- Chapter 1 -
Diamond Dogs were not clever creatures by nature. Their attraction to shiny objects, a trait that earned their species its name, made them easily distracted. Though they were strong creatures, their brute strength tended to cause them more harm than good, their emphasis on strength causing the dogs to treat weaker members of their species as second-class citizens. They were obedient creatures, which would have been positive if it weren’t for the fact that their relatively low level of intelligence meant that they would, on occasion, find themselves taking orders from beings they meant to intimidate or subjugate. All of these traits meant that, before the Cataclysm, they were sorry creatures indeed. The only trait that they all possessed that was any credit to their species was their ability to dig.
Diamond Dogs could dig at an incredible rate. Their sharp claws allowed them to excavate harder dirt and pry loose rocks faster than many creatures could with a spade or shovel; even the excavating ability of a unicorn using magic could barely match a determined Diamond Dog. They would dig into the earth, excavating gems and jewels of value, and trade with the ogres, goblins, and other creatures of the surface, or horde them for their own appreciation. Their entire society lived almost entirely underground. The ponies of Equestria owned the sky and land, but the deep bosom of the earth belonged to the Diamond Dogs.
And then the Cataclysm happened, and for all their stupidity, for all their strength, for all their lack of focus, the only trait that mattered was that they could dig.
Ruby felt her son’s paws clutch her back, his small claws clinging to her vest, as she frantically dug into the shaking, roaring earth. She could feel his tiny frame shake with fear. Above them was chaos and ruination, the end of the world.
They had been near the surface when it happened. The ground begun to shake around them. Ruby and her son had gone into the closest supported tunnel, just as she had done many times before, though this was only the second earthquake that Red had experienced in his young life. Though many of the cavernous excavations of the Diamond Dogs were unsupported—mere claw-dug holes—primary tunnels and major locations were shorn up with lumber and, occasionally, solid stone supports hewn from the surrounding rock.
They followed the supported tunnel to its end, the Hub: the primary cavern where the plethora of excavations the older dogs maintained at any given time fed into. With a sigh of relief, Ruby pulled Red from her back, setting him on the ground and leading her four year old pup by the paw. The Hub was a huge excavation, a massive open area dug out of the earth, ringed with stone walkways and supported by massive pillars. It was able to fit the entire pack of Diamond Dogs into it, and was used as a common meeting place.
The Hub was slowly filling with other dogs. The larger, brutish dogs of the militia herded groups of workers and families in from the tunnels. This was not the first time the Diamond Dogs had experienced an earthquake. They had learned long ago to take proper precautions when the earth began to move, and this was nothing new to any of them. A scout would have been sent up-tunnel to check the outlets and report any damage done to unsupported tunnels and the areas where the tunnels met the aboveground. Ruby could smell her son’s anxiety, and placed a reassuring paw on his head.
The earthquake continued, far longer than any Ruby could remember. She looked around them as the militia dogs coordinated with their superiors—the smartest dogs of the pack. Ruby pulled Red a little closer to her side, and watched the side tunnels intently for her husband and older son. They appeared on the far side of the Hub, ushered into the large cavern by the militia dogs and rounded up into a group of other mining dogs. Ruby smiled, raising a paw to try to attract her husband’s attention.
Then, the scout returned, howling, “The earth churns! Something is wrong! Something is wrong!”
The assembled dogs hushed as the militia commanders approached the terrified scout. Ruby recognised the voice of Micah, the Watchdog of the Militia. She moved closer to the hubbub, ears pricking forward to hear over the din of the earthquake.
Micah was the highest ranked commander and Alpha of the pack, and his bark was law. “Calm down, idiot! Do you want to start a panic?” Micah’s paw lashed out, slapping the whimpering scout on the back of the head. “Now, tell us what’s wrong!”
The scout, momentarily stunned out of his panic, delivered his report. “I went to the surface, and the ground was heaving as I have never seen before! Mountains trembled, and the sky-city of the wretched ponies was falling out of the air, far in the distance!”
Watchdog Micah scoffed at the scout. “Stupid dog. The pony-city in the clouds would not fall because of an earthquake! It is in the sky!”
The scout dog tugged his floppy ears, nose twitching in embarrassment as the assembled crowd’s tails wagged with amusement. Ruby chuckled quietly to herself at the preposterous report the scout had delivered, and then the earthquake suddenly intensified.
Though most of the Diamond Dogs were sturdily built, the majority of them found themselves on their rumps in the dirt as the cavern visibly shook, loose dirt and rock spilling from the ceiling. Short and squat, Ruby was not as lanky as most other female Diamond Dogs. Her powerful build allowed her to be one of the few among the gathered pack not to fall when the earthquake intensified. Red, however, took more after his father, his young form showing growth towards a taller height—something Ruby had always been proud of. Red shared his mother’s coloration, though, his fur a dull rusty color, showing a mix between Ruby’s russet fur and her husband’s coat pattern. His yellow eyes closed tightly as he held onto Ruby’s leg for dear life. She knelt, covering her pup from a shower of debris.
A few unlucky dogs nearby were suddenly crushed by a shower of heavy rocks, knocking several dogs to the ground and burying others beneath the rubble. Ruby swiftly slapped a paw over Red’s wide, terrified eyes, covering them so he couldn’t see the blood that began to pool on the cavern floor. She could smell it, though, and the fear and pain in the air only added to the stink. She looked to Micah, waiting for an order from the Watchdog.
Watchdog Micah stared up at the Hub ceiling, watching the shaking intensify and redouble. Ruby knew that Micah was smart, unlike the wider majority of his pack, and she could see the wheels turning in his head as he assessed the situation. She could feel the energy of the quake redouble suddenly, sending a second hail of rocks showering from the crumbling ceiling of the Hub and landing among the pack of dogs, eliciting more cries of pain. The shaking increased at an alarming rate, and she could see that things were going to get far, far worse before they got any better. On top of this, there was something else, something deep inside her that was howling, screaming like a wild animal that the scout was right. Something was wrong.
Red clung to Ruby, his frightened whines joining others, as the pack of Diamond Dogs rode the ever-strengthening quake. Micah’s piercing howl brought silence to the cavern, until only the dull roar of the churning earth could be heard. Ruby’s pointed ears perked, listening for the word of the Watchdog.
“To the Creche, dogs!”
The Creche was the nursery, where the female Diamond Dogs went to whelp their pups, and consequently, the most heavily reinforced location, buried deep within the bedrock of the Diamond Dog warrens.
The Diamond Dogs obeyed their Watchdog. Ruby hoisted Red to his paws, his weaker frame unable to move in the ferocity of the quake. The dogs moved en masse, their pack mentality working in tandem. The militia and the militia commanders, Micah among them, formed centers of calm, assisting the more unsteady dogs in moving into the tunnels and out of the Hub. Ruby kept her gaze firmly forward, trusting her husband to keep their elder son safe as she herded her youngest towards the safety of the Creche. She did her best to block out the cries of terror and pain that still echoed from behind her. She tried to convince herself that none of the voices behind her were familiar.
The Diamond Dogs flowed towards the Creche. Ruby, thanks to her steady footing, was one of the first of the pack to reach the nursery at the deepest depth of the tunnels. As she passed into the Creche, she heard a roar from one of the side-tunnels. A billow of dust and boulders exploded from the tunnel, partly blocking the tunnel Ruby had just left as a shaft collapsed in the ferocity of the earthquake. The smell of pulped meat assailed her senses, and Red vomited on the floor as he was overwhelmed by the scent.
The Creche was noticeably smaller than the Hub. Originally, it had been a natural cave, a place where a pocket of subterranean gases had bubbled and expanded, creating a large open area rife with oddly placed side-caves. The surrounding rock was strong, thick granite, and the Diamond Dogs had expanded it further, scraping and picking through the rock to create many chambers where the female Diamond Dogs could rest and give birth to their young.
The pack moved on unsteady paws into the Creche, heading resolutely towards the farther end, so as to keep the entrance clear for the incoming dogs.
Ruby clutched Red close as she moved on all fours, her claws digging into the stone for balance. Most all of the Diamond Dogs moved that way, unable to remain bipedal in the face of the earth’s violent heavings. Ruby and her son reached the farthest-back point of the Creche, where Ruby managed to regain her footing, standing on her hind legs and clinging to the granite wall for support as she looked out over the heads of the rush of Diamond Dogs moving into the Creche.
Though the Creche was far more secure than the Hub, the violence of the earthquake still was enough to make standing difficult. The vibrations were strong enough to make breathing a difficult affair, as the very air in her lungs reverberated. Ruby could hear more tunnels collapse around the Creche, and the dogs that made it into the Creche arrived in greater states of distress, many badly wounded and dragged along by their packmates. Ruby sank to the floor, terror overwhelming her, and clutched Red close to her chest. Clinging to her, he looked up into her eyes, voice quavering. “M-mother... have you ever seen a quake this bad?”
Ruby’s heart hammered in her chest. What could she say? There was really only one answer. “... Yes, my little pup. Everything is going to be fine.”
Ruby felt the ground suddenly tug—a downward, violent motion like nothing she had ever experienced. Far above, there was the sound of collapse, of the earth reclaiming long-empty places. She knew in her bones that the Hub had collapsed. She fell to her knees, instinctively curling around her pup as the Creche rode the waves of a dying world. The Creche began to give around them, as the granite warped from the force of the ground-shattering quake. Ruby could hear sickening sounds of boulders crashing onto crouched bodies, could hear lives ending in pitiful whimpers.The assembled Diamond Dogs howled in terror as huge pieces of granite fell from the ceiling, dust filling the air. Ruby felt doom descending on the dogs, on her family.
Her eyes rolled in their sockets in terror, searching for something, anything, to cling to... and then she saw it. Her eyes focused; a vein in the floor of the Creche. Ruby saw, and knew she had one choice, a single, slim chance. Her mother had told her stories of the quartz vein in the Creche, of the line that lead to the Womb of Gaia, a massive geode beneath the holy ground of the nursery.
The floor of the Creche was soft, made up of decayed granite particulate and hard-packed clay. Her claws bit into the soil, and she began to dig, her desperate focus and her lifetime of mining driving her work.
Other dogs near her with any presence of mind caught on, joining her in the desperate dig into the earth. The violence of the quake made the work nearly impossible, every tremor filling in the excavation partly, but as their work grew larger, more dogs joined in. Within moments, the entire cavern floor was rooted up by the deft claws of the Diamond Dogs, their propensity for moving earth reaching new heights in their hour of need. Ruby led the dogs, barking orders over the roar of the earthquake, her son clinging to her back as she dug down, down, down, following the vein of quartz in the middle of the granite.
Chunks of the ceiling continued to fall, dropping amidst the dogs, injuring some with their crushing descent. Diamond Dogs pulled their wounded pack mates with them as they dug. A few dogs even halted to try to staunch wounds or wrap broken limbs, but were pushed away, urged by the injured to dig—a single dog’s welfare was nothing measured against the well being of the pack.
Ruby was the first to hit the bottom of the natural pocket’s floor, her claws scrabbling against the granite and widening the base of the hole, searching frantically for the vein. She discovered the line of quartz as the rock and dirt shifted beneath her, partly burying her. She thrashed, sending dirt flying off of her and the small pup that clung to her back. Her claws found the quartz and she began to tear it apart, breaking through the more fragile pieces, searching desperately for a sign that the vein led to a larger, ultra-massive geode formation. Her claws tore at the crystals, sharp fragments making the pads of her hands bleed. She ignored her injuries, knowing that she did not have time to stop or complain. A section of the roof caved in nearby, crushing a group of Diamond Dogs as tons of granite annihilated their frames beneath its weight. Dogs began to howl, horror in their voices: “There’s no escape! We’re going to die!”
She had just begun to lose hope when a nearby dog yelped, “A pit! The Womb of Gaia!”
Turning, Ruby rushed to the dog’s side, helping him clear the jagged, broken hole that had been punched in the vein of crystal. The pit yawned, black as the void of space and barely wide enough for Ruby to fit through. Ruby couldn’t tell how deep the geode’s bottom was, but was determined to discover it. Ruby removed Red from her back.
Red stared up at his mother, terror clear in his teary eyes and shaking form. “Momma?”
Ruby kissed Red between his downturned ears, murmuring quietly into his ear, “Be strong, watch for daddy for me.” She handed him to a nearby dog, before jumping into the yawning, black abyss of the geode. Red screamed as his mother disappeared into the hole in the floor.
Ruby fell for several moments, tensing her legs and bending her knees to absorb the impact. After the first tense, horrifying moment passed, she realized that the geode was far, far deeper that she had anticipated, and that, in all likelihood, she was falling to her death. Ruby consigned herself to this fate, as terror overtook her senses and she began to pinwheel her arms wildly, panic setting in as she opened her mouth to—
Then Ruby hit water. Shockingly cold, black water. Her outstretched arms were pulled above her head, her shoulders absorbing part of the impact, sending pain shooting across her chest. She submerged and barely suppressed a sharp, surprised intake of breath as the cold zapped through her system like lightning. Kicking her paws and her one good arm, she swam towards the point of light emanating from the ceiling far away.
Her muzzle broke the surface of the underground lake, and she took a welcome gulp of air. The surface was choppy, the vibrations of the earth translating into waves of water that slopped about the massive, lightless chamber. Clutching her injured arm to her chest and treading water, Ruby howled to the Creche above. “Water!”
Above, as the Creche began to shatter, the Diamond Dog pack heard the call, and began to jump. The pups clung to parents as they dove into the open mouth of the geode, while other dogs desperately widened the opening to fit some of their larger packmates.
Below, Ruby swam away from the landing zone in the water. Several dogs had the presence of mind to jump with mining lamps and lanterns. These genius, airtight mechanical devices had been bartered for with precious gems, and had been built by the goblins, made to operate in the often damp and always dirty mines. As they surfaced in the underground lake, their lanterns brightened the surface of the water and revealed the geode.
The geode was massive, as they had suspected, and the bottom half of it had flooded with water, pulled into the geode by unseen underground aquifers. Tiny white shrimp and other odd cave creatures retreated from the light of their lanterns and the violent splashing as dog after dog joined their pack in the underground lake. The geode walls were equally impressive, massive purple crystals jutting out at odd angles across the interior surface and ceiling, undisturbed for centuries. Diamond Dogs made for the crystals that protruded from the water, clinging to them and climbing up out of the water.
Before the remaining dogs above could escape, the Creche surrendered to the apocalyptic tremors and collapsed, crushing weight silencing terrified howls and scrabbling claws. Ruby watched in horror as the hole filled with boulders, some falling into the water below, until it finally plugged, leaving the dogs trapped in the trembling water and resonating crystals of the geode. Ruby’s mind went numb as she thought of Red and the rest of her family. She hadn’t seen them. Had they escaped?
Red’s howling cry interrupted these thoughts. She howled back, recognizing her son’s call and responding in kind. All over the geode, families desperately called out to each other, gathering at the edges of the lake and on jutting crystal formations. Red and Ruby reunited, Red passed from the dog Ruby had given him to into his mother’s arm. Ruby held her son in one arm, and called out into the semidarkness of the geode, waiting for her husband and other son to reply.
They never did.
After several hours, the earth settled, the shaking dying down to a more tolerable level of brief aftershocks, and the pack fell into a fitful slumber, punctuated by startled moments as tremors passed through the water. The dogs awoke to find that the Womb of Gaia, buttressed by the amethysts and crystaline structures, had seen them through the night. They had little strength, though, as the trials and losses of the previous day had left them drained. They grouped together, taking solace in their shared survival, planning how to best organize to dig through the tunnels to look for possible survivors. Watchdog Micah had been lost in the panic, and it was their duty as a pack to try to find him, alive or dead.
Above them, unknown to the bedraggled survivors, the world burned and died, and with the end of sun and moon came the end of the ponies and Equestria.
The sun’s final explosive moment scorched the land, and the desecrated moon’s shattered remains fell, destroying the world above with massive impacts that lasted for weeks. The lives of every hoofed creature in the world ended, their spirits sundered by the cataclysm, or as the Diamond Dogs called it, "The Feast of Gaia". Through this horror, the Diamond Dogs survived as a species, hiding deep within the earth, sheltered within strong caverns and genius engineered tunnels meant to withstand the churning earth. The Diamond Dogs and the other surviving species would crawl from their places of refuge months later and face the cold, harsh reality that the world above had become.
The Wastelands were born.
Red Wings
Inexorable, unstoppable, unrelenting, and utterly predictable, a stormfront roiled on the horizon, lighting the perpetual twilight of the Wastelands with flashes of electricity. Red could feel the stormfront’s distant electrical bombardment through his footpads—a rumbling tremor that shook the earth like a stampede of long-ago. He stood up, stretching, and squinted his eye, looking out across the empty expanse of wind-blown ash that surrounded his home.
The sharp walls of the crater that Red had settled within sheltered him from the rest of the expanse, limiting his view to the jagged, wind-ripped edges of the massive depression. Red kept his domain small, compact, and easy to control. A massive chunk of the moon had fallen here, splattering the earth like a pebble thrown into a pond. The resulting tectonic ripple created the place that Red now called home—a deep crater that served as both fortress and shelter, a sanctuary from the danger of the rest of the wasteland around them.
Red’s home was no simple affair, though. While the other dogs of his pack concerned themselves with the deeper parts of the earth, Red worked to connect their small community to the rest of the “civilized” Wastelands, bringing in trade and the possibility of exports. He had worked diligently in the time between a multitude of stormfronts, building a level landing strip that stretched across the crater from edge to edge, and a mooring tower in the very center for zeppelins and other hovercraft. Red stood in that same mooring tower now, at the very peak—his crow’s nest. The crow’s nest was a basic lookout platform—several slabs of lightning-scorched rock, pulled from the ground and hauled up into the structure to form a perch. Fired, interlocking clay slats formed a roof to protect from the perpetually falling ash. Red himself leaned against the central support beam—a heavy metal strut that had been driven into the earth. The structure of the mooring tower wrapped around the strut, snaking down on metal platforms littered with tie-downs and clamp points to the ground five stories below. From the crow’s nest he spent his days looking out at the skies, watching for clients and writing notations on his most recent ideas and inventions.
Red had been doing just that, a dog-eared notebook and a sharpened charcoal stub clasped in his paws, when he smelled the stormfront in the distance. The tangy ozone-scent filled his nostrils, evoking a deep-rooted emotion that sent his tail dipping low to hang fearfully between his legs. Red exhaled slowly, calming his nerves as he stared out at the stormfront, and clutched the edges of the notebook tighter. It was time, again. Approximately every one hundred and twenty hours a stormfront would roll through, the last vestige of reliability in an otherwise unreliable world.
Red reached up, reflexively, to the underside of the roof of the crow’s nest, and tapped the hanging hourglass-like device that was slowly dribbling dust into the wind. He’d need to readjust it soon; it should have run down lower than it had. Red tucked the notebook into a shoulder-slung satchel, and carefully wrapped the charcoal stub in a light leather pouch along with several more unused writing implements. He bent low and retrieved a heavy poncho and slung it over his thin frame, the muddied grey color of the poncho serving to camouflage the russet of his coat in the wasteland’s ash, and also bring the Diamond Dog a measure of comfort.
The Diamond Dog watched the storm, right eye wincing slightly at every thunderous exhalation from the approaching cloud bank. His paw wandered up to the brow of his left eye, claws itching a spot just above his brow, and then adjusting the thick leather eye patch that covered the empty socket in his head. Whenever a stormfront approached, an ache emanated deep in his skull, centered around his missing eye. It made him itch.
A particularly explosive crackle of lightning set Red’s hackles on edge, and he whimpered. It had only been a few minutes since the roiling stormfront had become visible. “Damn it,” Red groused, biting the inside of his cheek to release some of the anxiety building inside him.
He forced himself to stay, sitting down again to avoid having to acknowledge the weakness that suddenly plagued his lower extremities. Red glanced up at the roof of the crow’s nest. A thick cable ran down the length of the tower, wrapping around the central strut and burying itself deep in the ground, feeding into the interconnected caverns beneath his airstrip that he called ‘home’. As much as Red hated the stormfronts, they provided a valuable source of energy. Red closed his eye, trying to even out his breathing and think of the batteries, down below him, that would be charged, the generators that would be powered for days. As much as he hated lightning, he loved the free energy that came with it.
“I don’t have the strips to pay you.”
Red halted in his work, staring up from the interior of the piece of goblinoid engineering moored to his tower. He’d been working for hours, puzzling his way through the highly advanced steam-powered engine, learning as he tinkered, patching the damage that was leaking steam deep within the system. The goblin hovercraft, a brilliantly mad creation, had wobbled its way to the tower and the tattered red flag that flew from its topmost point, denoting a safe landing place. It had passed through the most recent stormfront, carrying cargo bound for the goblin city of Petra—or, at least, one of the Petras. It seemed to be a goblin convention to name their city Petra, as far as Red could discern. Regardless, the engine had taken heavy damage passing through the fierce electrical storm, and the gremlin on board, their engineer, had been killed—meaning that Red was the only mechanic within several leagues with anything approaching the know-how to fix the ship. Not that Red had ever seen a Goblin engine up-close before, much less worked on one—but he’d never let that get in his way.
He stared at the Goblin for a moment longer, anger in his eye, the eye patch covering his missing eye serving to enhance his imposing appearance. He disentangled himself from the inside of the machine, glaring down at the imp before him, a wrench he had been using clenched tightly in one paw. “Well then, we have a problem, don’t we?”
The goblin sneered at the aggressive display. “It would seem that way, wouldn’t it? I need my ship fixed, and you need incentive.”
Red gestured to the wrench in his hand. “I could just beat you to death and sell your ship for scrap.” Red’s eye watched the Goblin for a reaction, and was rewarded by the sudden tension in his shoulders, the way his hand twitched for the steam-pistol on his hip briefly. He tensed, baring his fangs.
The goblin’s hand stayed put, his beady eyes locked onto Red’s yellow irises. “Tell me, dirty dog. How do you think you can repair my ship? You said you’d never worked on imp tech before. You tell me how you can fix my ship, and I might be able to find a way to pay you for your dubious services.”
Red sniffed the air, tasting the nervous fear exuding from the pores of the goblin. Gesturing to the engine with his wrench, Red began to explain. “Your ship runs on a basic principle, using the energy generated by the steam power to propel it through the air. I’ve always known that, though. You aren’t the first goblin that I’ve had to refuel with pressurized steam. But you are the first that’s ever let me near the engine of a hovercraft. The engine block took a direct hit, and it damaged some components that regulate the output of steam—valves that aren’t going to be easy to fix—but I think I can patch them. It’s just a matter of learning how much pressure they need to be able to withstand to keep your hovercraft afloat.”
He continued to explain, delving into the mechanics behind the hovercraft’s operation, and all the while he watched the Goblin’s mouth slacken into a look of incredulous awe. The fear-smell was replaced with the scent of shock and surprise. The Goblin finally held up a hand as Red began talking about his theories on steam-propulsion dynamics. “...You’ve...well, you’ve convinced me.” The goblin eyed Red with something akin to respect showing in his eyes. “You’ve got imp blood in those veins, pup. You sure you’ve never touched a hovercraft engine before?”
Red allowed himself a wan smirk, sensing the situation was going more his way. “There’s a first time for everything. So, how are you going to pay me for my services, pointy-ears?”
The Goblin snorted at the lame insult. “I’ll tell you how, stink-breath.” The goblin hopped up into the cabin of the hovercraft, reaching into a crate. Red was behind him in an instant, the heavy wrench held in both paws and used as an impromptu garrote. “Do you think I’m stupid, imp? I’m not like other dogs. Now, let’s see what you’re reaching for. Real slow.”
The choking goblin slowly withdrew a thick, leather-bound tome from inside the crate, and held it aloft, trying to squeeze a word in edgewise around the wrench blocking his windpipe. Red loosened his grip and let the goblin slip out from his grasp, staring dubiously at the book as the imp gasped for air. “S-stupid... whelp!” The goblin spat to the side, his breath slowly evening out as he spoke. “It’s a manual.”
Red shook his head, though he felt a bloom of curiosity well up inside him. A manual? “It had better be worth at least sixty silver strips, or else I think I’ll pulp you anyway.”
The goblin snorted. “The manual isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on. It’s what’s inside the manual that’s worth more than you’d imagine. This manual’s got specifications for the maintenance and construction of electrical generators. You fix my ship, and its yours.”
Red gave the manual a dubious look, though inside he was nearly giddy. A manual like that was worth more than the repair alone! Being able to build electrical generators meant being able to supply power for things beyond the crude oil and complex steam powered machines he’d been working with. A million possibilities jumped to the forefront of his brain, and he just as swiftly pushed them aside. He kept his expression one of distaste. “A manual. One book for one engine. That seems like you’re getting the better bargain, imp.”
The goblin leered at him, eyes alight. “Oh ho, you’d like me to think that, wouldn’t you, dirty dog? But I saw it in your eye. Petra!” The goblin said this word like it had meaning beyond the name of every other imp city in the Wastelands. “Manifesting itself in a million little ways, a wellspring of creative juice. I’ve seen that look before. It’s in the eyes of every young imp that works on his first gadget. The longing, the desire, the -”
Red held up a paw, his sparse attempt at a poker face replaced with one of sheepish interest. “Fine. One engine repair for one manual, and we’ll call ourselves even.”
The goblin gave what could be considered an honest, if very toothy, grin. “Shake on it, pup.” The goblin spat into his outstretched palm and offered it to Red. Red spat on the pad of his front paw and clasped hands with the Goblin, sealing the deal. The Goblin’s grip suddenly tightened, pulling Red closer, and the imp kneed Red between the legs, eliciting a surprised and pained yelp from Red as he clutched his crotch, falling to his knees. The Goblin chuckled. “That’s for nearly crushing my windpipe, pup. Now we’re even.”
Red spat at the Goblin’s booted feet and exhaled a pained, “Fine.”
Red shivered as the stormfront grew in the sky, flowing ever-closer on the whistling air currents that blew across the Wasteland, heralding the approach of the high-pressure front. Red’s eye closed as lightning flashed from underneath the clouds, dozens of lances of photonic discharge striking the ground in the distance every minute. He opened his eye, forcing himself to watch the storm despite the terror in his gut. Finally, he stood again, unable to bear staying above ground any longer. He began his long, winding retreat down the mooring tower, the wind ripping at his poncho.
As Red reached the lower platforms, his ears pricked. Over the roar of the approaching storm, he could hear a buzz—the unmistakable hum of an approaching engine. Red looked up, squinting into the oncoming stormfront, eye dazzled by the bright flashes of lightning that set his teeth grinding together. After a moment, he spotted it: a prop-engine aircraft. The ship was a mish-mash of bodged together metal scrap, a rusting scrapheap with wings. It appeared to be a cargo vessel of some kind. Red’s eye glanced to the top of the mooring tower, checking the direction of the wind before returning his calculating gaze to the aircraft. It was angling with the wind, its nose coming around—definitely intending to land ahead of the stormfront.
Red cursed the idiot pilot of the flying scrap heap. He’d have to be ready to assist their landing. It wasn’t the first time that this had happened, but Red still hated having to be above ground anywhere near a stormfront. Red ran to the base of the tower and kicked open a heavy foot locker, exposing a second battered red flag that matched the one flying at the top of the tower. Gripping the standard, he ran towards the far edge of the landing strip and held the flag aloft in the wind.
The flag snapped to attention in the violent gale, denoting the wind direction and also serving to mark the end of the runway. A good pilot would be able to gauge his speed, determine how much distance he had to slow his aircraft, and make a successful landing; Red hoped that he was looking at a good pilot. The far end of the runway held a few dust-covered airframes that had been damaged in botched landing attempts by inexpert pilots.
Red crouched low, hunching his back against the wind and eyeing the incoming aircraft as it descended. These were the most tense moments—the second the aircraft touched down, he’d know what sort of pilot he was dealing with.
The prop plane’s multiple propellor-driven engines gave a final sputtering roar as the pilot of the craft gave them a final push, and it soared in over the lip of the crater, aligning with the runway and settling down onto it. The wind tore at the craft as it touched down, attempting to jerk it off the runway and send it into the dust off the side of the landing strip, and Red winced reflexively. The airframe leaned slightly, but the pilot inside was good after all, and the craft straightened out at the last moment. It finally slowed, coming to a stop twenty feet from the end of the runway.
Red stood up, waggling the flag in a ‘follow me’ motion, and began to sprint for the side of the crater. The aircraft’s engines hummed as the pilot taxied after Red, who led them towards an overhang cut into the side of the crater, sheltering the big aircraft from the oncoming storm’s wrath. Red exhaled a sigh of relief as he crossed underneath the lip of the crater, and moved to the far side of the hangar area as the aircraft came to a stop. He walked to the farthest end of the hanger area, where a pulley-system and a complex mechanical rig sat silently. Red bent down and pumped a lever several times, priming the machine’s engine with fuel, and then threw a switch. With a dull sputter and a rumble, it came to life.
He let the engine warm up, then flipped a second switch. The machine strained, and then roared as it powered the complex pulley system. Partially buried in the ash in front of the open-faced hangar cut into the cliff, thin sheets of metal rose from the ground, lifting like the flaps on the aircraft’s wings and raising into position. ln a scant minute, the metal sheets had risen to their full height, forming a massive doorway that closed the hangar off from the oncoming storm.
Red smiled with satisfaction as the hangar doors closed him off from the stormfront, finally feeling a little of the tension he’d been carrying lift. Turning to view the aircraft now parked in his hangar, he saw two Diamond Dogs disembarking from a cargo hatch in the belly of their aircraft. They were both ragged animals, clad in dark leather and wearing a bizarre and eclectic collection of sharp weapons about their person. One was shorter, a stocky terrier-like build, face scrunched and grumbling, his snout criss-crossed with a few ugly scars. The other was taller, lanky like Red, only with sharper features. A red scarf wound around his throat, and he said nothing, eyes half-lidded and bored as his companion groused at him. Red immediately rescinded his assessment of them as ‘Diamond Dogs’, and called the air pirates by their assumed name. “What are a couple of mangy Dirigible Dogs doing in this neck of the Wastelands? Aren’t you a little far from your territory?”
The smaller dog snorted, his voice grating and higher pitched, “We are Dirigible Dogs! The sky is our territory! Not that a mutt like you would know anything about the sky, rust-face!”
Red smirked. “You might be surprised. The name’s Red. I run this airstrip.” Red tucked a paw openly into the satchel slung at his side, clutching onto the stock of a heavy-bore steam pistol secreted within, next to his notebook. “Now, should I be expecting trouble, or can we act like a pack for a few hours while this stormfront blows over?”
The taller Dirigible Dog’s eyes snapped to the satchel and then narrowed with suspicion. The little one chuckled, a raspy and annoying noise that made Red consider shooting him—if only so he’d never have to hear that sound again. “We’re looking for any port in a storm, mutt. We can be civil when we gotta be. Ain’t that right, Ace?”
Ace, the larger dog, shrugged, pulling his scarf tighter around his neck and saying nothing, but the little one seemed to take this as acquiescence. Stepping forward, the shorter Dirigible Dog offered a paw, pad-up, to Red’s snout. “Name’s Quint, and the silent one is Ace, my pilot.”
Red sniffed the offered paw pad, getting the Dirigible Dog’s scent, and offered his paw for the same treatment. Quint gave Red’s paw a compulsory sniff, and then stepped back, looking appraisingly around the hangar. “What do you have to drink in this dunghole? I’m parched!”
Red resisted the urge to bare his teeth at Quint, and stepped past the smaller dog, ignoring his question and offering his paw to Ace. Ace smirked and scented Red’s paw, and offered his paw to Red. Red glanced at Quint. “Your companion doesn’t talk much. Does he have just as annoying a voice as you, only he’s polite enough not to subject others to it?”
Quint growled at Red, but Ace snickered. A pained, deep-throated gurgle came from the back of his throat, and his mouth opened. The tall dirigible dog shook with silent laughter for a moment, no noise except the quiet rasp of air escaping his mouth. Quint scampered over and kicked his pilot in the shin. “Shut up Ace!” Ace smirked at the smaller dog as he vented his fury in a flurry of small kicks to his booted leg. “He doesn’t talk much because he got his throat ripped out by a troll!”
Quint scowled at Ace and his ‘laughter’ ceased. Red snickered at the two Dirigible Dogs as their hackles raised at each other. “All right, mutts, can the alpha-male stuff. Let’s get you downstairs and get you something to drink. I hope you’ve got silver strips, though, or else all you’re getting from me is a swift boot in your tail.”
Quint and Ace turned away from each other after the brief and unresolved staredown. Quint patted a pouch on his belt, tucked next to a wicked-looking knife. “We’ve got strips if you’ve got grog.”
Red led the two dogs to the back of the hangar, where a set of stairs cut from the rock delved down into the earth. He descended, followed by the two air pirates, leading them into his pack’s den—and more importantly—far away from the sounds of the stormfront.
A few yards into the earth, the stairway split, winding away in a myriad of directions. Red led the Dirigible Dogs onward, passing the occasional members of his pack that were working on expanding tunnels, excavating for precious minerals, or mining out hard rock. Finally, the trio of dogs halted before a larger opening: a natural cavern that had been turned into a common area. A few rough tables, hewn from stone, dotted the cavern, and a few stalagmites cut near the cave floor served as seating for some of the tables. The room was mostly empty, a single Diamond Dog sitting quietly behind what was unmistakably a bar, cleaning out metallic cups with a rag. Red gestured to the motley Dirigible Dogs. “Welcome to Cooper’s Corner, the pub, eatery, and general meeting place of our pack.”
Quint managed a genuine smile. “This is more like it. Who’d think that your little dunghole would have a place that sells drinks?”
Red rolled his eye. “Every town has a bar. Just because our town happens to be underground doesn’t change that fact.”
Ace sauntered over to the bar and leaned up against it, catching the bartender’s eye with a nod. The bartender, a chocolate brown dog with droopy ears, smiled a dopey smile at Ace. “Well, howdy-howdy. What can I get ya?”
Ace glanced around, a frown forming on his face. Quint approached the bar. “Give my pal here whatever’s the strongest swill you’ve got, and I’ll have a mug of the same.”
The bartender gave Quint a nod, his eyes meeting Red’s briefly. The two Diamond Dogs shared a knowing look, and the bartender loped over to a row of barrels set into grooves in the wall, and poured two mugs of dark greyish liquid. He set the mugs down in front of the Dirigible Dogs. “Here y’ go, fellas. Take it easy on those, now. Not everyone...is...” The bartender trailed off as the two air pirate dogs lifted their mugs and took a long drink. Red approached, a grin on his face, waiting for the inevitable reaction.
Quint’s was the first, and most extreme. With a sudden snort of surprise, his head jerked back from his mug, and he spat out the drink onto the ground. He retched, wiping at his watering eyes with his free paw, the other barely maintaining its trembling grip on the mug. Finally, after a few sputtering coughs, he managed to speak, his whining voice rendered quiet and raspy, “Gaia below, what’s this made from?”
Red smirked. “What’s the matter, pup? Our fungus liquor too strong for you?”
Quint gaped down at the cup with a mixture of disbelief and disgust. “I haven’t had something hit my throat like that in years. I thought it was engine fuel!”
Ace regarded his companion cooly, and took another long pull from his mug. The other dogs all stared at Ace as he drained his cup and set it back on the bar counter, tapping the edge with a single claw in a gesture that unmistakably said “more”. The bartender even looked a bit surprised as he refilled the mug. Red broke the awkward silence as he watched Ace take on a second mug of the strong drink. “Well, I guess the troll that got his voice got his taste buds too.”
Quint shook his head, “Ace just drinks a lot.” With a determined snarl, he took a second drink from his mug, much to the same sputtering effect.
Red sat down on a stalagmite and propped his elbows on the bar, and nodded to the bartender. “I’ll just have some of the watered-down stuff, Cooper.”
Cooper nodded and smiled a big smile. “On the house for you, Red.”
Red smiled at his big, dumb friend as he brought him over a drink, before returning his attention to Quint and Ace. Ace stayed standing, downing his second mug more slowly, as Quint struggled with his first, taking a seat next to Red. “So, what are Dirigible Dogs doing out here? I would have figured you’d be terrorizing the sky with Gilliam and his huge airship carrier: The Dog’s Bollocks.”
Quint chuckled, staring into the metal cup as if expecting the liquid inside to burn through the bottom of it at any moment. “I’m surprised you’d even know much about Gilliam. We never came out this way with the Bollocks. The wastes west of Griffon Mount are more in-line with the goblins and griffons than our usual flight paths.”
Red leaned back, taking a sip of his own drink before continuing. “You’d be surprised at what I know about Gilliam.”
“That so, pup?”
“That is so, mutt. I helped build his flying aircraft carrier.”
This declaration brought a surprised laugh from Quint and a grunt from Ace. “You worked on The Dog’s Bollocks? You were one of those grease dogs that got that thing in the air?”
Red leaned forward with a wide grin, pride evident in his expression. “Without me, his carrier wouldn’t have ever flown. I had a paw in designing the turbines that keep it aloft.”
Quint smirked at Red, “Well, ain’t that somethin’. You’re like an honorary Dirigible Dog, then. Not often that a mutt gets in with us, but... you’re somethin’ else, ain’t ya?”
He shrugged, “I guess so. The job paid good strips, at any rate.”
“Well, then, I guess it’s no big deal if I tell you a little secret.” Quint leaned forward, his high voice lowering to an almost tolerable level. “Gilliam is toast.”
Red frowned, leaning back from the smaller dog. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means exactly what it sounds like, pup. Gilliam and his Bollocks got taken down two days ago. Big explosion in the bridge. The whole thing went down somewhere in the mountains far north of the old glue-stick capitol.”
Red shook his head. “That’s impossible!”
“Oh, you don’t know the half of it. Get this, they say that it was the last pony that did it. Harmony or whatever the salt-licking glue stick calls itself.”
Red felt that same itch, deep inside his skull. He reflexively reached up, scratching at the skin under the eye patch. “Last pony? You sure you’re not hallucinating? The fungus drink can do that sometimes. All the ponies are dead, Quint. Whenever their pastel-colored queens or princesses or whatever they were caused the The Feast of Gaia, they took all the glue-sticks down with them. There are no ponies left.”
The stocky air pirate laughed. “Not so, dirt-digger! Ace, you’ve seen the last pony, haven’t ya?” Ace looked up from his drink, now nearly empty for the third time, and shrugged in a noncommittal way, before nodding. Quint pointed to Ace, “There, proof. Ace knows about the last bloody pony, and it just blew up Gilliam’s carrier. They say it was magic, a fireball that lit up the wasteland!”
Red scowled, rubbing his head. He felt a headache coming on. “So, you mean to tell me that a pansy-tailed pony brought down the most dangerous piece of mechanical engineering and avionics that we as a race have ever produced?” He felt a throb in the front of his skull and winced his good eye shut for a moment. Something was off.
Quint’s face blurred before Red’s eye as he leaned forward. “You’re not lookin’ so good, rust-head.” Red shivered and his head throbbed. Cooper leaned forward over the bar, the ever-present dopey smile faltering with concern.
“I...I just need a minute.”
Red stood up on shaking legs, and made a wobbling sprint out of the common area. He tore through a side-passage, stumbling as his headache intensified. He arrived at the smaller tunnel that served as his den, curtained off from the main passage by leather strips, and tumbled inside.
The room itself was a mess, the floor littered with metal scraps and tools. There was a method to the chaos—though it was not apparent to any but Red. He got to his knees with a groan. His empty socket burned beneath the eye patch, and he tore it off his head with a violent tug. The place where his left eye should have been was a mass of scar tissue, the skin around the scars hairless. Red’s claws raked unthinkingly at the old wound as he moved to the foot of a pad of leathers and furs that served as his bed. He shoved aside the pillow, revealing a small box. Red clutched at this box, opening it and retrieving from within the lower half of what was unmistakably the lower portion of a unicorn horn. The horn was white, the severed base holding a slight spiral that tapered towards a missing point. Red clutched the partial horn like a talisman, pressing it to his forehead as he leaned back into the furs with a growl of pain.
Red gasped suddenly as memories, buried in scar tissue and hidden behind an eyepatch, were suddenly in his head.
He loped across the Wastelands, sharp eyes scouring the crags and valleys. Far behind him, the militia bayed and hunted, corralling some unfortunate creature in a gully that one of the other scouts had discovered. His mouth watered at the thought of fresh meat. He, like the rest of the militia, had been living off rations for several days as their scavenging routes wandered farther from their den under the earth. There was much to discover, much to re-learn in this new world—a world without the blasted glue-sticks keeping their ambition in check.
He had grown strong and tall. Fourteen years old now, and a life of hardship had taught him to survive, to hunt, to work with the pack. He was a scout, chosen for his speed and not for his smarts. He was bright, yes, but not command material. That suited him. He’d rather be at the forefront—scavenging, exploring, fighting.
The lone Diamond Dog took off, leaving the pack behind. They’d be able to follow his scent after they were done with their current quarry. Hopefully by then he’d have something to show for his work. He lost himself in the ash wastes, paws sending light puffs of decayed matter and the char of years past into the air. He watched carefully around him, keenly searching. He scented something, then—the hot smell of sweat on leather. Something had been by here recently. He chased the scent, crawling low to the ground, his nose leading him in a meandering trail down into a deeper series of crags. He spotted ruins up ahead, a group of burned-out buildings, dilapidated and seemingly empty. His nose told him a different story; something had entered the area recently. Perhaps another scavenger, searching for somewhere to hide. He dimly remembered one of the watch commanders warning him of a stormfront that would roll over this part of the Wasteland in a matter of hours. He put that aside. It was time to hunt.
He stalked cautiously along the side of one of the buildings, pausing often and listening for any sounds that would lead him to his prey. He flexed his claws and adjusted the thick leather vest that protected his upper chest. He slid around a corner, tensed and ready to spring an attack, but found nothing but the tumbled-down side of the building, which opened into a house. He peered around the interior of the building, eyes rapidly adjusting from the gloom of the outside to the only marginally darker interior. The room appeared to be a large common area, with a few charred wooden pieces of furniture and a long bar, as well as what appeared to be the collapsed floorboards and a few dessicated beds that had fallen from above. It must have been a pony house, probably an inn. As he stalked deeper into the ruin, his suspicions were confirmed. Beneath a layer of ash, the decayed remains of several ponies lay scattered about the floor, frozen in their final moments.
His foot hit something buried in the ash that clanked with a loud metallic ring, and he froze, turning a full circle and watching for any signs that the noise he had unwittingly produced had given his presence away. Hackles raised, he spared a glance down to the floor. A piece of armor, half-rusted, sat beneath his pawpad. The ornate armor sparked a memory—it was armor that the glue sticks’ military had worn. He reached down into the dirt and retrieved a helm, complete with pony skull, from the dust. Red discarded the skull and smirked, staring at the helmet. He might be able to get a smith to convert it so it would fit his head. Red’s ears pricked forward as he heard something nearby. He looked up, and was greeted by a wholly unexpected sight.
Before him, like a spectre from the past, stood the unmistakable form of a pony. Clad in light leather armor that covered its body from hooves to ears, the only thing visible was its dimly scarlet eyes and a brown-furred muzzle, dusty with ash. He stared at this ghost, awed by the being before him. The pony likewise watched him.
He wasn’t sure what to do, not at first. He didn’t know any ponies had survived The Feast of Gaia. He certainly hadn’t encountered any survivors. This was wholly unexpected. He felt his hackles raise on his neck as his brain processed. A glue-stick. Maybe one of the last.
It was their fault. The Feast. His father and brother, and so many others of his pack, lost. The ponies had brought this on them, this world of ash and darkness. Them and their meddling, their magic, had cost every living creature so much. And now, here was one, before him. He’d never get another chance to eke out a measure of revenge on their pastel hides. He growled. “Hello, prrrretty pony. Gggglue stick picked the wrongggg place to scavenge.”
The pony smirked, a cocksure gesture that only served to make him more infuriated. “Well, look at that. A lost dog. What’s the matter, boy? Somebody fell down a well?”
He wasn’t entirely sure what this meant, but he assumed it was an insult, and his growl deepened as he began to stalk around the pony, circling it and assessing, looking for a weakness. He scented the pony, nose giving him information that his eyes could not. Despite being a pony, it was in good health. He hadn’t seen anything green growing in a long time, so he wasn’t sure how this was possible. Furthermore, the pony was a female, and young, maybe only a little older than he was. Good. He had seen male ponies—some of them were imposingly built. Girl ponies were namby-pamby, weak, useless. This wouldn’t be a problem.
“Little ggggirl pony is the one who is lost. What is the matter, little pony? Lost your herd?”
The pony rolled her eyes, but he could smell pain underneath the bravado. “Like I haven’t heard that one before. Listen, dust-for-brains, I’ll give you one chance to clear out. This is my find, and my scavenge. Why don’t you go back to whatever hole you crawled out of and stay there?” He snarled at her, tensing up, and the pony smirked. “Always the hard way. All right, butt-sniffer, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
The pony lowered a pair of brass goggles over her scarlet eyes, and he lunged at her. He attacked low, both arms darting for the pony’s front legs, trying to catch and incapacitate her. The pony nimbly leapt aside, turning her flank to him and lashing out with a brutal kick. He rolled away, the brass-shoed hoof nearly taking him in the shoulder. He got to his feet and attacked again, claws slashing in high for the pony’s face. The pony’s head jerked back, avoiding the tearing claws, and reared up on her hind legs, lashing out with a one-two punch that pushed aside his arm. He felt a brief stab of pain in his bicep and stepped back, glancing down. Blood ran from a shallow cut in his arm. He looked for any sign of what could have caused this, and saw a thin blade extended from one of the pony’s front horseshoes. He snarled and attacked again, this time stabbing out with a crude blade that had been hidden inside his vest.
The pony met his knife attack, turning aside his blade with her own and jabbing at his chest. He swerved, knocking the thrust away with an open-handed slap, his claws grating across the bladed shoe, and he kicked out at the pony. His foot connected with her chest and the pony exhaled hard, jumping back and away from him. He pressed the attack, reversing the grip on his blade and driving it down towards the pony’s face. The pony blocked the savage cut again, dulling the force, and her hooves both locked around his wrist, holding the dagger away from her face. He bulled into her, using his size and weight to his advantage, and they went down in a tangle of limbs.
He fell on top of the pony, who desperately clung to his blade paw, keeping the killing weapon at bay. He sneered, clasping his free paw to the weapon and using it to push down harder, driving the tip of the blade level with the pony’s goggle-covered eyes. He could smell her fear. She was panting and straining beneath him, and he knew that he’d won. He merely needed to pour his strength into his arms and drive the blade into its new home in the pony’s skull. She gasped and sputtered something. He snarled as he worked to drive his knife downward. “Gggggoing to beggggg for mercy, pony?”
“Nope. Just wanted to remind you that I gave you a chance, idiot!”
He was confused. He was winning! Wasn’t he? Then he noticed his error. The pony was holding him at bay with only a single hoof, braced against the pony skull he had discarded earlier. When they had gone to the ground, she had twisted her other forelimb away from beneath him. This same forelimb now lashed forward towards his face. He had time to take in the powerful muscle behind the attack, and another odd detail: her hoof was ringed with horns—unicorn horns. His eye filled with the sharp point of a white horn and he screamed as the hoof connected.
He felt a wet, burning sensation as the hoof deflected off his brow, but the horn twisted, sticking into his eye. The pony shoved hard as his head exploded with pain, the vision in his other eye sparking. He released the knife and reeled away, feeling something snap and the burning in his face intensify. He sank to his knees, mouth agape, trying to speak, trying to think, but all he could feel was the hard point of something driving into his head and wet warmth flowing down his muzzle. His vision started to swim with freakish colors as he collapsed to his side. He could see the pony still, among bursting lights and odd tastes and smells, lying on her side and panting, the bracelet of unicorn horns holding one less of the magical appendages. Her mouth grimaced as she examined the damaged bracelet. “Friggin’ A.”
His one remaining eye closed as the pain overwhelmed him, and his brain overloaded as the unicorn horn settled into his skull.
His eye snapped open, his head throbbing with pain. Red groaned, sitting up on the pile of furs. After a moment, he retrieved the small box that had been hidden under his pillow and replaced the piece of horn inside it. He stood, shaking, and moved to a shelf cut into the dirt on the side of his room. He took a leather pouch from the shelf and left his room, heading once more for the common area.
Ace and Quint were still seated at the bar. Ace swayed lightly in his seat, drooling as he downed yet another mug of the potent drink. Quint turned to face Red as he returned to the bar. “Well, hello pup. Where’d you run off to?” Red sat down without comment, placing the leather pouch on the bar.
Cooper brought Red a mug of the same strong drink he’d been serving the two air pirates, and Red gave Cooper a wan smile before downing the contents in one go. Quint stared at Red with shock. Red smirked, “It’s an... acquired taste.”
Red opened the leather pouch and retrieved from inside a needle-tipped syringe and a vial of a brackish liquid. Quint raised a brow questioningly, eyes darting between the needle and Red’s scarred face. “What’s that for?”
Red shook the vial, mixing the cloudy liquid thoroughly. “It’s for me. The liquid in here is a solution of purified water, saline, and lunar dust.”
Quint looked even more confused, and Ace looked up from his most recent drink to watch. “Lunar dust?”
Cooper brought Red over a smaller mug, filled with a clear, strong-smelling liquid. Red dipped the tip of the needle into the alcohol, swirling it around to sterilize the needle. “When I was younger, I met the last pony. She stabbed me through the eye with a unicorn horn.” Red tapped a claw over the mass of scar tissue. “The militia found me hours later, and one of our apothecaries was able to save my life, but they couldn’t risk pulling the horn out of my head. So, they cut off the protruding base and closed up my face, leaving me with two inches of magical pony jammed in my brain.”
Red loaded the syringe with the solution and extended his arm forward, searching for a vein underneath his fur. With practiced precision, he stuck the sharp needle point into his arm and pressed the plunger, injecting the odd mixture into his body. Quint whined slightly. Red smoothly slid the needle out of his arm and pulled the needle tip off the syringe. He dropped the bloody needle into the glass of alcohol and replaced the syringe and vial of liquid in the leather pouch. Red felt the effects slowly, his headache subsiding as the lunar dust did its work.
He returned his gaze to Quint and Ace, who stared at the needle with wide eyes. Red leaned forward, capturing the two Dirigible Dog’s attentions. “Every day, the horn in my brain interacts with the magical ley-lines and absorbs magical energy, building up a charge over a few days. It took months of searching through the books and tomes in the glue-sticks’ accursed cities until I puzzled this together—months of aching, unbearable pain as the horn in my head charged itself with power. I also learned that lunar material absorbs magic. So, every few days, I have to inject myself with lunar dust to drain the charge. Every few days, I’m nearly overwhelmed by migraines that would cripple me without these injections.”
Ace made a disgusted face, and Quint leaned back, away from Red. “So... why didn’t you remember the last pony? I’d never forget it if somebody hurt me that badly.”
Red looked up at the ceiling, face calm. “That’s the funny thing about traumatic brain injuries. You forget things... like how to walk. And talk. And write.”—Quint’s eyes widened as he listened to Red—“Things I had to re-learn. But I got better. I got stronger. But, more than that—I was different. Smarter. More than the dog I was. When that horn hit my grey matter, it moved things around, changed me. But...until now, I’d forgotten all about the last pony.”
Red’s serene eye met Quint’s, and Quint’s hackles raised reflexively at the rage he saw boiling behind that yellow orb.
“I remember the last pony, Quint. I remember that she nearly took away everything from me. And now, I know what I need to do.”
Red retrieved the needle from the glass of alcohol, shaking it off and putting it into the pouch with the syringe and vial, and he tucked the whole kit into the satchel at his side.
“See, Quint, I’ve been given a gift. Before, I was just like any other dog. Dumb. Strong. A good digger. I never stood a chance against the last pony, because she was smarter than me. She out-thought me, and that’s how she nearly killed me. But now?”
Red reached into his satchel and pulled out another eyepatch, and pulled it over his head, straightening the leather flap to cover his scars.
“I’m smart. Just as smart as her. I build things. Machines, weapons, airships. I never knew why, but now it’s clear. I’ve been given an edge—the edge I need to kill the last pony.”
Quint and Ace both stared at Red as he stood up from the bar, dropping a silver strip on the counter, and stalked from the bar.
“And when this stormfront blows over, that’s exactly what I’m going to do. I’m going to find the last pony and make her wish she’d turned to ash with the rest of her race.”