Ch9: The Black Champion and the White Menace
It was only just starting to occur to me that I was maybe letting the relationship with the alicorns move to fast. We had agreed rather quickly to join forces, more to our advantage than the alicorns’, but I hadn’t been interested in looking a gift horse in the mouth. I didn’t have any reason to contradict Starprancer’s offer and to use Laurel logic: neither of us had tried to shoot each other on sight so that meant we were friends. The enemy of my enemy and whatnot.
Celestia above, I’m a dumbass. Life wasn’t that easy.
I had my suspicions of what these ponies were from the first time I heard of them. The appearance of the Steel Ranger armor had given the stagnating arms race a second wind. Powered flight armor, combat drugs, magical energy weapons, the leaps and bounds tech took forward meant that soon the fleshy bit holding the gun was the weak link. Robots were one answer but their processors never measured up to an organic brain. Super soldiers were going to be the way of the future and there had been three main competitors in that arena: the Cyberbolt program, the Zebra’s Commission of Alchemical and Psychical Advancement, and the Ministry of Magic.
Once again, Grape’s whispered warning passed through my mind. “You don’t get it, we have to get out of here. These are the Prophet’s Disciples, alicorns are psychotic monsters in the best cases but these are the worst of the worst. They’re a bunch of wack-job hyper-supremacists lead by a mare who thinks she’s the Goddess’s next form and is trying to rebirth Unity and wipe out the rest of equinity. They’ll kill us, quickly if we’re lucky, the filly probably won’t be so lucky.”
Grape was hardly what I would call a reliable source, but she knew more about alicorns than I did and probably more than Star. Plus, the alicorns were kinda creepy up close and personal. Even if there were subtle physical differences in size, slight features, and particular hue of their coats to tell them apart, they looked like clones of each other. The same face with the same eye shape, mouth, ears, and nose on the same body in one of three colors.
Then there was the matter of cutie marks. Bubblegum, Primrose, and Lourd all had normal marks, nothing too amazing. But then Laurel and Aegis were blank flanks! Worse yet, Saint, now that I thought back to her, only had a cutie mark on her right flank. North and South, the “twins” in the group, shared their set of marks, North having a mark on her right flank while South had one on her left. I had never put a lot of stock in cutie marks, but now that I had noticed, I couldn’t get over the dreadful anxiety those inconsistencies put in me.
And finally, there was our current situation. Star was back at the train with the main group, Grape and I had been sent along with these six intended to head off Wintermail and had now been seperated ourselves.
A real fucking dumbass. I felt the mare in my head sigh loudly and shake her head in disdain.
It’s not all a mess at least.
The quarry the alicorns had been talking about was sandwiched between the railyard and a large road that seemed to cut diagonally across the industrial area, going from central Amor to the Sapphire District in the North. I was perched atop a large mound of gravel overlooking the thoroughfare with Aegis, Lourd, and North. There was a storm covert going under the road behind us and Grape was camped out with Clover and South on the far side of the road, looking up over the edge of the ditch. Bubblegum, the only one in the group who seemed to have an invisibility spell and an understanding of what wings were used for, had flown off to scout out the enemies’ movements.
The current positioning was clever, my group was elevated and had good command over the entire area. The other would cover our right flank and establish a crossfire if the synths just pushed up the road. It was a strong defensive formation that gave both groups covered routes of retreat, it might just be enough to make an eight on who-knows-how-many fight work out in our favor.
I’m in a good position and the alicorns haven’t given me any reason to think poor of them, but…
I glanced over at Aegis laying next to me on her back, red eyes soaking in the lazy patterns of clouds overhead.
I could probably take her before she even knew what happened. Lourd was behind us, taking a power nap, and I was convinced North and South were having some sort of twin sync, telepathic discussion. They were looking directly at each other, tilting, shaking, and nodding their heads like they were chatting face to face.
Slash Aegis’s neck with a wing, buck Lourd in the head at the base of her horn. I'd be on top of North before she or the others knew what they were doing. From there I’d…
I’d get Grape and Star taken hostage. Probably get minced, blasted into tiny pieces, or turned to ash myself. Piss of the only friendly ponies I’ve managed to meet out there. I sighed out loud as the plan fell apart just as quickly as it had formed.
“What’s the matter?” Aegis asked, looking over at me. I would have thought a massive mare with red eyes would look scary, but she looked nice. Her eyes shimmered like candle flames; a pair of warm, soft, and mellow dancers beaconing me to relax.
“Nothing,” I answered.
“Do we make you uncomfortable?”
I sighed. “Yes.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.” She blinked and looked back up at the sky. “We’re a lot to take in. To be honest, though, I don’t quite know what to think of you either. Your eyes are weird how one’s normal and the other’s not. And your wings and tail. Then there's just the way you look as a pony too, it’s weird seeing a pegasus mare with a build like yours and you have that cold, scary look on your face.” I creased my brow at her as she smiled. “Guess, I know why regular ponies don’t get along with us, either. If they feel like this.”
“I’m sorry?”
“It’s fine, there’s a lot of things we can’t change about ourselves. At least you work past it. Ever since we left the Followers, we haven’t stumbled across anypony other than the Overmare willing to give us a chance.”
Wait, Star was Nebula Skater’s daughter and Nebula was the pony who gave the alicorns a chance at peace…
“So you got chased up here by other ponies?” I asked.
“Pretty much, we were having trouble finding somewhere to live where the NCR wouldn’t harass us. We heard the pegasi had found refuge in Diamond City, but they weren’t as willing to help us out. But, we managed to find our way west to here though. It’s been… Wow, nearly a year- feels like just yesterday we were flying in.” The green chuckled quietly. “Guess time flies when you’re starving and freezing to death.”
“We’ve ‘ardly been lacking for food,” intoned Lourd in her elegant accent. Eyes still closed as she continued to appear napping. “You’re just an exceptionally picky eater.”
“Excuse me for not being into hundred year old junk food.”
“Don't blame it on the food, you just don't like eating, silly goose.”
Aegis growled and put her hooves on her head. “Eating is weird and I don't like it!”
Lourd just shook her head and tut-tutted.
“What kind of pony doesn't like eating?” I asked.
Aegis groaned and pressed the back of her head into the ground. The small smile on Lourd’s face disappeared as her eyes finally opened, settling on me.
“We alicorns used to sustain ourselves off of magical radiation, almost like a plant uses the sun,” Lourd elaborated. “We still can to a degree, but it’s much harder. Radiation affects us mentally as well as physically. It’s like a drug, I guess. Soaking in radiation is probably the most pleasant thing most of us have ever experienced. Bubblegum has equated it to using Dash but better a million times over. It relaxes, regenerates, heals, strengthens, empowers; it’s rapturously blissful.”
“‘Bliss,’” I intoned.
“Yes. We only turn to it in desperation at this point. The best of us are fragile when it comes to the mind. Addiction, dependency, and withdrawal have killed just as many of us as any hunters or other monsters.”
The mare sighed and one of her eyes glazed over with a tear. A swallow and blink, and the pleasant smile was back on her face
“As a result, we eat to maintain our energy instead. The normalcy of it also seems to help some of us keep our sanity.” The green looked over teasingly at Aegis. “But others enjoy being little flowers who only want to live off the sun.”
“I’m the special-est flower,” she mumbled, not looking away from the clouds.
“Such a flamboyant disregard for how sad it makes me when you don’t eat what I prepare,” the Prench mare lamented.
Aegis grimaced slightly but remained silent as Lourd went on, turning back to me. “I was the private chef of the Prench Ambassador to Equestria long ago, before the end and the Goddess. I so miss those days of extravagant feasts and broadening my horizons. Equestrian cuisine was so simple and hardy, yet I couldn’t help being enraptured by the elegance of much of it. I guess after spending so much time studying the most complex recipes in the world, it was nice to return to simpler tastes. Of course, Canterlot was such a hub of culture and art that I was never waiting for other styles either.”
I chuckled. “About how I remember it, but I was never big on the high-class food scene though. Growing up with five other siblings at the table meant you ate quickly or you didn’t eat at all. Joining the Marines kinda just hammered that in.”
“You truly have a disposition of a proper soldier then,” Lourd commented. “I remember dating an Equestrian officer. I would make him all kinds of things and he would simply scarf them down, offer up some generic comment on how good it was, then move on to trying to mount me.
“He was such a boar, but mercy was he a handsome boar.” She rolled her eyes, but still seemed caught up in the nostalgia of the memory as she fanned herself with a hoof.
She’s fanning herself with a hoof when she could be using a wing…
“I wasn’t so quick to move on to mounting the nearest mare, sweetheart,” I chuckled, “ and the nearest stallion wasn’t usually up to the task of mounting me. Poor fool that thought that was a good idea.”
“You were not some sex crazed animal half the time? Well, I must retract my comment, most un-soldier-like of you.” Lourd turned up her nose but couldn’t help the smile spread across her face.
“I’ll have you know that I still hold the drinking records of the Shadowbolts, the entirety of the Sixth Army and Fifteenth Marines, the Thirty-Seventh Ranger Battalion,and the Second Army’s Officer Corps,” I jabbed back. “I didn’t need to be whoring around to maintain prestige.”
“So, you are a pre-war mare then?” Aegis asked from above, looking back with queer interest.
“Yeah.”
“I have to say, you look ravishing for two hundred years old but I think some of the work you’ve had done is showing through,” Lourd teased again, chuckling at her own joke.
I wasn’t as entertained at the jab at my cybernetics, but I swallowed and put on a little smirk.
Aegis wasn’t enthused about the joke either, continuing to look back at me with the same queer curiosity. “How did you make it this far? You weren’t secretly running the Stable were you?”
“No, I’ve been in cryostasis for a long time and just gotten woken up recently.”
“Really?” The mare seemed to get a glimmer in her eye. “You’re taking this all really well.”
“I don’t think I am, but I’m still on my hooves I guess,” I shrugged.
Aegis gave me an odd kind of smile. “That’s all most of us can do, isn’t it?”
I blinked at her before returning the smile. “I guess it is.”
The alicorns were weird creatures with a dubious past, weapons built to fight a war that was waged no more. But they also seemed to struggle to find clothing in their massive size, resorting to modifying everything themselves. They wore a pair of socks, boots, scarfs, and large tarps fashioned into cloaks with assorted bags and webbing holding gear and loot. They all had a series of three rings pierced in the front edge of their left ears, the only group symbol they seemed to bear. They bickered and argued among each other like a large dysfunctional family and there seemed to be a level of care extending to every single member of their group.
I like alicorns.
“If you were a soldier,” Lourd mused behind me, “and one to know their way around a sniper rifle, and especially one that old, I imagine you saw more than your fair share of the war. The stories I heard come back with veterans, I guess it shouldn’t be too surprising that you’re… rolling with the punches.”
“You fought in the Great War?” Aegis asked perking up again.
“More than that,” Lourd asserted, giving me a more scrutinizing glare. “Your face doesn’t bely your age, little ebony doll, but I feel that rifle does, as does your disposition. You were probably a seasoned veteran by the time of Littlehorn. A mare old enough to know and remember evils far greater than zebras and greed.”
The jovial air evaporated and I mirrored the mare’s appraising look. “I thought you were a chef not some sort of shrink.”
She chuckled, “The master chef I studied under at home always said the key to the perfect dish was understanding who you were making it for and what they would need when they sat down at the table.”
I snickered. “And what does your divine food intuition say I need if I sat at your table?”
“A hug,” she answered quickly, “then a hot bowl of vegetable soup. I have an old recipe my mother used to make all the time that would be perfect.”
I couldn’t help but chuckle. “Does sound perfect.”
“Oh, it’s just fucking dandy, isn’t it?”
All four of us jumped and jerked around to the top of the mound of gravel, bringing our assorted arms to bear. However, pointing my rifle at the origin of the voice appeared impossible, the muzzle and target refusing to meet up like two north poles on a pair of bar magnets. I shot a quick glance to the others and saw they had a similar problem, each of our muzzles shrouded in a pink hue.
“Aww, you stupid bitches wanna try and fight me?” Bubblegum, in all of her grungy, punk, powder-blue glory, rippled into existence fluttering over us. “Fucking adorable.”
“Bubbles,” Lourd grumbled, “now is hardly the time to be showing off.”
“Please, you dumb fucks could have accidently shot me.” The blue alicorn finally settled on the ground, her wings folding gracefully on to her back. “Bad enough you’re letting this bitch get inside your heads.”
“We’ve been keeping an eye on both of them,” North spoke up. Bubblegum shot her a glare and the twin elaborated. “The other mare has isolated herself and makes no attempts to communicate, spending all of her time looking at the ground or over here at the black mare. She makes her hatred and fear of us outwardly plain. She also seems to completely lack the motivation to attack any of us and maybe even defend herself.
“This one is far more sociable but undoubtedly more dangerous. She’s been quietly examining every one of us and keeping conversations directed toward us while not revealing too much about herself. She hasn’t felt the slightest inkling of hatred, though. Fearful, anxious, and untrusting initially, but talking with Lourd and Aegis quickly pacified her. She’s aloof and keeps most of her emotions off her face, but we can’t catch the slightest whiff of malice in her head.”
“Wait, you can read my thoughts?” I jumped to my hooves and turned to face the up-to-now-silent member of the group.
“No, we can feel others’ emotions.”
“Don’t tell her that!” snarled Bubblegum.
“You’re just mad that your plan to be as far away from the dangerous cyberpony as possible so she didn’t pin you like a bitch again backfired and you were out in the cold while we were getting along just fine with Shadow,” Aegis quipped, her voice cracking as she said my adopted name and a grin spreading across her face.
Why did I go along with Star calling me that?
Lourd chuckled. “I had a dog named Shadow when I was a child. Fierce creature but he was a big lovable gaffe with a golden heart. You remind me of him.”
“Thanks?”
“The fucking Goddess fuck me all the way through! I will fuck your shit, bitches!” Bubblegum barked. “I’m in fucking charge here and I’ll beat the pair of you and slice this bitch’s head off if you keep this shit up! Fucking got it?”
“Calm down, that was barely a sentence,” I chimed in. “Screeching at your inferiors is great way to make you look like an idiot. And keep it to one swear word per sentence, you’re wearing them out.”
She jerked to me and her horn flared. Instantly a kitchen knife freed itself from the bandolier of sharp objects wrapped around her chest and stopped stopped right before my remaining organic eye. I flinched back covering the eye with a hoof as fire burned in her eyes.“Be quiet.”
She shiethed her blade. “Phonies are about ten minutes out and the white bitch and her assault robots are with them.”
The tone of our discussion shifted completely as I looked under the mare at the snowscape beyond. “How many?”
“There’s two groups. The one at the front is about twenty-five. The second one is closer to sixty and lead by the Menace and her robots.”
“We’re not going to be able to deal with that many synths. Never mind the damn super Steel Ranger and her assault robots,” I commented.
“Indeed,” commented Lourd.
“Of course not.” Bubblegum rolled her eyes and looked at North. “Tell Clover to send word back to Prim and the others… ‘Engaging lots of phonies. We won’t last. Be ready to get the hell out of here.’ That’s a statement not a request.
“You four better be on top of those phonies as soon as they’re in eye sight,” she added casting a glance at me as she spread her wings.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
The blue jerked back to me and gave me her best death glare.
“We already have a good ambush position set up,” I asserted. “Shooting at the synths from long range would just give away the element of surprise.”
“You’re just scared you new fuckbuddies’ll figure out you’re full of shit.” Bubbles snorted. “Sniper? But you can’t shoot down some synths.”
“Snipers don’t shoot random soldiers. We go after officers, medics, the big fish. The average grunt is pretty much helpless if there’s no one to order her around and she’s pissed-herself scared. The synths don’t have that, all I can do is pick them off one by one and if that’s the strategy we try to use, they’re gonna back away, rush us, suppress me, or just take cover and wait for reinforcements. We’ll probably get flanked before we have a chance to use our position and we’re definitely not gonna win that engagement.
“We should let the first group push up to there.” I pointed up the main road between our two vantage points. “Then we open up with everything we’ve got. Scrap the whole first group and book it before the second can get here.”
Another flare of indignant rage flashed across Bubblegum’s face and she was nose to nose with me in a moment. But she had it under control even faster than the previous burst. “Fine. We’ll let them in close and slaughter the first group.
“Actually, I kinda like the sound of that…” A rather sinister smirk spread across the alicorn’s face as she spread her wings and flew to the other side of the road. I saw her settle down just as Clover, another green I had to assume was a magic user from her lack of apparent weaponry, tossed what looked like a small origami bird into the air with her magic. The folded scrap of paper spread its wings as it left it’s master’s embrace and started fluttering off in the direction of the others.
That’s neat.
My observation of the bird was cut off by Lourd chuckling. “I couldn't tell if she was going to beat you to death or try to have her way with you.”
I jerked to the mare. “Who’s doing what now?”
“Bubblegum defaults to either breaking and/or fucking whatever frustrates her,” Aegis commented.
I blinked twice. “What the fuck is wrong with her?”
“Now there is a list,” Lourd snorted. Aegis just shrugged and snickered.
“She’s a nest of conflicted and confused emotions to say the least,” North commented.
I looked over at the blue mare across the street as she settled down on the incline. She looked over to me and we made eye contact for a moment before I jerked my eyes away to look at Grape. The green earth pony was laying on her belly and looking forward dead eyed.
Come on, Grape. We haven’t even started yet.
The sound of metal hooves in snow indicated that was about to change though. The synths were closing in. The four of us crept up the sides of the gravel pile, making sure to not expose ourselves early.
“Leave the front files to the others. Lourd, shoot into the center, give your shells’ slash damage it’s best chance. Aegis, controlled bursts into the back. North, watch the foot of the hill for any that rush us and keep them in the street. I’ve got the leftovers.”
A bemused smile spread across Lourd’s face as she nodded while Aegis nodded with an almost childish exuberance. North rolled her eyes.
We had only a few more seconds to wait before the synths were upon us. The group in the ditch issued the opening volley, Grape’s battle saddle and South’s light machine gun ripping into the first line of synths before they rain head long into a magical barrier Clover had cast. Bubblegum’s assorted high velocity junk soon joined the fray and the front of the synth’s formation all but liquified. It was nothing compared to what Lourd and Aegis did however. In a couple reports of the auto canon and a few bursts of the minigun, they had reduced the main body of synths to scrap.
There were three that escaped the alicorn’s onslaught. One of them rushed to the wall along the front of the other building to cover itself from the ditch while it shot at our gravel pile. I put a round in it’s chest and it slumped back against the wall. The other two had simply turned and fallen back firing over their shoulders as they went. I placed a shot in each of their backs and they joined the rest of the scrap in the snow.
The engagement hadn’t lasted half a minute and it had left us completely unscathed while the synths had been utterly decimated.
“The Goddess, that feels good,” Lourd cooed as she lifted her canon. “I’ve grown exhausted with only being able to get ambushed and not ambushing.”
“Oh yeah!” Aegis laughed.
I paid the celebratory alicorns little attention. My rifle scope leaving behind the scrapped group to look toward the group further out. Which turned out to be a good thing, indeed.
“Get off the hill!”
I dove at Lourd’s chest while catching Aegis’s neck in my tail. The three of us tumbled down the embankment of gravel picking up North on the way as our ball of equines bounced it’s way into the drift of snow at the bottom of the pile. Not a moment too soon as the top half of the gravel mound was blown away by an anti-tank missile impacting it, sending rock flying in every direction.
“Merde!”
“Goddess, that was close. Is everypony okay?”
“You sluts okay?”
“I think so.”
“Wait! I think I’m bleeding.”
“No, it’s her!”
The sounds of alicorns bickering were muffled by the snow. It was about all I could process beside the feeling of my head melting and freezing at the same time. Everything else seemed numbed by the cold.
“Get her up. Clover! Can you do anything about this?” It felt like Bubblegum was yelling directly into my head.
My stomach did a flip when light hit my eyes again, my brain starting to throb.
“Dear, can you hear me? Shadow, try to look me in the eyes.” I couldn’t see Lourd’s eyes no matter how hard I searched the bright bloom around me. “She’s in shock!”
“In shock? The bitch should be dead! Look at her god damn head! There’s a chuck of rock sticking out of it.”
“Do you think it’s all the way in her brain?”
“No, she’s up and looking around. She couldn’t do that if there was something jammed in her brain.”
“No, I’m pretty sure movement thoughts happen in the brain stem, so you can move around and stuff even if you lose the top part. You just can’t like think or anything.”
I-I can still think… I think.
“The filly is gonna kill us all if we let her get killed or turned into a vegetable.”
I aimed my eyes in the direction I thought Grape’s voice was coming from and blinked really hard. My head was wrapped in a warm fuzz of magic. Pain was not present in my head, instead everything was blurred by waves of nausea. When my vision finally focused I was instead face to face with Bubblegum.
“Forget the womb goblin, Saint’s gonna beat me senseless if she learns how close that was,” the mare groaned. “Fucking bitch is on my ass enough without shit like this happening.” She wrapped her magic around me and lifted me into the air. “But we sure as hell don’t have time to be standing around with our hooves up our asses.”
The blue placed me on her back, far more tenderly than I would think she could muster. She then turned and started leading the pack up the ditch. We followed it along due north east for a spell before getting to another storm culvert.
“Put those wings to use, turkeys,” Bubblegum snapped as she took to wing. The group flew over the top of the colvert and onto the road. My ride seemed to be as comfortable in the air as any pegasus, taking to the air again bringing a racing feeling in my chest as I clung to the blue’s warmth. The rest of the group weren’t as successful, most barely clearing culvert’s top before crashing to the ground. Lourd fortunately remembered to grab Grape in her magic and dragged the earth pony up to the road.
Bubblegum swerved back over her sisters, fluttering over their heads. She let out a weird growling sound as she looked down on the flightless alicorns, obviously irritated. “Come on! Get those hooves in gear. Fucking move it! Can’t fly, you can damn sure run.”
I would think the mutant super soldiers with wings would be fantastic fliers… I doubted alicorns could break their flight talismans or some other kind of physical issue. Maybe it’s something in their heads, or they might not have ever learned how to fly. I knew trying to figure out flying on your own was hard and usually ended in a lot of broken bones.
“H-hey.”
My introspection was cut off by Bubblegum’s voice filtering through my ear, calmer and seemingly devoid of swearing. It was almost all I could manage to turn my head to look at her as my vision was still adrift in a sea of doubles and blurs. The alicorn seemed to be looking back at me.
Yeah?
“Ywaaallb,” I mumbled.
Fuck me, I sound fantastic. The lack of any real pain combined with my apparently fucked speech control, messed up senses, and retarded motor function were fairly concerning, but I couldn’t think of anything to do to help with that.
Well, maybe I should take a break from the constant head trauma and running around…
…
Seems unlikely.
“HEY!” Bubblegum snapped. “Goddess above you’re fucked.”
Oh, has she been talking? Good appraisal, Bubblebutt. I chuckled.
“Hang on, Shadow, only a bit longer and I can have Prim fix you.” She dipped down in her flying a little, shifting me forward on her body and allowing her to wrap a hoof of her own over my forelegs. She squeezed my plastic hooves hard enough for the pressure to register with my cybernetics as we climbed back to altitude. I noticed at that point how fast we were flying, the rest of the band left behind as Bubblegum tried to get me back.
Even if we were staying extremely low and weaving between building, the distance back to the train and the alicorns’ impromptu fort passed by quickly and Bubblegum was flaring for a gentle landing among the massive mares.
“Primrose! Help!”
“What the hell happened? Where’s everypony else?”
“They’re on hoof. I had to get her back quick, there’s a chunk of rock in her fucking head.”
“How did the bitch manage that?”
“Fuck you. That white armored slut shot a missile at us and she caught some shrapnel.”
“The who did what now?” I heard a deeper, far more irritated voice ask.
“N-nothing at all, Saint. You should really be rest-”
“Bubble’s got her team shot to hell again.”
“FUCK OFF, PRIMROSE! I’m gonna shove your horn down your throat!”
“Shut up,” Saint snapped. “Where’re the rest?”
“Coming,” Bubblegum answered again. “They’re fine but she got hurt and needed help.” I felt myself float into the air as Bubblegum finally transferred me to the ground.”It’s in her head and I think it’s bad.”
Ehh, I’m fine. Five minutes and I’ll be good as new.
I felt another set of magic poke and prod at me. This was far more focused than Clover’s magic, the field infiltrating my bones and caressing my every nerve and blood vessel. “Numerous small lacerations, a large laceration with a surface foreign body, extensive bruising, cranial fracture, massive concussion,” Primrose listed out as she worked me over. “No breaching of the cranial cavity…”
She’s surprised by that?
“Distortion of the cranium around the impact. Indented about 1 centimeter in an oblong dent…”
My head buzzed as her magic shifted its focus.
“What the fuck?”
“What else is wrong with her?” Saint asked.
“I was amazed her skull could survive an impact like that so easily but it turns out…” The buzzing intensified. “There’s some sort of reinforcing carbon latticework layered in the bone.”
“What’s that mean?” Bubble’s intoned.
“This… thing’s cranium is made of bone that’s part carbon ceramic armor… Goddess above, you sure we need her alive, Saint? Dissecting this thing would be amazing. Even just seeing what else they managed to protect with this bone armor.”
“Ahh ratherr nahh-T,” I mumbled, throwing a hoof wave in what I thought was the medical mare’s direction.
I heard Bubblegum snicker.
“No, we’re not harming her, Primrose,” Saint said. “Help her out however we can-”
“Shadow!”
Star sounded far off, but I was glad to know she was probably running toward me now.
“Well…” I felt Primrose’s magic shift over my scalp again, focussing around where I imagined the shard of rock was imbedded before my slowly recovering senses were plunged into pain again.
“Fuuuuuu” I curled into a ball and clutched my head.
“Honestly, probably all I need to do for this freak.” I could distantly hear the “healer” finish her comment, tossing the massive shard of rock she’s yanked out of my head away.
“Goddess above, Primrose. Don’t just go yanking shit out of wounds like that.”
“If I wanted some raider swine’s medical opinion I would go ask Daria, Bubbles.”
“You’re lucky we’re still out here and desperate, cause I’d slice that smirk right off your face-”
“Shadow! What happened to you?” Starprancer’s voice finally shoved aside the stream of alicorns.
I couldn’t manage more than a groan in pain but I did lift my head out of the snow and turn to look in her direction. Instantly my neck had the familiar warmth of her hooves wrapped around it while her far more delicate but no less powerful field of magic enveloped the now gushing-blood wound on my head.
“What did the alicorns do to you?”
“I… I’m sorry.” Bubblegum choked out. “She got a bit beat up helping us out.”
I felt a cold but pleasant liquid being poured on my head and realized a healing potion was being drizzled into the gash in my head. Together the two magics melded the hole and staunch the bleeding.
Don’t go wasting one of those on me...
“Better?” asked Star.
I nodded and returned my head to my hooves and the snow, aching throbbing replacing the lances of pain from before.
“Hey, no sleeping yet, Shadow. Look me in the eyes and have a chat and I’ll let you take a nap.”
I grumbled, it was too painful to be awake.
“Just a little something. Tell me about how the alicorns were. Show me those eyes so I can make sure the concussion is passing. Then you can nap
I sighed. Fine, Star.
I’d won my nap in the end but it was for nothing really. My throbbing skull precluded any sleep so I just wound up missing Starprancer’s company once she returned to helping care for wounded alicorns and laying in the snow. Bubblegum was sitting not to far away from me, she’d reach out and tap me on the shoulder to make sure I hadn’t slipped into a comma, but for the most part she seemed dead on her hooves. The massive mare’s eyes would close and her head would bob up and down as she struggled to stave off sleep. The rest of the alicorns weren’t any better and often much worse off.
The general exhaustion combined with the looming knowledge that we weren’t out of the dark yet to form a looming sense of dread. We were, in essence, sitting around waiting for Laurel to recharge her batteries so to speak. Hoping that in the intervening time Wintermail wouldn't show up and snuff us out. A somber, almost defeated, air hung over our little camp, made all the worse by the loud whistling of the wind between the warehouses. The truly desolate nature of where we adding to the weight on our isolated little group as we all but waited for death to come strolling up the street.
And eventually she did.
I felt the change in the alicorns before I heard anything. Many seemed to perk up in unison and several, including Bubblegum, rushed away to whatever defences they had set up. I gave a great sigh and shifted over onto my hooves. Standing up straightish, I could take in the camp around me. The alicorns had scattered a few of the train cars around to offer themselves cover from up the street while a line of flat cars across the road formed the main ramparts at the edge.
I just had a chance to check that my rifles and plasma pistol were in place before minigun fire tore through the air over the compound. The burst of lead tore apart a wall of one of the buildings, setting off a small avalanche as the structure gave way to the snow. I turned and stumbled forward to the main battle line.
“What the hell are you doing?”
Bubblegum’s comment brought the attention of several of the alicorns to me. Aegis and Lourd smiled seeing me upright and I saw the slightest curl show up on the edge of North and South’s lips. Most of the other alicorns looked at me with mixtures of concern, fear, and irritation. Bubblegum herself seemed concerned more than anything.
“You should be down resting.”
“I can rest when I’m dead.”
“You feel like a badass when you say that?”
“Usually,” I smirked, wobbling on my hooves.
“You fucking slut, go rest. You can barely stand up right.”
“I’m not laying around while we’re taking fire!” Another burst of minigun fire followed by some assorted magical energy weapon shots fizzling against the train car barricade.
“Damn it, we meet too few chill ponies to let one kill herself. You had me and my girls’ backs, now we’ve got yours. Go rest, Laurel should be getting done.”
Part of me wanted to argue with the alicorn, but another part of me was becoming aware of a redoubled effort by my brain to beat it’s way out of my skull. More waves of nausea joined the pounding and I once again swayed on my hooves. As much as I hated it, I was in no shape to fight and so far there didn’t even seem to be a fight. The synths only seemed to be firing random shots into cars and overhead. I wasn’t really needed, I hadn’t really recovered, it was a really bad idea for me to be standing guard.
“Fine, you handle it. I’ll keep an eye on the back line.”
Bubblegum just smiled and turned away.
“A hound for pain and glory, soldier mare?” Lourd teased from the background.
I gave a quick smirk before retreating back into the boxcars to my spot back in the snow. Star gave me a worried and disapproving glance from beside Primrose and an injured alicorn. She didn’t make to say anything about me walking around at least..
A bolt of laser fire raced over head and I groaned. I had wanted to go back to taking a nap, but sleeping while under fire sucked: the constant noise, the anxiety that you might die in your sleep, that someone else could die while you were asleep. It was something that you could get used to, and I had been more than used to it, but that had been a long time ago. Soft beds and calm settings had since spoiled the hardened edge of my younger self.
I haven’t gone completely soft yet at least and I wasn’t going to get anysofter. I had only been on the surface less than two weeks and I had recovered to nearly full levels of badass. Beating Steel Rangers and ghouls to death with my bare hooves, outsmarting an army of robots and their cunning leader, making friends with whoever I came across, and not blowing my damned worthless brains out from despair.
…
I still needed to get to my sob…
I felt the tears starting to bead at my eyes and chest tighten when an electronically amplified voice cut through the air.
“GENERAL SUNNY SKIES! A word if you will.”
I was yanked from the edge of crying as the echoes of Wintermail’s voice died out.
Shit. How the hell did she know my name? Or that I was here? What the hell?
SHIT! Oh fuck. She knows everything! She couldn’t know everything, it was all beyond secret and it had been two hundred years. It was impossible any of the information we had left behind could have been found, understood, and acted upon. And even then, what value could it hold?
“What the hell is she shouting that name for?” Primrose grumbled. “Damn psycho doesn’t even know what century she’s in.”
I jerked over and looked at the blue, her brow drawn in the utmost disgust. Looking over at her I saw Saint lying in the snow, head up and alert and looking directly at me. Her brow was also creased but not in anger, something more like confusion. The look was weird and seemed to burn right through my hide. I shot her a confused look back but all that did was make the alicorn angry.
“General, dear, if you would, I mean no harm for now, this is just a parley. Though, I’m freezing my rump off and if I need to shoot my way through alicorns and the occasional unicorn filly, I'd rather start quick."
Saint's irritation shot through the roof and I got the distinct feeling only her injuries were keeping me from an ass whooping.
What? Why are you looking at me li-
…
How the fuck does SHE know? She was waiting for me to stand up and address the psycho. But how in the hell did she know me? Lourd said she was from my time, Saint’s probably the same.
But who then? She was military minded enough to lead this group, a former soldier? Probably. But why did I have to get caught between probably the only two ponies alive who had a clue who I was? I had enough issues without people harassing me about my past. I had been a terrible pony and I had pretty much died.
Do I want to be that mare anymore?
Caught up in mental shambles, I almost didn't notice Saint’s glare waver; unsure if she had the right mare and disappointed. The disappointment stung, I had lost so many things in life but my pride wasn’t one of them.
I started back toward the barricade.
“Where the hell are you going?” Primrose’s grating voice followed after me.
But so did Saint’s almost awestruck gawk.
“Shadow, what are you doing back here?” Bubblegum asked at the line. “She’s not doing anything right now, just calling out some random name.”
“It’s not just some random name,” Grape said.
“Do you really give a fuck what name she’s shouting, retard?”
“I do,” I said, walking up to a hole in the barricade.
There were synths peaking around both corners of the warehouses beside us and several more on a further off rooftop. Wintermail was standing proud in the center of the street, much like that night she had taken down Grape’s unit. I smirked. Only one assault robot here this time though.
“What are you doing? You’re not going out there are you?”
I hopped the barricade and was out in the open, leaving the alicorns, Grape, and Star behind. The expanse of snow seemed to stretch out for miles as the buildings around me towered to the heavens. I felt physically tired by the time I found myself standing talking distance from the White Menace.
I pulled myself up to my full height, hardened my expression, and set myself in as aloof and intimidating a mind as I could. I glared at the white silhouette of Wintermail’s armor. She almost looked like a ghost, featureless but most decidedly equine. The armor was even more impressive up close, a graceful suit that called back more to the plate and mail worn by knights of Celestia centuries ago than the bulky, hulking metal blocks crossed with hoses and all manner of mechanical components of its Steel Ranger ancestors. The heavy machine guns had been replaced with a pair of beam cannons, better suited for hunting unarmored alicorns.
The white mare sat back on her haunches and reached up to her helmet, removing it. There was a smile plastered across her face and eyes that looked red up close were bright with excitement. The helmet hung at her shoulder from some connection to her armor as she stood back up. She seemed to content to stare at me for a moment, eyes racing up and down my form.
Is she getting an eye full?
She smiled bigger, a childlike awe overtaking her face. “I’ve seen so many amazing things in my life, but you? You’re the next level, General. The Black Angel of Stalliongrad, Demon of the Saimare, conqueror of the Griffon subcontinent, Changeling Slayer, and godmother to the Steel Rangers. Wouldn’t be a surprise if there’s water in those old mare’s tales about you being the offspring of Nightmare Moon and Death. Guess, you’re not some ministry mare or a Princess, but bloodly hell, in some ways you’re more than a pair of petty gods and their rock bearers. You’re a legend… mythic even.”
And now she’s fangirling about me? “If I wanted to be fellated, I would have asked an alicorn to help a mare out.”
Winter laughed, much more than she should have. “Ohhh, you were worth all these years, Sunny.” She said my name with the same joking tone a playground bully might have.”
It pissed me off how effective it was at getting under my skin. Of course, I had the perfect counter.
“You flatter me, Sugar Cookie.”
“How do you know…” She gawked at me for a moment, then tried to say something before I cut her off.
“Did you really call me out here just to gab aimlessly?”
It took a moment before that arrogant facade settled back in. “Not at all, General. You’re actually the heart of why I’m up here.”
Uh-oh…
“You see, I’ve been tasked with collecting some extremely important software concerning Operation Windigo. Dog of it is, only four copies were ever made and each of them was split in half using binary encryption. Each of the halves were doled out to military brass and political leaders. The whole thing was cloaked in the utmost secrecy and most of the fragments were destroyed in Canterlot or Cloudsdale. I’ve had a real time finding who had them in the first place, let alone who had a part A and a part B. But of course, you know that don’t you?”
She raised her right hoof and a panel retracted to show off her pipbuck.
“Where did you get that?!” I snapped
It was one of the stupid fancy 2000kX series, essentially the same computer as the one I had in my chest in wrist mounted format. The case was black and dark blue with a few dark purple accents. At the bottom of the screen was a distinct cloud with a tricolor lightning bolt coming out of it.
“Lifted if off a minotaur warlord in the Badlands. Really sweet piece of bling. Still miffed that I wound up with two A copies. Tore half of Vanhoover apart to find Admiral Aqua Marine’s copy and thought I would be done after tracking down this, but apparently the fates deemed we must cross paths.” She smirked again, a smug thing with a cruel edge to it.
“You’re kinda fucked if that’s what you’re after. I don-”
“A bluff isn’t going to work on me, love,” she cut me off. “Both Dash and Aqua had mentions of you in their pipbucks, ‘Shadow’. Great code name by the way, amazingly creative.” The mare chuckled. “I could go over the whole mess of uncovering where Stable 13 was along with you winding up at Shining Armor Memorial where the Ministry of Awesome’s research and development director was working. But I doubt you need me to go over that. But trust me, General, I’m one hundred and eleven percent sure exactly who you are, what happened to you, and what your plan was.”
Fuck…
“Fine,” I sighed. “Assuming I do have it, how are you gonna get it from me?”
“‘How am I gonna get it?’ Sweetcheeks, right now I’m struggling to think of a way I’m not going to get that file. Even assuming I wasn’t around, what are you doing? You gonna go cuddle with the alicorns and hope none of them decide to rip your head off on a whim? Or were you just gonna freeze your sweet ass off on your own? You’re going to die up here, General, and for bloody nothing. And if you do make it out of the Frozen wastes, what then? Gunned down for the duds off your back; raped, beaten, enslaved. Hunted down by some group of Rangers or the NCR to preserve order.”
A grin had crept it’s way onto my face. Sure, some wasteland cur is gonna take me down.
Winter saw right through my arrogance. “Don’t you fucking laugh, bitch. It can happen to any of us. The higher you are, the more cunts there are gonna be dreaming about how you’re gonna look collared and giving them a blowjob with a broken jaw.”
My smile faded back to my neutral frown. “Doesn’t answer my question.”
“Oh you’re quite the whilly bitch aren’t you? Pompous coming from a bootlicking whore whose whole life meant bugger all.” The earlier fixation with me had vanished and now I was treated to what was probably more regular for the White Menace. “All those battles you won and all that bloodshed and for fucking nothing.”
I grit my teeth at her.
“How’s it feel to be a monument to wasted effort, General? Gave it a hundred and eleven percent and here we are, everything you’ve ever cared about dead and forgotten. Family probably died in the blasts.Your whole country and culture just obliterated. Whatever’s left has long since mutated or rotted into something shit. Bet that feels just brilliant.”
“Shut up.”
“And now you’re gonna go stake out on your own in the Great Equestrian Wasteland, huh? Even better, bet that filly’s gonna look really good pulled down over some raider’s diseased cock-”
“Shut up!”
My mask had shattered, my teeth were bared in indignant fury.
Wintermail chuckled. “Feels good that I admire someone who still has some fire in their soul after going through that much. You’ve been through as much as any ghoul I’ve met and even the sensible ones’ I are a bunch of hollow clucks. Pain like that is inconceivable to most of us. But that moxy’s not going to get you through this. You’re gonna die alone and lost out here.
“You’ve got two options right now, love. You come with me, I’ll help you get your hooves under you out here, make sure you don’t go falling face first into trouble, and show you the ropes. I wanna help you find a world after what you’ve lost, sweetheart. I really do. I’ll even let you bring the kid along, make a buddy comedy of things. In return you give me the program. The other option-” her brow hardened and the tone of her voice shifted “-I blow your head clean off your shoulders and rip that program from your carcass. I go about my business hunting down every Stable Dweller, Steel Ranger, and Alicorn up here. I go back, get paid, and found myself a little raider empire and live out my life pillaging the NCR.”
I snarled. “Shove it up your ass, bit-”
“They left you here.”
I wasn’t ready for that. She wasn’t loud when she said that, but it cut right through me. Gone was her nihilistic snide tone that made it seem like everything she did was a matter less joke, the grating voice of someone who deep down cared about nothing. This was a statement; simple, loud, clear, and with deadly intent.
I couldn’t say anything… It was all I had to not start crying right there.
“It’s awful to be betrayed like that, by your best friends no less. After you gave everything to Equestria and it beat you down and threw you out, they were all you had left. They filled you with hope, and they left you in that pod. That tomb. Forever.”
The harsh wind blew a tear out of my eye and it froze against my cheek.
“You really gonna go back out into the world after that and just throw your well being in the hooves of whoever you come across first? I’m a right monster, I know, love. But you’re in the same boat and I’ll be honest, I really don’t want to shoot you. You’re an amazing mare, it’ll be my honor to serve at your side.”
There was something genuine in her voice. I grit my teeth as more tears burned at my eyes. What is this mare? She comes to me oozing about how amazing I am and how she wants to sweep me off my hooves like some fairy tale. Like I’m not some payday to her or that she didn’t kill hundreds trying to get to me. Stable 13 really was dead because of me! Me and some Celestia damned program! How could this monster look me in the eyes and think I would follow her?
…
Should I follow her?
The confusion, anger, and fear drained out of me.
“You’ll leave the others alone?”
“I swear on my mother’s life, love, not a single scratch on any of them.”
I started walking forward. I hated that I was crying. That this psychopath started off with praise and admiration for me and was now pitying me. It was an enormous vortex of emotions that drove my tears. More feelings than I had any idea how to understand or deal with. It left me feeling numb and hollow again. I couldn’t get away from that sensation, of being some dead shell paraded around for some sick god’s entertainment.
If I’m entertainment though, I might as well embrace it.
I was standing in front of the mare, close enough she could probably enjoy my scent of defeat. I kept my eyes down and on her hooves until I was right in front of her. I sat back and lifted my hooves to rest on her shoulders finally making eye contact. Wintermail had the stupidest grin I had seen in a while plastered across her face, like a virgin realizing they were being moved on for the first time.
I smiled, a small, demure, teasing thing as I rubbed my hooves up and down her neck. I looked into her eyes. Up close the sclera were genuinely unpleasant, they looked hollow and dull from most angles, taking on a white or grayish hue. But looking directly into her eyes they flashed blood red. Poor mare was born looking sinister, a phantom of some kind that lured ponies in with their odd appearance before a flash of evil red eyes and the black of death.
“You’re not that different from me are you?”
She nodded tentatively, fear and arousal struggling for control. I moved my hooves around the back of her neck, pulling her in closer and bringing our heads side by side. There were several large scars across the back of her neck and a small lump just below her skull. Touching them only seemed to overload her hazy senses more as she gasped out and shuttered a bit.
“N-no…”
“Mmmm,” I hummed into her ear. I traced a hoof over one scar and up to her ear. “But you know… If that’s true…” I moved the other hoof down around her collar bone and up to her chin.
“You’re probably a liar too.”
Wintermail’s stupor vanished in an instant but it was too late, she’s fallen for my miracuously successful ploy. She tried to jerk away from me but my hooves were locked firmly in place, fragile neck being caught between between her armor and my grip. The Ultra-Sentinel that had been sitting quietly behind her the whole time instantly leveled it’s guns on me, but it wasn’t going to be able to do anything without hurting it’s master.
Caught by the balls. I smirked
“Fucking hell, you stupid cunt.” Wintermail tried to turn her head to look at me but I don’t allow it. “The hell’s your plan from here, cow?” The Ultra-Sentinel turned its arsenal back toward the alicorns in the distance and I got of face full of power armor clad hoof. “You’ve got nothing and you just throw my offer out like that, shit-for-brains? I’m gonna quarter your sorry ass.”
All her fuss vanished when I twisted her head around and loaded up her neck, straining the tendons and cartilage just enough to make sure I had her attention. “I would really advise against blowing my head off. If the main processor in my chest loses connection with my neurological processor and brain, it’ll break a vial filled with some smooze that will dissolve everything in my chest cavity, starting with the data banks that file you’re looking for is kept in. And then the spark core in my chest will go critical not too long after.
“So, love, let me rephrase those two options from before. You shoot me, fail miserably, and maybe blow up in a burst of unrestrained magical energy. Or-” I increased the pressure on her neck again “- I just kill you and be done with it.”
She shouted: “Kill me and the filly gets it right through the head before I even hit the ground. Most of the mutants won’t survive either, the synths are going to very vengeful about losing me and it’s not like they aren’t in on the mission. They’re on loan from my employers after all.”
The synths seem pretty dimwitted on their own. But they had a definite, probably overwhelming, numbers advantage.
“I’ll cut you a deal then, you send all of them away. Once the synths are gone, I’ll let you go and we can go our separate ways.”
“Nah, you let me go, then we’ll see about negotiating, lov-”
I cut her by pressing down on her skull. “You’re the one who’s got nothing. You need me alive and happy. I’m dead, you fail. I’m pissed, I’ll snap your neck or you’ll kill me and fail.” I twisted again. “Don’t take me for a fool, snowflake.”
“Fine, cunt.”
She definitely had a chip of some sort, Wintermail didn’t say anything or make any overt physical movements. The synths just disappeared up the way they had come from, her assault robot following.
“Well, I guess you’ve technically won this one, Sunny,” Winter cooed in my ear. “Of course, one battle is hardly a war.”
I twisted on her neck again “But you need to win battles to win a war.”
She suffered my abuse without much response this time and when I let off she was ready. “Something that worked out just perfectly for you, didn’t it?”
I was about to retort but my voice died in my throat, as something rough and wet traveled up the side of my face and along the edge of my ear. I jumped back from Wintermail just as she shoved her hooves between mine, pushing mine outward and shoving me back in one motion. Free of my head lock she looked me in the eyes, making a show of pulling her tongue back in and savoring my flavor.
“I’ve been wondering this rotten hellhole a long time, Sunny,” she said. “It may have taken ages, but I’ve finally found someone worth my time. It’ll be grand sport getting the better of you.”
She grabbed her helmet in a hoof and lifted it up over her head, smiling at me like a serpent the whole time. “Until we meet again, gorgeous.”
“Sugar Cookie.” She turned her helmeted head toward me and I could feel her irritated glare through that featureless face plate. “Next time I see you I’ll kill you.”
The wind kicked up the snow around us as it started howling through the buildings again.
“We’ll see.”
With that she turned and strolled off. Even in the midday sun, she looked like a ghost fading back into her miasma. Eventually fading away into the endless blur of white stretching out in every direction.
Sure that she was gone, I turned and started walking back. Again it felt like the distance stretched out, lead hooves ploding their way back to something resembling safety. Without a foe to stand face to face with, my skull split open throbbing again. The day’s aches and pains returned with a vengeance.
But that wasn’t why I was crying.
I botched my landing getting back over the flat car barricade, collapsing in a heap.
“Are you decent, dear.”
“Need some help?”
“Primrose! Somepony, she needs help.”
“What in the Goddess’s name was that?”
“You okay?”
“Is she gone?”
“Who are you?”
I dragged myself up and brushed past the alicorns. I meandered my way through the camp on increasingly wobbly hooves. Twice I ran straight into a rail car and I tripped over broken asphalt with every other step.
“Shadow, come back here.”
“What’s wrong with her?”
Leave me alone. The tears were running down my face constantly now. My chest was so knotted up holding back that I almost couldn’t breathe. I needed somewhere quiet and secluded quickly.
Finally, one of the potholes in the centuries old, ruined road took me down. I collapsed nearly face first into the snow. I didn’t have it in me to get back up. I started pushing myself along the ground, either trying to continue my aimless escape or bury myself in the snow.
“Shadow.”
I stopped my slithering as the snow on me was peeled back. I hadn’t known them for long, but there were few things I could think of in that moment could’ve made me feel like those emerald gems of eyes Starprancer had. And in that moment she was the closest thing to what I needed. She was looking down at me confused and concerned but the moment we made eye contact she seemed to get what I needed.
Her hooves wrapped around my neck, I buried my head in her side, and burst out bawling.