“Not a very friendly bunch, are they,” drawled Applejack as the six former-ponies walked down the street through the pouring rain.
Twilight could only nod in agreement, ever since they had left Sunset’s apartment most of the ponies they met had been indifferent at best, only Mrs. Diaz and her fillies ‘No, humans call them girls,’ had shown the displaced ponies any real warmth.
“I suppose we must make some allowances for local customs, and this horrid weather certainly isn’t helping,” Rarity said, glaring up at the pouring sky from under the pair of umbrellas they were all huddled beneath, “And Celestia’s mane, what is that smell! It’s been with us ever since I woke up at the clinic!”
“I think it’s the air,” replied Rainbow, causing the fashionista to shake her head in dismay, “It’s felt … off … ever since we got here.”
“Oh, oh! Look, a shop!” Pinkie turned to her friends, an eager smile on her face, “Can we go in? Can we? Can we?”
“‘Stuffer Shack’,” Fluttershy murmured as she read the flickering sign above the door, “I wonder what a ‘stuffer’ is?”
“Ah don’t know,” grumbled Applejack, “But if they have any slickers, Ah’m in.”
Heading through the automatic doors, the girls quickly scattered to explore the various aisles. Winching at the fluorescent lighting that seemed to leech away all the colors of the various products on display, Twilight could only shake her head as she passed aisles filled with household goods and small hardware, followed by racks of soaps and detergents, all next to aisles filled with more of the “food” that Sunset had stocked in her fridge. ‘It’s like a small grocery store mixed with a Bargain Barn,’ she thought with amusement as she glanced down an aisle filled with packaged “baked goods” whose provenance she regarded with suspicion, and bottles of something called “Bouncy Bubble Beverage”.
“Over here, darlings,” Rarity called out, triggering a small rush as the Equestrians hurried over to where she and Applejack were standing next to a display of “Use’N’Lose” products, which did include raincoats – along with plates, cups, utensils and even shirts and pants.
“I don’t know, Rarity,” Rainbow frowned, “Disposable clothes? Really?”
“Believe me, I’m weeping on the inside, Rainbow,” the fashionista replied, “But beggars can’t be choosers, as they say.”
“Umh, how are we going to pay for any of this?” asked Fluttershy, as she nervously wound a lock of pink hair around her finger.
“Really, darlings?” asked Rarity when Applejack, Pinkie, Rainbow and even Twilight exchanged embarrassed glances, “I’m the only one who thought to bring along some bits?” the blue-haired girl sighed, “Fine, I’ll pay for the raincoats, but we must do something about our financial situation, we are not going to abuse Sunset’s charity, agreed?”
Once the other girls had all nodded their agreement, Rarity headed for the counter, excusing herself past a rather thuggish-looking teenager in a garish jacket with a partial skeleton nailed to a “T” made of metal beams painted on its back. “Excuse me, Sir, but I’d like to buy these.”
“That’ll be forty-six, forty-one,” the man behind the counter didn’t even look up from the cheap flimsy-magazine in his hand as he replied in a bored tone, “Cred, cash or corp-script?”
“I was hoping that this might be sufficient, actually,” Rarity admitted, with a small, slightly embarrassed, laugh.
Finally bothering to raise his eyes, the clerk’s lips pursed in a silent whistle as he got his first real look at the teen, he then blinked down at the gold coin sitting on the stained plastic countertop, “Uh, yeah, sure, Miss, that’ll do great!”
“Thank you, Sir,” waving her friends over to a corner, the six girls quickly donned their new raingear, while Rarity and Fluttershy winched at the garments’ eye-searing colors.
Fluttershy suddenly gave a small “eep” and ducked behind the others, “That stallion with the scary jacket is watching us ….”
“Hey, what’s your problem, pal?” demanded Rainbow as she stepped forward aggressively, “Haven’t you ever seen anypony put on a raincoat before?”
Applejack put a hand on the athlete’s shoulder, “Easy there, Dash, no need ta go borrowin’ trouble,” despite her words, the farmgirl gave the scruffy teenager a hard look of her own, before turning back to her friends, “Everypony ready? Then let’s go.”
________________________________________
An hour later, the rain was coming down even harder as the Equestrians departed a street market that reminded them of Ponyville, while Pinkie and Rainbow were pouting at Rarity’s stubborn insistence on hoarding their small stockpile of bits.
“But they have Slurpee-doos!”
“You don’t even know what that is, Pinkie,” Rarity pointed out in exasperation, “And until we have an income, we simply cannot afford to waste our limited funds on frivolities.”
“Uh, fillies?” broke in Rainbow, “That weirdo from the Stuffer Shack is watching us again, and he brought some friends along.”
When the girls turned to look, the sneering teen and his six equally disreputable companions were easy to find, both for their identical jackets as well as for the noticeable empty space around them.
“Okay …” Twilight said uneasily, “I think it’s time we headed back to Sunset’s ….”
A few blocks later, Fluttershy gave an anxious squeak “They’re still there!”
Almost stumbling on the wet sidewalk as she glanced over her shoulder, Twilight did some quick mental map plotting and turned into a backstreet, “Come on, this should take us almost directly to Sunset’s building!” increasing their speed to a trot, the next two blocks passed the girls in a blur … until they turned down a dead-end alley, “Well ponyfeathers!”
“Well, well, what do we have here?” a voice said nastily from behind the Equestrians, “It looks like a pack of corp-brats are slumming in Crucifixer turf.”
Turning around, the six girls faced the speaker, a hard-faced young woman only a few years older than themselves, while her smirking friends spread out to either side, blocking the alley’s mouth.
Pinkie immediately bound forward, putting herself in the older girl’s face, “Hi! I’m Pinkie Pie, who are you? What’s a Crucifixer?” bouncing over to another member of the gang, “Aren't all those pins in your face painful?” she asked, before springing back to the group’s apparent leader, “Can we be friends?”
“Back off!” snarled the woman as she flung up a hand – and Pinkie went stumbling back into Fluttershy’s arms almost as if she had been thrown. “Here’s the deal, collars, you jandered your hoops in our turf and dis’ed one of my boys,” she continued, her tone shark-jovial, “So you’re going to give us all those shinnies your carrying, and each one of you is going to show my boys a good time. Do a good job, and maybe we won’t mess up those pretty faces of yours too much.”
“Yeah, I don’t think so,” said Rainbow as she, Rarity and Applejack stepped forward aggressively.
“They got spunk,” laughed one of the gangbangers, “But we’ll have you moaning and begging like a proper joygirl soon enough, sweetness,” he added, making a crude gesture at Rarity.
“Oh, it is ON!” the fashionista lunged forward, her right-cross landing solidly on the surprised ganger and sent him stumbling, easy prey for Rarity’s follow-up roundhouse kick to his head.
Applejack and Rainbow surged forward behind Rarity and quickly dropped their chosen targets as well, Rainbow grabbed her victim by his jacket, pivoted around and slammed his face into the brick wall, while AJ’s roundhouse punch threw her target back like he’d been kicked by a mule.
“You fragging slitches want to play, fine!” roared the gang boss as those of her men who were still standing pulled pistols or knives from beneath their jackets, “Play with this!”
A distortion in the air launched from the woman, leaving a furrow ripped into the asphalt as it streaked at the girls – only to splash harmlessly across the magenta shield that Twilight threw across the alley, separating the Equestrians from the gangers.
‘It kind of feels like a focused telekinetic strike,’ Twilight observed, her eyes narrowed slightly as the woman continued to pound away at her shield, ‘But where is her aura? And why are her spells affecting the street as well?’
“The gendarme will be coming!” the librarian shouted, trying to be heard over the older girl’s constant swearing and the rumbling shriek caused by her attacks tearing through the blacktop, “Just leave us alone and we’ll call it even!”
“Gendarme? What?” the gang boss paused in her attack to blink at the trapped girls in confusion while her dazed minions dragged themselves back to their feet, “You mean the Star? Badges don’t bother with this neighborhood, slitch, and nobody gets between two espers unless they have a death wish,” she gave a short bark of ugly laughter, “I’ve got all the time I want to beat down that shield, and then your asses are mine!”
‘Why is she so obsessed with hurting us?’ Twilight wondered as the other woman resumed battering away at her shield, ‘Okay, yes, Rarity, AJ and Rainbow did attack first, but they had already made their intentions very clear … And is she serious? No pony is going to investigate this?’ that last thought worried the librarian, her magic wasn’t in danger of failing any time soon, but if this madmare could just keep pounding away as long as she wanted, then eventually Twilight would tire and her shield would drop, leaving her and her friends exposed to the angry, and armed, gangers.
Twilight blinked, for a moment she was certain she had seen a figure, masked by the rain, at the mouth of the alleyway, ‘Maybe they’ll get help?’ she hoped, before the figure reappeared, closing on the stand-off faster than Twilight thought humans could run.
The murky shape quickly resolved into Sunset, rushing down the alley to come to a halt directly behind the gang boss, who stopped her assault as she suddenly arched backward, her mouth open in a silent scream. Sunset’s right arm came into view from behind the woman, revealing a pair of gore-splattered blades protruding from her forearm – which the flame-haired girl quickly slashed across the gang boss’ throat, spraying Twilight’s shield with blood as the Equestrians recoiled in horror.
One of the gangers spun around and opened fire, his big pistol echoing loudly in the alley as his shot slammed into Sunset, causing the girl to stagger as she dropped the gang leader’s corpse.
The blades retracted back into her arm with a faint “click” as Sunset pulled her own pistol from beneath her long coat, the gun barked twice, the first shot causing a spot of blood to appear on the front of the ganger’s jacket, while the second smashed through his head, covering the nearby wall with gore and brains.
The five remaining gangers abruptly decided that they had urgent business elsewhere and bolted, but not before Sunset’s parting shot sent one stumbling, clutching at his arm as his friends dragged him away.
Snatching up the pistol from its owner’s limp fingers, Sunset turned around to face the six girls, her face twisted with anger, “Get your fragging hoops back to my doss, now!”
________________________________________
The smell of friend eggs and potatoes drifted through the apartment as Sunset glared at the six girls from where she stood by the table, looming over them all in her anger, despite actually being shorter than both Applejack and Rarity. ‘She’s clearly furious,’ Twilight thought as she anxiously watched Sunset, ‘But it doesn’t touch her eyes at all. Is it just an act? Or is she really that empty inside?’ her mind flashed back to their reluctant host’s recent display of brutality and the librarian shuddered, ‘Can we trust her? Dear Celestia, what could make a pony so vicious?’
“‘Stay out of trouble’ I said”, Sunset growled, “A simple request, but no, you twinkies had the stunning idea to go out sprawling! And then you picked a fight with the fragging Crucifixers! I should’ve cut my loses and left you for them!”
“You killed those ponies!”
“What?” Sunset snapped, “Speak up!”
“You killed them!” repeated Fluttershy accusingly even as she shrank into Rarity’s arms, “How could you?”
“You’d rather I’d left you all to be gang raped or worse?” Sunset retorted coldly, causing the timid girl to flinch away again. The flame-haired girl frowned as she looked over her charges and finally noticed the horrified shock on all of their faces, how Pinkie and Fluttershy were cringing away from her, while Applejack and Rainbow were tense and ready to spring between her and the others. “Oh frag me … you lot really are streetmeat,” Sunset wiped a hand over her tired face as some of the ire faded from her stance, “Listen this isn’t the archology, or enclave, or fragging underground vault that you grew up in, so ka? This is the street. There aren’t any badges just waiting for the call to come swooping in and save your hoops from whatever stupidity you’ve gotten yourselves into, especially in a C-Security neighborhood like Milton! You have to keep your eyes open, know who to mind your manners with, and be ready to defend yourselves, ‘cause I’m sure as hell not going to be around to play guardian angel all the time!”
“You’ve gone over the wire,” she continued in a gentler tone, “Whatever corporation you belong to might be looking for you, but to the government, the other corps, the Star, you don’t exist. You’re all just more blanks, some more street dregs to be ignored or stepped on.” Sunset finally sat down as the last of her anger drained away, “I don’t know if you ran away or got extracted, but you obviously don’t belong out here in the wilds, and you girls need to think really hard about going back home before you get eaten alive.”
Twilight couldn’t help but frown as Sunset’s dismissive words pricked at her pride, and she could see her friends bristling as well, unsurprisingly, Rainbow Dash was quick to vent her annoyance, “Hey, we may not be killers, but we can look after ourselves! And what about you, what the hay kind of pony has bucking knives in their arms?”
“Rainbow! Language!” Rarity scolded the athlete while Sunset just looked at her in confusion.
“Okay …” the flame-haired girl’s face hardened as she sat up and put a hand on the pistol sitting on the table, “Weird corp-lingo I can buy, freaky-assed esper powers that don’t follow the rules everyone knows, maybe, but there’s no way that anyone, especially a corp-brat, doesn’t know what cyber-implants are! Who the frag are you girls?”
“That’s kind of an odd story,” Applejack admitted with a weak chuckle as the Equestrians looked at each other, “An’ we didn’t think ya’d believe us ….”
“Try me.”