//------------------------------//
// Interlude - Carry Your Phantoms 
// Story: Pony Gear Solid 
// by Posh 
//------------------------------//

	Twilight Sparkle was a moron. A sentimental, possibly self-destructive moron, who let herself be led by the nose into a trap laid by a mustache-twirling megalomaniac prone to temper tantrums. Her prerogative, I suppose, but damned if I was gonna let myself be suckered into playing along again.

I was done. Done with ponies, done with their antics, done with being whined at and manipulated. Give me political conspiracies, nuclear death machines, and Otacon's occasional dork antics. I'd take them all a hundred times over if it meant never having to deal with another tiny, sanctimonious horse crapping rainbows.

Finding and dealing with Metal Gear was my most immediate concern, although there were some details that needed hammering out. I figured I could follow the train tracks at least as far as Ponyville. From there, I'd have to reenter the forest and retrace my steps back to ruined castle. With the bridge out, I'd need to find another way across that chasm – scale the cliffs and ford the river, maybe. Or try to find a way around it, although that could take hours, and traveling to the staging area would be a few hours on foot already.

All of that would be tedious, but relatively simple, compared to actually disabling Metal Gear. I knew the routine – compromise its structural integrity with strategically placed explosives, or line the radome and cockpit with C-4 to cripple its sensors and control systems. If all else failed, shoot it in the mouth with rockets until it fell over and exploded. Acquiring the necessary materials to get it done would take some leg work, though.

Still, all that in mind, I was pretty much good to go. There was no more reason for me to stick around in Dodge. If Twilight survived, if she somehow managed to find Rainbow Dash alive and well and make it out of whatever the trap was, then she could hook up with the Guard and make her way back to Ponyville without me.

And if she didn't...

Spike lies in a pile of rubble.

No. Not my problem. Not anymore.

I opened the driver's-side door to the Humvee, propped my rifle against it, and spent some time getting to know my ride. Everything under the hood seemed in working order. Fuel might've been a concern, although there were spare cans of gas in the back of the car, along with a heavy locker that I couldn't find the key to. Overall, the Humvee certainly seemed to be in good condition. A few hours of driving, and I'd be back on track. No Twilight to worry about. No Rainbow Dash. Hotwire the car, finish the mission, leave them both behind.

Rainbow Dash smiles at me through her tears.

I slammed my fist against the side of the Humvee and immediately wished I hadn't.

Tires. If I was gonna take that thing all the way across the frontier, back to Ponyville, then I needed some guarantees about the tires. So I went from tire to tire, inspecting each one individually, all while kneading my throbbing right hand. Didn't feel broken, so that was fortunate. And the tires felt solid enough, except... was it my imagination, or was the left rear tire a little flat? Dammit, that would mean checking the air pressure, maybe even swapping it out for a spare if I didn't like what I saw. That'd kill even more time than I'd already—

Something small hit me in the temple and bounced off, landing on the ground. Rubbing the spot where it struck me, I knelt to inspect it. It was a little silver coin, its face engraved with an emblem of a crescent moon against a starry sky. On the flip side was a pony – a winged unicorn, with a sad smile on its face. 

Funny thing – it looked like the Pegasus Wings sigil.

"For your thoughts?"

I stood and turned around. Killjoy hovered in the air, holding her red-crested helmet in her hooves. She was smiling – not the cocky, devil-may-care grin she'd flashed during our conversations before, but a more subdued expression. Now, that raised an interesting question. With her hooves full, and her wings preoccupied by hovering, how did she throw the coin? With her mouth? I guess it did feel a little moist.

Ponies are disgusting.

"Not up for talking."

"In that case, think of it as a bribe." Killjoy paused. "To clarify, I'm bribing you to listen to me talk."

I frowned at her. "Where I'm from, bribery is a court martial offense for an officer."

"Same here." That brought out the familiar grin. "Then again, I'm not really an officer, am I?"

I grunted in as detached and non-committal a manner as I could. "Bribe someone else, Brevet Captain. If you hadn't noticed, I'm a little busy."

"I have noticed, actually." Killjoy dropped to the ground, set the helmet down, and folded her wings. "You spent about twenty minutes fartin' around with that thing, and just when I thought you were all done, you spent another ten groping its wheels. Very busy, indeed."

"I've been told I'm a methodical man. Nothing wrong with it." I waved her off, turning back to my work. While I had nothing against Killjoy, I could guess what she wanted to talk about, and it was a conversation I'd have preferred not to have. Between Rainbow Dash's and Twilight's combined efforts, I'd had enough of being berated and jerked around by ponies for one lifetime.

She wasn't taking that for an answer, though, even as I knelt and examined the tire, pointedly keeping my back to her. Sand crunched beneath her hooves as she stepped closer to me.

"Look, Sparkle filled me in on your business here. I know what you're here to do, and while I doubt it's strictly out of the kindness of your heart..." 

My jaw clenched. Here we go.

"I wanted to thank you, regardless."

My jaw relaxed, and I looked at her over my shoulder, admittedly taken by surprise.

Killjoy tossed her head back, throwing the sweaty tangle of her mane over the other side of her neck. "You're fighting your own kind to help save mine. That might be incidental, but even so, you're doin' right by Equestria, and that means something to me. So I want you to know, whatever happens, you have my gratitude. And my respect." 

My lip twitched – an involuntary smirk. "Whatever that's worth, huh?"

The mare matched it. "You're kind of a dick, you know that?"

"You're not wrong." I wasn't naive enough to believe that Killjoy was only talking to me to express gratitude. That was just the wind-up. 

Killjoy took a deep breath, wiping the smirk from her face. "That being said..."

And the pitch. "If this is about Twilight, then save it. Going after Dash was her decision. It has nothing to do with me."

Her mouth hung slightly open before she recovered with a smile.

"To be honest? Me neither." Killjoy stepped closer to the Humvee, sat down beside me, and leaned her head against the metal plating. "It's pretty funny, actually. SOP when it comes to civilians is to keep them out of harm's way, not to let them march into the belly of the beast with their heads held high."

"Then why'd you let her?" The pain in my hand was ebbing – apparently, the nanos were still good for something.

"Because she's Twilight Sparkle, duh. Do you have any idea how much clout that pony has? She sure as hell doesn't." Killjoy chuckled. "I once got drunk with a Civil Service bureaucrat who swore, up and down, that it was all an act. After all, nopony could possibly be as oblivious to their social status as she lets on."

"All because she's the Guard Captain's sister?"

"Nah. Because she's Princess Celestia's personal student. Or didn't you know?" She winked at me. "Although her relation to Shining does afford her certain privileges with the Guard, of which she is also largely oblivious. For us, it's generally understood that exceptions are made for her. So if Twilight Sparkle demands that she be allowed to face off with the Queen Bitch of the Changelings alone, then technically, it's not my place to stand in her way. Although..."

Killjoy trailed off. Her smile faded, and she looked down at her hooves, still smeared with the internal fluids of the changelings she slew earlier. "That doesn't mean I like the idea. The Queen went horn-to-horn with Princess Celestia and won without breaking a sweat. There's no way that Sparkle could hope to succeed, alone, where even the Princess failed. She needs a friend to watch her back. I can't do it myself, and I can't send one of my guards without putting Rainbow Dash at risk."

"No one else can do it, so you come crawling to me, huh?" I grumbled. "Yeah, that's a familiar song."

She was quiet for a moment before continuing. "I don't want her to die. And unless I've completely misread you, neither do you."

A shiver ran through me.

I turned to rest my back against the tire, sitting with one leg arched and the other stretched out. Killjoy was on my right, watching me carefully. Resting one elbow against my upturned knee, I pressed my hand to my forehead and sighed deeply.

"She's one life against hundreds," I said. "Thousands, even. Why does it matter so much to you?"

"Duty. Honor. Semper fidelis, and all that. Plus, she's really sweet and super cute – a nine, easily. And you saw how pissed she made Steel Wool. There's a pony who needs a little humiliation now and then." Killjoy shrugged. "But all that aside, she's Shining Armor's sister. That by itself is reason enough to care."

I snorted. "I guess it'd look bad on your record if you got your captain's sister killed."

"You know, I said the same thing to her, almost word-for-word." Killjoy chuckled. "And, yeah, not gonna lie, there's a very selfish and opportunistic voice in my head that keeps thinking 'hey girl, you keep Shining's sis in one piece and Colonel Killjoy might actually be in your future.' But it's more than that."

She fell silent for long enough that I started thinking she wasn't going to pick up again. Then she looked at me with a nervous quiver in her bottom lip. "You, um... you got any more of that whiskey you used on your bite?"

I lowered my hand from my head to deliver her a full-bore look of bemusement, but dug around in the pouch where I'd placed the little bottle of amber liquid. I retrieved it, glancing at the grinning pair of unicorns on the label, then looked at Killjoy. The pegasus was eyeing the bottle closely, biting her lip.

Ah, yes. I knew that look. "Should you really be drinking on duty?"

Killjoy rolled her eyes. "What're you, my sponsor? Gimme." 

She extended her forelegs toward me.

Can't say I didn't try. Shrugging, I held it out to her, and she seized the bottle between her hooves. She tugged the cork free with her teeth, spat it out, and took a quick swig, smacking her lips loudly. 

"Oh, that is disgusting." She shuddered, but took another drink. "Absolutely disgusting. Easily the second worst thing I have ever had in my mouth."

"What's the first?"

"Bulk Biceps." She took a more measured third sip, then pulled the bottle away with a sigh, staring into the aperture at the top of its neck. Her expression was contemplative, tired. I knew that look too – the facial expression one usually breaks out when one holds a staring contest with a bottle of liquor. I hadn't expected to see it on a pony's face. 

"Shining Armor was my friend before he was ever my C.O." Killjoy's voice was a quiet rasp, owing to the whiskey. "A good friend, who stuck up for me when nopony else would. Believed in me when nopony else did. Not even me."

She took another sip from the bottle, and didn't seem to mind the taste so much.

"When he asked me to lead this expedition, I was like... like, okay, I'm the last pony I'd trust with something like this. I would have expected him to ask somepony like Chain Mail. Or Flash Sentry. Or, hell, Goosefeathers! She ought to be the one giving the orders, and I ought to be polishing spearheads in the barracks."

"Yet here you are. Must be a reason why."

"Oh, I know exactly why. He believes in me, says all I need is the right chance to shine. Punny bastard." She swished the remaining whiskey in the bottle back and forth. "Well, joke's on him. Most everypony in Dodge is dead, and his little sister's liable to join 'em by sunset. That's what you get for bettin' on me." 

Killjoy lifted the bottle again, but I seized it around the neck before she could bring it to her lips. A look passed between us, and she slowly removed her hooves, letting me pull it back into my lap.

"What happened here isn't your fault," I told her, silently regretting my decision to enable the depressive alcoholic.

"You can't know that." She looked away, nervously smoothing her mane down her neck with her hoof. "I think about those bodies in town. About Cherry, all alone in that basement for days. I keep asking myself, could I have stopped this from happening? If I pushed everypony to move faster, noticed the westward movement sooner—"

I reached over her, picked up the cork where she'd spat it out, and stuffed it back into the bottle, my sudden motion startling her into shutting up. "Maybe you could have. Probably couldn't have. Obsessing over it helps nobody – they're dead. You're not. Don't make the mistake of carrying your phantoms with you."

Killjoy was studying my face intently. "Guess a guy like you'd know something about that, wouldn't you?"

Twilight laughs and pushes the bottle away as blossoms waft in the breeze.

I clenched my fingers tightly around the bottle. "The hell do you want from me, Killjoy?"

Killjoy spoke slowly, enunciating carefully, to compensate for the effects of the whiskey. "Shining believed in me, and I've done nothing but let him down. If Sparkle dies, on top of everything else..." She looked away from me, rubbing her nose against her fetlock.

"I can't help her, much as I might want to. Maybe I can't help anypony." Her voice was thick, and, pardon the pun, hoarse. "But you can. So I'm asking you to try."

        Funny thing about Killjoy. With her glittering gold armor and greathelm, and her collapsible spear, she was a hell of a lot more imposing than most of the ponies I'd seen. Especially next to someone like Twilight, who was so slight and nonthreatening... provided her horn wasn't glowing. 

Right then and there, though, all that armor did was emphasize how small the pony inside of it was.

"And if I say no?" I asked.

Killjoy sniffed. Then she turned her head around to look me in the eye, a sad, artificial smile on her lips. "Then you say no, and you leave. Nothing more to it. I'll wish you good hunting, and stay here to muddle through."

My grip loosened around the bottle of whiskey. 

Loudly sniffing once more, Killjoy got to her hooves and cleared her throat.

"I've already dispatched a flier to Appleloosa," she announced. Her voice once more took on that tone of authority that no one outside a military body could hope to properly emulate. "Within a day, I'll have five hundred spears pointed at Chrysalis's throat. We'll win this, one way or the other. But if you can keep Sparkle out of harm's way, then I'll feel a little bit better about what's to come. If not..."

I pulled myself off the ground, and Killjoy beat her wings to hover at my height. Her expression was hardened, stern, but her eyes were wide with anticipation.

Trading the whiskey to my left hand, I held out my right. "If not, then good hunting to you."

Her face shifted a little – I think I saw a bit of resentment on her expression. But she forced another smile, put her hoof in my hand, and shook it firmly.

"To you as well." Then her lips twitched into another smirk. "Thanks for the drink, Solid Dick."

I snorted and pulled my hand away. The rifle was still propped against the opened front door; I leaned down to pick it up, climbed into the front seat, and pulled the door shut. I set the rifle in the rack between the two seats, wrapped my free hand around the steering wheel, and let out a long breath.

This was exactly the kind of break I was hoping for. No sanctimonious speeches, no guilt-trip from a needy pony. Just me, a car, a full tank of gas... hopefully... and the open road. Just reach under the console, hotwire the car, and burn rubber toward the Everfree. Finish the mission. Do what you came here to do.

"What's another corpse among thousands to you?"

I leaned forward until my forehead touched the top of the steering wheel. Life as a cold-blooded mercenary may not have been fulfilling, but giving zero shits about anybody's existence besides your own had its upsides. 

I could really have used some of that right then.