Chapter 7: A Trial By Darkness
“So, what now?” Grape asked as we descended into the basement again.
“There’s a service elevator down here that leads to a utility service tunnel,” I said as I cracked the generator room’s door open. “We’re gonna grab our stuff and take it to the subway. We’ll be able to follow the rails around to the east side of the city, from there we just have to cross Lake Sapphire and then we’re into the mountains.”
“Why are we going east?”
“We’re following the path the Stable 13 Overmares found through the mountains to Diamond City,” I answered, starting to pack my gear away. “It’s a hell of a lot shorter and less treacherous than traveling directly south to… Fort Clydsdon? Winneapolis? There isn’t much for cities between here and the Unicorn Mountains. Northern Equestria was nothing but fields with farming towns scattered around.”
“No, there’s nothing out there,” Grape agreed. “We marched from Albaneigh to Fort Clydsdon, not much more than a crater left of that place, and then up the main pass to the south. Wish we had known about Diamond City and the east. The south was full of radwolves and other monsters, lost a quarter of our numbers before we even got into the city.”
I gave her a rather harsh look over my shoulder. “You act like that’s a bad thing.” I regretted the statement before I had even finished saying it; I really didn’t need her pissy.
The green mare stopped and gave a venomous glare. “They were my family.”
Family you were ready to sell out to a psycho. I sat up and sighed, “Everyone is someone’s family, doesn’t change a damn thing.” Grape was about to retort when I cut her off. “Let it go. Arguing about it won’t change anything.”
She fumed a bit but didn’t say anything as I checked on Star.The filly hadn’t moved but instead just laid there breathing quietly, completely unresponsive to the rest of the world. I leaned down and kissed her on the head before reaching for my stuff.
I dug a large blanket out of our gear, the largest single sheet we had and made of thick woolen fabric that should support Star’s weight. I had seen many zebra mothers carry around their foals using a sling, a simple length of fabric with a strategically placed knot that held a child on the back or close to the chest. Star was far larger than a zebra foal, but the principle would still work. The filly was quickly bundled up and slung over my shoulder.
With Star taken care of, I focused on packing all of our gear up and strapping it to myself. A filly and two ponies (maybe a pony and a half) worth of gear was a massive amount of weight for one mare but I had the strength for it.
I don't know how long my back’s going to hold up though. My damned spine was aching again and the weight didn't help with the pains. Maybe one day, I'll get lucky and stumble across a wandering Wasteland orthopedist or a new spinal column.
With me loaded down and Grape on her hooves and geared up, we were ready to go. I lead the way out the generator room over to the service elevator, pried the split doors open, and looked down the shaft. The elevator’s car was sitting at the bottom, its roof barely below us. I was able to force the door completely open and then we both stepped onto the car’s top before descending a small access ladder to its floor. Once down, it was a small jump up to utility tunnel’s floor.
I hesitated. “Grape,” I breathed quietly, straining my ears to make sure there was nothing to jump out at us, “give me a light.”
“Oh… okay,” she whispered back. The space was instantly bathed in the warm yellow glow of her Pipbuck’s lantern.
I hopped up onto the tunnel’s floor and quickly checked left and right. The tunnel extended off into oblivion in either direction, a simple square concrete passage lined with pipes and cables along the roof and walls. I jerked my head for Grape to follow me and she hefted herself up too. I mentally flipped my cybernetic eye’s night vision mode on, rendering everything hazy shades of green. Walking around with only my eye wasn’t the smartest, I didn’t have any peripheral vision and the field of view was terrible. But between it, the bit of light Grape’s Pipbuck threw off, and my ears; nothing would be jumping out at me without getting a hole put through its head first. Hopefully.
“I’ll take point, you stay on my ass; don’t get lost and don’t let anything sneak up on us.”
“Right,” Grape answered.
It was slow going. The pipes, conduits, and cables that adorned the small passage would catch on me every few paces and a little claustrophobia occasionally washed over me in the tight space. Fortunately, we only had to go about two city blocks before the tunnel opened into a room filled with tool shelves and conduit boxes. Straight ahead, yet more utility tunnel stretched into darkness.
Overhead there was a steel grated floor with more workspace and lockers. A stairwell off to the side of the space allowed us to ascend onto the upper floor. The steel grating groaned and creaked under our weight, but while it did sag a little, there didn't seem to be a risk of it caving in.
After crossing the floor we came to a large doorway blocked off with a chain link fence, its gate held shut by an ice-coated padlock. Several bodies laid on the far side of the fence, gruesomely preserved by the cold. Beyond that, there were tracks.
Fucking this again. I sighed. We’re going to be fine, just, no fucking with ghouls this time. I see trouble, we get out. No trying to sneak past stuff or fight my way through anything.
I slipped the point of a wing blade into the shackle of the padlock and twisted it around, pushing more of the blade in before yanking it down. The lock’s body cracked apart and it fell away from the shackle. I pulled the remains of the padlock off the gate and pushed the rusted barrier open.
I crept out onto the little platform over the metro tracks, carbine at the ready. I strained my ears but was only able to hear the grate floor creaking under Grape’s hooves. “Get out here and stand still,” I hissed. She quickly complied and I once again listened. I sighed when I heard nothing but the soft hollow roar of the tunnel.
Confident that I was safe, I jumped down to the tracks, the thump echoing up and down the space. I stopped and focused my hearing again for a response that thankfully never came.
“Are you sure about this?” Grape muttered.
“Not at all,” I whispered back.
“Great,” the mare mumbled. “Do you even know where you're going?”
“Of course; this is the green line, which does a loop around Amor. We can follow it all the way around to the northeast side of the city.” Or until something ruins the plan, and we have to run to the surface like pussies.
There was a station a short trot away from the alcove we emerged from. I had my rifle up as we moved into the lit area, expecting a horde of ghouls to jump out of the bathrooms the second we appeared. There was nothing however, just more pastel-colored crystals lighting the empty space in mellow hues.
I was going to walk through without giving a second thought, but Grape had other plans. “Aren’t we going to take a look around?”
I looked back at her. Already she was up on top of the platform sifting through a pile of refuse. “No,” I deadpanned, a little confused and a little irritated.
“Aww, come on,” Grape complained. “This place hasn’t ever been touched by raiders or anything, it’s a Luna-damned gold mine!”
“Shh!” I scolded. “Grape, we’re going from here all the way east until we’re nearly at the Celestial Sea, over a thousand klicks. It’ll take us a month and a half on hoof. Are you really going to heft a bunch of junk around with you for that?”
“But, I…” She just kinda looked at me, trapped between my logic and the strange scavenge impulse.
I wonder if their genetics carried the programming to dig through every pile of shit they see at this point. The thought made me want to laugh; whether it from mirth or at how tragic that was, I couldn’t tell. “Come on, Grape. If we’re going to take shit with us, we want a better value-to-weight ratio than anything in here is gonna give us.”
“Fine,” the green mare finally conceded, walking back over to me. “I guess I got a pretty good haul out of that fire station anyway.”
What a glutton for junk. I rolled my eyes and turned to start off again, but stopped as I noticed a faint glow coming from the ground before me. For an instant, I wondered if it was one of those goofy proximity mines that appeared on the civilian market, but that wasn’t the case. It was two fragments of glow crystal, they seemingly fallen from the ceiling; despite being separated from the rest of the crystals, they still emitted a soft light. There was a large powder blue chunk and a small puck-shaped pink one.
And here I was just harassing Grape about picking up junk. Though it wasn’t like I was picking up ashtrays and aluminum cans, it was kinda sad to just leave something so pretty laying in the track grime. Plus, glow crystal had been relatively rare and very desirable in my day, and I couldn’t imagine the Wasteland would have changed that too much. These pieces would probably be worth a fair bit in the right trade, so I stashed them away.
Or would they? It occured to me that I didn’t really have a clue about the Wasteland I was venturing into. What the people were like and what they valued, or even how they interacted. Hell, I would be clueless to handling something as basic as a greeting. Or are they so barbaric that they don’t even have regular greetings beyond shooting at each other?
“What's it like out there, down south?” I asked, looking back at Grape. “This so-called Wasteland.”
“Umm… terrible, I guess,” she mumbled.
“ ‘You guess?’ Isn't it your life? You should have more of a clue then that.” I creased my brow at her.
“I really don't think I could do better than that, if I'm honest,” she shrugged. “Shit's fucked, always has been, probably always will be. I don't know if a Stable pony like you would get that?”
“What part of me looks like some sorry-ass molepony?”
“You're wearing their armor and don’t know how surfacers live? And how is being a pre-war pony any different?”
I barked a laugh before jamming a hoof in my mouth to muffle my cackling. Hopefully nothing heard that.
“What?” Grape demanded.
“Kid, I fought in the bloodiest, most massive, destructive war in the past ten thousand years,” I stated. “I can assure you that there isn't anything you could throw at me I couldn't fathom.”
“So how much slavery and roving bands of raiders did you have running around?” Grape asked, a bit of a scowl on her face.
“A bit here and there,” I shrugged.
“Wait, seriously?” Grape stopped in her tracks, mouth agape.
“It was rare in Equestria. But the Badlands and Liota Forest to the south were rife with smuggling, mostly drugs and other contraband. We found slaves every once in a while. And there was no shortage of anarchist scum running around harassing whoever they pleased.”
“Wow... I-I had no idea that stuff like that happened before the bombs fell,” my companion mumbled. “All of the stories I’ve heard about Equestria before the war make it sound so perfect.”
“Perfect,” I snickered. “How and why did we sucked into a war in the first place then? Anyone who thought that Equestria was ever a perfect place was drinking way too much of Image’s kool-aid.”
“You make it sound like Equestria was some terrible place,” Grape intoned. She seemed to be growing angry with me as we talked, for some reason.
It was my turn to stop in my tracks as I turned around and looked the green mare in the eyes. “I was a pegasus born into a family of unicorns living in an Earth Pony city. My father ran a shop that was a front for the mob, and his biggest goal in life was making sure we didn’t follow down his path and get tangled up with those guys. My mother was an abusive, drunken whore who drifted in and out of my life on a whim.” Grape flinched back at the bitterness of my tone.
“I grew up having to travel two hours to the doctor because no one in the city we could afford treated pegasi. I usually didn’t get to play any games with the other ponies in school because they all thought my wings let me cheat at everything. I was slow to learn how to fly because I was never around other pegasi to learn from. I joined the Royal Marines when I turned eighteen because I didn’t know what my special talent was and I felt myself slipping into the same crowd my father had.”
Wow. Way to just puke all the angst up, you old hag.
I sighed. “No, to me Equestria could be a plenty terrible place,” I said, turning back around and starting off again. “To say nothing of what I learned from reading up on our history or interacting with other people.”
“If you hated Equestria so much, why did you serve in its military? Were the caps good?”
“I said Equestria wasn’t a perfect place, and that it could be terrible, but…” I trailed off, searching for words as I stopped again. “You can’t love something that’s perfect,” I finally stated. “Perfect is sterile and cold; it’s not something that you can get intimate with. It’s the flaws and errors and the way they make the good better that build love for something.
“I had problems with Equestria, but I also had going to the park on Sunday morning with Dad and my siblings. Hanging out with my friends after school, playing roller hockey or messing around at one of the abandoned factories. Spending my summers with my aunt and cousins in Cloudsdale, learning how to be a pegasus. Camping out with my platoon under a full night sky, passing around cigarettes, booze, and stories. Being a filly looking out on Canterlot and the Heartland at the peak of its majesty.”
I rubbed a tear away and looked at Grape, “It wasn’t perfect by any stretch of the word, but I loved it with every fiber of my being.”
I turned and started walking again. She followed after me and we settled into step along the rails, with several minutes passing in an unresolved silence before Grape finally spoke, her voice calm and a touch nostalgic.
“When I was a filly, my sisters and brother would play in the grassy field outside of our compound while my uncle watched us. Mom and Dad and Auntie Grass would come back from scavenging the old airfield and the second we saw them crest the hill on the far side of the field we would all race to meet them. Then we would all go inside, start dinner if we had it, Dad would tell me about the day’s haul.” She sighed, “It was... nice. I had a good childhood for a tribal.”
“What do you mean by tribal?” I asked, the bemused smile I had from Grape’s anecdote fading.
“It’s what the Rangers refer to the primitive ponies that inhabit most of the Wasteland.”
“Bit derogatory,” I commented. “I guess we called some of the people down in the south that. But they were actually tribals, groups of earth ponies and other creatures that lived in little bands.”
“That sounds like most wastelanders,” Grape said. ”Aside from the Rangers, Enclave, and maybe Tenpony; most ponies just live with their families or in little villages. I was like six before I met a pony I wasn’t related to.”
“How’s a ‘tribal’ like you get into the Tin Can Brigade?” I asked, making little quotes with my wings.
“I…” Grape’s voice caught a little before she was able to go on. “When I was about the filly’s age”--she nodded to Star, safely slung over my back--“a band of raiders attacked my home, they killed my parents and uncle, beat and...”--she shivered--“abused my aunt and older sisters, then they sold us off. I had learned a lot about tech from my father, so I was pretty valuable as a slave. I got passed from job to job until I wound up in Fillydelphia, working for Red Eye.
“We were out salvaging equipment from an old factory when the Steel Rangers attacked us. They killed the slavers and took all of the tech they could get their hooves on. I guess I was of some value to one of the scribes because they took me too, put me to work. I had to grind my way from seized contraband, to an assistant, to Recruit, and finally Initiate. Then the civil war started in the Rangers and I got some rapid promotions.”
“Mmm,” I hummed in understanding, seeing the mare in a new light. You might have actually been worth saving.
Any attempt to respond was cut off however, as a familiarly beautiful but haunting sound fluttered across my hearing. It was nothing more than a soft caress to my ears, a sound like a sword blade being drawn across the lip of a crystal glass.
It made me want to pull my skin off and scream.
“Fuck,” I hissed.
“What the hell is that?” Grape said, wisely lowering her voice.
“Crystal ghouls. Stick close.”
I brought up my carbine. I could see a curve in the track ahead with my augmented eye. As we crept further toward the corner, the light from Grape’s Pipbuck cast over the creature making the noise. I brought put my carbine’s reticle over it’s head and unleashed a suppressed burst. The ghoul’s head cracked and splintered, an eye popped and the right side of it’s jaw shattered.
It stumbled from the hits but didn’t go down as it whipped its head around and tried to scream, mercury-like icor running out its mouth drowning out its voice. The monster lashed out with its hooves at the space around it, trying to retaliate. When it turned its now gaping maw toward me, I pumped another burst directly down its throat. It staggered for a moment, what looked like pureed guts running out of its mouth, before collapsing on the ground.
I didn’t even have a moment to celebrate the kill before the old concrete tunnels rumbled with the calls of ghouls. I couldn’t get a grasp at how many, their sounds echo and blurred into one primal, hateful rhapsody. Once again, some basic part of me froze in terror like I was a rookie up against her first manticore again.
Grape grabbed onto my side in terror. I instantly darted to the side of the tunnel and pressed us up against the wall. “Get that light out!” I snapped at her, my voice quiet but intense. She quickly fumbled with her Pipbuck before we were plunged into dark.
The tension burned onto my skin as my blood pounded in my ears. Several seconds passed before another three ghouls ran around the corner. Neither Grape nor I let out so much as a breath as they came within spitting distance of us. They circled around their fallen own before taking off past us and down the tunnel, screaming all the way.
Grape and I remained frozen against the wall, her breath shallow and rapid, body shaking from the cold and stress. I inhaled deeply and exhaled slowly, holding still and straining my ears to pick up the monsters’ hoof-falls over their wailing. After a short but nerve-fraying wait, the screaming faded back to hissing.
Grape let out a quiet squeaking scream before she burst out panting. “F-fuck this place. Fuck this place. Fuck this place. Fuck this place.”
“Shhh.”
“Oooohhh, Goddesses above,” she mewled, “take me now, Tartarus's deepest deaths can’t be worse than this hell.”
“Calm down.”
“That sound…” She shuddered violently. “Coming here was a mistake, it was a terrible mistake. I should have never followed the Rangers up here. Never followed you down here, this place, these things-”
“Shut up,” I hissed dangerously. “You are not going to turn into a melodramatic bitch on me at the first sign of danger. These things are scary and dangerous if they get their hooves on you but they’re pretty much blind and about as intelligent as a box of rocks.”
“But they’re everywhere,” she moaned despairingly. “We should turn back, this isn’t worth it.” The green mare shifted to look behind us and I felt a shiver pass through her body. “What is that?”
I turned too. Behind us, far up the tunnel, there was a faint greenish-blue glow that seemed to mess with my cybernetic eye. Where the fuck was that thing hiding? We had been surrounded and I hadn’t even noticed. I specifically didn’t want to get caught up in anything down here, damn it!
”We can’t turn around. Those glowing ones attract other ghouls like moths to a flame.” Even now I could see the shapes of other ghouls drifting around in front of the glowing one.
“We’re fucked, we’re gonna die down here...”
“No, we’re not.”
“What? We’re just going to wander through here in the dark and hope they don’t attack us?” she growled. “I think I would rather freeze to death or get gunned down by synths over being mauled to death in this pitch-black hellhole.”
“Shut up,” I snapped again. “You’re not going to die down here. As long as we keep the noise down we’re going to be fine, that seems to be what triggers them. I’ve got night vision in my augment so I can guide us through the dark. You just need to stick close and be quiet.”
Grape gazed at the darkness, jerking between behind us, in front of us, and me. “Keep breathing normally, don’t say anything, and don’t freak out about the tail,” I told her, placing my prehensile length around her neck gently. “I’ll get you through this.” I-I’ve been through worse… This’ll be hard, not impossible. Not for me.
Grape shuddered and gulped.
Thanks for the confidence, bitch.
With Grape in tow, I proceeded through the darkness. It was hardly a few meters before we passed another ghoul. The specter was just standing there in the middle of the tunnel, hissing as it stared into the darkness.
Celestia above, I hate that fucking hissing. It's bad enough they’re fucking abominations that are a pain to kill, they needed an ambiance that makes my skin crawl.
I walked lightly as we skirted around the ghoul, still hugging the wall. Passing it only proved to be the first, admittedly easy, triumph in a long and arduous battle.
That encounter defined the next several hundred meters. Most of the ghouls were lurking around the middle of the tunnel after getting stirred up, so we hugged the wall. While my tactic proved effective and it seemed like we might make it through, the idea that I was repeating my mistakes again bubbled to the top of my conscious.
No repeat of last time, no repeat of last time, no repeat of last time. Slip through, don’t irritate them. I’ve beat dragons and hydras; these stupid ghouls are not making a snack out of me. We’re getting through this.
As a sniper, I had experienced more than a few encounters that boiled down to a game of sneaking and hoping “please, no one look at me.” In retrospect, it was an honestly embarrassing number of times for a supposed master of stealth and evasion. This, however, meandering through the dark among a group of creatures that would tear me limb from limb if they sensed me? It would have been hilarious if there was a single ounce of mirth left in my frayed nerves and crawling skin.
We seemed to have wandered into the midst of a very large horde; at least a few hundred ghouls were gathered along the couple hundred meters of track. I had to wonder why they were all congregated in this particular length, or indeed why there were so many zombies in the metro tunnels in general...
There was only so much space in the Stables and nothing but the frozen wastes otherwise. Most of the Empire’s population probably wound up down here. I stopped and looked at a cluster of three ghouls, this time seeing a pair of parents and their child instead of monsters. Poor bastards…
I shoved the idea out of my head and pressed onward, ever deeper into the sea of ghouls.
Things were going stunningly smooth, I had almost started to think we would get away scot-free until I heard a scuff of hooves behind me and thud followed by the soft “oof” of a falling green mare. Instantly my imaginary family of ghouls hissed loudly and started stumbling toward us.
I snapped around and grabbed Grape by the scruff of her barding, yanking her up and forward, feeling her front hooves wrap around my chest as she squeaked. Her face buried itself in my neck and I could feel her face was wet. I darted around the side of the trio stumbling toward us and once again pressed Grape up against the wall and down to the floor. Cuddling close and out of the way of any of the ghouls’ wondering, I put my mouth right next to the other mare’s ear and spoke, barely louder than a breath. “Come on, you’re doing great. Don’t give up on me now.”
She tried to speak but could only gasp and hyperventilate, I placed a hoof over her mouth to muffle her as I looked into my PIP’s files. I brought up my plans and schematics for the city and started looking for a way out of this damned tunnel. Even if I could get through this, Grape was on her last legs. I couldn’t really blame her; being lead around through pitch black while your ears were molested by the ghouls’ calls had to be rough.
Way out, way out, way out… A station? No. Any access tunnels or even a maintenance room to hide in? No. Anything other than more monster-infested fucking tunnel? No, we are under a fucking underdeveloped area the metro ran beneath without any stops. Fucking great.
Way out, way out,a way out! Probably not more than another hundred meters ahead, there was an overpass of sorts. The metro tracks crossed paths with an underground freight train track, the latter going over the former. If I was reading the schematic right, there was a ramp that lead from these tracks up to the freight line, which was heading upward and emerged onto the surface not too far away.
Great, just a little further and we should be out of this horde, then it’s a short burst to the surface.
“I’ve got us a way out,” I whispered to Grape, “I just need you to stand and follow me a little further, and we’ll be out of here.”
The mare let out a choked sob, but nodded and started to stand up. I wrapped a wing around her and hugged her to my side, figuring it would be more supportive for the mare than dragging her around by my tail.
Side by side, the two of us started forward again, edging around the little clusters of ghouls. A ramp leading up took form on the far side of the tunnel in the green and black of my vision, right where the plans said it was. I stopped and looked up the ramp, frowning deeply; there were a half dozen ghouls standing on the ramp and not enough space to sneak past them. Shooting them passed my mind for a moment, but my carbine had proved pretty ineffective against the monsters. Blunt force seemed to be the best against the creatures, which would mean me getting in close to them.
“Grape,” I breathed in her ear, “I’m going to need you to take Star. I can’t fight with her on my back.”
“S-sure,” she said, a scared waver in her voice.
I sat down, moved Star’s bundle off of my back, up, and over my head. I was slipping the sling over Grape’s head when I heard a groan and froze up. Who the fuck was that? Grape looked confused and scared, her eyes darting around the pitch-black trying to find anything. It sure as hell wasn’t a ghoul, the groan seemed to piss them off. A few of them had started hissing and shuffling in our direction.
I looked at the bundle just as there was another groan and a rustle of fabric. “Mom…” came a faint voice. The ghouls instantly went from hissing to screaming, that apocalyptic cacophony once again echoing through the whole tunnel.
FUCK! Bad timing, Star!
I grabbed Grape by the collar and tried to talk over the ghouls into her ear. “Turn on your light and follow me. Whatever you do, don’t stop.” I shoved Grape forward, she stumbled for a step as she fumbled with her Pipbuck before looking up expectantly for me. I raced ahead, going up the ramp and relying on my fighting instinct to guide me.
I made a beeline for the first of eight ghouls on the ramp. I lowered my head and brought my wings up into a pyramid around the back of my neck, much like a snowplow’s prow, preparing myself for the impact.
And what an impact it was. My lowered head fortunately avoided most of the direct collision but I felt my whole skeleton shudder and heard the ghoul’s shoulder shatter as my wings drove into it. I felt its icy blood spill across my back as it went arcing up into the air rather dramatically. The monster flew over the edge of the ramp and landed in a heap below, unmoving.
One down. I looked forward again. Seven to go.
I hadn’t lost too much momentum with my first strike but my balance was off and direction wrong for the next ghoul off to my left. Simply running past it and hoping Grape could dodge it occured to me, but I dropped that idea as soon as I thought of it. Instead, I threw my head to the left and let it drag my body toward the monster. I turned my left shoulder into it and moved my wing up to slice into it.
Once again, I was treated to the sound of shattering crystal as I slammed into the ghoul and smashed it up against the wall. I tried to redirect my energy a bit so I wouldn’t hit the wall too hard, but my head still smacked into the rough concrete and my breath was knocked out of me as I felt my collarbone snap under the strain.
The ghoul got the worse end of the exchange, though. I must have crushed every bone in its chest because it fell to the ground in more of a puddle with legs than a heap, shiny icor running out if its mouth. It certainly wasn’t getting back up.
Two, six.
I turned to the next one that was pretty much directly in front of me, making to charge toward me. I had lost my momentum and was moving forward at a wavering trot, so another ramming attack wasn’t going to happen. However, the barfighter in me saw the perfect solution. As we closed on each other, I simply lifted my right hoof up, shifted my weight back a bit, and then brought it forward and brought my hoof down in a classic jackhammer.
I could feel the shock through my stump as the hit connected. The ghoul’s intimidating charge instantly ended as it fell to the ground like a sack of potatoes, a divot in its skull. I felt myself smirk a little at the almost comical display before looking at the remaining ghouls.
Three down, five to go. Come at me, fuckers.
One of them instantly obliged me, letting out one of those ear-numbing screams as it charged me, gaping maw first. I swiped my right hoof across its face, knocking it to my right. Shifting my weight back, I then lifted my other hoof off the ground and brought it crashing down on the thing’s head in a brutal left hook. It staggered from that and I pressed forward, bodyslaming the creature with my left shoulder and wing. That put the ghoul on the edge of the ramp, one of its rear hooves not even finding concrete to rest on. I gave it a simple shove to the chest and it went tumbling off the edge.
Four for four.
I started turning to face the rest, but one was already running up to me. It jumped onto my back and brought a pair of hooves down on my back haunch with a meatly slap that staggered me a little bit. I moved to my right to put some space between us and pushed against the ghoul with a my left wing. Once I had a little gap, I swung my tail around, using it to push the ghoul away from me and into the perfect position for a buck, and buck I did. It might have been enough to make an Apple gawk and was certainly too much for the ghoul. My hooves struck it square in the chest and sent the abomination flying, hitting the ground like a bag of crushed gravel.
Only three left.
But those three had also been able to close in on me. I launched my left rear hoof at one, shoving him back a little as I tried to turn around and address another coming after my head. I wasn’t fast enough though, and the bastard was able to land a piledriver on me, both front hooves coming down on the crown of my head. I reeled under the strike, my vision blurring a little bit. I took a few steps back to avoid another downward swipe from the ghoul and then pressed forward again, once more body-slamming my foe away.
My offensive was spoiled by a flank, however. Just as I was about to launch a series of jabs on the ghoul, the third one struck me in the side, audibly snapping a rib. I let out a wheezing gasp and staggered sideways before scrambling back. I backed off and bumped right into Grape Vine.
Grape bounced off of me, falling onto her rump and panting. I would have yelled at her if I could fill my lungs properly and if I actually knew what to scold her about. She had followed my directions and was now waiting for me to pull the next part of the plan out of my ass.
Right, another asspull.
I surged back forward, wrapped my forehooves around the neck of the second ghoul and twisted violently. The creature apparently wasn’t expecting me to go on the offensive again because it only stood there as I wrenched it over. I rolled my weight through and around, dragging the ghoul with me. The maneuver would usually result in the opponent getting their head slammed into the ground at my side, but in this situation there was nothing next to me so instead the ghoul was thrown over myself and off the side of the ramp. I looked over at the other two monsters from my on my back. They were standing side by side, torn between attacking Grape or me.
I used my tail to flick my lower half around and lined up my rear hooves. The two ghouls were standing about in-line with me, one next to the other. It was a nearly perfect shot to be honest.
“Grape, keep running!” I wheezed as I let my rear hooves fly.
The kick had nowhere near as much force as my buck had but it was still enough to send the nearest ghoul into the other one. It was certainly enough to give Grape a gap to escape though. She threw her head forward into a sprint past me and toward the top of the ramp. I rolled onto my belly and jumped up to follow.
But not before one of the ghouls got a last, lucky shot in on me, a downward swipe into my rump that nearly crippled me. I felt the hoof land right between my hip bone and the top of my femur; I could have sworn I felt my hip joint pull apart a little bit, even if the actuator there was incapable of such a thing. Matterless of what actually happened, my whole back end locked up as pain raced up my spine and blacked out my vision.
I stumbled and nearly fell, my rear end refusing to do what I told it. When my robotics tried to act on their own, I was blinded by the haze of pain again. I felt the ghoul that had hit me land on my back, and it took everything in me to buck it off without throwing up from the pain. Then I just ran the best I could, limping awkwardly as I tried to keep my pained leg off the ground and as immobile as possible.
I still couldn’t manage more than a gimpy trot. My head started to pound with the pulses of pain and my vision blurred as I tried to follow the golden glow of Grape’s Pipbuck up the ramp and onto twin railroad tracks. The hissing seemed to diminish as I ran; whether that was because the ghouls weren’t following me up the ramp or because my hearing was fading from sensory overload, I couldn’t tell.
I looked up the tracks and saw Grape looking back at me. “Run!” I snarled at her, even something as simple as yelling making me stagger. Or maybe I’m just that off-balance. “I-I’m right behind you.”
She turned her body back around and looked like she was going to take off. But her eyes never left me and she quickly doubled back on herself, returning to me. Celestia damn you. I scowled at her, but Grape was either oblivious or uncaring of my attempt to visually berate her. She ran up to my left side and put herself under my wing, trying her best to push me upright and help lift my injured leg off of the ground.
“You’re being a damn fool,” I said to her. The mere act of talking made me feel like vomiting.
“I’m just following the fool,” she shot back.
I smirked, “But who is the bigger fool then?” I giggled.
The fuck am I giggling for? I didn’t need to start getting stupid from my brain trying to suppress pain.
“What the fuck did that ghoul do to you?” Grape asked, shooting me a concerned look.
I opened my mouth to say something but wound up retching, swaying side to side against Grape.
“Luna, damn it all,” she swore. “Please, Ms. Angry-Black-Cyber-Mare, I can’t have you dropping on me, I don’t think I can carry you.”
No, no you couldn’t. Just the weight of Star was straining her, and she was already panting just from running up the ramp and a bit of track.
I was far worse, though. Every muscle in my body was tightening up, my stomach felt like it was doing cartwheels, and breathing was getting hard. Worse yet, pain was starting to fade from my mind. Instead a fuzzy haze was over taking my senses, making me feel dizzy and hollow.
“S… s-stop.” I had to gasp the single word out.
Grape had no hesitation coming to a halt instantly. I dropped to my knees, gasping and heaving. Running with my bum leg had been a bad idea. The expanding of my ribs from breathing was excruciating, and it was something that was very problematic since I had run out of breath.
My vision fully blanked out as I wheezed and violently dry heaved. Apparently my brain deduced the lack of oxygen and pain as poisoning, which left my body once again trying to empty a synthetic stomach that wasn’t going to give up anything. I got locked in a sort of feedback loop: the brain trying to make the body do something, the body responding with pain, the cybernetics keeping it from producing results, the brain getting confused and trying to make the body do something to fix its confusion...
I took a shuddering breath and then clamped my jaw down on my fetlock. The motion once again helped me to ground myself and calm my berserk body down, but it wasn’t enough. I could feel the cycle of sickness straining against my attempts to quell it. I was at a distinct disadvantage against my body, the pain and lack of oxygen impairing my mind as it drove the cycle on. I could just as easily pass out at this rate; my vision was already blacked out.
Just then, I felt a prick at my neck and the cold, numbing sensation of something running into my bloodstream. Near instantly, my muscles loosened, my nerves calmed, and in an instant I wrestled my fit to the ground. As I stood back up though, I could tell not everything had been fixed in an instant. An odd fuzzy numbing sensation settled upon me, and I really didn’t like it.
Standing up gave me a weird floating sensation, like I had fluttered into a hover above the ground without using my wings. I looked down on a green mare as she cast aside an emptied syringe. I felt nothing really, like I was in a kind of floating haze; separated from the weird hybrid of mangled mare and robot. I’m nothing but mist on the wind, I mused.
SLAP!
“Stop staring off at nothing like that, damn it!” Grape’s voice was equal parts scared and demanding as she knocked me back to the moment.
I looked at her for a moment before I blinked. Ghouls… It didn’t sound like they were following us too closely but there was still the sound of their angry hissing in my ears. Grape… was right in front of me, helping me. Star… she was on Grape’s back right now, and might be waking up.
I can’t wait to say “hi”. I miss Starprancer, it feels like it’s been forever since I last heard her.
I blinked again. Objective One: get away from synths. Probably by going through the ghouls, use of force probably necessary. Objective Two: find somewhere to get Star thinking right again. Might have to bump that one down the list depending on how the situation develops. Objective Three: Find a secure place to hide out from the synths while the storm blows over. Should be east of Amethyst Avenue, preferably with heat and access to good scavenging. Objective Four: find alcohol (consumable, preferably bourbon) and have a good sob.
We had escaped the synths, now we needed to get away from the ghouls. Star seemed to be coming around on her own. I had found the perfect place to hide out in but now we needed another one. I could really go for a drink and a sob...
It’s been a really fucking rough couple of days.
I felt hooves on my shoulders and looked up. Grape had tears running down her face as she all but screamed at me, her voice echoing around hollowly in my head. She probably wanted to get going; we needed to do that right now.
I blinked a third time.
The wail of the ghouls tore through my ears and I jerked my head back, seeing a couple of the creatures idly wondering up the ramp. I instantly turned, catching Grape under my wing and holding her to my side as we started running off again, headed toward the surface at top speed.
“Are you okay?” Grape asked me as she bounced against my side.
I just shot her a sideways glance. Not the time.
That proved to be enough, because she clammed up and returned her focus to keeping pace with me.
The tunnel was pitch-dark and I had turned off my nightvision, leaving Grape’s light as our only guide. The path seemed beautifully empty though, the amber glow only falling across steel track and aged concrete. The sounds of the ghouls was still ominously present, but was diminishing as we put more space between them and us.
Eventually, I decided we had gotten enough distance between us and the ghouls for me to take Star back from Grape. The mare was panting and was starting to stagger under the added weight. Once I had the filly’s sling settled back around my shoulders, I set off with a much less encumbered Grape at a slower but still hurried pace.
We continued along the track and eventually started to encounter rubble. Scattered chunks of concrete and dirt from a cave-in were scattered across a path that seemed constrict at an alarming rate. However, there was also something that filled me with hope: the howl of wind. The screaming of the ghouls seemed to have fallen off behind us in the distance, replaced instead with the sound of air racing past some opening up ahead. In comparison to the terrifyingly rapturous screaming that had been echoing in our heads, the wind was glorious, a single constant note of hope for us to align our shaken consciousnesses on.
I looked around at the rubble, feeling a cool gust of air across my bare scalp. “Grape, turn your lamp off.”
“Um, okay,” she responded, the amber of her Pipbuck vanishing and darkness rushing in around us. However, it was not the absolute darkness that we had experienced in the metro tunnels. Ahead of us, we could make out pools of soft white light among the chunks of shattered concrete and debris.
I choked back a laugh of relief and felt Grape’s whole body shudder with a sigh beside me. We both surged forward, and when we came to the first pool of light we both looked up through a crack in the ceiling. A massive smile broke across my face as I saw a crescent moon framed behind several wispy clouds far above us.
I quickly moved on from the first pool of light and further into the thickening field of rubble. Somewhere in here there had to be a hole or passage we could take to the surface. There has to be.
Soon, we lost the tracks and concrete floor under the rubble, reaching the point where the tunnel had nearly completely caved in. The relative warmth of the tunnels was gone, replaced with the biting cold of the surface as the wind ripped past us through the cracks and gaps.
That airflow became my guide, and I simply kept following the gusts of wind until it eventually lead to fruition. A passage in the rubble that I had taken finally emerged out into the open air. I could only stand mesmerized, barely aware as Grape scrambling out and stood next to me. The pair of us simply stared at the moon, stars, and clouds as the wind bit at our faces.
The moon hadn’t looked this glorious since, well, last night when I had seen it for the first time in two centuries. It looked glorious beyond description and the feeling of relief and happiness that the sight filled me with was once again indescribable.
With our greatest lows come our highest highs, I guess.
My small revelry in the moonlight was once again cut short by the crack of gunfire ripping through the wind’s howl. I instantly hit the ground, Grape close behind me. Looking ahead, I saw that we were on the edge of a large railway yard. Row upon row of derelict train cars sat on a massive expanse of rails in front of us.
It had been a single shot. A very large caliber rifle, probably an anti-material rifle of some sort. Range would be hard to tell in an urban environment where the sound would be bouncing off of buildings.
I did a quick check behind us to make sure the gunfire wasn’t coming from the south. “Stick close, Grape,” I hissed as I rushed forward and took cover behind a boxcar. Grape quickly pressed herself in behind me.
I held still and listened. After a moment, I heard the chatter of an assault rifle in the distance before the big rifle sounded out again, silencing the assault rifle. I listened to the echo as it bounced around the train yard.
I edged over to the side of the car to take a look up the train yard to the north. A slow scan of the horizon revealed that there was a water tower to the northwest overlooking the train yard. To the direct east there was a two story building overlooking the space. Aside from them, none of the surrounding buildings rose above the tops of the cars. Part of me doubted a sniper would be so brazen as to set up on the water tower, since it was the most obvious place available, but that thought wasn’t even allowed to get all the way through my mind before I saw a flash of light from the tower as another clap echoed across the trainyard.
Definitely an anti-material rifle. Shooting toward the northeast? I wonder what the fuck’s over there? Regardless, the sniper was on the water tower’s top, around the far side where I couldn’t get a good look at him. Of course, that also meant that he couldn’t get a good look at me.
I backed away from the edge of the train car and turned around, looking toward the eastern side of the yard and the two-story building. It looked like some sort of administrative building, probably the control center for the yard. A path to it would be easily guarded from the sniper by the cars scattered across their lines and the building looked pretty sturdy and wind resistant. There was likely also a decent angle on the water tower shooter from there.
“Come on, Grape,” I said before starting off.
I walked around the ends of a few train cars before ducking under a few more. It was a relatively short trot to the edge of the switchyard, and the rail cars offered cover pretty much all the way to the door of the building. A simple application of my cyberpony master key had the door off its hinges and us safely inside.
“Watch the door,” I told Grape.
“The doorway, at least?” she shot back.
I smiled at the quip as I hefted Star off my back and onto the floor. The smile grew a little when I heard Star groan and shift around, protesting her new location on the smooth concrete. “I’ll check this place out real quick.”
Grape nodded affirmatively before I started off. The building did indeed seem to be some sort of administrative office for the railyard, made up mostly of offices and a lounge, with a door at the back leading to a parking lot surrounded by warehouses. The second floor of the building had a decidedly different tone from the sterile offices below. The first few rooms I came across were for sleeping, probably so night staffers and engineers getting in on late trains had somewhere to rest. Most of the floor, however, was dedicated to a control room for the yard that was dominated by a large switchboard. This was what controlled the countless railroad points that could transfer cars between the dozens of lines before leading them out of the yard.
I called Grape up and the mare quickly arrived with Star slung over her shoulder.
“So what’s the plan?” she asked as she took in the control room on her way to one of the bunk rooms I had scoped out. She hefted Star off her shoulder and looked at me from across the small room.
“You are going to get some rest,” I commanded, taking the sleeping bundle from Grape. “You could use it.” I put Star on the bottom bunk and pulled the blanket off her, stroking the filly’s mane. “I’ll stay up and keep an eye on Star. Hopefully she’ll be awake in a few hours; I don’t want to move before she’s back on her hooves.”
“What about that synth with the anti-machine rifle?” Grape asked.
“You think it’s a synth?”
“Who else would it be?” the mare scoffed. “Starswirl the Bearded?”
“It might be one of the other Windigoes,” I said.
The mare turned a few shades whiter. “You mean another one of those cyberponies like you?” She gulped, “Why do you think one of them would have stuck around?”
“Why do they do anything else? They’re a bunch of crazy wackjobs,” I spat. “I think you’re right with the synth thing, though.”
“So what are we going to do? Just leave it and hope whatever it was shooting at keeps it occupied?”
“Well, I’ll leave it alone for now.” I sat down and shifted my rifle’s case off of my back. “But the sun’ll be up in a few hours, it’ll be on my back and in his eyes... Once we have him taken out we should be free to move through the yard and surrounding area without too many problems.”
“Right…”
I get you through that tunnel and you’re going to doubt my ability to take down some robot with a big gun? Thanks, Grape. I rolled my eyes and settled into my guard spot looking out a window into the yard as Grape climbed into the top bunk.