than an organized raider band. And unable to resist, I slammed Shimmer’s pistol back into its holster. “What’s so funny?!” I demanded hotly, pushing back my bafflement at the raider’s reaction to seeing me.

An agonized grunt escaped the raider despite her best efforts, and she briefly turned away to look upon her wound, uselessly trying to clutch at it. “Ugh, that’s the thing! There’s actually a couple things that are pretty damn funny!” she eventually replied, both laughter and pained hissing interrupting her sentences. “But I don’t know which one I find funnier – the fact that you came back like I knew you would, or that you of all those wimpy Stable ponies would be the one to do me in, or that I got to personally know your father before he died!!”

Her laughter followed again as she looked back to the bloody stump at the end of her shattered foreleg… but in that moment, everything around me went black. It was tunnel vision yet again… it was just me and her… and she had spoken about my father… her venomous voice had spoken about my father…

“I mean, he was the only pegasus in this place except you, so that must mean he was your daddy, right?!”

She spoke… about my father…

“You better talk fast…” I growled darkly.

But the hatred that had, in a blink, exploded inside me only seemed to amuse her more. “Oh Goddesses… Yeah I haven’t forgotten that pegasus ever since I met him.” she said; she was beginning to shake… her blood loss was adding up rapidly. “You see, I got to watch you as you left the Stable. It was so adorable that you helped that poor little filly get out and everything. And then after you got out, I got to hear you scream when your precious father blew the door console, kept up from chasing you. So after everything went quiet, after we managed to shut down that damned turret of yours, there was your father, just lying there, bleeding, glaring at us waiting for us to finish the job. But you see, our boss Bruiser didn’t like what he did. He didn’t like that the rest of you got away because of him. So you know what he did?”

No matter how hard I tried to block it out, I couldn’t keep myself from feeling the trembling in my legs…

“He turned to me and he said, ‘Since you were the first mare to come through that door and live, you get yourself a prize.’” And with another cackle, she closed her eyes. “So I got all nice and cozy with dear old dad, and I told him how I’d never rode a pegasus before.”

No… no, she didn’t!

“So I made him an offer.” she said. “I told him that if he’d fuck my brains out, then we’d let him go. Of course, being the goodie-goodie pony that he was, he didn’t want any part of that. But I didn’t give him a choice. So he busted a couple muzzles, pissed a bunch of ponies off, put on a real show. But once I got a few volunteers to hold him down… oh Goddesses, kid, I bet your mommy loved him very much, because he was the best lay I’d ever had in my life.”

SHE DID!!

“And once he got his load off, down he we-”

BLAM!!!

The same jolt from the kick of Shimmer’s pistol punched through my jaws again. I didn’t even feel it, only witnessing as the first shot blew the grin right off her.

BLAM!!!

My jaws began to burn from the massive kick of Shimmer’s pistol. But my attention was only on the raider as the second shot punched a gaping crater into the already dead mare’s skull.

BLAM!!!

And through it all, I screamed through the firing bit as Shimmer’s pistol turned the raider’s head into jelly.

BLAM!!! BLAM!!! BLAM!!! *click *click *click

“Nova, stop! STOP!!”

As soon as I felt Shore’s hoof on me, I spat out my spent pistol to scream at the top of my lungs. “DON’T FUCKING TOUCH ME!!!” And with a desperate shove, I ripped myself out of his hold before the stallion could get his foreleg around my chest to pull me back. I stumbled forward from the force of my push, coming face to face with the mangled head of the raider… the one who had, for ten seconds, instantly been my archenemy. I stood over her, head bowed, glaring over the lumpy paste that was all that remained of her head, breathing heavily, quickly. Her blood was pooling up fast, and already, it touched my front hooves, slowly flowing around them. But I didn’t even flinch from it, only staring, panting… at the one who claimed responsibility for killing my father.

After I had gotten out of the Stable, there had only been one thing I had seen of my father. I had only been able to see him as he was shot in the shoulder, as he tumbled over the sandbag barrier from the force of the high-caliber round that had taken him down. After that, there was only the obvious outcome that had traveled in my thoughts. I knew that there was no way he could have survived in there, surrounded by enemies, and with no way out of the Stable after he had destroyed the only reachable exit. That was all I knew… it was all I had thought… until I returned home. When I saw where we had fought together, my father and I, when I saw no body to truly confirm his demise… there was a small part of me… I dared to hope that somehow… someway… he had escaped. Even when I knew that it was… near impossible… that thought just wouldn’t leave me. But to speak to one of the very raiders that partook in the assault on Stable 181, and to hear her tell of what really happened after it all ended… there was no way that she was lying… How could she have been lying? With that smug and sickeningly reminiscent grin… and her evil cackling… how could she have possibly been lying?

To hear that that was how my dad had died… held down, raped, and humiliated in his final moments… to hear the story from the lips of the very mare who had committed those vile acts…

And I could only kill her once…

The message this raider had given me… it inspired a terrible darkness in me, as a great part of me now wanted nothing more than wholesale slaughter. I wanted the raiders to die in swaths before me, and I could picture such a scenario, entertain the thought with a pure, fiery hatred the likes of which I never felt before, not even for Blackhawk. And yet, rising to existence in a much gentler manner, a surprising force – the desire to put the raider’s words at my back… and find my father’s body, wherever he was… And more and more, that desire actually begun to push away those horrible thoughts, whittling them down to nothingness and taking hold of me as a silent voice of reason, warning me to stay my course and to keep away from that darkness that I found in myself… for the sake of those I loved that remained… And as my breathing begun to even out again, I closed my eyes as a pair of tears came to life, forcing their way out through the corner of my eyes to trail down my cheeks.

“Nova.”

Though I didn’t open my eyes to see, I heard Raemor as he stepped up beside me on the left. And with him, Shore stopped by my right side, and I felt as he bumped his muzzle against my cheek, brushing aside the tear that had come; this time, I didn’t move away. “I want to find him…” I said, hushed… but with the same level of assertiveness. “I want to find my father… I need to find him.”

“You don’t even have to ask, Nova.” Raemor replied softly, his voice gentle as I finally opened my eyes again.

“We'll find him.” I turned to look to Shore

Looking left, then right, I took in the expressions of both stallions, seeing the sympathy in their eyes, which in turn created their resolve; only the weight of the raider’s reveal kept me from smiling, from showing the gratitude I really felt. “Thank you…”

With that Raemor advanced past the dead raider, and the ash pile that had been sizzling behind her, towards the armory as Shore nudged me away from it. “I’ll look over the armory.” Raemor said, his pistol and his axe readied beside him. “Then we can get back to the others and tell them what we found out here.”

*** *** ***

“I see…”

I partook very little in the explanation of our encounter in the lab and the armory. But as Shore told Captain Saber everything we had found in those areas, I kept my eyes on our mission leader as he listened and took in the details, waiting to hear what his next move would be, and whether or not it would encompass my own plan.

We had, one and all, returned to the atrium as planned after clearing our designated wings. But while we were all still kicking, there were a couple of us that needed medical attention. Shore’s wound wasn’t serious, but it still greatly hindered his mobility and his concentration. In his case, we were simply glad that the bullet hadn’t hit anything vital. But apart from him, Raemor, and myself, both the other teams had found an enemy presence, similarly lying in wait after the opening of the Stable door. Joker had also taken a round, getting through a weak spot on the armor around his left flank. Non-lethal as the wound was, it had been a high-caliber round that had done the damage, a three-o-eight from a high-powered rifle; it had torn up the padding and dug into him pretty good. And then there was Ivy, whose leather armor had stood no chance against an armor-piercing round that had struck her right shoulder. Her wound was the worst of the collective injuries, as it left her walking with a painful limp, and whenever she was moving, she required help from another to keep herself upright.

Our efforts had, however, yielded some useful supplies to us. It turned out that those few raiders that had remained here had either been given, or had stolen, some good quality items, from weapons and ammo, to food and even clean water. Each of our three groups had made certain to salvage the ammo that our fallen enemies had been carrying, and Saber made double sure to come back for the weapons once the Stable was clear. But each group had found their own unique items as well. While it hadn’t been much, Gunny, Sierra, and Ivy had found a box of two dozen water bottles in the apple orchard, all filled with clean water from the Stable’s talisman. With them had been a small stash of apples in the kitchen that had been saved from the orchard’s trees, which had been reported burned to the ground; these precious fruits were stored in a leather sack for safe keeping by the Black Blood. On Saber, Joker, and Daisy’s end, they had brought back two tool boxes, each with an assortment of basic tools and parts. While those wouldn’t have been as useful outside as they once were here, Saber brought them back anyway at the possibility that they may find new use, even if it was for trade. But on top of the salvaged tools, Saber had also found something rather alarming, that being four bricks of military-grade plastic explosives, C4, having been found alongside a corresponding remote detonator. And finally, upon looking through the armory, Raemor had discovered a locked gun case that the Black Blood ponies hadn’t been able to crack. Upon bringing it back, Gunny had set about to opening it up, and after a minute or so of tinkering, he got the heavy lock open to find one of Shore’s crafted weapons inside. Upon looking it over, Shore designated it as the second completed weapon of what he had intended to be his line of remodeled laser rifles that could regenerate their ammo. The weapon Raemor had found was indeed an exact replica of the one Shore had carried with him throughout our time on the surface. Now, everything we found was stashed away in the cleanest part of the atrium, all except Shore’s rifle; that was now secured snugly to Shore’s back, reunited with its creator where it truly belonged.

“I can’t express how sorry I am to hear that, Nova.” Looking out towards the main hall, towards the living quarters, Saber began to nod to himself as he worked out his next move. “I can’t promise that we’ll find anything. But if we do find him, we’ll take him out of here. That, at least, I can promise.”

“That’s really all I can ask at this point.” I replied, nodding with him. “Thank you, captain.”

“Certainly. I just want you to do me one favor, Nova, and keep your head in the game. I still need you for this mission, so keep in mind what we’re really doing here.” he added, a gentle reminder. “If we finish our tasks and don’t find his body… well, we can’t stay here for hours upon hours looking. Though I hate to put it this way… we all lost somepony here, friend or family or both…”

Though he stopped here… he could have said more. And really, I already knew what he could have said. In the harshest possible terms, my case wasn’t unique, because Saber was right – we all lost ponies we cared about here. But with everything that I’d already seen here, with how tired I was becoming despite how much I tried to steel myself… I really had no problem agreeing to that condition. Really, in the end, I was just grateful for the sympathy that he gave me. “Don’t worry.” I assured. “I understand.”

Even though I prayed that we would find him.

“Alright. Then let’s move on.” Coming back around to face us again, Saber spoke his next order. “We’ve secured most of the Stable now. All that’s left now is the old science wing. For those of you that weren’t residents, the science wing was the home of our clinic, our classrooms, a room we called the Memory Room, and then the Hall of Records where we stored a great deal of pre-war writings.”

“Anything from novels, college textbooks, and document folders, to personal journals, old newspapers, and equipment manuals.” Gunny explained. “We had it all in there.”

“With all of that,” Saber picked up after. “a couple of us are going to stay here and look through the Overmare’s office. Specifically, I want Ivy, Shore, and Joker to hang back and search that office. I won’t count on finding any medical supplies in the clinic, but at the very least, staying here will keep some pressure off those wounds until we can get you treated.”

“With all due respect, sir,” Joker interrupted. “I don’t think you should keep all three of us here. At least take one of us with you into the science wing. I don’t want to feel like I’m not doing my part.”

“Joker,” But raising a hoof, Saber silenced him. “I don’t doubt that you could keep going. But I’m not doing this to keep you from being useful. If anything, you’ve already done what you’ve needed to do. So don’t worry too much.” Though the platinum unicorn buck looked a little disgruntled even after his superior’s assurances, he let himself end his argument there, with Daisy encouraging the same with a gentle nuzzling along his neck. “With the three of them, I want Sierra to stay in the atrium and keep an eye out for any other raiders that we didn’t sweep up before.” Turning to the armored pegasus, he added, “You can see the passage into and out of every wing of the Stable from the atrium, so you’re going to make sure that the area’s we’ve cleared stay that way.”

“Of course.” she said with a nod of confirmation.

“The rest of you are going to be with me.” Saber concluded. “We’re going to get in, clear each room, then get out so we can finish things up here.” With that, everypony begun to disperse, checking over their equipment for one final delve into the Stable’s halls. “Everypony with me, we’re going to still keep our eyes open for anything we can salvage. So stay focused when we’re in there.”

There were no words of parting as our circle dispersed. Shore provided the supporting shoulder for Ivy as he begun to lead her with Joker to the hall in the southwest corner of the atrium, the hall leading to Crystal Sunset’s office. I passed Sierra by as she moved herself out of the way of the others, her compact minigun beginning to spin with a whine as she checked the heavy weapon over. And facing front, I set my sights back onto the Stable’s main corridor and moved, following after Saber. Being the one with the pipbuck, our leader took the front, already entering the hall. Gunny fell in behind him, his riot shotgun hovering in beside him as he moved, and Daisy moved in front of me to settle in the middle, her assault rifle tucked in close to her. A look over my shoulder let me see Raemor as he once again took the rear, giving me a single nod as he secured his fire axe back to its place next to his grenade rifle, leaving only his pistol hovering next to him.

Facing front, I passed again out of the atrium and back into the main hall. This time, when we came across the four-way intersection, Saber turned us left, leading us into the access hall of the science wing. And as soon as I stepped hoof into the hall, I saw ponies, happy, talking, laughing ponies under the living white light of Stable 181. Unicorns held books in their telekinesis, and the earth ponies that were mixed in carried saddlebags with their needed school supplies. And instead of a rifle saddle, I had only a pair of my own saddlebags slung over my flanks, both heavy with the books for the day’s courses. And all around, I heard nothing but both the bored and the eager conversations that revolved around another day in school.

With a bump, the red of the emergency lights returned, and I found myself looking Daisy in the eye as she eyed me over her shoulder. Having momentarily lost myself, I had bumped into Daisy’s flank just as we were about to round the first turn in the hall that hooked right. But instead of telling me to pay attention, as I had expected her to do, she passed me a small sad frown. “I remember too.” came her whisper.

Daisy was definitely older than me, at least by a couple years. But just because she had finished her classes well before me didn’t mean that she was oblivious to her own time in the schoolroom. “Goddesses… this hallway’s going to bring me back.” I whispered back, following her around the corner.

“Yeah…”

Up ahead the hall turned once more, this time to the left. Now, like we had encountered at the lab and the armory, we were passing over a small scattering of old food cartons, wrappers, and the occasional empty bottle. This time, there were torn papers mixed in, and there was even a pair of ruined books laying against the wall. But as we neared the next corner, I noted grimly as the familiar stink of decay quickly became more pungent. We one and all smelled it together… and I felt that we one and all prepared for yet another grizzly… and infuriating scene.

And that’s when I heard a sigh from up ahead, where Saber had turned the next corner. “It’s messy in here, everypony.”

I couldn’t keep myself from shaking my head as we forced ourselves onward, Gunny disappearing next around the bend. With a light shudder, I braced myself as Daisy turned next, and then I was up, emerging into the science wing’s main hall. Here… here, I beheld a scene that was fit to rival the Stable’s entrance. Amidst a floor that was blanketed with scattered papers, bodies lined the hall, one and all laying on their sides where they had fallen. There were seven altogether, and around each of them, dried blood caked the floor and even the walls where they had been savagely beaten to death. At the farthest point of the hallway, where the seventh mangled body lay, the emergency light on the ceiling had somehow been damaged. As a result, the light rapidly flickered on and off, ominously illuminating the body beneath it. Even after just stepping hoof into the main hall, I could see the window frames and the accompanying doors built into the steel of the walls that marked the position of each of the wing’s six classrooms. There were three windows with their partner doors on each side, built at wide intervals to show the larger size of each room.

And after just a few paces, stepping around the closest body, I could see the first two windows. On the right, the window was intact. But the emergency lighting showed where blood had splashed against the pane, surrounding a single hole in the glass itself, and inside the room, the students’ desks had been gathered up and stuffed against the far wall, blocking the chalkboard. On the left, the window was likewise adorned with blood, a single stripe of it painted at a diagonal from the top left to bottom right. Inside that room, the desks had not been stacked or pushed away, but had been thrown in every which direction, leaving nothing but a chaotic mess inside; I was grateful that I couldn’t see the victims inside, whoever they might have been.

“Just ignore the classrooms.” Saber spoke up, continuing ahead at a slower pace. “If there aren’t raiders inside, then we have nothing more to do with those rooms.”

A few seconds later, and I was passing by the second of the three pairs of windows, with three corpses behind me already. The one on the right had been shattered entirely, leaving only an empty frame. And out in the hall, we had to walk around a smashed up desk that was laying on its side, the item responsible for breaking through the glass. On the left, the window was clean and whole, but there were two bodies that I could see inside, both having died laying atop a desk within; one of them was missing a head.

In silence we continued, approaching the damaged light that marked the beginning of the back half of the hallway as we put the sixth body in the hall behind us. The last two windows came into view then, the damaged light still illuminating what was left within the final two classrooms. On the left, the room was a disaster area equal to the second room I had seen, with the desks demolished and scattered about the room. But on the right, I found myself gasping as the flashing light revealed a horrible scene. Past the window frame, I could see a dead earth pony mare, a light purple mare with a darker violet mane that was lying on her belly atop the teacher’s desk in the back left corner of the room. Each of her legs had been straightened out and stapled to it with iron spikes, and with the way she was positioned… it didn’t take a genius to understand that she had been raped before she died… perhaps more than once. And against the far wall of the classroom, the chalkboard had been spared from destruction, used instead to hold a message from the raiders who had killed her.

Nerdy BITCH!!!

The worst part of it all… I knew the mare on that table. She had been one of the Stable’s teachers… my teacher, whose subject of expertise was the history of the pre-war era. And that room had been my most frequently used classroom… and I could remember everything… her smile as she greeted me to a new day of learning, and my smile that I gave her in return as I eagerly made my way to my assigned seat, second to last row, farthest desk on the right side; I was more than ready to get started…

An image flashed through my head about what had been done to her… I promptly stomped it down, shivering in the process.

“Was she your teacher too?”

Once again, Daisy was looking over her shoulder at me as we put the last two classrooms behind us. And in reply, I could only give a little nod; I simply couldn’t find any words to speak at having seen the fate of one of my instructors…

“Daisy.” Suddenly, Saber’s voice called out to us, jolting both of us out of our shared trance. “Daisy come up here.” Quick to comply, the pink unicorn pushed her way forward, Gunny stepping away to the side to give her room. “We’re coming up on the clinic now.” Saber spoke up just before she joined him. Indeed, there was a single door farther along the right side of the hall, sitting at the center of the rear half of the science wing. “I’ve got nothing on E.F.S., so I want you to sweep through it and look around for any meds that might be left. It’ll be a long shot, but I still want you to try.”

“Yes, captain.” she replied, slowing as they drew up to the door. “Do you want me to meet back up with you when I’m done?”

“If you come across any remaining medicine, get back to the others and distribute what you find.” Saber answered her. “Be thorough. Even if the clinic was looted, there might still be something that the raiders missed. But most importantly, keep on your guard. Just because there aren’t raiders around doesn’t mean that this place isn’t dangerous.”

Daisy gave a nod. “Don’t worry. I’ve got this.” The pink mare came to a stop by the clinic door, closed up tight with the control panel placed at its right side still intact and active, the light glowing its own shade of red. And as I passed her by, she used the barrel of her assault rifle to press the panel’s one button before taking aim. With a short release of air, the door slid open with a single smooth motion, revealing a room that was… ominously bereft of light, even from the emergency system; the last thing I saw out of the corner of my eye was Daisy as her horn begun to glow before she moved into the clinic, undaunted by the darkness.

“As for the rest of you, I think we’re just about done here.” In front of me, I caught a glimpse of Saber just as he faced front from looking over his shoulder to us. Past him, we were coming upon a wall in the path, marking the end of the wing’s main passage. But it was there that two new pathways branched off in either direction, making a t-intersection. And bolted into the wall between where the two new paths began was another directory. According to the two glowing red signs, the hall that branched left led to the Stable’s Memory Room, where all our photographs were taken with our salvaged camera. And to the right was our beloved Hall of Records, One Eighty-one’s great library that was the home to every pre-war and wartime era document that our founding family had been able to save from the bombs…… the place where I spent the greater part of my time when I had been in school. “E.F.S. still isn’t picking up any hostile presence here, towards the Memory Room or the Hall of Records. So I’m beginning to think that we wiped out the remaining invaders when we were engaged before.”

“If there were any in here, they would’ve revealed themselves by now.” Gunny agreed. “It’s not like them to keep quiet.”

After a few more steps, Saber came to a stop as he reached the end of the hall. And one after the next we followed his move, gathering up closer as he looked over the directory. “Alright. I’m going to need somepony to head left and check out the Memory Room. I’ve already looked the place over with E.F.S., but having visual confirmation that it’s clear still wouldn’t hurt.”

“I can check the room over for you, if you wish.”

On my left, Raemor drew up beside me as he caught our leader’s attention. “Good. Then while you’re doing that, I’ll take Nova and Gunny, and we’ll look over the Hall of Records.” And already, he was beginning to move forward, slowly turning right towards his destination. “This is the part where we’ll be looking for anything with a more sentimental value to it.” he added, watching as the old unicorn passed Gunny by to step up to the front. “A lot of good memories came from here… so if there’s anything left in the Stable that could really give our ponies some reason to keep fighting out there, it’d come from here.”

“This place must have truly been wonderful when you lived here.” Raemor remarked, stopping just as he turned down the left hall to look back at us.

“From one pony who’s lived a long time to another, I imagine that in all your years you should know what a truly beautiful home is like, even up there.” Saber responded, likewise stopping again to meet Raemor’s gaze. “Out in the wastes, there must have been a place that you called home, a place that not only sheltered you, but brought you true happiness, that despite the nature of our world gave you the chance to live just like one would have lived in ponykind’s era of peace. And down here in these steel corridors and chambers, we knew joys that even Celestia and Luna themselves would have been envious of.”

“Yes… I’ve lived in such a place in my time.” Raemor replied back, a very slight chuckle escaping him. “So I know exactly what you mean, and I pray to the Goddesses that upon our departure, this place might be at peace in the form of its inhabitants’ joyful memories.”

And when I looked back… Saber – a smile actually begun to tug at the corner of his mouth. In that moment, the two of them were of one mind… a moment that, for a brief time, removed me from the gloom to draw out my own little smile; even Gunny looked touched by our old friend’s words when we exchanged a glance. “So do I, Raemor.” Saber said, carrying that small smile with him as he faced front. “I hope so, too.”

With a wave of a hoof, Saber drew our focus back onto the Hall of Records as he pushed onward, and Gunny and I followed after him, my friend keeping parallel to me on my left. And as soon as we got moving, as soon as my eyes fell on Saber’s back, there was something about him that made itself known to me. There was a certain energy in his stride, an eagerness in the pace he set, something he didn’t have before. But just as I started to privately inquire to myself, I caught a glimpse of something ahead, something that had blended in with the emergency lighting. It was a red light, just slightly lighter in shade than the rest of the lights, coming from a single round stubby bulb attached to yet another door control console. And as we closed the distance between us and the panel, I looked upon the door for the Hall of Records… or rather the battered, marred, and scorched slab of steel that was what remained of the door. Together the three of us begun to slow, giving me all the time I needed to see what the raiders had done here. What had once been clean gray metal was now streaked with black, where fire and electricity had carved away at it. The welders and flamethrowers that the Black Blood had utilized left great gashes in the steel, looking like gaping wounds. Additionally, mixed in with the dark scorch marks that covered the great majority of the door’s face, there were countless white scratches where various tools had been used to slash and stab. I even recognized the depressions where bullets had struck, leaving what seemed like a whole screen of dents and dings from where rounds had bounced uselessly off. And on the bottom of the door, I could see where the whole thing had been curved inward, as if something had simply bent the whole thing to try and get in. But despite all the marks and all the damage, the door to the Hall of Records remained standing.

“Looks like they were having some difficulty with this one.” Gunny observed, stopping beside me as the three of us looked it over.

Saber did not respond this time… ahead of me and just to my right, he was looking over the door’s control panel.

“You don’t think that might mean…”

But I stopped mid-question, my last word fading to nothing as I found myself looking Gunny eye to eye… with an idea in my head that seemed…… nearly impossible; and yet, judging by the way his eyes begun to widen, he was thinking the same thing.

“I’ve got one way we can find out.” And Saber realized it too.

Looking back over, I spotted the captain as he reached his right foreleg up to touch his chest, his hoof settling over one of the front pockets. But to that I cocked an eyebrow, in time with Gunny as he took a step forward to ask, “Captain, wasn’t the Hall of Records was the most secure room in the whole Stable? I thought the door could only be opened with a-”

“A keycard.” And with a quick motion, Saber let a rectangular plate fall from his pocket and onto the floor. “Or rather, the Overmare’s security badge.” In the glow of the scarlet lighting, the badge Saber revealed glinted along its face, the glass covering smooth and undamaged. And preserved within was a single sheet of white paper, at the center of which was a small golden circle that I could just barely make out.

“Crystal gave that to you?” Gunny asked, his voice betraying his surprise.

“Just before we left One Eighty-one.” Saber answered, drawing his hoof along the card’s protective case to trace along the chain that made it into a necklace. “Outside of residents’ quarters, this thing let Crystal enter or exit any room she wanted to. And it was only one night before we ran that she gave it to my keeping.” His hoof then came to a stop atop the glass case, a sigh escaping his lips. “The truth is… I really don’t know why she gave it to me.” he said, an immediately notable melancholy touching his words. “But the last night we spent together, sharing a bottle of hard cider in her quarters, and she just slid it over to me, didn’t say a single word about it… All she did was smile at me… as if she’d finally settled some sort of old internal debate. I even asked her about it… but she just took a sip from her glass and changed the subject… The most I ever got out of her about it was when she told me that I was under orders to keep it… and that I wasn’t to disobey.”

“So you kept it all through the time we were up on the surface…”

That definitely started explaining some things…

To me, Saber gave a nod, though keeping his eyes on the ruined door. “That last night we shared in the Stable – it was one of the main reasons why I fought so hard to get this mission off the ground.” he replied. “I’d been holding onto that badge for so long, I just wanted to come back… see if there was anything that I could unlock with it… something good. And the more time I spent out there, the more time I’d been left to my own thoughts, it became a desire, really… and in truth, I had almost given up hope that I’d get my chance to do so.” And as he spoke, he worked his right forehoof under the necklace. “Now that I’m here… I’m eager but… terrified at the same time.” he continued, a single soft note of laughter escaping him. “Seeing everything I’ve seen here… I fear that after waiting all that time I’ll just find another dead end… find that everything that was once whole is no more than useless junk…… After waiting for so long…”

But if he had even thought of anything to finish his thoughts with, it didn’t come to our ears. Instead, our leader only sighed, a little shiver traveling along his body as he mustered himself up in the ensuing pause. “With all due respect, sir,” Gunny piped up, gentle as he could. “there’s only one way you’re going to know for sure. And it’d be wise to find out either way.”

“Lest you never know at all.” I added, equally tender.

But despite our approach, Saber only looked over his shoulder to cast a tiny smirk to us both, as if our voices were all he needed to work up the courage to carry out that desire he had made for himself. Then, raising up his foreleg, now with Crystal’s security badge draped around it, Saber focused on the door’s control panel and lifted the badge up until it faced the red light at the panel’s top. As it lightly swayed before the scanner, only silence remained, drawing out second by second. And when nothing happened, I took a sidelong glance to Gunny where he stood beside me… a look of creeping doubt that he exchanged with me. But suddenly, from the scanner came a ringing note of a near musical quality, the both of us snapping our attention back to the door. There, as Saber lowered his hoof back down, I saw the green light on the panel that had replaced the red, and from the door itself came a deep mechanical thud, the releasing of a heavy lock inside the door. And without any further hesitation, Saber reached back up for the panel to press the button below the light. A hiss of air greeted his touch, and the door hitched as it begun to open, the internal components pulling the steel slab up into its slot in the top of the frame with a low whine. But just shortly after and it begun to slow, and I saw where the door’s plating begun to grate against the edge of the aperture. The warped steel had been bent too far inward, and suddenly, with a bright flash of light, sparks erupted out from the door slot and showered the floor as an electrical component within blew out, the door grinding to a halt.

It had opened barely a third of the way, making only a large enough gap for somepony to be able to crawl through. “Damn… should have seen that coming.” Saber grumbled, studying over the jammed door as he let out a thoughtful hum. “Gunny, get over here and hold the door up with your telekinesis. I’m going to take a look inside, and I don’t want this thing coming down on me.”

“Yes, sir.” From Gunny’s horn came a prompt pulse of lighter red in the deep crimson, the same glow rising to life around the base of the door. “Alright, I got it.” When Gunny gave the word, Saber took a step back and lowered himself down onto his belly before the opening. And I watched on as he crawled forward, ducking his head down low before he begun to pull himself past the gap. But when his head passed through, giving him a view of the room, his efforts abruptly ceased all at once when he suddenly fell still… leaving me staring after him with a growing restlessness.

“Captain?” Taking a step forward, I lowered my head to try and get a look into Saber’s eyes. “Captain, what do you see?” I asked again; suddenly, I begun to feel rather… anxious…

As if snapped out of a trance, Saber shifted before pushing himself back out into the hallway. It was a surprisingly fast movement, the same speed with which he pulled himself back up to his hooves, then finally looking back over his shoulder to face me. Wide eyes met mine and Gunny’s, paired with a look of stunned disbelief on his face. “Look for yourself.” he answered, giving a little shake of his head as he turned away to face the door again.

Goddesses… he was actually beginning to shake…

My curiosity had already been high when Saber had proven that Crystal Sunset’s badge still worked, when that battered and broken door actually opened. But with Saber’s wide eyes and brief response… with him so suddenly being too dazed to speak as he normally did…

I didn’t wait for a second invite.

Approaching the door, I eased myself onto my belly just a few steps away from the gap. And with an ever-increasing eagerness, I crawled along to reach the opening, and begun to pass under the raised door. But I didn’t even have to go that far before my eyes found what Saber’s had… and in a split second, my whole body became paralyzed with shock when I beheld a sight that I never thought I would see again. Books… books, everywhere in front of me, sprawled out to the left and right in their shelves, starting at the glinting floor and reaching up to touch the spotless ceiling. No matter where I looked, I… found… books – storybooks, schoolbooks, journals, manuals, file folders, binders and cases, all arranged as neatly as I had last seen them over four weeks ago. Past the mangled door, which had survived a merciless beating from raider weapons, was the only spotless room I had seen in the Stable thus far, a circular chamber with a massive array of bookshelves that followed the curve of the room itself, home to dozens upon dozens of preserved literary artifacts from the Old World. And at the center, surrounded by those shelves, placed upon a small circular table, was the final artifact, perhaps the greatest of them all.

A single radio, a compact box of electronic and magical components, Stable 181’s method of listening to the music holotapes that we had kept close to our hearts… my favored refuge in my previous life… and it too, was still here… just waiting to be found…

Inside this room, there was not one torn page, not one piece of trash, or a stain of blood, or a single bullet casing. Inside this room was nothing but the collective knowledge that the Golden Fire family had brought with them before the world had been turned to glass. This room had been spared the terrible fate that had befallen the rest of our beloved home, and within it was the very center of all our understanding of the pre-war and wartime eras. Within this room was the Stable’s cumulative intellectual wealth. Within this room was the place that had given us everything we had grown to know, love, and protect, from the material to the spiritual.

This room…

“Goddesses…”

This was the great Hall of Records… the very heart of Stable 181…

And it had survived the Black Blood’s onslaught…

“It’s untouched…”

BEEEEEP!!!

From out of nowhere, a tremendous blaring horn ripped through my ears, the only sound that could have pulled me away from the shocking scene before me. And consequently, the noise had ripped me out of my awestruck state so fiercely that I struck the suspended door with the back of my head, eliciting a pained shout as the noise finally dissipated… only to be replaced by what I recognized as the buzzing of static… radio static.

“Everypony,”

A voice, from all around, called for our attention as I backed out from under the door, doing my best to ignore the pulsing sting where I’d greeted the metal. “Is that Shore?”

Pulling myself back up to all fours again, I looked back over my shoulder at Gunny’s question, finding both him and the captain as they traced their eyes along the ceiling. “That’s the Stable’s PA system.” Saber observed in reply. “The controls are in Crystal’s office… It must have survived, too.”

“This is Shore, calling from inside the Overmare’s office.” the voice continued, definitely him. “With Sierra outside in the atrium, we could not maintain contact with the rest of you as we would like, and so after a little searching, Ivy, Joker, and I found that the Overmare’s personal terminal had survived the raider’s takeover. Once I passed its lockdown, I was able to log in to the Stable’s functions that could be controlled from the office. I’m afraid that the lights are not going to be salvageable, and so we will have to deal with these emergency lights for however long we stay.”

“The Memory Room was a loss I’m afraid.” A glance back down to the others, and I saw as Raemor joined back up with us, holstering his weapons back to their places on his combat armor. “There was nothing that was not destroyed.”

Saber gave only a nod in reply to Raemor’s unfortunate news.

“However, I called to inform Captain Saber of a discovery that I’ve just now made.” Shore continued over the speakers; that got our attention. “When I unlocked Crystal’s terminal, I discovered a rather large database, and over the common materials like the scouting reports and scheduling files… well, there was one thing in particular that caught my eye. From the look of things, Crystal was a rather reflective mare, or at least far more so than I had previously thought. I found a set of personal audio files here, and each one mentioned a name of somepony in the Stable. It turns out that Crystal kept personal records of certain ponies. And one of those ponies happened to be Damien.”

With a start, I found myself listening in far more carefully. “Dad…”

“I apologize in advance, Nova,” Shore said. “but I played the log just to hear what Crystal had to say. I’m afraid I found out more than I had anticipated, and I called through the PA to get you to come up to the Overmare’s Office. This audio log is something that you’re going to want to listen to. So when you get done in the science wing, please do make your way back and come find me at your earliest convenience. Again, this is something that you really should hear.”

With that final request, the light buzz of the PA that accompanied Shore’s message cut out, leaving me standing there with only a steadily rising pool of questions. “Um… Saber?”

When my eyes fell back to the others again, I found all three stallions looking to me, each wearing an expression of varying perplexity. “What do you think he found?” Gunny inquired curiously. “I didn’t take the Overmare as being somepony to keep records on residents.”

“Neither did I.” Saber replied back, exchanging a puzzled glance with the others.

“What should I do?” I asked.

“Well…” With a hum, the captain looked back to me. “I’ll say to go back to the office and find out what Shore discovered on Crystal’s terminal. I’m going to be picking up every unicorn in our team to start going through the Hall of Records and load up everything that’ll fit aboard the wagon. So while we get busy with that over here, you can go find Shore and see what he wanted you to go see.”

“You won’t need help from me here?” I asked; already I was beginning to move.

“No, I’ll need magic users for this.” Saber assured, stepping aside with Raemor to give me a path to move by. “And that’s why Madeline’s team is here. So you go ahead, you’ve done your part.”

“Alright then. I’ll get going.”

I only made it around the corner before I took off for the office at a full gallop.

*** *** ***

“Oh, excuse me, Nova.”

Upon reaching the top of the stairwell, I jumped as I suddenly came face to face with Quinn, the both of us briefly startled out of our thoughts as we crossed paths. “Things okay outside?” I ventured after the pause, stepping aside to let the unicorn mare through.

“We ran into some trouble out there.” the mare responded, stopping two steps down to look back to me. “There were seven outside that we happened to stumble across. But don’t worry, we knocked them out without any of us getting hurt.”

“I’m glad you answered that before I could get worked up.” I replied, flashing a small smile to her. “Is Blake alright?”

“He’s doing fine.” Quinn assured. “He kept his head down in the skirmish out there, and the wagon’s plating held up good. So don’t you worry.”

And exhaling with relief, I nodded to her. “Thanks.”

“Now it’s time to see what Saber found so interesting.” Quinn remarked, already turned about and marching down the stairs. “Sarge didn’t tell us much. She just gathered us up and told the others to get ready, which must mean the captain didn’t tell her much either.”

“You’ll love what you find.” I called in reply, watching as she passed the last few steps. “Honestly, it’s the only thing that’s kept me in here this long. Otherwise I would’ve stepped outside a long time ago.”

“Yeah? Well… that’s good to hear.” Quinn answered, pausing at the base of the stairs. “I’ve already seen enough to want to get the hell out of here… it’d be nice to see something positive for a change.”

And on that unfortunately sour note, the two of us headed out for our separate destinations. Turning back around, I picked up my pace to a trot and rounded the corner immediately before me. The access hall, thankfully, was largely clean. A couple wrappers here, an empty bottle there, no blood stains. On the left, about halfway down, there was one open door, the room beyond it unlabeled. Passing it by, I saw a double bed facing the entrance, flanked on both sides by nightstands. The bed sheets and the blanket on top had been wrinkled up, showing that it had been slept in. But otherwise, Crystal’s quarters looked to be largely preserved, apart from the usual trash.

And no more than ten yards past Crystal’s room, the hallway fused into her office.

“So… I have the same name as your first Overmare, huh?”

“Ha. Imagine that.”

“Yes you do… Or… well, her nickname… but, yes.” As I drew up to the final corner, I slowed at hearing voices within the room. “Everypony here referred to her as Ivy in the classroom, or when Crystal discussed her history. But according to the file, her real name was actually Blackfire.” Shore said, responding to Ivy’s question.

“I guess that’d explain the colors then.” A third voice commented - Joker. “Black, gold, blue.”

“Crystal never mentioned that name before.” came a fourth curious tone after – Daisy. “I wonder why?”

“I don’t know.” Shore replied, the tapping of computer keys following. “It says she was a sergeant in the air force back before she came here. There is quite the service record here… and here, this last operation is marked with a star.”

“Operation Trinity.” Ivy said, reading aloud. “Hm.”

“Crystal never talked about a military past either.” Joker remarked thoughtfully.

“Oh, Nova.” From his place behind the Overmare’s desk, Shore spotted me over the top of Crystal’s desk terminal as I silently entered the room. “Please come in.”

“You wanted to see me, Shore?” I asked, moving forward to come around the right side of the desk. Both Joker and Daisy were just in front of me, with a picture frame hovering before them, one of six that were set around their hooves. And as I passed them by, I could see the mare in the picture they studied together, the first Overmare of Stable 181, a black pegasus with a dark golden mane, looking off to the side with half-lidded, meditative blue eyes. Her image there gave me pause, her exhausted gaze, her weathered but still feminine and pretty face… something about it made me draw a line between her and the Stable… rather, it made me feel like she was… still here. Looking at her… Ivy, Blackfire… whatever her real name… for a moment I felt that she had been aware of everything that had happened here, that she had seen the home that she had commanded and had built to be the first pure bastion of civilization after the Last Day… fall to the Black Blood. Her face here… I saw a pain in it, a longing just like we one and all had coming back here.

I had seen her picture many times before… but never in this light… and the fact that I felt like our founding Overmare had wept upon seeing how far we had fallen…

It was a painful way of thinking.

“Nova?”

“Yes!” With a jolt I was pulled back into the real world, turning my attention back to my waiting friend. “Sorry…”

“How are you feeling, Nova?” Having been standing with Shore by the terminal, browsing through its content with him, Ivy was looking back to me as well, suspending her right foreleg to keep pressure off the wound on her shoulder; next to her on the Overmare’s desk was a half-empty healing potion… salvage from the clinic.

“I’ll be okay… now that we found what we did.”

“We got the report from Quinn when she arrived.” Shore responded to me. “The whole Hall of Records…… it’s unbelievable.”

“That’s the heart of the Stable…” Joker put in, daring to use an actually happy tone. “That door held… the raiders didn’t get the heart.”

“It’s more than we could’ve ever dreamed of in these times.” Daisy replied; I was surprised to hear a little sniffle escape her as she and Joker bumped muzzles… Daisy was actually starting to cry.

Regardless, it was impossible not to agree.

“So are you going to show me what you wanted to show me, Shore?”

While I didn’t fully intend it, there was no fully concealing an impatient tone in my words, something my friend took note of. As I joined him and Ivy behind Crystal’s desk, he quickly tapped away at a few more keys before the screen he was on disappeared, and in its place, a list begun to load up, a list of names in the personal log menu… that just grew and grew. “Look at this.” he beckoned; I leaned in to look into the monochrome green of the terminal. “The Overmare kept personal logs about a number of residents, and on your way here, I was able to listen to a few.” Tapping at a key, he begun to scroll through the menu. “She had a bit of a theme going, if you will. Many of her logs were made to commemorate an event in the Stable or speak a personal thought on a pony’s latest achievements.”

“The way you made it sound over the loudspeaker makes me think she said something a little different about my father.” I commented, watching the screen as Shore scrolled through the names on the menu; it was a very lengthy alphabetical list.

“Yes… yes I know.” Shore replied, clearing his throat. “That’s because she did.” And that’s when the cursor stopped… and there was my father’s name, Damien, flashing on the screen. Tapping a single key, Shore selected it, and a new menu with only one option appeared… one log. “The other residents that I looked through had multiple logs, both audio and text. And with how many I found, I would imagine that she added new entries rather frequently. But for your father… I only found this one.”

“And you said that you listened to it already?” But though I asked… I already knew he had. I’d heard him when he said it, I wasn’t dumb. Seeing him nod though… it was a way to get the courage I needed to pass by the way he had presented his discovery to me… how he said that it was something I had to see; silly as it was… I just wanted to see that sign. “Play it.”

He nodded only once, no hesitation, then facing the computer’s keyboard, reaching a hoof up to press the key. And at his touch, a sigh came through the terminal… a sad and very tired sigh that nearly drowned out a soft background of muddled voices, the general roar of a crowd. “Goddesses… I’ve never come back from a weekly dinner feeling so… so tired.” Crystal… that was definitely Crystal. Even now, after four weeks, I remembered that voice… strong and authoritative, yet still of a gentle and feminine. But already, I wasn’t liking the way she sounded this time; she had never, ever, sounded so… weary before, even in the Stable… it wasn’t like her at all… and it made me uncertain… uncertain as to what I’d find. “There’s a weight on my back, same as after every other gathering. It’s really no stranger to me… except this time it’s far stronger than what it used to be… because there’s not a day that goes by when I don’t think of Damien… of what happened to him.”

Dad…

“It was so many years ago, but I remember… everything… every time I see him.” Crystal continued, that same sorrowful tone haunting her words. “Sometimes it’s hard to even look at him because every time I do, I feel so much guilt at what I did. I feel it every time he smiles or waves… or makes conversation… when he calls me Crystal or Overmare or ma’am… never big sister.”

… Big sister…

“The last log I made on him… and promptly deleted after a… bottle or two of hard cider… it said the same damn thing… makes me wonder why I even bothered making it.” Here, she paused long enough for the dimmed roar of the crowd to take over, and Crystal Sunset sniffed in the recording. “Maybe it’s just because Damien’s family is as strong as ever.” she finally said. “His little son, Blake – he still hasn’t lost an ounce of his energy. And his daughter is just growing and growing… my niece… Goddesses, she’s already an adult… sometimes seems like it was just yesterday when Damien and Seiyara brought her into the world.”

Merciful Luna…… niece…

“Even after so many years of putting on the ruse of being the simple Overmare to those children, I still think about how they might’ve seen me if I hadn’t completely wiped away Damien’s memories. Auntie Crystal… sounds like something I don’t deserve, much less than being a mother myself.” I couldn’t stop myself from leaning back from the terminal, slowly beginning to shake my head… just in sheer disbelief; out of the corner of my eye, Shore was watching me with no small amount of concern. “No. Now I just think about how Nova and Blake and even Seiyara would see me if I told them the truth.” And still the recording continued. “Seiyara would probably bash my skull in if I told her what I did to her husband all those years ago. That spell is one of the most dangerous, for both the unicorn performing it and the one on the receiving end of it. Still might deserve it even more than I already do knowing that his memories are still here in this Stable.” Again she paused, this time with the hum of magic coming to life before she took a drink of something. “Sometimes I look through them on my own, lock myself up in my quarters after everypony’s asleep and lose myself in the ones I chose to spare from total destruction…” she continued, now with a rather suddenly conversational tone. “Only the bad ones though… I can’t bring myself to look at the good ones… For taking away Damien’s first six years of life… the six years he lived as my little brother… I deserve to relive my nightmare every once and awhile. Can’t forget.”

I couldn’t even… I couldn’t find any words…

“But now, the more I look back to the time when Damien was still my baby brother, of when our family was happy and whole… the more I want to reveal the truth, to tell Damien and to give him his memories back so he can see… at least a piece of what I’ve kept from him for his whole life.” With a hollow thud, a bottle was set roughly onto the desk. “I’ve thought about it so many times now, so many that it’s… just plain inexcusable at this point. But now I’ve got the confidence to say that… I think I’m finally coming to terms with my past now. And I think it’s time that I tell him the truth, him and his family, no matter how much they’ll hate me afterwards… it’s just the best thing to do.”

Crystal… Crystal was my… my dad’s…

“Nova just got her cutie mark today…” Goddesses, no… this had been recorded right before… right before she died…… “It’s not the best time right now, not while they’re celebrating. But in a couple days, once everything in the Stable gets back to the normal routine again… I’m going to come out and tell the story, show Damien the memory orbs in my safe. And after that… I’m standing down as Overmare.” And this time, she sighed with a terrible heaviness, a sort of exhaled sob mixed in to make a near pitiful, unbearable note to hear. “Because in all the time that I’ve spent keeping up this deception…” And she choked back her words… she was crying. “my baby brother has done so much better for himself than I could have ever possibly dreamed of...... I’ve watched him grow from a devastated young colt into a proud stallion who came to do so much good for our beloved Stable. He’s built a fine family, settled down with a beautiful and honorable wife, and brought two amazing children into this torn world of ours… children who I know will carry his spirit along with them as they follow in his steps.” And as she stopped once again, she actually laughed, just once, a note that was the capsule to a dozen emotions. “He’s been the perfect vessel for the virtues our ancestors cherished… I don’t even think Blackfire herself could have asked for anything better of him… And that’s why I’ll be appointing Damien as Overstallion to take my place.” she said with confidence. “I can think of no better leader than him. And as for me… I’ll accept the consequences of my past choices, and I’ll do whatever I can to atone for those sins… even if I have to disappear into the wasteland for a second time… I’ll do whatever it takes to do better.”

And here, after Crystal sniffed one more time, the log cut away, ending with a chirp of sound.

“That is what I wanted you to hear.” Leaning forward, Shore looked into my staring eyes, the only way to snap me out of my binding trance. “I’m not certain if we will be bringing this terminal with us when we leave. So I wanted you to hear this before you would miss out on the opportunity to do so.”

Taking a step back, turning away from the terminal, I cleared my throat as I fought to get a hold of myself. “Um… well… thanks for calling me here.” I replied with some effort. “I don’t really… know what to say about it though…”

“It came as quite a shock to me, too.” Shore said, as comforting as he could. “She hid a lot from you and your father… well, your entire family, really. But I never took her as the kind of pony to hide things, let alone something as important as that.”

But to that I nodded a wholehearted agreement, swallowing as I begun to ease. “Neither did I.” I managed to reply. “I mean she was… she was my father’s sister, for Goddesses’ sake. They were family and she just… hid it all away. She buried it… and I can’t even think of a remotely good reason behind that choice. I… I can’t understand why…”

“Shore…” Glancing to the left, I locked on to Ivy as she gingerly interrupted us. “We should show her the other things we found in the office.” she suggested. “You said yourself how you thought there might be a connection.”

“You found more?” I asked the black stallion, instantly drawn in by Ivy’s remark. “Was there anything else that involved my dad?”

After a thoughtful hum, Shore gave Ivy a nod, gesturing with his muzzle to the Overmare’s desk. “Well, there were two things.” Ivy responded at Shore’s silent command. “It turns out that your Overmare had a personal floor safe in this office, stashed away under a hidden panel on the floor under her desk. And it also turns out that raiders are not very skilled lock pickers, because it was still locked when we found it.”

“I took a crack at the lock when we got in.” Joker added. “Gunny would have had an easier time of it, but once I got it open, we found what Shore believes to be the very same memories that Crystal mentioned in her recording.”

“Y-you did?”

With a dim flash of green light, Ivy’s telekinesis flared to life, and only a second later emerged a floating container from under the desk, a short, wide black box that she lifted up and over to set atop the desk by the terminal. “This case has eight memory orbs inside.” Ivy explained, the glow around her horn pulsing again as she pulled back the lid. “And aside from that, there were two more memory orbs sitting outside the case, each one on its own little bag.” And as she spoke, two more items came floating out from their hiding place beneath the desk, two raggedy cloths, each wrapped up like a ball to protect an object within. But I could see past them… the glint of crystal catching in the crimson light, winking at me. And in the case… eight of them, two rows of four, all shining bright. “You have a recollector if I remember right. So we both figured you might end up finding a time to view them… of course, only if you want to. We just thought we’d save them anyway, that way you could at least have the opportunity to decide.”

“I see…”

“And finally, there was one other thing we found in here.” Shore put in, standing up in order to turn away from the glowing terminal screen. “Except this thing wasn’t in the safe.”

After a moment of thought, I understood what he was getting to. “You mean it wasn’t even Crystal’s?” I asked, shaking my head before letting out a light sigh; I was finding it more and more difficult to work on my ‘recovery effort’ the more that Shore revealed.

“Yes. It was just sitting in the corner of the room there.” Shore answered, pointing a hoof to the far right corner of the office, where a collection of scattered wrappers was mixed up with two empty bottles… along with a tattered, empty duffle bag and an old grey blanket. “We found it hidden under a couple wrappers there.” And that’s when I heard a soft click from the desk, the last item being set with the others. It was a thin white box, perfectly square, nearly flat. A clear plastic window protected a pair of reels inside; I knew the device… because I already carried two of them with me in my saddlebags. “A holotape.” Shore confirmed. “As soon as we found it I brought it out to Sierra so that I could access it, since it required a pipbuck system in order to play.”

“And?” I pressed edgily.

“Well… to cut to the chase… the stallion on the log mentioned your father by name.” Shore replied. “And he said that he was going to bury him.”

Buried…… BURIED!! “He… he buried my dad?” In a fit of nearly staggering expectance, I drew up to Shore to lock eyes, nearly muzzle to muzzle. “Did he say where??” I demanded. “Where was he buried??”

“He didn’t say where, Nova.” But before I could deflate at his reply, he put a hoof up to my shoulder to keep my eyes on him. “But from the way the stallion on the log was talking, it sounded like he knew the Stable quite personally. And what’s more than that, he claimed that he actually lived in the Stable before.”

Oh Goddesses… “You’re… you’re actually serious aren’t you?” I asked… softer now at the sudden turn. “But it couldn’t have been one of our survivors… because nopony ever entered here again, not with the raiders still around.”

My friend nodded. “I agree, and you’re right. There was a lot to the stallion’s recording. He spoke frequently about a history on the surface, about his past life and his experiences, and he spoke a lot about things he knew about the Old World. But what took me by complete surprise, above everything else, was that he claimed to recognize you, you and your entire family.”

I had to blink once, take a moment to rebound from his final words. “Wha… he did?”

“Yes. And that is why I would theorize that, given how much he knew about the Stable, and how he claimed to know you yourself, and how he sounded when making mention of the Stable’s ultimate fate, he buried your father out by the graveyard we made after we fled the Stable. If he knows as much about the Stable as he says, and saw what happened in here, then it is only right to believe that he would have also seen what we left behind outside.” With that, Shore lowered away his hoof, keeping his eyes on mine as he leaned back to give me some space. “I would look there first. And if he’s not there, then I would say to look anywhere on the surface directly above the Stable.”

As soon as I had been told my father’s fate, as soon as I’d met the raider who’d boasted the shot that finished him, it had become my mission to find where he had eventually come to rest. Between the rage and the pain that swirled like a violent gale within me, I had made that task my chief priority, giving it precedence even over Saber’s own mission. With all the time that Blackhawk had spent pursuing me on the surface, there had been a rather large gap of time where the Black Blood had fallen off the proverbial radar. After Hopeville, and the region-wide losses that they had sustained both before and after that battle, they had just… ceased to exist. But being here… learning everything I had learned, seeing what I had seen… I was reminded the hard way just how cruel these monsters were… the very real enemies that they were… what they were capable of. And here and now, the burning hatred I had shaped for myself outside the armory was becoming refined, molded into a sense of purpose, into a duty to recognize the Black Blood as I did Blackhawk. The faction as a whole – it was an enemy, a mortal enemy, my enemy who had from the start made our fight against them a personal one, in a trillion different ways. And I knew that as soon as I got back out there, no matter where it was that we would be traveling to next, I was not going to make the same mistake of forgetting them again. No. In fact, deep down, I found myself looking forward to the next meeting I had with one of their patrols.

But before any of that came the matter of my father… taken from the Stable and buried, not even by a stallion of our community, but by nopony more than a stranger. And despite the emotional storm raging along within me, the shock I felt at learning what I did still stood at the forefront of my vision. Now, having actually been presented with the chance to find my father, a chance that I was uncertain of attaining from the start despite my resolve… I was feeling a lump forming up in my throat, and a tension in my gut, the final product that was my ultimate reaction to the knowledge I had gained here…

I needed to leave…

“Shore,” After a sigh, I spoke one more time to my friend, still waiting where he had been before. “Um…” At a light rasp in my voice, I promptly swallowed and cleared my throat. “Could I… could I have a few minutes to step outside, please?” I spared a glance to Ivy where she remained behind the black stallion; finding her sympathetic eyes on me. “As long as none of you need help… I’d like to get some air.”

“Sergeant Madeline and her team already passed through the atrium,” Looking back over my left shoulder, I saw where Joker and Daisy were standing by the office’s single circular window, looking out into main chamber. “so they’ve likely already started moving things. I think you’ll have the time you want.”

“Yes, I would say the same.” Shore added, drawing my focus back to him. “You go ahead, Nova. Somepony will come out and find you if something else happens.”

Gratefully, I nodded to his answer. “Thank you.”

*** *** ***

“Sir… what happened down there?”

The sky above, the blanket of grey cloud cover… it was the same… the same as the first day I stepped upon the dirt now under my hooves. Goddesses… it really was the same…

“You said the Stable was sealed, so what happened?”

Evening was beginning its approach now, the clouds darkening even with the arrival of a temporary break from the light rain that had been falling earlier… like it was when I first emerged from the underground.

“A pony stayed behind. He activated the door when we were out and placed an explosive charge on the console.”

I remembered the path… the way… The feeling that it had only been yesterday that I had walked it was… agonizing… a pain that steadily intensified as I recalled that day… And I knew, with my head bowed so that I could look along the soil… this was the same path I’d first walked out here… it too was the same.

“Once the door shut, I heard that explosive go off… so the door can only open from the exterior console.”

Southward was the direction of the old camp we had made, roughly ten minutes of slow walking away from the Stable entrance. The ground here… I recognized the curves, a slow rise, then a slower fall, then a quicker rise back up; nothing of the landscape had changed in the time between then and now… only the mare who walked it for the second time had changed.

“He was Nova’s father.”

Coming back out onto the surface, heading even farther south than the Stable, had triggered the memories of my first steps out on the surface. I remembered the voices, Gunny and Saber as the two discussed the losses and the lives that had been saved. I remembered seeing the clouds for the first time, the great sky, something that the passing rain system had repainted up above like the reflection in a mirror. And I remembered… me… my fear, how petrified I had been… and my pain, the tears that had come after leaving my father behind.

I remembered it all.

“Come on Nova. Let’s get you back to the camp so you can rest.”

The camp… A short time later, accompanied the whole way through only by the cooler breeze left in the wake of the weather system that had come and gone, and I began to climb over a steeper rise in the earth, a short ascent to the top of a round hill, surrounded on three sides by lifeless fields. But past the apex… I knew what was there. I anticipated it, seeing the landscape as it had been four weeks before now as I passed the rest of the hill. And even before reaching the top, I could hear the voices of the survivors, the two hundred and ten souls who had made it out alive. I could hear them all again, the coughs and agonized moans of the wounded, the weeping of separated families, the orders being called out between the security guards who had escorted the civilians out. They were all there again as I reached the hilltop, finally getting a view of the landscape beyond, and the clearing behind the hill where our camp had been set up. The area was completely empty, devoid even of trash. Upon leaving to move into the wasteland, we had packed up everything we had carried out with us, not leaving a single scrap behind for the Black Blood to find; we had simply disappeared. But though the clearing was completely deserted, with no signs of our temporary residence within it remaining after the four week gap… I could still see the encampment, the clinic for the wounded, separate from the camp’s main body where those who had escaped the fight unharmed had been assigned to rest and recover best they could. But over all that, I could still remember my arrival to the camp, and the message that I had been given.

“Nova! You need to come to the clinic… Grace needs you… it’s urgent…"

Mom……

Using the empty clearing as a visual guide, I took in a deep breath and exhaled, calming myself before intentionally seeking out my past. I picked up right where I left off, reliving the rest of that day in fast motion as I begun to scan along the terrain. I followed the clearing up to where it connected to the hill to the right. That incline in turn connected to the top of the hill I stood upon, together making half of the lopsided bowl that the area made. But it was looking upon that part of the hill that I remembered – we hadn’t actually disappeared… not completely. From my elevated position, I could see in the near distance four stakes jutting up from the dirt, each with a small white cloth flapping gently in the breeze. And each was placed at the head of the mounds that they marked, the graves of the four ponies who had made it out alive, but had died of their wounds after.

Mom… she had been… so agonizingly close to making it out in one piece. I remembered the battle, the last moments when our final group of survivors was ordered out. She had left only mere seconds before me. We were both nearly out… and then that explosion… a grenade, a rocket… whatever it had been. It had caught us at just the right time… and it had led to my mother’s death. If we’d only been a little quicker… or even waited just a couple seconds longer. Only a small change, and mother would have still been here… And that was the absolute worst thing about it, was just how close she had been to escaping, to living on. With me, it had been a sheer stroke of luck that the same blast that had fatally wounded mother didn’t tear me to pieces. And that was the reason why I had asked myself what I had when mother had passed away. Why hadn’t it been me? Why hadn’t it been me that had died? And why did it have to be her? Why did it have to be her when she had been so, so very close?

Everything from that first evening on the surface had come back to life… and the closer I got to the graves, the more I just wanted to turn back. That lump that had formed up in my throat back in the Stable was growing… and I was beginning to feel weak, my pace falling apart to uneven steps. But now, the graves were clearly visible, only a few yards dividing me from the site. And from here I suddenly found myself squinting as I caught sight of something… different. The four flags I had seen from a distance were placed as I remembered them. They were side by side, no more than two yards apart from one another, looming over the graves they had been set in. But that was what I caught – four graves had been made that first night. One had been for a guardspony who had been one of the last two guards to have died protecting the escapees. The second had been for the other guard, Gunny’s father, killed in the line of duty, making the ultimate sacrifice. Then the third was next to that one, the final resting place of a civilian, another who had been so close to escaping, to living on. And the fourth was for mother. That was it. Four graves had been made… only four.

But in front of me now… there were six mounds.

“Goddesses… it’s true.” The dust and wind and rain from the past four weeks had each played their part in weathering the mounds left after each pony’s burial. Each one had been patted down by the elements, molded into a more solid mass. As such, they had all been shortened, and were now more flat. But still, the lack of flags on two of the six total mounds showed me that the two newest graves were the two that were closest to me. “Shore was right.” I said aloud to myself, in disbelief. It was actually true – somepony had actually found this place, recognized its origin, and discovered the fate of Stable 181 for themselves. Whoever this pony was on the holotape Shore uncovered had brought two others of his choosing outside, dragged them out here all the way from the Stable, and because of whatever motive, had put them to rest here.

And if everything else was true… that meant that one of the ponies he had chosen was my father. If everything else was true… my father… he was actually here…

And seeing this, knowing that everything I had learned was actually, genuinely true… it was that that gave me the strength to approach.

With the soil moistened up by the rainfall, there was very little dust in the air now. Still, the breeze was as constant as it had been throughout the past day, and from a short spell of calm it picked back up as I moved to the gravesites, stirring up my mane to brush away the strands of hair that had managed to fall over my eyes. It was cool to the touch, comfortable through my armor’s padding, a sort of gentle hoof… as if the wind itself knew what I was about to see.

From here, with only a few paces between me and the graves, I caught sight of yet another familiar scene, another anchor to the past. As a final touch to each grave, to complete the brief memorial that had been held for them, each of the four graves we had left were adorned with an item, something to leave behind as a final farewell gift. Over the course of the month, the churning dust during the dry days had shifted, beginning to conceal those gifts. However, not one of them was entirely covered. The two farthest graves were still marked with the disabled ten millimeter security pistols that belonged to the deceased. The third grave’s pearl necklace was still at its place in front of the flagstaff, the bottom third of the Old World trinket the only part of it that was buried. And the last…

The family portrait… my family portrait.

“It’s still here.” Right where I placed it, at the center of my mother’s earthen bed, the framed photograph that was the possession I left for her was laying at rest. When I stopped in front of the picture, I saw that the dirt that had accumulated over the protective glass shield had made a thin layer of mud over the lower right corner of the portrait after the rain. Dirt had brushed over the rest of the glass too, but had not gone so far as to create a solid layer. No. I could see the picture behind the dirtied glass… I could see our faces… all of us. In front of a grey background, my baby brother and I sat down on our haunches beside one another, looking forward towards the camera with smiles on our faces while our mother and father stood proudly behind us. Mother was behind me, a foreleg on my shoulder, and my father was behind my baby brother, resting a hoof on his neck. We were all smiling together in the picture… we were all just… together… the sole reason that it made the perfect token for my mother to keep with her after the tragedy that had come and gone. That was the purpose… I gave it to mother so that she would be able to stay with her family, even in death, no matter how far away Blake and I journeyed from the Stable.

But now… that purpose I had created – when I looked past my mother’s grave and to the next, the first of the two newest additions… I realized with a soft shocked gasp that the idea behind my action had become a reality.

Two feathers adorned the fifth grave… lifeless, aged and fragile… grey…… my father’s feathers.

It was all true… My father was here…

In that moment, I could only stare. For the first time since the Stable… I was in the presence of my father… and my mother, together. When mom had been laid to rest, I wanted to keep her united with dad through our family portrait. As cheesy as the whole idea was, even with it being made in the wake of a terrible loss, it was the only way I felt they could still be together. And with dad sealing himself inside the Stable… it really was. But Goddesses… they actually were together now. They were actually, truly together.

It all hit me like a bullet, and very suddenly, I felt the urge to sit. I fell right down onto my haunches, my eyes glued to the two graves. The lump in my throat was nearly painful now, my breathing was soundless and shallow, and even before I could even think of crying, I felt my eyes trying to water up. And yet, through all that, there was the rising up of a feeling of… triumph. It waged a war of its own on every other emotion that was spinning around up there in my skull… but this reunion… it fueled that feeling. Because for the first time in for what seemed to be an eternity… my parents and I were back together again. And that was what drew a sad, little… yet triumphant smile.

"Hey mom..." I said; that smile widened all on its own, just at saying that one word again. And then, I turned to the second grave; I hitched with a short muddled sob, one that tried to take the form of a little laugh. “Hey dad…” Sniffing, I reached a hoof up to wipe away the tear that had tried to fall before it could. “It’s been a while… too long, really.” I said, nodding to dad before turning back to mom where she lay to my left. “And the thing is… one of the last things I said to you was that I probably wasn’t ever coming back here… But I guess I should’ve known better than to say never…” And I actually laughed a couple light labored notes as I looked along my left and right sides in turn, glancing over my equipment and stretching out my wings… just showing off to my parents. “Because now I’m here again… bristling with weapons and weighed down with all kinds of gear, and…” I faced my parents again… that amusement that had built up evaporating in a flash. “And changed… in more than a couple of big ways.” I had to pause then, just long enough to take in a breath, let it out slow, close my eyes for a second and gather myself up best I could; I was about to relive the past four weeks.

“I won’t lie to either of you.” I said, scuffing a hoof along the moistened soil. “Things have been… things have been pretty rough out here… to put it in the mildest possible terms. I suppose that you already knew that… and even if you didn’t, I know the both of you would be able to tell just by looking at me.” In a fit of rebellion, that small smile I had managed to summon before returned at the passing of an entertaining thought, one I spoke aloud. “Sorry dad, but mom was always better at reading me than you were.” The wind, which had subsided to its gentlest form, abruptly pushed at me with a stronger gust; perfect timing. “But, yeah… things got pretty bad out here over the past week.” I continued, a much graver tone retaking the field as I let that smile drop away like it wanted to. “We’ve encountered some very powerful groups our here… one of them drove us from a home we made up here. And now we’re homeless, for the second time, and our own group is… it’s almost half the size that it was when we fled One Eighty-one.” I stopped again, just long enough to run my foreleg across my eyes, wiping away another pair of tears that tried to form. “We’ve run into a lot of problems that we’re in the middle of dealing with now… and that’s actually the reason why I’m here now. Captain Saber organized a team to return to the Stable.” I explained. “He wanted to take a chance to come back here, to try and find something that we could salvage from our previous life. With everything that’s happened up to this point, he really thinks that something from our Stable could really serve well to inspire everypony we have left, to give them some hope and some motivation to keep going. Being driven out of not just one, but two homes… it really takes a toll on you. And in all honesty, it was that thought that made me unsure about the sense or even the purpose of the whole thing. But leave it to Saber to keep us moving, even in the worst of times. And so we came back… after all this time away. And we opened the door again.” Stopping myself again, I looked past my parents and toward the direction of the Stable, unable to hold back a shaky sigh before I said, “The invaders tore the place up bad… and we saw some hideous things in there. It was the work of… of monsters… and it was so hard to go back through there. And then…”

Then, at my mentioning of the raiders… of that terrible word… and I was suddenly replaying the memory of my final encounter with the enemy inside… of that one mare…… and what she said. Without even intending, I shivered as my focus came down like a hammer on that memory. My eyes fell to dad’s grave, my breathing picking back up… that lump in my throat making itself known to me once again… all of it, all at once. “And then… I-I came across one of the invaders… one of them that stayed here instead of leaving with the rest of them. And she… she told me what happened to you, dad. She told me how you died… and that she did it…” With each passing word, my voice was becoming more and more strained. My throat tightened up… I could barely swallow… “When she told me what they did to you…” My mouth hung open then, everything… everything came to a grinding halt. All I could do was shake… and slowly, I pursed my lips back together. I looked upward, away from my father and to the clouds, shaking my head when my lower lip begun to quiver. “Damn it…” With a grunt, I stomped a hoof to the dirt. But that didn’t keep my eyes from watering up, or stop the sob that escaped my lips. “Goddesses, I’m so sorry……” The fight in me was gone. “I’m so sorry, daddy!” Bowing my head in defeat, I finally surrendered. The tears broke through, coming down freely, and my sobs were no longer quiet. I cried without restraint, closing my eyes over my father’s grave.

And raising my right hoof, I reached out to find the dirt over the grave, and I set it down… the closest I’d ever get to touching him…

Goddesses, how I yearned to be held in his arms again!!

Four weeks ago… Blake and I had reunited in our camp of dazed and battered survivors to cry together. We had wept for… I don’t even remember how long… to the point where my baby brother had cried himself into exhaustion… and I had almost reached the same point. But even that had not been enough. No. The manner of our parents deaths, that alone warranted the tears Blake and I had shed together that first night in the wasteland. And that had been that, for the time being. They had died, we knew how, we cried together, and though exhausted and defeated, we moved on as best as the children of two parents who had been killed simultaneously could. But this – this was different. Hearing the very details of our father’s death… hearing his true fate after going four weeks of believing his death to have been quick and painless… to me, it felt like he had died all over again.

It felt like an hour… more, even. But slowly, weakly, the ‘fight’ in me that had just been shattered like fragile glass begun to repair itself. Second by second, I begun to regain control of myself, my sobs lessening… my tears thinning… until finally I could open my eyes again. In the blur of my vision, I was presented with a view of my hoof where it rested atop father’s grave. And I stared at that spot, watching as I begun to pace my breathing, slowing it as the first step towards taking back control of myself over my emotions. It was a difficult task, a push-and-shove battle in which every second won me only minimal progress. It came to the point where a good half-minute passed me by, and still I was barely keeping myself from crying again.
But even through that, I was finally able to shift in my place, finally taking my hoof off the grave and leaning back to look out into the distance. I sniffed again, once more reaching up to run my foreleg over my eyes to wipe away the trails that my tears had left behind. And in that moment, I finally recovered the strength to speak again. “Goddesses……” One more pass from my foreleg, and my vision was mostly cleared up when I lowered it back to the ground. “I wish you two were here…”

It was the first thing that came to my mind.

“So much has gone on……” I said to the both of them, shaking my head. “We’ve made it this far, I know… but…… I just wish you two were here with us.” I forced myself to stop again, taking in a good long breath and letting it out slow, continuing in the effort to free myself up from my relentless anguish; and here… I actually begun to feel a sort of releasing effect… I began to relax a little more. “But I suppose… I suppose that’s what’s really important though, right?” Nodding to myself, I looked back to the graves. “Despite everything that we’ve had thrown at us… Blake and I are still here… we’re still together and… and we’re still going.” And one more time, reassuringly, I nodded, a gesture I gave to myself. “Gunny and Shore are still here, too, you know.” I explained with a little more confidence. “They came with us back to the Stable… they’re in there right now…… Gracie…” For a moment, my ears begun to pin themselves back. “Gracie didn’t make it…… and that was… probably the hardest thing to deal with…… and really, it still is.” With a heavy sigh, I looked away from the graves and back to the northern horizon, cursing under my breath as my eyes started watering up again. “But the rest of us are here… surviving…” I continued after a weighty pause. “We’ve done a lot together out here. We’ve seen a lot of things… gotten wrapped up into more than a couple of… conflicts… But you know, I think the most important thing we’ve done…” But when my train of thought took its next turn… I once more found myself brightening back up, only a little… but enough. “The most important thing we’ve done was that we’ve actually made friends out here. Once we started exploring the region, we found other groups, other survivors in actual towns.” And at this point, I had thrown myself on a straight road that was taking me right through my past; but I began to smile while it happened. “The first pony from the wasteland that I actually started talking to on a regular basis… he was an earth pony who uh…” Now, I definitely felt a more genuine smile, a near miraculous sensation in the wake of the very recent past; but thinking of Cross again… something about remembering that energized, battle-crazy buck just brought it out. “He had a thing for fighting, unpleasant as that sounds. But it was really only something he enjoyed when it was done in order to protect his home, when he was facing down raiders. He took me by surprise a couple of times, to tell you the truth. But outside that, he was actually really easy to talk to…” And at those passing memories, I actually let myself giggle as I described him to my parents. “He actually took me out to dinner after we worked together on guard duty, just a short time after we met. Dad… you might’ve come at him with a shotgun and an alibi… but he really started showing a genuine interest in me, looking to make a friendship. We talked a lot, grew more open… and there was one time where we… well we actually got pretty close to each other. He said he liked how I thought about things, about how I always talked about honoring promises…” But here, with a light sigh, I was forced to pass along where he and I had parted ways, where he had been taken from this world, and left me behind in it. “He died in a firefight that he and I were in together against the raiders that invaded our Stable.” I explained. “That was a tough spot…… but he was really the first pony I got to know that had lived in the wasteland his whole life… He was the first outsider that I could call a friend… He was the first to show me that it really was possible to make friends out here.” But despite the reminder of his undeserved death… I kept right on going. “A few days later and we met another pony. She was actually a former raider… or, well, raider-in-training, I guess you could say. We found her when the squad she was with attacked us when we were escorting a supply wagon. When we beat them, she was the only one to survive. Gunny was actually going to execute her because of her ties with the group that drove us from home… but I persuaded him to spare her… and when he did we saw who she really was.” At that, I turned back to look between my mom and dad. “She was young, with a very rough and conflicted history. Her past made her feel that she owed something to the raiders, which was why she was on their side when we found her. But when we gave her the chance to tell us her story, and she did… she won us over and we let her go, and we offered for her to join up with us. She jumped right on that opportunity, and she’s been with us ever since.” And my small smile returned to me on the more pleasant topic. “She’s actually here with us right now, too, back inside the Stable. Ever since we sent her to find our group she’s been helping us out, and in a lot of different ways, too. Her name’s Ivy… and she’s a little timid, rightly so, but still a real pleasant mare, nice to talk to, friendly… and she even holds a special place in the hearts of the children we have with us. She kind of stole all my thunder in that sense.”

I took a moment then to shift my place, still trapped in my recollections that I more and more became glad to recount to my parents, to bring them up to speed after our time apart. “It wasn’t long after her that we met Raemor.” I continued on. “He’s an old stallion, and I mean old. He’s got a greying mane, aging body… in fact, I’d wager that he might very well be one of the oldest ponies in the whole wasteland. You both would probably agree if you saw him… He’s very wise, knowledgeable… something that really compliments his age. He’s said a lot of things with a good deal of weight to them… and I’ve noticed personally how that wisdom really seems to come out when somepony is struggling with something.” To that, I smiled a little, briefly recollecting my time with the old stallion in Buckley’s church, seeing him in what had to be his deepest state of mind. “He’s very religious too, very devout to Celestia and Luna. He says that the both of them have played a significant role in his life, all throughout it. And putting that together with some of the things he told me about his youth, then you can really understand that look he’s always got about him, the one that tells you he’s seen a lot in his years, things that I’d probably never even dream of experiencing… and I think there’s a lot more that I don’t know about him yet.” I shifted again, pausing to look out toward the direction of the Stable. “We met him when we were bringing a supply wagon back to our ponies from out farther in the region. It started out with some plain casual chatting, but a couple days later, and he asked me if he could join me and the others in our travels… for a reason I have yet to know about, actually. But either way, ever since then, he’s been sticking with us, and more and more he’s become a friend to me and the others. He’s followed me all the way to the present, and now, he’s here in the Stable too, helping us out like he’s always done.”

And I continued to keep my eyes on the northern hills, their eternal inactivity, and my thoughts came up to my latest acquaintance. “Only a couple days ago I met somepony else… another pegasus, if you can believe that.” I explained. “I remember how I was always curious about how dad and I were the only pegasus ponies in the Stable. And out here, it wasn’t any different for a long time. I was the only flier, and as I came across other settlements in the region, I got so many surprised reactions from others. Between the two towns I’d seen, I was either told that pegasus ponies were thought to have just up and vanished entirely, or asked if I’d come from the clouds themselves… It was interesting to hear those things, truth told.” Then I faced my parents again. “But after all that time as the only pegasus walking the surface, I encountered Sierra, a pegasus from… somewhere far away. And the circumstances of our first meeting were… unfortunately unpleasant… because I’d been captured by a group who had actually been looking for a pegasus. Blake and I both had been captured by them… but Sierra broke us out of the prison they’d put us in.” That was something I knew would’ve caught my parents’ attention in a heartbeat. “She saved us both…… and though I don’t think she intended it, she ended up getting pulled into our group’s affairs once she got Blake and I out of that prison. And she’s stayed with us ever since then, putting two heavy weapons, a suit of power armor, and a pair of wings to use in keeping us safe.” And for a second, I let myself huff out a light note of laughter, shaking my head. “I really do need to properly thank her… because in all honesty, if it hadn’t been for her, Blake and I might not have gotten our freedom back.”

But at the passing of my closing thought on the newest pony to our group… I found myself going back, with shocking suddenness… back a little before then. And catching even me by surprise, my thoughts locked in on a new point of focus as I found myself remembering something formerly forgotten… or rather, somepony formerly forgotten… who I remembered now with a mix of… sadness… guilt…… even a little… longing. “There was… one other, before her, though.” I spoke up again, softer despite my efforts to avoid it. “He was a pegasus too… Archer.” But from the initial downheartedness I felt at remembering that stallion… how we had parted ways for the final time… I actually found myself beginning to smile again; Goddesses… that name alone just provoked so many things. “He was… he was nice…” For a moment I lost myself in my memories, slowing back to silence as my smile went lazy… a consequent little blush touching my cheeks at remembering how I’d first reacted at seeing the first pegasus on the surface. And quickly, for dad’s sake, I added with a little laugh, “And not just in the physical way either… When we first met, he was a little cautious around me, because he was under orders to be. But at the same time, he was pretty open to me and my friends soon as we started talking, and he only grew more and more comfortable around us the longer we stayed in his home settlement. Hell, it wasn’t too long a time before he and I started working missions together, assigned by his settlement’s leaders… and over time we… started talking more. He talked with everypony at the time of course… but the more he was around me, the more interested in me he seemed to be. It got to the point where he really started caring about how and what I talked about… and how I felt about things. Whenever I’d talk about something that was bothering me, he’d be attentive and concerned. And if I’d talk about something happier, he’d share my enthusiasm about it.” At this point, I couldn’t help but utter a reminiscent sigh, one that took on an unintended note of sadness. “We did a lot together. We flew together, fought together… even danced together…… but he’s not with me now.” I explained lowly. “Circumstances forced us to go our separate ways…… but thinking about it now…… I wish we hadn’t. I wish he was still here with me… and that what I did didn’t force us to stay apart…”

“I had a feeling that we would find you here…” The voice that came up over my own put itself between me and the path my reminiscing was taking me. And blinking away from those last… yearning thoughts, my ears twitched at the familiar tone that had made itself known. Looking to the right, I found Shore making his way over, following the same path I’d taken to reach the gravesite. But he was moving with a slower stride… one that the pony who was with him could keep up with.

“What are you doing, Nova?”

Following behind Shore, Blake stepped out into my field of view, coming to a stop as soon as he saw me. Though I had made every effort to clean away the evidence of minutes ago, I knew that despite it all, my face still showed a good deal of what I was feeling, and what I had felt earlier. The tears had been wiped away… but they remained visible in the trance that they had left behind, the state of mourning that I had made for myself, one that had evolved from the tears I’d cried into a state of acceptance… which surpassed the longing I felt, even if barely… It was that state that kept me here, kept me talking to two graves… and it was what my baby brother questioned.

But out here, in the presence of our parents… I found it rather easy to answer him. What would have normally been an effort to try and divert him from the truth was made into the truth itself. And I told him with a little smile, asking him, “Would you believe me if I told you that I was talking to mom and dad?”

And at that, Blake’s eyes begun to widen, and quickly he looked to the graves to see them for himself for the first time. “You… y-you are?”

“In a sense.” I answered him after a moment’s thought.

“They’re here?” he asked, his voice barely a whisper now.

Even before he proved me right, I had anticipated this – my brother’s dive into a state of shock that provoked the awakening of dozens of memories, many trapped behind the iron curtain that had been thrown up by the wasteland and all the experiences that he had gone through; because it was exactly what I had felt… and I could see that in his eyes, on his face and in his body language… he was actually starting to tremble… and for a good reason. After the Stable, Blake had been so stricken with fear and grief that he had not found the strength to do anything more than lay down and cry. As such, when he had finally found that strength on the day of our trek into the southeast… he had not seen our mother’s grave for the first time when I had seen it. This was his first time… and here, I was seeing with my own eyes just what I looked like when I had been brave enough to see mother’s final resting place, to say a final farewell before I left her behind for good to head into the wastes.

“Yes, Blake… they’re here. They both are…” I gently answered; Blake only continued to stare at the mounds that marked our parent’s resting place. “Come over here.” I urged, motioning him over to me with a nod. “There’s something I’d like you to see.”

Thankfully, despite Blake’s slow efforts to take in what he was seeing, he flicked his eyes back to me. For a second, they darted back and forth between me and our parents… but he took his first step, a courageous move… and his second followed as he started looking away from the graves and back to me. And then, all at once, he picked up his walk to a fast trot, quickly closing the distance between us only to latch onto my right foreleg in a tight embrace. No sobs came from him as he did… and I did listen for them… but I moved in just as quick as he in order to return the embrace in full, lowering my head down to nuzzle along the back of his neck as he clung to me. “Look in front of you.” I said, running my muzzle through his mane one more time to face the graves. “See that there?”

When I raised a foreleg to point a hoof, Blake leaned just enough to follow it to find where I was looking; he found it in but a couple seconds. “That’s… that’s our picture.” Even partially buried under four weeks of blowing dust and churning sand, Blake still found the portrait, our greatest family treasure. Its presence, after being forgotten for so long, carried Blake through the same emotions that I had only just moments ago finished dancing with. And just by watching him, I was able to piece together just what it was that was beginning to occupy his thoughts more and more. Then, craning his head back, his eyes confirmed my own prediction for me – he wanted to know how… why… how the portrait got out here and survived the Black Blood’s takeover… and why I was here now.

And he more than deserved those answers.

I prepared myself only with a little sigh, nudging him again before kissing him on the forehead, a silent ‘I love you’ for my dear little brother. “Four weeks ago…” I began, clearing my throat before proceeding. “late on the night after we left the Stable… those of us who weren’t utterly crippled by our wounds and our losses took those who hadn’t made it past the night, and buried them up here on this hilltop.” Blake continued to stare, only listening. “After mom died, she was laid to rest up here… so she could sleep.”

Just like I had said to him that very first night outside…

Blake nodded a very little nod at reliving the same memories as me; we were of the exact same mind now. “And in the morning, when I left you to see the captain and get outfitted for guard duty… I decided to come up here and see the grave for myself, both for the sake of seeing it… and to say one last goodbye to mom before we left for good.” I explained, not taking my eyes from Blake’s. “And I gave her our family portrait and set it here for her to keep, that way she could still be with all of us even as you and I left the Stable behind to head out into the wasteland. But as it turns out… somepony… who we don’t know… was here when we were not, and he found dad inside the Stable, and buried him here.”

“That’s why you’re out here?” Blake asked quietly.

“When I heard from Shore that somepony had buried dad, I had to come out here and see for myself. And coming up here, I found out that it was true.” I answered with a nod, pointing to the two feathers on the neighboring grave. “And I found out that it was all true… and I came here to… say a few words to the both of them… because it’s been so long.”

Blake finally broke eye contact with me in order to find where I was pointing, his eyes now beholding dad’s grave, and holding him there in an iron grip. “And they can… they can actually hear you?”

A question I hadn’t expected to hear from him… but one that, despite its abruptness… actually put a little smile back onto my face. “I’d like to think they can.” I answered for him, looking with him back to the graves, resting my chin over his head. “Do you want to say anything?”

No answer.

He didn’t even move at my question. But I knew that he was already torn between the only two possible choices. And in the silence, I stayed right there with him, unmoving with him… thinking with him. I had asked him a very difficult question, one that he needed time to answer. And he took his time, showing me his uncertainty, his own psychological matrix that had been shaped from the tragedy he had suffered alongside me. Perhaps it ran in our bloodline… I didn’t know… but watching my baby brother as he pondered the hefty question I had given him – I saw a sort of mirror reflection of myself. Or more specifically, I saw a mirror image of my own mind, my own thought processes. I had a very strong tendency to lose myself in reflections on past events and the memories they consequently shaped, especially those of greater significance. I had lived with that curse for well over a couple of years… but seeing what was, for all intents and purposes, a copy of that ‘curse’ in Blake was both intriguing… yet worrying, the latter emotion birthed from the present moment.

But it was just when I was about to express that concern to him, when I would have offered him a way out of responding, that he shifted under my chin, just lightly as he turned his head a little, and he opened his mouth… a few more seconds passing us by… Then…… “Hi mom… hi dad.” I flinched when he finally spoke… noting immediately the hitch in his voice; Goddesses, he was trying so hard not to cry. “I hope you’re… I hope you’re doing okay… and I hope you’re happy… wherever you are.” he said; I lifted up my right forehoof to rest it on his shoulder. “I know that… when we left home you weren’t together… But now you are… and that’s really great to see…… We don’t know who brought you back together… but I know that if I get to meet him, I’ll thank him for you.” Again, I smiled a sad little smile, touched by the vow he decided to take up. And leaning back, I kissed him on his head again as he added, “Nova and I are still okay… we’ve looked out for each other all the time… and we’ll keep taking care of each other, just like you both wanted.”

“Yes we will.” I chimed in agreement, looking back to the graves.

“And… we really love you…” he said… with a little more struggle this time… “And we really miss you…… I just hope you’ll both… sleep well… and I hope that we’ll see you again someday…”

When a sigh escaped him, I moved my hoof down under his neck to pull him into a gentle hug. Bless his brave heart, he kept himself together, but after a moment, he did reach up to nudge my foreleg away, grabbing my attention to get me to lean back. And when I did, he craned his head back around and looked up to me. A pair of tears had fallen already… and another couple looked to be on their way. But my brother reached up a foreleg to wipe away those tears, and he nodded to me… all he needed to do. “Okay.” I said, nodding with him and reaching my free hoof up to help clean away the last of the tear trail down his left cheek.

“Hey, Nova…”

I lowered my hoof away from his face, letting him look me in the eye again. “Hm?”

“You um… when you came up here for the first time… to see mom,” he said, speaking slow through the haze of his own emotions. “you gave her our picture before we left.” I nodded. “Do you think we could give dad something before we leave again?”

“Well…” I glanced back to the graves again, looking over our family portrait, and the two feathers that rested nearby it. “I suppose we could, if you’d like. But what would we give him?”

But to that, Blake turned away, looking over his right shoulder. “Shore brought something with him when he came and found me.” he answered. “He was the one who thought about it first.”

Taken by surprise, yet again, I turned back behind me to where Shore was standing a couple yards away in respectful silence, now looking at me as he pushed up his reading glasses. “Is that true?”

He nodded his confirmation. “Yes.” And that’s when he moved his foreleg, sliding his hoof over the soil… pushing a short, wide black box across the dirt.

And I stared. “That’s the…”

“It’s the box containing your father’s lost memories, all eight of them.” he answered for me, nodding again. “I kept the other two that we found separate from it, along with the holotape… but after you left, I began to wonder if it might be wise to let you decide whether or not to keep the other memory orbs. So that’s why I came up here.”

“Oh Goddesses, Shore…” I had to raise a hoof up to my muzzle, touched at his gesture. And really, with Blake having been the one to suggest it… I couldn’t help but start to think his idea an honorable one. Learning what I had learned – it filled a gap that I hadn’t even known to exist. It had been alarming to know what had been kept from my father. If things were as they’d been four weeks ago, all of us would have been absolutely speechless. As it was now, it was still shocking, of course. But it didn’t carry the same heft as it would have in the past. Still, it was something to think about, what to do with those memory orbs. On the one hoof, they were my father’s memories. Those memory orbs in that little black box made eight different pieces of his past, eight different pieces of him that none of us had never known. In a more materialistic view, they should belong to me and Blake. As his children we had a right to them, to preserve them and to see them for ourselves… But on the other hoof… they were my father’s memories… and his alone. Even as his daughter… did I really have a right to trespass on those memories? Did we really have a right to see those memories, when he did not?

I had to admit… there was a part of me that was urging me to leave them be… to let them rest with their true owner… and it had a very strong voice.

“What about this, Blake?” Backing away, I turned about and approached the black box, Shore taking a step back as I did so.

“It has dad’s memories inside?” he asked curiously, trotting over beside me. “What does that mean?”

“It’s a little difficult to explain.” I replied, dragging the box in front of him. “But yes. There are eight crystal orbs in this box, and each one holds one of dad’s childhood memories… things that he lived once, but didn’t know about himself when he grew up.”

“How would he not remember things about himself?” Blake asked, cocking his head in puzzlement.

“Well, in this case, it’s because these memories were stolen from him.” I explained, putting a hoof overtop the box. “I can’t even fathom how. That’s something that’s far, far beyond me. But either way, I’m thinking that since they’re dad’s memories, we let him have them and leave them be. What do you think, Blake?”

And when I turned back to look him in the eye, I saw a little smile creeping across his face. “If dad didn’t know that those memories were his, then I think he would like that a lot.”

I was glad he thought so… and I was very proud.

Giving him a nod and a smile of my own to match his, I turned my attention back to the box, then reaching down and taking hold of it gently as I could in my teeth. And turning back, facing our parents again, I stepped forward, Blake falling in beside me for the both of us to walk back to dad’s grave together. We stopped by the very edge of the burial mound, and without pause, I leaned forward over the dirt to set the box down. And pulling my head back and away, I reached out with a hoof to give the box a gentle push, setting it more firmly in the uneven soil. “There.” And when I was satisfied that it was secure, I gave it a final pat before I pulled my hoof away. “Now he can know everything.”

“Now he can remember.”

Looking over, I caught Blake as he gave a satisfied nod, then looking back up to me; his little smile still held on, as did mine. “That’s right.”

Thump…

Suddenly, a sound echoed past us, a dim, hollow thud that made my ears perk up. Blake had heard it too, the colt looking up from the grave and out to the north. But when I quickly followed his direction, looking back out to the hills again, I spotted something moving… two of them… both rising up into the air from behind one of those hills.

Dust…

“Shore, do you see that?” I asked, tensing up as I looked back over my shoulder to my companion.

“What is it?” Blake asked curiously.

“It’s alright.” Shore answered quickly, raising a hoof to calm us. “I believe that would be Captain Saber’s doing.”

“Captain Saber?” I turned back to the twin dust trails myself, seeing them rise higher over the hills. “What’s he doing in there?”

“He’s sealing the Stable, Nova.”

And all at once I froze… blinking once before my eyes went wide as I stared ahead at the two clouds of dust drifting lazily up and to the west.

“I overheard him saying just that on Sierra’s pipbuck before I came out to get you.” Shore said. “He went into the living quarters on his own, and sent Gunny into the reactor room so they could find the two tunnels the raiders made to get in, then collapse them with the c-four that we found. He said… he said he wanted to lay the Stable to rest… so I think that’s what that is.”

Oh…

“So…” Blinking again, I finally turned back around to look over the black stallion again. “If they’ve blasted the tunnels closed again… then that means that…”

That meant that there was only one entrance left.

“All that’s left is the main door.” Shore replied with a solemn nod. “If they’ve destroyed the tunnels, then I would wager that the Hall of Records is getting close to being emptied now.”

Slowly, I nodded with him; I understood.

“So what does that mean?”

My brother on the other hoof…

“It means that we’re going to need to get heading back to the wagon, Blake.” I answered. His voice alone called my focus back away from the shock of Shore’s reveal, back to something more important. “And after a little bit, we’ll be heading back home.”

“But what about the Stable?” Blake asked, looking to me with puzzled eyes when I turned to face him again.

“We can’t stay here anymore, Blake.” Shaking my head, I reached over and rested my hoof atop his neck. “As appealing as it is when you look past everything that happened… the most good it would do would be to give us a roof over our heads, a fortified one too. But in the end, it wouldn’t be able to sustain us like it did before. It’s just not a safe place to live anymore.”

“Oh…” The disheartened tone in his voice was immediately perceptible. And it pained me to hear it… even if there was no way to avoid it. Still, after receiving the honest truth on the matter, Blake only looked away to face mom and dad’s graves again. “So… I guess this is the last time we’ll be seeing mom and dad for a while, huh?”

I couldn’t help but let out a little sigh, a sad note for Blake’s defeat. “I’m afraid so, Blake.” I replied, gentle as I rubbed along the back of his neck.

“Should we say goodbye?”

Turning to the graves to join him, I took just a short moment to look between them. With the memory orb carton on its place atop dad’s grave, a tribute to his memory, I found myself admiring the gifts that had been left for the both of them. The black box of memory orbs for dad, coupled with our family picture for mom, together made the most worthy items to adorn our parents’ final resting place. But the best thing about it all was the fact alone that dad had been reunited with mom, buried with her for the two to rest in peace together. In the end, that was what gave me heart, courage, and what helped me to reply to Blake with, “If you’d like to say goodbye, then you can. But just remember one thing, Blake.” And raising a hoof, I pointed it to him. “Mom and dad – we’re not really leaving them behind. Because while we might be putting their graves behind us, they’re going to be with us no matter where we go from here after.” And as I begun to work my thoughts into words, I found myself thinking back, only to the recent past, and a select few words that I remembered hearing inside Stable 181.

“He’s built a fine family, settled down with a beautiful and honorable wife, and brought two amazing children into this torn world of ours… children who I know will carry his spirit along with them as they follow in his steps.”

“I want you to know that our parents are never that far away. Even if it feels like it… they’re really not.” Through my words, Blake kept looking me in the eye, watching and listening, only until I moved my right forehoof off his neck, bringing it back around in front of him. And that’s when I reached over, placing the same hoof on Blake’s chest, right over his heart. “Because we’re still alive… and we remember them in here, our hearts.” And with a small smile crossing my face, I reached up, setting my hoof down on his forehead. “And we remember them in here, our minds.” I said, watching as the same smile I possessed begun to take shape with Blake too. “So long as you remember them, you’ll never have to say goodbye to them, because they’ll never leave you.”

And bless him, Blake smiled a little wider, nodding his approval of my assurances. “Yeah.”

In one gentle move I pulled him back into one final hug and held him there against my chest. And he hugged me back, reaching up to hook his forelegs around my neck, resting his head against me. One last moment of silence together in the company of our parents… and it was in that moment we all four of us shared together, as a whole family… I felt like mom and dad were right there, hugging us up as we sat there together… smiling at us… proud of us…

Proud of us both.

*** *** ***

“Wow…”

Goddesses… it was just beautiful.

Having left mom and dad to their rest, for what would be the last time for… at least a good long while… Shore, Blake, and I made our way back to the Stable. Upon crossing over the last hill and back onto the flat natural courtyard that surrounded the entrance, we found our cargo wagon now parked right outside the wood and wire-mesh door leading to One Eighty-one. And when we came up on the tunnel, we found what had once been an empty cargo compartment to now be packed up full with the contents of the Stable’s Hall of Records. All of it, right there… a sight that brought me a joy I had not felt in a long, long time.

Now, the three of us were stopped to observe the glorious sight for a moment, and we all looked on with a smile.

All the books, folders, and documents that had been locked away in the dark had been loaded aboard and packed up tight. The great stacks of books nearly touched the ceiling from the very back of the wagon all the way to the center. And in the front, one of the wagon’s crew, Tiny, was standing inside, using his telekinesis to organize our haul for the journey home. There was barely any room for him to maneuver inside the wagon, and Tiny himself was a bigger stallion. But still he squeezed himself in, taking what he could from the front and moving it farther to the back to make as much room as he could for whatever was still in the Stable, tucking thinner folders and books as far back as he could without touching the wagon’s ceiling. It was definitely a good thing that our wagon was as sizeable as it was. Along with the texts from the Hall of Records, there was a bit of salvaged equipment that was mixed in. A number of weapons, largely rifles with the occasional shotgun mixed in, took up a good deal of the space against the wagon’s walls, leaning vertical against them so as to take up the least amount of floor space. The recovered food and water, along with a trio of ammo boxes that I could see, was stashed in the far back left corner, sitting atop the stacks of thicker textbooks placed there. And up in front were the two toolboxes that Saber had found; one was open, revealing a number of miscellaneous tools… which made a bed for what looked at first glance to be a pistol, a very short-barreled sidearm with a large drum magazine at its center – a nail gun.

“Can you believe this, guys?” From his place up in the wagon, Tiny called out to us just as he cleared out the last books from the front left corner, lifting them up and stacking them neatly on a slightly shorter pile beside him. The big smile he wore coupled with his jubilant tone of voice made for an infectious combination. “It’s a freaking miracle-and-a-half!”

I had no difficulty smiling along with him, nodding my agreement with his statement.

“You got that right!” From behind us suddenly came the creaking of the wood and wire door, and from within came two more members of the pulling team. Quinn, the one behind the heartfelt reply, stepped out into the open with a half-dozen heavy textbooks held in her telekinetic grip. And behind her, Boulter was likewise carrying his own load from the Hall of Records, a whole stack of thin file folders, each with only a couple papers inside. “I never, ever even dared to think that I’d be laying my eyes on any of this again.” Quinn said, trotting with energy up to the wagon with her cargo floating close by. “I’ve got a lot of reading to do when we get back home.”

“Forget when we get back home.” Boulter spoke up, leaving the tunnel door open behind him as he joined Quinn by the wagon. “I’m going to start reading when we set up camp for the night.”

At that, I couldn’t help but giggle. “You know he’s right, Quinn.” I chimed in. “Why wait, right? I don’t think I am.”

“Exactly.” Boulter said, nodding to me. “With everything that’s happened over the past few weeks, with all the bullshit we’ve been through, I’d consider all of this brand new material.”

“Yeah, I guess so.” Quinn agreed after a short pause of thought, then handing up her books to Tiny.

“Hey, speaking of getting out of here,” Tiny then said, taking the books from Quinn’s telekinesis with his own and hoisting them up to the wagon. “are we about done in there?”

“We’ve only got a couple more loads left I think.” Quinn answered for him. “When I picked up my last bunch of books, all the shelves except the bottom one were empty. My guess is that this’ll be our last trip before we get everything. I know I’ve made my last trip.”

“Sounds good to me.” Tiny replied, setting Quinn’s books into place aboard the wagon before turning to Boulter where he waited. “Alright. Send those beauties on up here would ya, Boulter?”

With a nudge, Shore drew my focus back onto our own task, back onto the open door to the Stable’s entry tunnel. Together, with Blake following behind, we reentered the tunnel and headed for the Stable door. Had it not been for Shore’s assurance that Captain Saber had spared time to cover up the bodies in the entrance lobby with salvaged blankets from the living quarters, my brother would most certainly not have been following after me. As it stood now, though, Blake had expressed his own wish to catch a glimpse of the Stable before we left it behind once again, even if just one room. And really, even if Saber hadn’t gotten around to hiding the evidence of the raiders’ presence, who was I to deny him his wish? He deserved to see a slice of his home again, seeing as how the rest of us had already done so.

We passed along the first of the two turns in the entry tunnels, moving in with the intent of finding somepony inside to try and assist in the final stretch of our stay. And already, as soon as we rounded the first corner, I could hear two ponies talking, one voice immediately recognizable as Gunny’s, the closest to us. The second had come from farther in, and was drawing closer, coming from the entrance lobby past the door. And as soon as we passed by the final turn, we found both of them in unison. Just crossing through the open Stable door was both Gyro and Mavis, their horns alight as the two stallions each carried out a tall stack of medium-sized books mixed with document folders. And just in front of them, Gunny was setting the All-Equestrian vertical against the tunnel wall as he looked over the Stable door’s control pod. And by his head, floating freely in the air, I recognized one of the recovered bricks of C4.

“Nova.” he greeted, glancing only sidelong to us as we came to a stop together. “Blake, Shore.”

“How are you doing, Gunny?” I asked him, stepping aside to let Gyro and Mavis through with their loads; a quick glance into the entrance lobby showed that the corpses had one and all been covered over, with at least a half dozen old sheets being used to do so.

Staring for a moment, my friend slowly turned back to the door control. “Well… I’m ready to get out of here.” he said, nodding as he brought the C4 charge in front of him, floating it between him and the console. “I’ve had my share of this place for… well… for a good long while. Strange as it sounds… I’m actually looking forward to getting back outside. Even without Hopeville, I’m ready to get back out there.”

“You know… I actually kind of share that sentiment.” I replied after a moment of thought, eventually nodding my own agreement. “I don’t think it sounds too strange, really.”

“I can’t say it does either.” Shore put in.

Really, that just went to show how four weeks had changed us… Goddesses, had it changed us.

“But we’ll still miss the Stable, though.” Blake piped up after, briefly drawing all our eyes to him. “Right?…… I know I will…”

“Of course, Blake.” I agreed instantly. “We’re all going to miss it, for a million different reasons.”

“Just because we have to leave it behind doesn’t mean that we’re not going to miss it.” Gunny added after me, good sound words that I nodded with; Blake too nodded his approval.

In the break of dialogue that followed, I picked up the sound of hoofsteps coming from the entry chamber. A quick glance back into the Stable, and I saw Sylvia, the last unicorn of the wagon team. And after coming down the stairs, she only passed us a smile as she trotted by with a stack of papers and document folders, moving eagerly towards the exit. “That’s quite the haul we got though, isn’t it?” Back by the door controls, Gunny was turning the C4 in the air, bringing the back before him and pulling back a plastic tab, exposing what looked to be a rectangular pad of rubbery material.

“Yes it most certainly is.” I replied first, just a little grateful for his snappy change of subject.

“It’s funny to think – when we were on our way here, the most we ever hoped to find was a picture, a weapon maybe, or just one or two books. But instead…” With a chuckle, Gunny turned the explosive back around, and attached it to the console before his magic faded away; the pad kept it stuck to the metal. “It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve seen in a long time.” he said, shaking his head. “I think even I’m going to have to do some reading when I get a chance to.”

But that, despite the sentimentality behind it, drew a laugh from Shore. And in that moment, I too was drawn back to history, back to a time that I knew Shore had remembered to. “You?” Shore asked, jabbing a hoof at him. “You’re going to do some reading?”

“With your undying love of textbooks and reading assignments, you’d actually choose to read?” Even I had to question it. And in a vain attempt to stifle a giggle, I raised a hoof up to my lips. “Who are you and what did you do with Gunny? The real Gunny would never let his classroom days come back to haunt him like this.”

“Well, you see,” Gunny responded, looking over his shoulder at me with a little smirk. “there was another Gunny – an evil Gunny… and… I killed him.”

I shut my eyes, letting myself laugh. And for a precious couple of seconds, even Shore and Blake joined in; we all laughed together… just like in the Stable… remembering our gun-loving friend’s absolute boredom and disinterest in the pages of a good book, something that he had been well-known for in our younger years.

Goddesses, it had been far too long.

“Head’s up folks!”

But the moment, alas, was very short-lived… sadly brief.

Turning to the entry lobby, I looked past the concealing blankets on the railing just in time to see Joker and Daisy as the two came into view from the atrium. Joker moved with a little more difficulty, his wound still having remained unattended. But Daisy was by his side, keeping close to help him along if he staggered. The both of them carried their own load of books in their telekinesis, and from behind the hovering stacks, Ivy and Raemor emerged side by side, likewise carrying their own books and folders with them. The former, thankfully, looked to be moving with a greater deal of ease than she had before. Though there was still a small limp in her stride, likely an after-effect, she was doing far better than she had before. And sure enough, behind them, Sergeant Madeline came trotting in, only three large books held close to her in her telekinesis. And with her, unburdened with contents from the Hall of Records, was the power-armored Sierra, her shiny black visor passing over us as she emerged from the atrium. And lastly, Captain Saber came back, wearing a face of single-minded focus as he took a quick glance over us. “Gunny, are the charges in place?”

Looking back to my friend, I saw him as he raised a hoof up to the plastic explosive, reaching over to press a small black button on the far right side. With a beep, a red light on the opposite end begun to blink. “Yeah.” he answered the captain. “Charges are armed and ready.”

“Good. Then let’s get this over with.”

Together, the four of us stepped up closer to the tunnel wall, giving some extra moving room for the others to carry out their books. Both Joker and Daisy passed us quick smiles as they crossed through the open door, speaking in silence the great satisfaction they carried at being able to hold those old texts again. And Raemor and Ivy were smiling too, and with them, I saw instead the care they took around those texts, how they respected them for the value they held to the rest of us. The two of them likewise passed by without a word, picking up their pace to match Joker and Daisy as they made their way to the wagon outside. “Did you manage to get everything, captain?”

“The whole room’s empty.” I turned back to the others to find our captain just as he crossed through the door with Madeline and Sierra, looking to Shore to answer his question. “The wagon was just big enough to hold everything.” he explained, coming to a stop with Sierra as Sergeant Madeline kept moving to bring her own books to the waiting wagon team. “We got it all.”

“Wow… that’s amazing.” Shore replied.

That was… truly… amazing to hear… the best thing I’d heard in a long, long time…

The Hall of Records was coming back.

“Alright Gunny.” After passing only a single nod to Shore’s joyed words, the captain turned to the brick red unicorn, gesturing to the Stable door controls. “It’s time.”

Time to go…

“Yes sir.”

My eyes came upon Gunny, as did Shore’s, and Saber’s… Blake’s too. Together, we all looked to him as he turned back to face the control pod. And one more time, tunnel vision blurred out the world around me as Gunny stepped up to the panel. He put his back to me as he aligned himself with the controls. And a second later, his horn begun to glow with pale red light, the same light that slowly enveloped the door control switch on the center of the panel that I could just see over his left shoulder. And as soon as the light fully coated the mechanism, Gunny gave a nod, staying perfectly silent, letting only the hum of his magic echo in the tunnel. Just a couple seconds… just enough hesitation to show us that he felt the same way as all of us did.

*click

He pushed the lever forward.

From within the main lobby, the door alarm buzzed back to life as the red of the emergency lighting took on an orange hue from the spinning light on the ceiling that also activated. Then, with a mechanical rumble, the great Stable door shifted before rolling forward. Together, we one and all watched as it rolled into position, blocking away our view of our now completely emptied home. And when it came to a stop, the yellow 181 painted into the steel leveled out and facing us, we beheld a brief but beautiful display. While the door rested there, the hinge-arm beginning to move with a long his of air, through the cracks between the door and its frame came rays of crimson light like sunbeams, splashed every other second with the orange of the spinning warning light.

Even with my eyes set on the door, I could hear behind me hooves against the dirt… many hooves; even from outside, the other ponies of our team had heard… and they’d come to see the door close again… for the last time.

Steel screeched against steel, and from behind the door the hinge-arm locked into its slot. And as the machinery in the room beyond came to life, the door was pushed forward, and those rays of crimson light thinned out until they winked away into nothing, and with a tremendous ear-piercing shriek, the door slid back into its place… a final hiss of air allowing the hinge-arm to retract back to the ceiling… and everything went silent.

“Raemor…” Suddenly, after the brief pause, Saber spoke out to get the attention of our elder companion. I turned with him and the others to look farther back into the tunnel where the others had rallied; among them, Raemor was looking over Ivy’s head to find the captain, waiting for him to speak. “I believe you’re a praying pony.” Saber said after finding him. “Would you care to perhaps say a few parting words for us before we leave?”

From the captain I turned to the old unicorn… as did everypony else, one by one. For a moment, even in the dim light of the tunnel, I could see that Raemor was, for just a brief time, caught off guard by Saber’s offer. And with nothing else to distract me, I knew just where that question had come from. It had come from the last time the two of them had spoken together, when they had joined minds, thought as one, sparked from a prayer that had touched our hearts.

“I pray to the Goddesses that upon our departure, this place might be at peace in the form of its inhabitants’ joyful memories.”

And now, I felt that Saber wanted everypony to hear those words, and after a few seconds of dead silence, when Raemor finally stepped forward, nudging Ivy to have her make way for him, I knew that my old friend understood.

“Blessed Goddesses… full of grace…” Raemor passed by the rest of the team to face the Stable door; those who were farthest from him huddled up closer to the rest of the team, each moving in to gaze upon our old home with him. “These halls marks the final resting place of two hundred cherished souls, who, through their way of life and their deeds in it, have preserved the very elements and virtues that you both embodied in your time of mortal existence. Here, in this Stable shaped by Old World hooves, lays two hundred souls who continued to follow in your steps, even in the dark and lawless world that had fallen into place around them at the end of days, and only continued to darken in the years to follow. And to these ponies you see with me, and their friends who survived that fateful day… they were the finest mares and stallions to be able to live alongside… Coworkers, students, friends, family… they were all brothers and sisters in life and in virtue.” the old stallion said, raising his head up to look to the door… with a level of focus that made him seem as if he were seeing right through it and back into the Stable itself. “And though their lives were taken from them by an act of unspeakable malice…” he continued; all eyes were on him. “those who continue to live today, to fight and survive in honor of their memory, can take heart and be comforted by the knowledge that you, mighty, elegant, loving sisters, live on in eternity and continue to watch over your subjects.” And here, Raemor tilted his head back, turning to the tunnel ceiling before he said, “Celestia… Luna… as we move on, with priceless relics in tow, we speak a prayer to you. To you we pray that you have found those fallen friends who died here, and that you have called them to you in the everafter with your loving voices, and have taken each of them under your wings so that they will know eternal peace as they sleep in your embrace.” Slowly, he lowered his head back down. “And for their friends and family that carry their memory in their hearts, we pray that you will never turn your gaze away, and that you will continue to guide them through their trails. We pray that you will ease the burden of loss that has come from this tragedy… and we pray that this Stable, One Eighty-one, and its lost residents will all be at peace in the form of the survivor’s joyful memories.”

There was those words… those truly touching words. And as he paused one more time, I found myself smiling just a little, nodding my agreement at his inspiring consultation with the Goddesses; I definitely prayed alongside him.

“For their presence in our story of life, they will always be remembered. And for being the shelter that they, and those who now live outside, were proud to call their home, Stable One Eighty-one too will always be remembered. Celestia… Luna… lastly, we pray that you both will know and understand the true beauty of this Stable, and the great virtue that resides in its inhabitants, both in those here and in those who dwell with you high above…” And here, after a short pause, Raemor eventually nodded… his approval of his prayer. “In your name, Celestia, the sun, and Luna, the moon, we pray.”

Wow…

The very first thing I heard after Raemor had finished was a sad little sniffle coming from the back of our assembled team. When I turned to look over the group’s combined reactions, to satisfy my own curiosity, I saw that a couple of our team members had actually shed a couple of tears. There was Quinn, farther at the back… her head was bowed as Tiny looked on with sympathetic eyes… and I saw when the unicorn mare hitched with a suppressed sob. Sylvia too let a couple of silent tears fall from her place in the center of the assembly, even as she nodded in approval of Raemor’s prayer. And there was Boulter too, off to the right, wiping away his own tears with a quick swipe of his foreleg over his eyes. Miraculously, I didn’t let another tear come down… but Goddesses was my soul lifted. In that instant, the words of a wastelander had reached out to the hearts of everypony here, and those words had found their way to the deepest, most sensitive parts of us… they had dug in to our very core, stirred up our memories and emotions, and with those, the good and the bad of each, they had unified us… brought us together to send our wishes and our love to those we had lost.

I was so touched by Raemor’s prayer… and honored that he would speak it for us.

“Alright everypony, let’s head to the back of the tunnel.” I turned back just in time to see Captain Saber as he walked past me, leaving One Eighty-one behind him. As one unit the team stepped aside to let him through, and he turned left and then right to look upon his subordinates as he moved on. “Once I hit this detonator, the blast is going to collapse most of this tunnel.”

Though slowly, the shifting of equipment and the light stepping of hooves grew into a steady clamor as the team turned away and followed our leader. I hesitated… just a moment longer, giving the Stable door one last longing look… staring at those three yellow numbers against the blackened steel. But I too looked away, on my own… and turned to my brother. The young colt was waiting for me, his eyes soft with his own emotion. And when I met him, I gave him a little smile and a gentle nudge along his back to get him moving. Together we put the tunnel wall between us and the door… those yellow numbers finally disappearing from sight. And moving ahead, we passed by a couple of the others as they brought themselves to turn away – Quinn, now pushing away her tears, Tiny, just looking ahead, hesitant to go, Raemor himself, his head bowed and his eyes closed as his lips moved without a sound.

Up ahead, Saber had come to a stop at the end of the longest lane of the entry tunnel, the dim light of the surface barely reaching him to reflect off his security armor. The rest of our team was stopping with him, huddling up close as they turned around one after the next, looking back down the tunnel… waiting for that detonation. “Gunny… the detonator, please.”

“Yes sir.”

As Blake and I joined the others, following their move and turning around together to face the door, I looked back over to Gunny when I caught the light of magic hovering close by. And wrapped up in his telekinetic grip, a thin rectangular box, silver in color with a short little antenna on the top and a red button at the center covered by a little plastic lid. It hovered over Ivy’s head to reach the captain, whereupon it was lowered to the ground. And I watched as Saber followed it down, raising a hoof up to the button’s cover… and with a click, he got the cover open. “Now… now we lay Stable One Eighty-one to rest.” he said; I turned away to face the tunnel. “Now we bury it… let it sleep…… let it sleep…”

BEEP!

BLAM!!!

With a near deafening thunderclap, the C4 charge on the door console detonated, sending a great wave of dust billowing out to crash against the tunnel wall. Simultaneous with that was the more echoing blast of the charge within the Stable itself, and the screeching of metal that came from the door’s hinge-arm as it was torn apart by the powerful explosive. Then, just a half second later, and the tunnel ceiling on the third lane came crashing down with a rippling rumble, sending a wave of dust exploding outward towards us. Quickly I reached a foreleg up over my muzzle, covering my mouth just as the dust washed over us. But it was when it did that the sound of the shifting soil, of the dirt that was piling up in the third lane, came to a stop… that a dead silence came back once more… wrapping us all up in the weight of what Saber had just done… his final act in the presence of his home.

Stable 181… it was sealed…… it would never be opened again… never seen again by anypony… by us…

“Now One Eighty-one can rest in peace.”

Yes… Saber was right…… It would never be touched by another soul…… it would be at peace…

“Come on, everypony.” the captain beckoned to us in the silence, some members of our team beginning to uselessly swat at the churning dust that now surrounded us as I collected myself from my thoughts. “It’s time to head on home now. We’ve got a long journey ahead of us, and important cargo to protect. So let’s get a move on.”

And slowly, with a collective reluctance hovering around us, our group begun to turn away and head back out through the screen door… one survivor at a time.

“After you, Nova.”

Gunny… off to my right, gave me a nod, gesturing to the now open screen door, drawing my eyes to follow, seeing where our team begun filing out. And in my peripheral sight, I found Shore too, just a few paces ahead, likewise looking back to me. And just beside me, having drawn up to my left, Blake was waiting too, waiting for me to move… to do as everypony else, though with their own varying levels of struggle, forced themselves to do…

To let go…

And seeing the faces of my two dearest friends, and that of my baby brother… all three of them the last of my family…… I was able to close my eyes… take in a long breath… exhale with barely a sound… and open my eyes again just as Ivy and Raemor both stepped out of the tunnel together, leaving only us still inside. And finally, with a nod to reply to Gunny’s gesture, I took that first step… and eased into the rest, heading for the exit with my friends right alongside me.

Finally… I let it go.

Footnote: 50% to level up.