Calm Before The Storm

by Doctor Fluffy

We Are Not Alone

Xiulan Zhang: “Would you say that there’s any truth to the stories about the so-called Last Resort?”

Oliver Singh: “Oh, God. That name. I hate it so much.”

Xiulan Zhang: “Would you say it’s… untrue?”

Oliver Singh: “No, I hate it because it’s so true it hurts. I want to find whoever did the calcs that put us as the last place on earth and wring their neck.”

Xiulan Zhang: “I remember that. The one that calculated that within six years, New Zealand would be the last place on Earth.”

Oliver Singh: “That’s the one. Sure, not the whole island, but by the time it enclosed us, it wouldn’t matter. Nobody wanted to think about that, though. We get a decent influx, but the later Barrier Evacuation, once it hits areas more densely populated than Switzerland… well, that convinced enough people that they never wanted to go through something so truly horrifying. So they up and left.

“First, we get the rich and famous running roughshod over everyone here. Then the PHL base with the most expensive, ridiculous tech that barely anyone can so much as breathe at. Then, you get people who’ve been through enough evac that they sell every damn thing and come here with only the clothes on their backs! And sometimes, not even that. Yes, Ms. Zhang. The stories are absolutely true.”

Xiulan Zhang: “You sound… do you wish they hadn’t come? I can sort of empathize, but I don’t know where they’d go.”

Oliver Singh: “Yeah, I know. I just… it’s hard. I used to know every corner of my city, now it feels like I get lost whenever I turn the corner. I miss… I don’t know how to say it.”
Televised interview for Xinhua News Network on the Last Resort, between Xiulan Zhang (Reporter) and Oliver Singh, a New Zealander

It’s easy to hate us out here. To call us monsters, say we had our heads in the sand. Maybe it was selfish. Maybe not. But we were terrified. Being on the move, only separated from the Barrier with an ocean in the way? Watching the Empire plow through country after country? I couldn’t allow myself to live like that. So I found what seemed the perfect solution. I took every piece of art I owned in my private collection, brought my dogs, my family – even the ones I didn’t quite like. If you see this, that’s you, Aleksi. I couldn’t let you go through the tales of our grandparents. I took everything I valued and ordered it flown to Akaroa.

I don’t know when they started calling it the Last Resort. Maybe it was the first big party – the real bust-ups, the ones that lasted weeks or more, the ones where people would dance, drink, smoke, fuck, eat anything for days on end without sleep. It sounds fun, but it was either throw yourself into the deep end or realize just how lost it all was. The workers were abused, forgotten. They were just props. It seemed like things would come to a boil once America had Barrierfall, and the news reached even the most oblivious partygoer. And then, days later… when we found out where Colonel Renee was, it was like all the lights went out in the city. I don’t know how to describe it. That day, we didn’t know what to believe.
– Ilinga Cojocaru, former citizen of Romania. Excerpt from an interview for ‘The Last Party In The World’, a New Zealand documentary on Last Resort made in 2042.

Let me tell you about the day that everything stopped.

The Last Resort was always in motion. There was always a party. There were always people wired on some substance. There was always something being fixed. There were always people trying to get somewhere. There was always a reason to do anything but what you needed to do, always a way to cope, more or less.

And there’d always be people with jobs to do. Ilinga, cleaning up a party that’d lasted ten days, and wearing her characteristic scowl. Flywheels, this unicorn engineer I knew, off working on the PHL magitech which had made it to the private sector.

And me, working on a sculpture. Some city bigwig wanted a sculpture of whatever I could find; a sculpture that only a unicorn could create. So I sat in my apartment, with a pile of refuse that I would shape into an abstract human form, working on a Crowe Laboratories accu-vox...

Alright, testing, testing, one… one two… one two three…

This is Maple Glaze. Earth pony, twenty-six years old. Yellow coat, orange-and-red mane, y’know, faux Spitfire, yadayada. I’m participating in the Crowe Laboratories accu-vox program today, for payment, extra rations, and because… (*groans*) I need a break, goddammit. I’ve been working on these sculptures for twenty-eight hours, I don’t give a shit if they’re done, I’m done, that’s what matters. I am attending, if that’s the word, the Design And Arts College of New Zealand, in Christchurch. I transferred here from Hoofington U because I wanted to see Earth. By the time I was a sophomore the war was in full-swing, and I just kept taking subject after subject so nobody would deport me.

Turns out, nobody would have, so here I am in Christchurch. Yay. Ah, well. Least I’m not lonely. That’d really suck.

I didn’t come out of the Crystal War feeling happy. I came out of there feeling disaffected, not really finished with my studies, so I came here. Which is where I learned about dadaism. Which is why I’m trying to work on something that feels like Chalcedony’s work before that mess with the Equestrians for Humanity’s Salvation. If you don’t remember them, trust me, you’re better off. I actually have a few examples of her work some guy in a tweed coat gave me as inspiration. She was… interesting.

Going to college during wartime is odd, to say the least. Few people think they’re actually going to going to survive, and the art department is-

(*static*)

“Get in here, Maple!”

“I’m trying to work!”

“Screw your work! Get in here! THIS IS BIG!”

(*static*)

Fine…

Whatever. I might as well...

Um.

Oh, damn.

(*recording cuts off*)

Watching the news goes against the Great Roommate Agreement of ‘21: We Do Not Watch The News On The Gaming TVs. After years of anguish, of tragedies once a week, we’d all agreed we’d find the news at one pace. We had a lot of TVs, all bought before the price rocketed up, and the idea was that we used them all to play video games. We weren’t rich enough to be invited to the Last Resort’s parties, more that we just sort of happened upon them.

And now our roommate agreement is broken in favor of a right bombshell of a story.

I think that on some level, yes, I understand this. Or at least, understand that something had been said in the first place. I understand what the words had been. The specific arrangement of sounds which superficially resembled an actual sentence.

We crowd in, squeezing onto a couch, on the floor, anywhere there’s space. There’s ten of us to this apartment, bunkbeds lining the walls in places. A zebra named Fundiswa, a Turk named Mustafa, an American named Tom Casey. A woman with an armory of Soviet weapons named Vorona. A Chinese man named Huang. A Czech woman named Dobromila. A family of Swedes, Karl and Tuuri Lundberg, and their children Olaf and Hanna.

“The Internet is just blowing up,” Mustafa says, stroking his beard nervously as he scans some forum on his iPad.

“What’s happening?” Dobromila asks in Czech. We’ve all learned enough of her native tongue, not to mention her body language (grasping both knees as she tried to sit still on the couch) to know she’s completely gobsmacked.

“Don’t you all know?” Karl asks. “It’s… it’s Equestria.”

“Don’t you mean the Solar Empire?” Tom asks.

“No,” I say, my fur in a cold sweat. “Karl doesn’t.”

“How could he not mean the Solar Empire?” Tom asks, snorting derisively. “How could…”

And then the news popped up. The PHL is holding a press conference, Cheerilee is standing at a podium in front of a large banner with the PHL’s insignia, reporters shouting over each other to get something.

“Why didn’t you immediately release this news to the public?” one reporter asked on TV, beads of sweat rolling down their face.

“Because we thought you’d panic,” Cheerilee says, a hint of guilty admittance to her voice. “This was… this was a miracle. You don’t want to know what some of our contingency plans were. Of all the things that could have happened, this was the least likely. And if I told you another Celestia wanted to help, well…”

It’s impossible to miss the shock on another reporter’s face.

“I wouldn’t take it well, and I don’t think anyone else would,” Cheerilee says. “But they saved us. Their Lord Discord and their Princess Luna came. Their Princess Celestia didn’t, because she knew what we’d think.”

“This all seems a bit too… convenient, Lieutenant Colonel Cherry,” another reporter says. “It’s, if you’ll pardon my French–”

“Faute de mieux,” Cheerilee intercedes smartly.

Hanna giggles nervously. Everyone knew the Teacher hadn’t been idle during her time at the Equestrian Embassy in Paris, where she’d first met Renee.

“Well, it’s a fucking miracle. I’ll have to play the Devil’s Advocate here, but, um, what made you decide to take it up?”

A blue mare with a white mane, Photo Finish, who’s standing next to Cheerilee, sighs.

“Ve thought of zat,” Photo Finish explains. “Oh, did ve think. Ve considered turning it dow… no, zat’s not right. Ve considered zat ve should consider it. Zen ve reconsidered. Zere are… certain personnel... in ze PHL zat could never trust any Celestia. Who have had enough of offers from Equestria zat claim to have no downsides. Certain ponies zat, even if ze var never ended, vould stay here out of spite. But… ve realized ve couldn’t do anything else.”

“Isn’t that rather defeatist?” a third reporter asks.

“Yes and no,” Cheerilee said. “These Equestrians treated Colonel Renee well while he was there. If I remember correctly, he was given a room in Canterlot Palace that had specifically been made for minotaur visitors. They were nothing but understanding to him, and Princess Celestia has called together every army of her world to help.”

There’s a gasp, from both sides of the television screen.

“Yes. Every army. Dragons, minotaurs, diamond dogs, zebras, reindeer…” Cheerilee says. “Maybe a few more. We may have different magics, different techniques from the Solar Empire. But we don’t have another planet’s worth of resources, troops, and magic.”

“Ze applications are literally dizzying,” adds Photo Finish.

“And we’ve probably thought of them,” Cheerilee says. “We’ve been attempting to offload artwork and anything from Earth we can think of to the other Equus. Apparently it’s getting very popular. There’s factories producing PHL equipment and machinery, and we’re attempting to help them learn more of our tactics.”

“But, Lieutenant Colonel. I do have one more question,” the first reporter says.

“Yes, sir?”

“Why tell us now?” the reporter begins, before clarifying. “I mean, we understand you wished to break the news carefully. Only, while I realise it’d make no functional difference to ask about this, what makes you confident that disseminating this information won’t alert the Empire to a potential element of surprise?”

The sad smile on Cheerilee’s face suggests she had anticipated this question.

“Because, ladies and gentlemen,” she says wanly, “surprise was off the cards for us from the moment Luna and Discord first manifested in Boston. It was off the cards from the moment every camera and smartphone in the city was running. As you’ll recall, owing to the uncertain nature of the unfolding crisis, we initiated a media blackout for the duration of it. None but our best-confided media liaisons were allowed on the scene…”

She nods respectfully towards Photo Finish, who gives a curt nod in return.

“The Empire sent an advance recon to Boston to intercept Princess Luna and Lord Discord. The Tyrant was already aware of our new ally before they’d even landed.”

As murmurs of dismay are exchanged between reporters, Cheerilee ploughs on resolutely.

“However, people, ponies, everyone on Earth,” she declares. “I entreat you not to fear or despair. Whether by fate or some cosmic whim, time is on our side. As we speak, a week has passed since Boston, but a whole two months have passed on this new Equus, a world ‘downtime’ from our own. Messages between universes tell me our envoys are working around the clock, working, more than anything, to make things right once more with Equestria. Princess Celestia has pledged that her land shall be the crux upon which two battered worlds may lean, that when the Barrier falls, and I promise you it will, our shared might will overcome the Tyrant, but with them at our side, we may finally know peace.”

“Maple Glaze, Accu-Vox Log Two. Subject… I don’t know where begin,” I say slowly. I don’t know how long I’ve been sitting in the empty bathtub. “It was going to be another audio log about… I don’t know. Today I had eggs. Boring stuff, you know?” I ask, my voice veering off-kilter. “But… today. Today, I just… this is like the biggest discovery in history. Our world might be safe, because there is another Equestria. No Newfoals, no Return Act, no totem-proles, no Ministry of Culture, none of the wankers saying I’m worse than a lobotomized little golem made from some poor human, nothing that makes me want to be somep… something else, anything but a pony.”

I laugh, but there’s an odd edge to my voice. “I know. I know. Sometimes… sometimes it’s hard to deal with knowing you’re part of all that. So this is where some of my work might be going. Huh. Or not. But… I just… I don’t know what I’m thinking. I mean, I read Porno... dammit, Irvine Welsh! Did you title it that way just to make it awkward!”

“The man does like shock humor!” someone calls from outside the bathroom.

“Yeah, makes sense, Tom,” I say. “Anyway, the quote is, ‘I'm in shock. It's like everything good's gone, and the rest's been turned upside down.’ I wouldn’t say everything good’s gone, but… I feel like a lot of things were just turned upside down. I don’t… I can’t even. And my family…”

“They might still be alive,” Cheerilee said. “Those lost to this war might be alive in another world.”

I stagger out into the street, into the listless night outside. I need air. I need to think.

We aren’t rich enough to be booked for a permanent stay at the Last Resort, so we live in a hastily-constructed prefab built over the abandoned buildings in Christchurch. Pockets of these buildings still remain, though the majority are being broken down. Squatters live in them. There’s one such abandoned building, damaged enough for the city to leave it to rot, and populated enough that it hasn’t been demolished. This place had once been the Central Business District. I wonder if it had looked this way when the first earthquake hit. Not in the sense that the buildings had crumbled, but more...

How do I put this. I’ve seen disaster. I was in Manehattan when the Dark King’s golems attacked. It’s not the violence I remember, more how we reacted to it: Staggering out, dead-eyed, in shock, unable to comprehend what truly happened.

The people on the street look like that.

Humans of every ethnicity, various Equusite expatriates like Diamond Dogs, zebras, and griffons, they’d all walked onto the street. Cars are stopped. The very heartbeat of the city has stopped for this revelation. It sounds like it should have been happy. Like… like we should have been partying in the street. Someday somebody’s going to ask me, ‘Maple, why weren’t you happy? Why wasn’t anyone else?’

I have plenty of time to mull that over as I walk. It was dreamlike. I knew that everyone I passed on the street had to be thinking of something similar.

So I keep trotting down the street.

I don’t know if you’ve been to the Central Business District. The war did a number on any rebuilding efforts, so for now it’s a blend of prefabs and unsafe abandonments, new and old, unplanned and planned.

“Can’t be true,” someone says. A dark-skinned beggar with one of those wheelchairs that isn’t really a chair, more a pedestal with wheels for legless people.

She’s crying.

I’ve seen plenty of bad news saying not to trust humans outside the PHL. Stick together. But everypony, and yes, I do mean every pony, ignores that, mostly. It shows we have nothing to hide. We can’t very well live here if we spend the whole time hidden.

So I come up to ask her what’s wrong, and if I could help.

“Don’t touch me, geldo,” she snarls, and for a second, under her shorts, I see the stumps of her legs. Patches of inhuman fur. Scarring that never quite healed right.

She’d been potioned before, and had escaped. Mostly.

“It’s a lie, you know? Everything your country said is a lie. It’s fine without the bastards that did this to me. Your home is a lie.”

I stare at this damaged woman, then gallop down the street. Night’s descending on Christchurch, the sunlight wavering and halfheartedly replaced by artificial light.

I should be happy. I wasn’t. The War destroyed my family. Not in one fell swoop, no. Mom had been taken by PER, practically murdered, even if she’s still alive, by Newfoals and humans who considered themselves better ponies than her. Dad had just disappeared while we were evacuating Sophia. My big brother, before Mom had died, had been so put off by the racist jibes we got from humans that he’d joined the PER, headed to America, and died horribly.

I’m the last of the Glazes and now I’m here.

I pass by a vacant lot. There’s an HLF woman standing on a crate, a few heads above all the other men and women there. She’s holding two Kalashnikovs in each hand, and screaming in English.

“–can’t handle more of them!” she’s yelling. “If any intruder from that world comes over here, we’ll give them the same welcome we’d give any other gluestick! Who’s to say they won’t stab us in the back? They pushed us this far, and you can’t trust ‘em! You can’t trust the bastards!”

Church bells are tolling as I hurry away. Whatever that woman is saying, I have no wish at all to be anywhere nearby. I don’t know where I’m going. I don’t know what they’re thinking in the church. What they’re saying.

So I turn left, I see a party break out in the middle of one street. There’s humans and ponies alike, laughing together. It’s nighttime and someone’s projecting the film the PHL had made onto the side of an untouched old ruin.

This is for the record.

Someday, people are going to look at the revelation of Sunny Equestria, Unsullied Equestria, Equus, whatever it is, like some kind of triumph. Like it was a victory. And it was… and wasn’t. I don’t know how to describe it. There were those who were angry that this place didn’t come sooner. There was grief. Crying over missed opportunities. A sense the very foundation of our world had been brutally undermined.

Personally, though, I think it’s that we weren’t used to good news. In fact, for some of us, hope, the very thought that things might actually look up for us, felt… scary. So we went through the whole five stages of grief before realizing we didn’t have to.

That ruin had been a mall before the earthquake. Hadn’t totally been replaced.

And it’s bursting with light. Somebody’s most likely spending weeks worth of electricity rations there. Neon lights shine out, and music pounds from inside. It’s like someone upended a pot of hot soup into the street.

The film is... I don’t know. PHL giving exposition on the land. Accompanied by text in bright blue, pink, and green against indigo background in the most offensively Earth-1980s color scheme I had ever seen.

I haven’t been to a place so throbbing with energy for quite some time. And I see a griffon girl there. An old friend named Brigitte. She’s holding a cup of something in one talon. I don’t know what it is, but knowing Brigitte, it’s alcoholic.

“WHAT’S THIS ABOUT?!” I yell, trying desperately to be heard over the pounding music.

“IT’S ABOUT EQUESTRIA!” Brigitte yells back. “YOU KNOW, THE OTHER ONE! COME ON, JOIN IN!”

I shake my head. “I… I’M NOT SURE! I THINK I MIGHT PASS!”

Brigitte walks up to me on three legs, her cup – I can just smell that rotgut. Lordy, that is foul! – still held in one talon.

“What’s wrong?” she asks.

“I just...” I trail off. So many emotions, swirling through my head. The idea that Mom, Dad, and my brother might still be alive. My brother had joined the PER, turning people into those, those… things. But getting to see him…

Is the other him already guilty? Is he a bad person because of what he might do? Would they accept me if I tried to say ‘hi’, get one moment with my family even if it wasn’t technically mine?

“I needed to… de-stress. Let myself relax,” I say finally.

“Then why not come here?” Brigitte asks. “Come on, Syrup. Everyone in this city’s been trying to de-stress since the first parties started. Just… join in.”

‘And she just had to resort to silly nicknames, didn’t she,’ I think. “I don’t know…”

“Look,” Brigitte says. “If you leave, you might just end up wondering forever ‘What if I just decided to enjoy myself?’ If you come, at least you know.”

I shrug. What the hell, she’s right.

So I follow her into the party, weaving between the throngs of humans and others.

I don’t know if you’ve ever seen it, but watching four-legged creatures - like griffons and ponies - dancing in the same space as humans is weird, watching us take up so much more space as humans squeeze themselves in tighter and tighter.

It’s goddamn great!

I can’t really explain it, but Brigitte and I sort of… dance our way through the old mall towards a hideaway on the upper level. We must have gone up a set of stairs, weaving our way through crowds, bumping and grinding our way upwards.

And we find ourselves at a table just upstairs. There’s a human pole-dancing nearby, but she seems more like part of the scenery than anything.

“Maple,” Brigitte says, pointing with one talon towards the table, at which I could see a pale-skinned man, a slightly darker-colored woman, a Malaysian woman, a zebra female, and male zebra. “These are my friends Young Neil, Anna, Damia, Mariama, and Omodele.”

Anna, the slightly darker-skinned woman, waved at me. “So you’re Maple Glaze?” she asks. “Brigitte told us a lot about you.”

“She did?!” I ask. Honestly, I’m kind of flattered.

Mariama holds out one striped foreleg, held through the loop in a pitcher full of beer. “Certainly did. Told us all about the good times you had on the way here!’

Young Neil raises an eyebrow and coughs into a slice of pizza that he’d found somewhere.

“Enjoying that slice, are you?” Omodele asks.

Let’s skip forward a bit. The DJ is playing something happy. Upbeat. Energetic. Hopeful. Things we barely had the luxury of feeling.

“Isn’t it great?” Young Neil says. “We’ve got at least something left.”

I’m going to admit it. I’m not a happy mare. I’m probably what some people would call depressed. Either that or I have an anxiety disorder. I never got around to getting diagnosed.

“The Barrier’s not gone yet,” I hear myself saying. “There’s still people–”

“But something’s at least going to be here,” Young Neil says. “They said on the broadcast they made an exhibition.”

This means nothing to me, but clearly Young Neil is leading into something here.

“Even if we die,” Young Neil says, “There’ll still be something of us left. The exhibition, it’s… it’s everything. Everything we’ve done. And some of it will still be there. With people that’ll listen.”

I’d honestly figured I’d have to do that when the Barrier got here. If I survived. I’d heard rumors that some Equestrian refugees dragged back by Newfoals hadn’t come out the other side.

“That’s…” I look up at Young Neil. “Yeah,” I say, finding myself smiling.

So I throw myself into the party.

There’s only so many ways to say I actually enjoyed myself. I remember throwing myself against humans and ponies.

I remember rearing up and weaving from side to side like a boxer.

I remember drinking some alcohol. Okay, more than some.

“Whoa, she is really grinding on Brigitte!”

Okay I don't remember but it was a lot.

Brigitte’s laughing raucously. I’d say she was crowing, but no, it’s more like eagle shrieking. She’s part eagle, anyway, so that makes sense.

But you know what? Most of all I remember the laughter.

When Damia isn’t drinking straight from the bottle, she’s laughing crazily. “We’re alive!” she cries, a huge smile on her face, as she embraces Mariama and Omodele.

Young Neil just smiles slightly, and walks up to a girl with a mohawk, a ragged shirt full of holes, and striped blue-and-pink tights under shorts.

“Milena Epstein,” he says. “I’ve always loved you.”

“But Neil!” the girl with the mohawk says, “We’ve only just met.”

“Well, apparently we have a lot more time now,” Neil says.

Milena just smiles back.

“Fine,” she says, and starts dancing with him. Or at least… they just start throwing each other around, laughing and spinning. That’s kind of like dancing, right?

“Come on!” Brigitte says, holding out one talon to my foreleg. I place my right hoof in her talon, and we twirl around. She is, I kid you not - waltzing.

Then again, I kind of am too.

She releases her talon and twirled on one hindleg. I do too.

I wake up halfway across the city in Brigitte’s apartment, with her roommates, watching TV.

Brigitte and I had been sleeping together on the couch.

“Your chest down is fluffy,” I slur, barely awake. “... Someone makin’ breakfast?”

“Nah,” Brigitte says. “Just that someone set something on fire outside.”

I rear up bolt upright. “What?!”

“Relax,” Young Neil says, walking out of one door mostly naked, Milena leaning on him. She was a lot taller than him, I realize.

“Neil said it himself,” Milena says, so slurred that even now I’m not sure if that’s what she meant. “We have time, and mrmrmrmrmrrrrglrlrlrlrrrrrgphrgmrrrlmphmmm…”

“Couldn’t have said it better,” Neil says, a huge smile on his face.

“I mean, it’s not like that hard, but this is Young Neil we’re talking about,” Damia calls over.

“Whoa whoa whoa,” I say. “Hold the phone, and the mayo. Is nobody questioning that something was set on fire so close to us?!”

“It wasn’t a big fire, and it’s kinda windy out,” Brigitte say. “Besides, uh…”

Omodele held the remote in his mouth, placed it on the table, and flicked on the TV.

“–explosion of energy last night in Christchurch,” the newscaster says. “The former Central Business District was overtaken by various parties and riots in celebration of last night’s revelation of an uncorrupted Equestria.”

Various shots of the district flash across the flatscreen. I can see police officers armed with riot shields, assault rifles, and what I can only assume to be riot equipment pushing across deserted streets in the early morning.

I can also see HLF, or at least, I assume they’re HLF, covered in tattoos and ragged clothing with their own weaponry. Throwing molotov cocktails. I see footage of looters stealing shoes from a store...

“Friggin’ Belgrade bimboes,” Milena mutters.

“What?” I ask. Brigitte, Omodele, and Mariama looked up at Milena, expectantly.

“It’d take too long to explain,” Milena says, sitting cross-legged on the floor. “Just… reminds me of Kosovo, a bit.”

“In better news, though,” the newscaster says, “apparently the parties last night were great!”

“Hey!” I say, pointing with my left foreleg at the screen. “Brigitte! That’s us!”

“Wha?” Brigitte asks.

“There! Right there!” I say, pointing excitedly. They were showing a scene of the party at the mall. The one we’d all visited.

“Nah, that’s not… that can’t be us,” Brigitte says. “We look way too goofy.”

I just raise an eyebrow at her. Shoot her a look that just screams ‘Really.’ Because I know for a fact that I never even came close to have a cutie mark in dancing. And I know that I did not qualify to become a dancer that night.

“Seems pretty accurate,” Damia says.

“Heh, you look like the Bust A Move dog,” Young Neil chortles, looking at me. Seeing my look of confusion, he continued. “He puts one paw out, starts wiggling around…”

“I’ve never seen that,” I say.

“You should,” Neil explains. “Later.”

“... Not the only party of its kind over the Last Resort,” the newscaster says. “In fact, something seems to have returned. To all of us.”

I find myself nodding.

There’s shots of parties - the kind that only real bigwigs at the Last Resort can afford. With foods that cost ridiculous amounts of money nowadays. I’ve been to those for one reason or another. They’re fun enough but they just get depressing after awhile.

“The PHL has said they’re offloading as much as they can to this other Equestria,” the newscaster continues.

“I thought everyone knew that by now,” Omodele says. “Like… the press conference, and… well, Twitter is just blowing up right now. You’d think people would find out.”

“It’s the media,” Milena says. “Before the war they’d get almost a year of mileage out of stuff like that. Besides, what else are they going to talk about?”

Omodele shrugs. “Got me there.”

And then all of a sudden I facehoof.

“Ah, crap. I have to deliver that sculpture,” I say. “Anyone have a car?”

Damia did.

We drive out of the business district, my sculpture in the back of the truck.

I can’t describe the things I see. There’s a kind of energy to everyone - the people out buying food, other necessities.

Once, somebody compared all of us to Newfoals. Like... when we tried to smile, we were covering things up. That isn’t as far from the truth as I like to think. But that’s not what’s happening here.

The day feels honest. That’s as best I can explain it.

Damia flicks the switches on her truck’s radio, so I listen in, relaxing in her front seat.

“...sense of newfound vigor and joy,” a woman says over the radio. “A sense we might actually survive. It’s a brand new day-”

Damia flicks it again.

“News of actual HLF unity in America - well, that’s a nice change of pace - as the controversial HLF unit known as the Reavers make a call to put down break barriers.”

“Must be nice to hear that,” Damia says. “Can’t believe they’ve gone on this way for so long.”

It’s not like I’ve known much of the HLF since I got to New Zealand. Since the Stampede Fleet managed to break the backs of any HLF movements in the pacific and turned them towards PER and Imperial forces alike, I’ve been safe. This isn’t to say I don’t have my bad memories, however.

“I can,” I say. “I saw HLF ransacking towns for supplies, I saw them making drugs and booze to make money for supplies, I saw what they did to ponies on the way out, I saw somebody trying to raise up a riot last night. If someone’s going to put them towards doing something fucking constructive, I’m good, but…”

Damia looks down at me, a bit concerned.

“Your heart doesn’t seem like it’s really in that,” she says.

“It’s not that,” I say. “It’s that it was… yesterday, it was maybe we survive, a whole lot of people die. My home is evil, blah blah blah.”

“You… do you really mean that?” Damia says. “That your home’s beyond redemption?”

“They took friends of mine,” I say. “Turned them into smiley little zombie-dolls. Destroyed close to half, maybe a third of the world - so much history, so many people just… gone. That’s pretty evil. But, you know…. ” I sighed.

“What is it?” Damia asks.

“Well, that idea’s gone and been upended,” I say.

“Ah, I get it,” Damia says. “A Celestia that wants to help, a Luna who hasn’t been petrified for having a sense of compassion or emotionally abused-”

I blink slightly. “Wait, what?”

“Yeah, I heard from this pony who heard from a Night Guard that Celestia emotionally abused and used gaslighting techniques to keep her sister from intervening. ‘Are you feeling yourself, dear Luna?’ Making it look like any disagreement was a sign Luna might be turning into Nightmare Moon.”

“What a bitch.”

Damia just nods. “But yeah. We’ve gotten used to thinking that. We’ve gotten used to being almost dead. But now, we’re not. Now….”

And she makes a noise halfway between amusement and sadness. “Huh. Equestria willing to help us all out and treat us as sentient, and just… well, uphold its own damn values. Any of the HLF that these Reavers won’t pick up are going to be…. Well, they’re going to be pissed off for trusting another one.”

“I’m not worried about that,” I say. “I’m more worried about the PER.”

“Isn’t everyone?” Damia asks.

“Yeah, but they’ve gotten drunk on that idea,” I say. “What happens when someone comes out and tells them exactly the opposite of what they’ve gotten to thinking Equestria’s supposed to be?”

And all of a sudden I start laughing. Damia looks at me, concerned.

“All these people with such a stupid idea of what my home is like,” I say in between giggles. “It’s just…it’s funny to me. They’re expecting to see so many ponies like Rainbow Dash be genocidal maniacs, but no, she’s happy just trying to be a wonderbolt.”

“Sounds kinda kafkaesque,” Damia mutters.

The buyer, a woman by the name of Ilinga Cojocaru, isn’t sleepy.

‘Sleepy’ implies being cute. Tired, yawning. The woman buying from me is not any of these things, and seems to have subsisted for hours on a steady intake of coffee, amongst other things.

Damia and I just stand, looking nervously at her as some heavyset men offload my sculpture into her house. Which, from what I can see, bears the signs of one of the Last Resort’s traditional parties in the same way that being bisected and lacerated bore the signs of a knife wound.

“Busy night?” I ask.

Cojocaru just stares at me with death in her eyes. I immediately regret asking the question, right up until she sighs and falls against a wall. If it hadn’t been there, she might’ve just fallen asleep right in front of me.

“Honestly, up until last night, it felt like I was partying because I didn’t know what else to do,” Cojocaru says. I’m under the impression that she would’ve said this to any random who walked by. Not just me, not just Damia, even a cleaner if she could afford it. “This time I actually had something to be happy about, which was… weird. You know what somebody left scrawled on my floor? The most common graffiti I saw when I was traveling through Eastern Europe, Russia, then… then here?”

“You’re going to tell us anyway, aren’t you?” I ask.

Cojocaru just raises an eyebrow, shrugs, and laughs. “Yeah. I guess I am. Comes with being partly Russian. Anyway, I’ve seen… The Accu-vox that beams our last gasps into space, the few rockets that send up new satellites or supplies being loaded with odds and ends, and the graffiti that fucking well followed me. It said: "Last one to die, please turn out the light. Honestly, I was throwing all these parties to distract myself. Me and everyone else."

“I can relate,” I say. “I’ve… been invited to a bunch of parties like that.”

“You gate crashed them, didn’t you,” Ilinga says.

“No we…” Damia starts.

I snort a little and roll my eyes. “Yeah, we have.”

“Who hasn’t around here?” Cojocaru asks. “But now… well, now?”

And I swear to God I hear something break as this happens. Like mechanical parts that hadn’t been moved in awhile.

And she smiles. A real, honest smile.

“There’ll be something left for just a little longer,” Cojocaru says. “And I think I like the sound of that. Hell, we might even win.”

‘Might even win?’

I don’t even know when I last heard someone say something that optimistic. I barely even know how it feels. But…

Well, knowing another species won’t fall off the map? I like the sound of this. I look up to the sun, shining through a window behind Cojocaru.

“We will,” I hear myself say.

“Yesterday,” Damia said, “you heard people content with being able to launch their voices and belongings into space, now you hear people saying they’ll survive.”

I find myself smiling. “And why not? It’s a brand new day.”

I don’t know how to explain how I got to Downtime Equestria… or ‘Sunny’ Equestria, as many of us soon took to calling it. There’s a lot of things to explain. Some above-board, some not. That’s a story all its own. But here’s how it ended.

I have it all on tape.

(*pause*)

“Me, walking into a house in Hoofington. I have the recording here…”

“Maple? How did you get so much bigger?”

“Is that me?!”

“She’s from Uptime Equestria!”

“Hi, Mom. I’ve missed you so much.”

“I spent years thinking that ponification was the only way. That Equestria was only the paradise it is because of assimilation. Because it truly was the only way.

And now? I see a story on the original Equestria. One without war. Without Newfoals. And I’m struck by just how… how happy it looks. The pony that trained me in the PER told me that we were to bring perfection and unity at all costs. Now…. I don’t know what to think.”
– Amina Petrikov, PER potion bomber

You’re lying on the seats of this old canvas truck. It’s got a spell that deflects notice, so you should be fine unless you pass a security checkpoint. It can probably pass as a refugee convoy. There should be an old missile silo somewhere, a place just waiting for you to take it and use as a base.

Nobody in the truck wants to say anything.

Not you, not West, not Aviva. Not Nimbus, the pegasus potion-bomber – who, as it happens, is in another truck trailing just behind you carrying her prized refurbished potioneer. Not Trip Vine, the earth pony horticulturist trimming a bonsai with scissors held in his teeth, even as the truck shakes and judders. Not the Newfoals that you made sure to save, the ones who couldn’t make it to the Barrier. Nobody can truly comprehend this news.

‘Another Equestria, no potioning, no…’

Except possibly one of your number. Your prisoner, who you’re transferring from one end of nowhere to another. A man, supposedly from the PHL. One immune to the potion.

You click back the tape recorder. It was a gift of sorts from a friend, long since ponified and dead in some skirmish. You’d kept it, left it recording the historic news broadcast that you’d seen over your previous base’s TV.

‘No potioning, no…’

You sigh. Lie against the pillow and hope that you can get some sleep as the truck rumbles across the land.

Why had you joined the PER? It seemed so… simple, once upon a time. You’d seen people do terrible thing after terrible thing, and nothing would change. You’d never really cottoned on to the idea that people were inherently good.

And then came Equestria. From the history they gave, it seemed almost as a dream. A goddess who was actually there. A world where in times of crisis, you could come together and talk. And a deep abiding sense that nothing so beautiful could ever happen on Earth.

Your first target had been a violent racist. A hate-spewing bigot who had committed many crimes against other humans without remorse, all for something as trivial as the very color of their skin. You’d seen other Newfoals, heard the pleas to stay human from people such as Reverend James Thomas and Michael Carter.

But this man. This bastard. He’d hurt some of your friends. Thrown rocks at them when they marched for their rights. Insulted them constantly. Laughed at them all the time. Claimed to be a godly, righteous man too. So, whatever religious pleas you’d heard from the Reverend, they didn’t exactly stick.

It hadn’t been hard to find PER somewhere. You’d found a pony musician touring the country, a yellow earth pony with a blue mane named Fiddlesticks. Right now, you hated her. She’d gone Betrayer during the Three Weeks of Blood, joined up with a human named Johnny C, and apparently fought Shieldwall twice. But back then? She’d had a supply of potion for herself, for her benefit concerts. She’d sold really well in Memphis.

And - you can’t exactly remember how - you took one of her vials of potion. Looked for the bastard until you found his very favorite bar. You paid off a friend to provoke him, and while he wasn’t looking you spiked his pint of Guinness.

The bar went silent when he started screaming.

You watched him scream in agony as his body rippled and melted together like a burning candle was blessed by the potion. And then watched him reborn like a butterfly from a chrysalis. He’d become a happy, courteous pegasus named Sunbeam. A bit effeminate, honestly, but considering how overbearing he was… wasn’t that for the best? Wasn’t it really?

Everyone in that room had without a doubt been happier with Sunbeam than the violent racist. But there’d been… well, you wouldn’t say they were laws. But enough disapproval, enough backlash from the fledgling HLF, other governments and that turncoat Lyra Heartstrings that you hadn’t just been able to do it whenever.

Then came the Barrier, ripping through Switzerland. And then, eventually, France. Reitman and Catseye had left a message for PER, delivered by communication spell and projected onto the nearest reflective surface.

“It is a tragedy what happened,” Catseye had said solemnly.

“It is?” Reitman had asked. Vaguely gleeful.

“It is,” Catseye said. “People lost their lives before they could be ponified. Everyone lost something. But need I remind you of humanity’s state? This is worth it, all of you. We have to wipe the slate clean. Humans talk day after day about how they come together in a crisis. Well, we made a crisis and proved them wrong.”

“Meanwhile, we watched humans fight amongst each other. When you’d think they’d unify...” Reitman started.

Your heart had swelled in what was almost pride as Reitman had said that. As she’d comfortably excised herself from the species. She’d turn into a truly beautiful Newfoal when she finally drank the potion.

“When you’d think they’d unify, they break apart,” Reitman completed. “Look what the HTF became. You’re right, Catseye. We have to wipe the slate clean, nothing can come of humanity as it is now.”

And Equestria had been the best ones to do so. Equestria, always Equestria. The way they made sure everything was perfect down to the wire. Their culture had always been perfect for this…!

… Or not.

No, not really.

Going by what you remembered hearing in the old base, a place so near the Barrier that nobody would dream of attacking it, it had not always been this way.

Earlier. Before you left.

“What I’m thinking, Freddy,” West told you, “Is we’ve gotten it wrong.”

Treasonous talk, yes. The kind that made PER Command hand out emergency ponifications. But nobody here could deny what was on their mind. Every news station still running had released the bombshell that there was another Equestria out there… and it had allied itself with humanity. It had no bureaus or potions, no secret police, no totem-proles. It simply… was.

One unicorn had just vanished upon hearing it. Nobody could find him.

“Look,” West was saying. “Here’s another Equestria. Good enough that Arpeggio just up and ‘ported out.”

“His loss,” someone else said, coolly. “Fair-weather sailors would only be millstones in a tempest.”

It was Aviva, who hadn’t once glanced up from her laptop as she typed away, the gem encrusted in the back of its lid flashing a bright, piercing blue in synch with her activity.

“It’s just that Arpeggio is… was… well, I thought he was as PER as you could get,” you said. “Remember that time he replaced all the water in a school’s sprinkler system with potion?”

Aviva looked at you, unconvinced.

“I just miss him is all,” you said. “Or at least, I already miss not thinking of him as a traitor.”

Aviva still looked unconvinced. “He betrayed us. Does it matter?”

“Sometimes, even if people were awful,” West said. “Then you miss them. It’s not about how they are, it’s about what should have been, how you could’ve made things turn out.”

Aviva looked to consider this.

“What kinda deal do you think that even is?” Nimbus asked, confused. And you really have to find yourself wondering along with her.

“What do you mean?” you ask.

“I’m guessing he left to go see how things used to be,” Nimbus said. “If they even give him the chance, then what could he even offer? This is probably their greatest military asset, so what could possibly make him valuable enough?”

Nimbus started laughing. It made her kind of a jerk, honestly, but she coped in her own way.

You knew that. Aviva knew that. Everyone in your PER cell knew that. And for a second, you all laughed, much to Aviva’s disapproval.

And then all of a sudden West wasn’t laughing. Somehow, his absence of laughter was just as loud, just as powerful as Nimbus’ thunderous guffaws. His silence was somehow impossible not to notice.

Maybe it was the fact that there were only a few of you in the room - Aviva, West, Nimbus, and you. Maybe it was that West had a certain force, a charisma, that wasn’t in force.

Or maybe it was the fact that he had gone ashy grey, his jaw dropping, his eyes wide. The fact that he looked as if he wanted to be anywhere else.

Aviva was on her computer, and Nimbus was still guffawing. Neither really noticed West’s lack of reaction.

“West?” you asked. He looked devastated, and you just wanted to hold him, to tell him everything would be alright. “Are you going to be okay?”

It wasn’t going to be.

“Nimbus,” West said, his voice sounding as if it was not quite coming from his body. Nimbus and even Aviva listened. “You asked what he could even offer.”

“I did,” Nimbus confirmed, her voice tight.

“Us,” West said. “We have somebody who teleported off-base, who wants to see his family… and the only thing that he could give them, the only thing that has value… is us.”

You wanted to say that he wouldn’t. So does Nimbus. You can see it in her eyes. But a week ago you would have said Arpeggio would never turn traitor and yet, here you all were.

Aviva caught on immediately.

“We have to evacuate. Now. Rig the building with as many traps as you can, “ Aviva said. “They may have dogs to sniff out the potion, or… or something, but it’ll slow them down. We need to go.”

Now

There’s a little window in the side of the truck, just above your bed. The truck is hugging back roads, avoiding the highways. The roads it travels have grass poking through cracks - it looks like they weren’t truly maintained even before the War.

Nobody would be likely to notice you here.

There is a town coming up. A muddy little place, a ramshackle little American town.

You see people on the porch of one building that looks like a general store. You see humans with prosthetic limbs, miserable-looking people. Rusting machines.

‘Could we ponify this whole town?’ you wonder.

Then you shake your head. No. Your PER cell is hobbling along as it is, potion supplies are… well, in automobile terms they’re running on fumes, and it’d draw too much attention.

You see a woman rushing after the truck awkwardly on one normal leg and one crude prosthetic little better than a crowbar and strips of metal attached just below the knee, holding a baby in both arms. She is running for your truck.

You feel almost proud of how these people will be saved, no, perfected. America had been safe from the Barrier thanks to distance from the epicenter, but with the arrival of the Barrier, and thus safe places to build Portal Stations, it would face the full fury of the Solar Empire.

Sure, they look to be suffering now, but you’ll be able to wipe it away.

Right? Just. A little more. Time. And more people will know the joy of going pony. Of forgetting everything about the corrupt, fat, decadent Earth that allowed them to suffer like this.

Any day now, then…

For no reason at all, you think of Shieldwall. He could get away with this sort of thing. He could get away with anything…

At least, that’s what you’d thought.

‘I wish he was still here with us,’ you think, drifting off to sleep.

When you come to, your truck is slowing down. You look out the window.

There is nowhere and then there is where you are, at this moment. As far as you can tell, it’s an unincorporated township halfway across the country. The industry - whatever it’d been, railroads, mills, whoever knew - had gone, and then the inertia keeping people here had gone too. Then, knowing that the town wasn’t important enough for police or any kind of development, the remaining population had filtered into larger communities.

You look at that as another thing to be fixed. In Equestria, you’ll all be equal. In Equestria, this sort of thing absolutely cannot happen because with the cutie marks, everypony has a role to fill.

Right?

There’s an old garage, long since stripped for anything useful. Your two trucks head in there and hide. It’s just inconspicuous enough that you probably won’t be noticed.

You get out of the truck to stretch your legs. So do Nimbus, Aviva, and West.

“That bastard,” Nimbus sneers, flitting down from the truck that carries her prized Potioneer, slightly disassembled. It’s much larger than your canvas truck.

You wince at the profanity.

“Nim,” Aviva says, trying to stay calm. “There is no need for-”

“There absolutely is a need!” Nimbus yells, reaching into a saddlebag to pull out a piece of paper. It’s written in what is unmistakably Arpeggio’s hornwriting.

Nim,

I’m sorry for this. For what I had to do. But I’ve been thinking for awhile and this is the straw that broke my back.

I think I prefer the idea of there being a world without the war than I do fixing people. I know what people say the potion does, I know it can’t really be true, right? But I’ve seen enough anguished friends and family of the ponified to wonder. I’ve seen so many of my friends die, week after week. Sylvia Bray was turned into a barely-equine monster and Kraber beat her beyond the point of death. Rio, JJ, Merciful Light… whatever happened to them, they’re gone. Shieldwall was just… Sweet Celestia, the less said the better. I keep thinking that we did this for the ‘greater good,’ but I’m left wondering: When does it stop? Does the greater good have a finish line?

I know many newfoals are going to be fodder. That’s how things are. You say jump, they ask how high they can do it for the glory of Celestia. And we’re going to reward that by killing so many of them. Oh, we don’t pull the trigger, we just throw them at people who do until we stop having to throw them. We’re going to be making newfoal after newfoal, and what? One in forty, probably less, actually get what we’ve promised them? With us struggling to support massive populations of the poor souls in a country with infrastructure we’re rapidly destroying? I know I sound like the PETN official we laughed at, Nimbus, but I’m wondering if she had a point.

Even when we win, newfoals are going to die in droves. So I’m leaving. You’ll all hate me for it-”

“He’s right about that,” you interrupt. Nimbus nods vigorously.

“But I just can’t see an end in sight that doesn’t hurt more people than I’m comfortable with. What’s this mean I believe? There’s no way for me know. But knowing what we’re putting ourselves through for the greater good, for other people, makes me wonder just how good it is. Knowing that there’s an Equestria without the War makes me wonder that more. Because we were happy back then.

And I can’t remember the last time I truly was. Or when any of you were, either? When were you guys happy, huh?

I don’t know where I’ll go from here. I’ve taken most of our newfoals - Celestia knows they won’t come to a good end if they follow our hoofsteps.

Arpeggio.”

You didn’t know how to respond to this.

“Well, now I don’t know what to think,” Trip Vine says. “About our finish line.”

“He’s no different from a Betrayer,” Nimbus snarls.

“Trip has a point,” you say.

And Aviva stares at you quizzically. Nimbus… is just angry. You’ve seen her beat Betrayers to bloody pulp when she’s that mad.

“When… when does it end? Does the greater good ever have a finish line?” you ask.

“Are you doubting The Cause?” Aviva asks.

You don’t know, and stammer out something to that effect. “No, no!” you say, when you’ve finished explaining. Sort of. “It’s just… I have to ask myself about how hard this gets. And he had a point about how we are with newfoals, and it just, all of it, it seems like it’s going to be so hard…”

“Nothing worthy is ever easy,” Nimbus said.

You nod. “Dad told me the same. But...”

And you think back to the old days of the PER. The days when it was almost counterculture. The days when there were unprepared crowds everywhere, when people were so unprotected they almost seemed to subconsciously welcome it when you remade them. Back with Josephs, Jakulski, Sullivan, Pasquale, Kuang, and McCoy.

‘PER,’ you reflect, ‘have a high turnover rate.’

Of those six, all had died suddenly and violently. It felt like one in three agents of the PER you met came to a brutal end. Or worse, they potioned themselves to stave off a brutal end, brushed with salvation…

And then died. Suddenly and sadly. You wonder idly how it is over in Asia or Africa. Sure, if you go pony, or consort with PER, there’s the Dragons of the East and HLF practically drowning in Soviet surpluses. And to say nothing of the rumors that some zebras put some kind of spell on the predators of Africa to make them kill newfoals on sight. But it’s possible to trot or fly your way past the Barrier and get to Equestria.

Meanwhile…

Virtually none of the necessary infrastructure to move newfoals to Equestria exists behind the Barrier in North America, and its progress has been… odd. It stutters. It retreats slightly. Sometimes, it just stops for days at a time. And the only large scale project that could have let even a fraction of the people you fixed come to their new home had literally fallen out of the sky.

For now, the abandoned fire station serves as a decent enough base. You kept the prisoner in the cellar. He'd said something about it being a ‘cellar’, the kind of tortured pun you might have laughed at from another person.

You have to tell Aviva, though: “I’m worried.”

“Aren’t we all?” she says, tiredly. “I can sympathize, Freddy. I really can.”

You shake your head. “Not exactly. It’s… I’m worried... about the new Equestria.”

Aviva looks downcast. “I’m… worried about it too. What do you think the poor meat-headed, gun-fellating sods who’ve elected themselves to strike Celestia shall do with a fresh new Equestria in their hands?” she told them all. “Their first instinct will be as it always is. Violence. But not necessarily indiscriminate violence upon Equestrians, no. Arguably worse than that, incitement to turn Equestrians against their fellow Equestrians.”

“You don’t think?” you ask. “They were…. They were crowing about new allies.”

“They did it with the PHL. They will do it again,” Aviva says.

“A whole Equestria, though,” you say. “Surely they can’t do that.”

“Something troubles you,” Aviva says. “It’s not just the new Equestria. Or even the prisoner, weird as he might be.”

You shrug listlessly. “It’s just… the stories we keep hearing… so much of it a smear campaign to discredit the Queen, I know. But after a while, it all gets to you. You start wondering.”

“There's nothing to wonder about,” she says with conviction.

“But… y’know,” you say, “if it's another Equestria, then there's another Celestia. And if it's another Celestia… well, isn't she a goddess, too?”

“There may be countless Equestrias throughout reality, just as there are countless Earths,” Aviva reminds you all sagely. “But if we are here, it’s because we have pledged ourselves to a fundamental truth. There is only one Queen Celestia.”

You sign. “But what do we do, if faced with more of the Queen’s own people turned Betrayer on Her? Or worse, another her?”

Aviva places a hand upon your shoulder. “As we have always done, my friend. Trust that, someday, very soon, the Queen’s grand plan will show them the light. Because, outside interference or not, in the grand scheme, what difference does it make? The Barrier continues to come for all of us as we speak.”

“And suppose the Barrier… could be halted by the power of a different Celestia?”

“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” she says quietly. “Perhaps, frankly speaking, that wouldn’t be so terrible. These things are sent to try us, and it’s easy to have faith when victorious power looks assured; true faith shines in the darkest of days.”

Aviva checks her watch.

“Alright, grub’s up,” she sighs. “Tonight’s my turn to feed the prisoner.”

“Look, Viv, if you’d rather someone else–”

“No, no, it’s fine,” Aviva assures, placing down her laptop. “Wasn’t going to get anything done at this rate, anyway. Perhaps this’ll help jog my mind. Besides, I might get something from him.”

“You know, I think you spend more time than healthy around our prisoners,” you tell her. “It can't be good for you, you know. You could get…” You swallow. “Stained, or something. They'll rub off on you.”

It's a worry everyone has, though none of you admit it out loud. The old wives tale - that the more contaminated a soul is, the more chance your reborn self will turn out less like a normal, perfect newfoal, and more like… one of them. The Creeds, Quickblades, Reapers, Pretty Privates of this war. The anomalies. The freaks. The things that become pony but don’t become pony and don’t fall in line, the things that aren’t hobbled within reasonable parameters for the safety of ponykind.

Aviva smiles wanly. “I think you’ve got a pessimistic way of looking at things, Fred,” she says, moving to take a tray off the table. “You ever hear the tale of King Mithridates? Every day, the guy’d pick a little taste of his poison, literally. Over time, he acquired an immunity. The way I see it, you can’t overcome the enemy without understanding them first.” She gently shakes the tray. “I’m the one slowly taking their venom into myself. This way, I will build up an immunity to their corruption, and be purer still when the time comes. It’s an effective defense.”

“I see… and what about that king? What happened to him?”

She pauses. “He tried to poison himself and failed, then fell upon his own sword, I think.”

Without another word, Aviva reaches for the last sealed bento box left. A shame about Arpeggio, really. If nothing else, you miss his cooking. Although coming by food was a task made easier with the support of a superpower controlling the resources of half a colonized planet, regular supply still isn't guaranteed, nor is it always very good.

Yet none of you seem to mind, so long as your plates all have one thing in common – no meat.

Sooner than you would have liked, it’s your turn to speak with the prisoner.

“He’s… tricky,” Aviva says to you quietly. For all her words earlier, she looks almost shaken. “He wouldn’t say much to me. Said something about not wanting to waste his breath, which at the very least means he’s obstinate.”

“Aren’t they all?” you ask. “So… nothing about him being… y’know.”

“No,” she says quietly. “And honestly I don’t know how he could be.”

Before you walk in, she grasps your shoulder.

“Fred,” she says. “He said it was almost too late for me, Fred.”

“Psychological tactics,” you say, trying to be cool. “He’s probably some smartarse. Don’t pay it any mind.”

“He knew things he couldn’t have known,” Aviva says, her eyes faraway. “It’s… there was pity in his voice as he said it.”

She shakes her head, and the mask returns.

“Take care of yourself in there, Fred,” she says. And then, in a tone of voice that sounds almost like pleading: “Take care of yourself.”

You walk down the stairs into the cellar.

He’s wearing a tweed coat, a white shirt and corduroy trousers, and even though you’re sure he was handcuffed, his hands are out, fingers splayed. He looks for all the world like he’s at a desk, not in a cell.

The man waves cheerily as you enter. “Hello!”

“False cheer will get you nowhere,” you say. You’ve done more than a few interrogations like this. A few where potioning would have been untenable, so you had to resort to other methods to extricate answers.

Not the barbaric physical brutality the PHL and HLF resorted to, absolutely not.

He waves this off. “You’re not here to talk about that. You’re not here to talk about anything, really.”

“Yes, I am,” you say.

“No,” the man says, looking up at you with hard eyes. “You’re not. You’re here to talk at me until I tell you information I don’t have. You’re here to ponder why I’m immune to the potion, probably ask about that to see if you can fix it - spoiler warning, no, you can't. Beyond that, presumably, you’re here to talk about how superior you all are to regular humans and how humanity sucks. How this is all futile. The same old script. Really have heard it before, from cleverer people too. Like Shieldwall.”

“Don’t disrespect his memory,” you say.

“He’s not dead,” the man says. “So I’m not technically doing that.”

“He’s dead to all of us for how he lives,” you say.

“So he’s punished for failing, and punished for being punished in the most painful, vindictive, sadistic way I could think of,” the man says.

“I wouldn’t have thought anyone PHL would have that kind of sympathy for him,” you say.

“Honestly? No, I don’t care about him, at best,” the Prisoner says. “I just… disapprove of that kind of condemnation. You must truly be moral paragons, all of you.”

You bristle. “Do you think insulting us will save you?”

He smiles coldly. “Oh, I don’t think you can do anything to me either way, so I don’t see why not.” He leans forward slightly. “So go on. Question time. Ask away. Any questions about relative physics are not guaranteed to be comprehensible to the human mind, and any questions about life, the universe and everything are guaranteed to have an answer of ‘42’.”

You take a breath. “You’re PHL.”

“Not anymore,” he says. “Not that you care.”

“You know secrets, and since the potion doesn’t work, for whatever reason, we want to know those secrets,” you continue, unabated.

“Tell me, at this stage of your lives, do you think it matters what secrets you know?” the man says, sighing. “You literally haven't got the manpower to take on a raggedy old Christian Marine remnant, much less the PHL.”

“You will tell me what I want to know,” you say

“I could tell you lots of things,” he retorts. “I could tell you that you’re all going to die. I could also tell you that, considering how history could have gone, half of you, maybe more of you would have died. I could even tell you how. After all, I looked you up. You especially.” He looks you in the eye. “Such a waste, you know.”

“You looked me up,” you repeat with a tone full of your disbelief. “Really.”

“S’why I’m here,” he says with a shrug. “I know I can’t save you. You’ll do what you’re going to do - not because you did it and destiny is immutable, but because human nature -”

“Human nature,” you spit, “is why we do what we do.”

“Ah,” he says. “Because a little girl decided to act on her conscience, and help out the poor rainbow horses, and eventually destroy an embodiment of pure evil. You don’t get that crucial irony, do you?”

You just stare at him for a second. “What.” You try to keep smirking. To make absolutely sure he thinks you haven’t given an inch.

“Nothing. Just testing how much internal sense you all make. And you believe, somehow, that you’re better than humans,” he says. He’s not convinced.

“Yes,” you say, as firmly as you can.

“You’re not,” he says very matter-of-factly. “Your mistake is in viewing one side of the picture. Honestly, a very easy mistake to make. You see the bad and think that is the defining factor, by which the whole may be judged. You ignore the good. By the bad actions of some individuals, you judge the worthiness of the whole race to be lacking.” He sniffs, before looking at you. “You know, even by being here, you prove the inherent foolishness of your own cause.”

“Excuse me?” you ask.

“You judge humanity as one homogenous mass,” he says. “But it clearly isn’t. If it was, there would be no PER. No PHL. No HLF. There would be humanity, of one voice, of one purpose, and if Celestia’s propaganda was right, it would be an evil purpose. But there is no such homogeneity. People are infinitely diverse, making a million different choices, even within the narrow bands of categorization we have. That proves you wrong - humanity is not ‘all good’ nor is it ‘all evil’. It isn’t ‘all’ anything. It’s a swarm of individuals, no two truly alike, all beautiful in their own way. And doesn’t the very presence of ponies in the PHL, or not joining the war effort prove the same about your oh-so-precious Queen’s race? Ponies and humans, two masses of individuals, not one individual amongst them able to act as a barometer for any other individual. They are all unique.” He smiles for a moment, as though this is the most wonderful thing in the world, and then his expression falls and he sighs. “Except, of course, for the Newfoal. Unless, for whatever reason, environmental factors throw sand in the gears, at which point they become unique and thus anathema to their own purpose.”

“You don’t know anything about what you’re talking about,” you snarl. “You don’t know why I’m in the PER. And that talk about how I could have died? Bull.”

“Frederick William Holman. Born February 2nd, 1990, at 3:21 AM in Memphis, Tennessee. Disowned by your mother for joining the PER. In fact, despite being protestant, she went out of her way to sit shiva for you with her Jewish friends. Would have died on July 19th, 2020 at 12:30 PM to HLF forces without the Reavers distracting them, calling a meeting. An unintended consequence of my work, but I had to take the long view. If Shieldwall’s plan had succeeded, you would have become an administrator of sorts for PER-held territory. As far as I can tell, you would have been bait of a sort. Good accommodations in what was once a hotel, newfoals catering to you, and you would have been in charge of restructuring Montreal’s Conversion Bureau while creating a new one. In fact, on September 1st, at 12:40, you would have been opening a new Bureau. This, along with the human districts you and others helped administrate, would be publicized in a PER underground newspaper meant to lure humans into what was once Montreal on the promise of stability. Then, you would have died on September the twenty-fifth of 2022 at exactly 6:47 PM, captured by human insurgents and tortured to death.”

“What?” you say.

“I told you,” the prisoner says, “I looked you up. One of the last on my list, actually, along with your friend - Aviva, wasn't it?”

“What list?!” you demand. “Why are you visiting? Why me and Aviva? Why not Trip Vine, or Nimbus? Or Arpeggio?”

“You might very well ask yourself why he left in the first place,” the prisoner says.

“What,” you say, twitching slightly.

“No, I’m just kidding. He left of his own accord, because in his own way, he suffered a sudden and debilitating attack of conscience,” the prisoner explains. “But to answer your earlier question, I am here, visiting, acting as the arbiter of your judgement and potential salvation -”

“Don't be so grandiose,” you snap.

“Sorry, old habit,” he shrugs. “But basically, someone has to… even if, in Aviva’s case, it is probably - well, certainly on some level - too late. And unlike you two, your four-legged compatriots are not likely to literally lose their soul if I don't intervene. The stakes are different. And for all the PHL’s talk of kindness and unity, they won’t really give you a chance. On some levels, I can’t judge them in this case. They're only human,” he finishes. “But someone has to try and save you.”

“We already have one powerful being, one goddess helping us,” you say. “What makes you think you can undo that? Or do more?”

“Because I am who I am, and in your own way, you’re pitiable. I’ve met things that wanted to cast humanity’s ‘flaws’ aside before,” he says quietly. “And they did, oh, they did, but it brought them nothing. So often did they forget just how much a flaw can be an asset. Someone who wants to think before they rush into battle can be either a coward or a person with foresight. Someone who wants to rush in can be either bold or bloodthirsty. And it is in those differences that we are defined. Without those feelings, we are nothing. And without the darker sides of those feelings, they’re worth less than nothing.”

“You prefer having violence, hatred, war, murder?” you ask. “I learned every day in school, in history classes, from my friends, just what those feelings lead to. Slavery. Rape. Genocidal despots. Death camps, countries brought to the brink of war.”

“Ah, yes, the worst of humanity,” he retorts. “So let's ignore Tolkien and Tennyson and Van Gogh and Leo and the beautiful Mona Lisa and… even China Mieville, actually. Kraber swears by it, but I honestly think he’s kind of overrated. Ignore all the subtle little comforts that you had as a child in America that you see nothing wrong with removing from others en masse. And let us not leave out all the beautiful, brilliant buildings in Europe that the Barrier incinerated, the culture, the memorials, the love and brilliance that creates families - families this war has destroyed, or worse than destroyed…”

“You talk about the heights of culture, but how many people can really say they're Tolkien or Tennyson?” you argue. “Most people’s lives are unfulfilled, miserable. Life is all about power plays - your bosses, their bosses, the people who boss them in turn. Isn't happiness better?”

“If it was happiness, maybe,” he snorts. “Even if it was, though, people have unlimited potential. Would that not be something worth mourning if you lost it?”

“You think I had unlimited potential? I was born shit-poor. The only option was making a movie, a podcast, some kind of project to get my name out there, but it always crashed and burned. I went to college, found so many friends that agreed with me, but I could never get anywhere. I didn’t see anything but our unlimited potential to hurt ourselves,” you counter. “Our unlimited potential to drive people further and further into the dirt.”

“Cherry picking,” he says flatly.

“Truth. We make weapons capable of slaughter - our science has been driven forward by our love of war,” you say, before the prisoner can interrupt. “We have to be brought to heel before we destroy ourselves. The PER actually follows one of the Queen’s most core tenets - she believes humans can be the most creative, adaptive creatures in the multiverse, able to survive our universe, and - even after transformation - stand tall as vital contributors that rejuvenate an entirely different universe.”*

“Really?” he says. “Really though?”

“What?” you ask. “That's -”

“What, exactly, does the average newfoal ‘contribute’ that has anything to do with their ‘humanity’?” he asks. He starts counting off fingers. “It isn't their memories because those are curtailed or basically deleted, and I’ve seen what happens when they even consider thinking about them. It's not their personality, because that is irrevocably altered to the point of being literally different people - if you can call lobotomised half-automatons that only feel anything when they flagellate themselves or try to kill anything in range ‘people’, and honestly it would be kinder if they were automatons.”

You try to interrupt but he steamrolls on.

“Not their opinions, because they’re indoctrinated from the moment they can string together a sentence. Not their skills, because most newfoals become nothing more than cannon fodder, and their IQ is measurably lower! It isn't their language, because they all speak Equus-standard, and it isn't their culture because they're reborn hating human culture! It isn't even their own bodies.” He finishes, his expression thunderous. “Literally the only thing that the human aspect contributes is raw material. A positive number to do a subtraction sum on to get to the ‘newfoal’ state. Even the Cybermen keep something.”

“Are we sure that’s not for the best? To keep them within reasonable parameters?”

“Reasonable parameters,” he repeats. “You're joking.”

“Newfoals are happy, they're productive, with all the worries of their human lives over!” you say. “Isn't that better?”

“Stop sounding like a Strexcorp representative, thank you. I prefer having choices,” he says. “I prefer having myself. I prefer being myself! It’s like an acquaintance’s grandson once said: ‘I don't think my sister's trying to say that life would be perfect without you. I think she's just saying that life would be, you know, life.’”

“I saw that argument,” you say. “That because it’s natural, it’s good.”

“No, I’m saying that because it’s natural, it has the potential for good. And for evil. And for change. And people have the right to choose. I prefer remembering every mistake I’ve ever made and knowing how to fix them, instead of, what, hiding? Pretending that you’ll be somehow different when you shed that body?” He snorts. “I’ve gone through bodies, too. Trust me, those things don’t take your sins with them, just hair, an accent, and maybe some stubble. And becoming a Newfoal?” He fixes you with a glare. “Oh, that’s not even hiding. That’s… I don’t even know what other word to use but cowardice. And foolhardy cowardice. And perhaps, to borrow from China Mieville - why do I keep doing that? - lunatic self-loathing.”

“What are you?” you ask.

“I am the Doctor,” he says quietly. “Not human, but I love your species, flaws and all. It’s why I come here.”

You take a breath. “You’re insane.”

“And you ponify people while telling yourself they’re better, even after all this time. You live in a world like this,” the Doctor replies. “And, as reinforced, you can’t do much to me. Does that matter?”

You stare at him, trying to adopt a flinty-eyed look.

“You know what’s funny?” he says, as though musing. “You and the PER are made up of people who wanted to be ‘different’. Who wanted to be set apart from others. Many of you were proud of it. And yet you follow a creature that wants nothing but a row of things, all the same, with the same smile, the same feelings, the same… everything.”

“What does…” you begin, before reconsidering. “What does that matter?”

“It doesn’t,” he says. “I came here to try and convince you.”

“And you think that will work?” you ask.

“Why wouldn’t I think so? Don’t you?” he asks back.

“Humanity is violent,” you point out. “Internecine conflict, environmental disaster, economic exploitation-”

“Newfoals tear people apart if ordered, crush their own brothers and sisters if they happen to fall,” he retorts. “You’ve killed, too.”

“I’m human,” you point out.

“Ah, so human violence is a tool with which to solve human violence works,” he comments. “Two wrongs, a right turn at Albuquerque, that sort of thing.”

“That’s different.” You don’t know why, but you feel a buzz in the back of your head, an irrational irritation. “We are fighting for a good cause.”

“Good causes are subjective,” he retorts. “The PHL believe they are ‘fighting for a good cause’.”

“They’re wrong.”

“Human error?”

“Yes.”

“But you’re human, and thus equally capable of error.”

“We receive our instructions from Ponies.”

“Ah, so ponies are not capable of error?”

“No: they're a demonstratably superior form of life when left to their natural devices. No war, no misery…”

“But there are PHL ponies. Even the EHS had ponies. It was kind of in their name.”

“They’re… different. They've been taken from their natural environment.”

“Are they ponies?”

“Yes, but…”

“Ah, but they’re the ‘wrong sort’. No True Scotsman. So many qualifiers now, aren’t there?”

He sounds amused, almost.

“Look,” you say, uncertain why you’re even trying to justify yourself to this man, “I don’t need to explain myself to you, or what we’re doing. I don't expect a man with a closed mind to understand.”

“Is my refusal to take your point of view the evidence upon which you base your judgement of my closed-mindedness?” he asks. “Are you open-minded, then?”

“Yes, clearly.”

“Open minded enough to have your opinion change, if I provide the more compelling case?”

“I - no, but -”

“Ah, then you're not open minded.”

“I'm in the right,” you say.

“But if you’re so right,” he retorts, “then surely you can explain why to me in such a manner that it convinces me, something you haven't yet.”

“Celestia is a Goddess,”

“So might makes right.”

“The rights of a superior being…”

“If I told you Yahweh, the god of Judaism, Christianity, Mormonism, Islam and a bunch of sub-dividers in the next few millennia, was real, and that the Bible was one hundred percent on point - something most of the people who follow those particular religions cheerily recant, the obstinate aside - would that make the destruction of the entire human race, minus Noah and his family, sound any less unpleasant? Or maybe Sodom and Gomorrha?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, generally speaking we consider genocide to be pretty unpleasant,” the man says. “That's why those stories are considered apocryphal now: because the notion that an all-loving God - as Yahweh came to be, come the New Testament - would cheerfully smite people was generally considered - well, pretty sort of bad.” He grins. “In short - generally speaking, extremists aside, believers don't think he - or, rather, He - is an exception to the ‘don't commit horrific acts’ rule we place on ourselves, despite being a ‘superior being’.”

“That… that’s different,” you say.

“Oh, I dunno,” he says, shrugging. “Yahweh might be real. Or something that allegorically resembles him might be. Anything might be real. And He would count as a ‘superior being’. So, the rights of that superior being -”

“Celestia is real!” you snap. “And she is superior! Our notions of morality have to bend to that. Doing otherwise is just… just humanocentrism!”

“I’m superior too,” he says, without any sign of joviality. “Massively so.”

You scoff. “You’re a superior being.”

“I don’t really like thinking about it, but I guess I am,” he says, perfectly serious. “I look like you, but I’m not. I’m thousands of years old. I’ve seen things you wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. The end of this world, the void at the end of creation. I’ve met the most powerful people of your world, saved your world from dæmons, legions of the undead, alien tyrants and worse. I have walked between the universes and even listened to the mournful howl of the things in the infinite nothing.” He snorts. “And for all that, you cuffed me, your friend gave me some substandard drivel, and you’re currently sassing me. I could leave any time I want, so you’re only here on my sufferance. So, where are my ‘superior being rights’, huh? Where’s my organisation dedicated to my every whim? Huh? If I asked you to go shoot a dog or something, you probably wouldn’t. Everyone loves dogs.”

“Why would you ask me to shoot a dog?”

“I wouldn’t, it’s an example of a nasty thing,” he says with a shrug. “But still. Where’s my… I dunno, ‘Tweed Coats and Fezzes Or Death’ organization? Speaking of which, LINDA doesn’t count.”

You blink. “You’re insane.”

“No,” he says. “Well, yes, kind of. But that’s beside the point.”

“You honestly think you’re not human?”

“I’m not,” he replies. “Check my pulse, if you really don’t believe me.”

You cough. “I, uh… never learned how to, properly.”

He chuckles. “Well, alright then. My word will have to do.”

“Look,” you says, frustrated. “Even if I didn’t hold all the cards -”

“Which you don’t.”

“- what do you want from me?”

He smiles up at you, an honest and almost pleasant smile. “You’re human, much as you clearly hate that. So, human, make a choice. If you come with me, I can take you somewhere so far away that the memory of your sins is irrelevant. Sure, you’ll have to run, but it’ll be you doing it.”

“Running...” you say.

“A second chance,” he retorts. “You can be human. Decide on a new life. Decide to do good - real good. You can save plague victims, be a teacher, a doctor, anything you choose. And believe me - if you don’t, then there’s only one other choice ahead, and that is the submission of choice.” He leans forward. “It is our choices that define us all. Mine. Yours. Everyone’s.”

“You’re crazy,” you say, turning to go.

“You’re the one submitting to the dark force that enslaved Celestia,” he retorts.

You turn at that. “What?”

“Didn’t you ever hear from Betrayers like… I don’t know, Heliotrope? Ponies who said this was impossibly out of character?”

“You said it yourself,” you retort. “Betrayers. Why would I listen to them?”

He sighs. “Alright, then listen to me. When you ponify yourself, and you likely will, you’ll meet something unpleasant. Something that will delight in your pain. I’m sorry for that, because you can’t be saved once that happens.”

“How could something that makes them all so happy be… that?”

“Because then you won’t think about it,” he says. “Besides. You’ve never been inside the head of a Newfoal. Smiles are masks, for many things, and most especially for them.”

“Not those smiles,” you say, maybe too quickly.

“It’s the difference between… how would Mr. Cynical put it? Or Mrs. Cynical, sometimes. He’d say it’s the difference between skiing backcountry and being on the mountain. Go out in the backcountry, you have all kinds of choices for which way you go. Go to a small place that’s just a cable and an incline, and all you have are directions. Regimented paths. Now, imagine that’s all there is governing a mind - something forcing you down paths. I once used a piece of advanced tech to look inside, and…”

He shakes his head. He looks almost sickened for the first time since you’ve seen him. You turn to go again.

“When you do meet it,” he says as a parting shot, “remember two things. The first is this: Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“Trying to scare me?” you ask over your shoulder.

“No,” he says. And this time he seems… warm. Almost grandfatherly. “Just telling you the truth. The second thing might even comfort you - though it will be too late for you… it will be defeated. All probabilities run in that direction. If not by the PHL… then by something else.”

“Right,” you say sarcastically. “As if anything could stop us when the PHL is gone.”

“You only wish,” he says, and for a second, he sports a look of profound… resignation? Disgust? Loss? Fear? There is a profound look of something on his face. “Oh, and one other thing. You didn’t really think I’d be sitting here, all on my lonesome, if I didn’t have people on the way to save me, did you?”

You turn, eyes widening in horror. “What did you -”

There is a slow rumble from somewhere, like a distant explosion.

“You’d probably,” he says nonchalantly, “go see what that is.”

“PHL,” Aviva says, her voice sounding almost like it is coming from far away. “They’re coming!”

There’s a human APC parked in the middle of the street, blazing away with what looks like an automatic grenade launcher. And you can see several humans spilling out, clad in full-body white and grey armour, assault rifles at the ready.

Aviva turns to you. “Go.”

“What?”

She presses a bottle of potion in your hand. “Run. Hide. Take this when you're done. Live. Please. I'll hold them off if I can.”

You try to think of words, try to question just how she can hold them off. Even if you have some hated human weaponry like guns, (you have to defend yourself somehow) it can’t possibly make even a dent in all these people. What about the APC? What about body armor? What about all the little multipliers that make you stop and think, really think about Arpeggio and realize that this is how he must have felt.

You realize how he might have felt. Realizing that he couldn’t take the running. And you think you suddenly understand something, something important, and you’re about to tell Aviva-

But she's already running. And so you run.

You hold the bottle of the Potion in your hand. It was a beer bottle, once upon a time. You can hear them out there, the fighting and the dying. But they won’t find you in here, not in time.

Violence. Barbaric, brutal violence. Not surprising. And yet… your allies are fighting back. They’re also using violence. Justified violence, sure… but… doesn’t the PHL think their violence is justified?

And for no reason at all you think about what the prisoner said. You find yourself balancing what he said with what you’ve thought. You argue and out-argue yourself. You rationalize and deconstruct, though you suspect on some level that you already know what you’ll do.

So, holding the potion in your hand:

Do you drink it?

***

*DISCLAIMER FROM FLUFFY: ACTUAL CHATOYANCE QUOTE. THIS IS WHAT CHATOYANCE ACTUALLY BELIEVES. FUCKING SERIOUSLY

“Had they been fighting in any other war, any other time, under any other name, they'd have been heroes. They’d proudly proclaimed themselves members of the HLF and set to reforming it, though this became their downfall.

Many HLF who had found their way into power through charisma and fear – the cultists, the ideologues, soldiers who’d disowned their governments, opportunists, and others - simply didn’t want to be reformed, and as a result the Reavers were left with comparatively little goodwill from military or civilians. Allegations that the PHL stifled news of Reaver contributions to starve any favorable opinion of the HLF circulate to this day… and they might not be wrong.”
– True Quill, Unsung Heroes of the Conversion War

“While the aim of reforming the HLF seemed sisyphean and borderline foolhardy, the Reavers made numerous efforts to do so. Meeting after meeting failed, and everyone turned on them. PHL turned on them for being HLF. Civilians, embittered by the fact that their militias and former allies had turned into gangsters, criminals, and bandits, grew to distrust the Reavers. Even many HLF grew to hate them for not being HLF enough, and what allies they had fell over the course of the conflict. The PER and EHS… well, to borrow a phrase from one of my co-authors, they were what is known in some circles as ‘fokkin varknaaiers,’ so they probably would have been against the Reavers anyway.

While some opinions, including mine, have shown the Reavers in a less than favorable light, there is something truly pitiable about the efforts of the Reavers. On July 18th, 2020, they attempted to bring together disparate groups of HLF, including such soon-to-be-known names as the Thenardier Guards (long since infamous for their truce with the PER) and Menschabwehrfraktion (the specific group responsible for the Sutra Cross murder), to serve as a united front in alliance with the PHL, an attempt that met with only very limited headway with smaller groups, many of whom were quickly wiped out in conflict with the Solar Empire. In the First Battle of Montreal, they served admirably, only for the media at the time to downplay their contributions, followed shortly by PHL and UN officials ordering their arrest and silencing those within their own ranks who tried to support them. With that, they up and disappeared.

Nonetheless, they finally made headway on November 27, 2023…”

A War In the Pocket: The Decline of the HLF. Written by Dayoung Tengku, Viktor M. Kraber, Aegis, and Yael Ze'ev.

Somewhere, far from the war, far from worry, there was a town. This town had log cabins, a wooden palisade, and a few dozen men working hard at building a concrete wall. There were women and children milling about, watched over by patrolling armoured men and women, though most seemed happy to stop and chat.

There were other signs of the war here, too. A tank, a little rusty and battered but still workable, stood by one of the cabins, its cannon aimed at the gate. This tank was Betty, and no-one in their right mind would so much as sniff wrong at her, for fear of upsetting her engineer. A tall mech stood nearby, the legend REV6 stamped smartly above a scrawl on it that read ‘Little Berty’. A few people nodded to Little Berty as they went by. Though inanimate, it was as much one of them as the tank. Further in town, there was a limited armory, of guns, ammunition, supplies. They continued to receive regular deliveries, though God only knew how that was wangled, but they were always careful to conserve what they could. They didn’t know how long it would last.

The town was always quite bustling – men and women working, children playing – and on this particular afternoon, the sound of laughter could be heard.

“Daddy, daddy!” a toddler laughed, wobbling slightly as she took a few, hesitant steps.

Brushing back a strand of dark hair, Richard Crane smiled at the sight of his daughter stepping toward him from the undergrowth. He grabbed her as she reached him, hefted her up and held her above his head, in the sunshine, the two of them laughing slightly.

She laughed. He laughed. And life was good.

“You did well,” he said, smiling at her after he’d brought her down. “You always do very well, Becky. I’m so proud of you.”

She smiled back, laughed again, and he carried her off, heading for their cabin. Like the others, the light inside belied its wooden simplicity. Power came from a generator which adhered to the tried.and-trusted old adage of “anything mechanical, give it a good bash!”, and even that had required jury-rigging by a friend to make it work. Their food was homegrown, it kept them alive, kept them strong, but it wasn’t much. Yet life here was good. He had his family, and his friends, those brave souls he had rode and fought alongside for years, surrounded him.

As they entered, Angela came to meet him.

“Hello, dear,” she said tiredly. “Preston came by today. I think Joe wanted to talk with you.”

Richard frowned as he passed Becky to his wife. “Preston? Must be serious. Odinsons wouldn’t usually come bothering me for less than a big deal.”

“Whatever it is, dear, be careful,” Angela said quietly. “Joe’s been a bit… restive, recently. The last few months have been hard on him.”

Richard nodded. “It was hard for Maxi, too.”

“I know,” Angela said. “And maybe that’s the problem.”

Eyes gleaming, she shooed him. He walked away, looking for the head cabin.

The town seemed full of ghosts. Not the literal kind, no. They’d seen enough of those. But… memories. Things that should have been. Every corner Richard took, he felt like he should run into Yarrow.

“Richard. It’s nice to see you,” Yarrow would’ve said, if he’d been on the other side of that corner. And he would’ve been undertaking the usual ‘township duties’. Things that almost anyone else would have delegated to lower-ranking personnel - except, of course, that there were no ranks among the Reavers. Yarrow was Yarrow, not ‘Colonel Yarrow’, not ‘Commandant Yarrow’, not ‘Warlord Yarrow’. Just Yarrow. He would have been pottering about in his vest and green coat. Checking to see if everyone was okay. Helping someone with a job, be it repair or farming. Or even just saying hello. Helping in the commissary - once he’d even been serving the camp’s stew, ladle in hand.

That was who Yarrow had been. Even in those last desperate months where they’d barely heard from Kevin, where their backing had attracted unwelcome attention, he’d been on his bended knee… well, no. He hadn’t. Yarrow was far too proud to beg on his bended knee. Too dignified. What he had done was be almost maniacally charitable. When the world went low, he would go high.

Extend amnesty to anyone with enough conscience or sanity left. A quarter had been brought onboard from collapsing HLF units in the past year (counting Montreal) but simply everyone here owed their life to Yarrow. It was Yarrow who’d kept the line, however sparse, open with their ‘backing’, who had wangled getting some of their people sent home when the PHL caught them (and Richard caught sight of Erin Hansen, a young tattoo artist who had been arrested after graffitiing Reaver symbols on a wall somewhere, now returned to them).

Yarrow had been the man who brought them together.

‘Wherever you are,’ Richard thought, ‘I hope you’re happy with what we’ve done. I don’t know if I’ll ever be.’

On the way, Richard met Preacher. The old man sat in a simple shirt and trousers, his spectacles glinting. Only a few scars and the sidearm at his side hinted that this man was more dangerous than he appeared. He was busy consulting a hefty tome of some sort.

“Greetings, Tom,” Richard said quietly.

Preacher looked up from his book. “Hello, Richard,” he replied with his habitual, genial smile. “How goes the day?”

“Pretty good,” Richard said, “but it might be less so. Joe wants to see me.”

Preacher nodded slowly, adjusting his dog collar. “Best of luck, then. I’ll hope it’s good news.”

Nodding his farewell, Richard continued on. When he finally reached the cabin, he found Howard T Preston standing outside the door, in full armor. Heavily, the man inclined his head to Richard as he came closer.

“How’re the family, Crane?” he asked.

“Not so bad, Preston, not so bad,” Richard said. Despite his scarred visage and permanent scowl, the big black man wasn’t all that intimidating to his friends. Even if he had been seen to do a Gregor Clegane to someone once.

“I hear Joe wants to see me,” Richard said.

Preston jerked a thumb at the cabin door. With a nod of thanks, Richard opened it.

The inside of the cabin wasn't changed much from the days of Maxi Yarrow. The green military coat was hung on a hatstand, a permanent reminder. The maps, the pictures on the walls, all were still as they had been. Only its resident was different. And perhaps not by much, for he, too, had once been a Royal Marine.

“Joe,” Richard said quietly. “And… John.”

“Richard,” Idle said with a nod.

Tall, broad, sporting battle-damaged armour, Joe Rither was cut from much the same cloth as Maxi Yarrow. He clutched a newspaper in one hand. Next to him, already waiting with his nose in a newspaper, was the ever-sullen John Idle. The other man didn't respond for a moment, but when he turned, he wore a grim look on his face. He threw the newspaper on the desk for Richard to see.

“Latest news,” he said shortly.

Richard frowned while picking it up and going over it. The headline read, in terms far too excitable for memory’s comfort, ‘New Equestria! World on Brink of New Age!’

“Another Equestria?” he said, skimming the article. “Is this legit?”

“Far as we know,” Rither said.

“I’ve heard from that True Quill bird, this is the real deal,” Idle grunted. “Another Equestria... ‘s like a bloody deus-ex-machina.”

Richard put the paper back down. “So?”

Rither shrugged. “I thought I ought to share the intel with you. You, my old friend, speak for this settlement’s families, if anyone does.”

“And what about telling the others?” Richard demanded.

“Yeah,” Rither murmured. “What about that? I’ve been thinking about it. How to tell everyone. And whether I should. Whether it matters.”

Richard frowned. “The way this reads...”

“It’s the PHL’s miracle,” Rither said. “Like John says, deus-ex-machina. A fresh legion of help to save the day.”

“Cue ride of the Valkyries,” Idle muttered. Rither glared at him, and he shrugged. “I’m worried.”

Richard felt his fists clench. “Who wouldn’t be?” he demanded. “I think we’ve had enough of Celestia telling us how to think. Even if it’s not the same Celestia.”

“Exactly, Crane,” Idle said. “It says she wouldn’t say that in the article, but not many of us would be willing to think so. I’m not saying we have more Yorkes in our own ranks, but...”

“But you’re saying not everyone will take it well.”

“More of these ‘benign’ Equestrians coming to help,” Rither said. “Best case, they win, humanity survives, big party. Good news for them. But that’s them. Where does it leave us? Answer, same place as ever. Waiting here, for them to come and kill us for daring to exist.”

He sat down with a heaviness that had more to do than with his armor.

“Other HLF are taking this as a last chance to do something stupid,” Idle pursued in a soft voice. “I’m hearing a lot. Talk about attempts to take over military installations and such.”

“Idiots,” Richard said reflexively.

Idle snorted. “Yeah, well, at least they're doing something.”

“So are we,” Richard pointed out. “We’re building a home. When this war’s over, we’ll still be here, safe and alive.”

“Until they come to kill us,” Rither repeated, staring down at the paper.

“Which ‘they’ do you mean, Joe?” Richard asked, folding his arms.

“Either,” Idle said with a shrug. “Both. Does it make a difference?” He turned away. “How’s the little one?”

“She’s good,” Richard said, eyes narrowing a little. “Joe...”

“Richard,” Rither told him, holding up a hand. “Don't.”

Richard took a step forward. “What’s wrong with the two of you? I’ve not seen you this glum since Maxi passed away.”

Rither sighed, running a hand through his greying hair. “I promised Maxi I’d keep his people safe. Right now, that feels like a more Sisyphean task than trying to repair the HLF ever was.”

“We are safe,” Richard insisted.

“Are we?” Rither retorted. “We’re a few hundred people, a couple thousand at most, whether we’re armed to the teeth or not. If and when someone, anyone, who wants to kill us shows up, we cannot hold. The best we can do is make them bleed, and then we die. Just like every one of our friends who didn’t sell out, the mad dogs and the good men alike.”

Idle glanced at him, but Rither didn’t look back.

“Then we’ll make them bleed,” Richard said simply. “None of us expect this to last forever, but we’re making the most of it.” He paused. “You’re doing a good job, Joe. You’re keeping us together. You’re keeping us focused on building a home. You could’ve gone nuts and taken us on a killing spree, but you didn’t.”

Rither snorted. “Maxi didn’t want me to.”

“Then you’re living up to what he wanted,” Richard said.

“I just… I find myself wondering.”

“Wondering what?”

In response, Rither shrugged. “Everything. Nothing. Whatever comes to mind. But… Is this all there is? Is this all that’s left for us to do?”

Before either man present could answer, the clank of armor signalled that Preston had entered the room with them. They all glanced his way.

“Somebody’s come,” he said grimly.

There were six of them. Men and women in battered gear, carrying rifles one might charitably have called ‘ugly’ if one were feeling especially saintly. Their leader was a grizzled-looking man, shaven-headed and pale, like he’d been hiding in a hole for months. A lot of the civilians were standing around, gazing at him with concern, wariness… no-one was happy to see him.

“I’m looking for whoever’s in charge!” the man said gruffly. He sounded Australian, maybe.

Joe stepped out of the cabin, taking a few steps towards the man. Preston stood behind him, a deepset frown on his face. Crane and Idle stayed near the cabin doorway, scrutinising their newly-arrived ‘guest’ carefully.

“And who are you?” Joe asked.

“Banner,” the man said. “Keith Banner. These are some of me lads. Who’re you?”

“Joseph Rither, leader of the Reavers,” Joe said solemnly

“Nice to meet you,” Banner said with a nod. “Nice place you got here. Beats Defiance, anyway.”

“What do you want?” Joe said, shifting his stance.

Banner smirked. “There’s a PHL base not sixteen miles from here. Lad called Jackson’s gathered about two hundred HLF and enough guns to storm the place... make the bastards bleed.”

His words sunk in. Preston’s glare intensified. A few people were muttering, but none looked any happier for it.

Joe didn’t twitch a muscle. “And?”

“And, you lot used to be tough,” Banner said. “‘Least, that’s what they say. Battle of Montreal, battle against Creed, the Cain run… ‘course, word is Yarrow was a horsefucker and you lot were traitorous cunts, but that’s the past, ain’t it. They say Yarrow’s dead now. I guess, what with him not coming out, that’s true.”

“Yep,” Joe said tightly. “Yarrow’s dead.”

He could feel Preston behind him, tension mounting. His bodyguard was slowly growing angry, he could tell. He subtly held a hand out, keeping him at bay for the moment.

“Right,” Banner said. “Then with him gone, I guess you guys are okay. That somethin’ can be made of ya.”

Less subtly, Joe’s fist curled. “‘Okay’. We’re ‘okay’, are we.”

“Yeah,” Banner said, brows creasing. “So… you lot up for it, or what?”

Joe turned to Preston, who nodded once, then to Idle, who was scowling, and Crane, who looked the most angry. Finally, Joe turned back to Banner, who was grinning.

“Little Berty!” the Reavers’ leader called.

With a few heavy thumps, the mech was suddenly standing in the same square. The fading light from the sun caught on its guns. Which were trained on the new HLF visitors. A couple of Banner’s troops looked uneasy, but he whistled appreciatively.

“That is a nice bit of kit!” he said with a grin.

“Drop your guns,” Joe said quietly.

Banner stared at him, grin frozen on his face. “What?”

“Your guns,” Joe said simply. “Drop them. Now. I’m not in an asking mood, so do what I say.”

Banner’s troops dropped their guns at once. Most HLF, contrary to the old joke, weren’t stupid enough to think they could take on a mech. Banner glanced at them, then back to Joe, his expression shifting to one of outrage.

“Hey, look here,” the man said, moving towards Joe. “If this is some idea of a joke, it ain’t funny.”

“And we’re not laughing,” Preston retorted. He took a warning step forward.

“Look,” Idle said. “Kraber once said: Even if you think it could be an airsoft gun, even if he’s shivering, you listen to the man with any fucking weapon to your head. Now, we’re not shaking. We’re not laughing. We are dead serious here. And honestly? Now we’ve got five guns. And two of them are rocket launchers mounted on powered armor that wouldn’t even notice your bullets.”

Banner raised his gun, aiming it at Joe.

“Christ,” Idle sighed. “I always assumed the dumb ones would’ve darwinned themselves out.”

Suddenly, Banner’s shoulder sprayed blood at the ‘crack’ of a gun going off, and he fell to the ground, screaming blue murder.

Blinking imperceptibly, Joe turned, to see, of all people, Richard Crane aiming a pistol at the fallen HLF man, the barrel still smoking slightly. Sensing his gaze, Crane returned it, an eyebrow raised.

“Six,” the family man said.

“What?” Joe asked

“Idle said five, I added another,” Richard said. “By the way, he’ll live. More than I could say for us if we listened to him. We seem to have this odd-”

Banner gasped, holding a hand to his bleeding shoulder.

“- streak of bad luck with other people using us as cannon fodder. Or forgetting about our wounded,” Richard said.

“What do you think I am, Richard?” Joe asked calmly. When he looked back at the fallen HLF man, however, the scowl was spread across his face. “We’re the Reavers, Keith. Bit of a tip. Don’t come in here badmouthing a man most of us owe everything to, and after all we’ve given, don't tell us we’re ‘okay’.”

He motioned, and a few armed Reavers marched forward, carting the injured man and his troops away from the camp square. Joe ran a hand through his hair, looking at the other Reavers. They were all looking back at him expectantly. He lowered his hand, turning first to Crane and Idle, then he settled on Preston.

“It would seem we’ve had a call from above,” the big man whispered.

This did not fully ease Joe. “Maxi believed in that stuff more than me. And I’d say that getting asked to become bandits doesn’t count as a call from above.”

“Maxi made you the man in charge,” Preston reminded him. “Besides. Maybe it’s a warning?”

Joe looked around, mind racing. With Banner out of sight, people were already talking again.

“They’re going to attack the bloody PHL?!” someone was saying. “Are they mental!”

“They’ll get themselves wiped out,” a stern man replied. Karl Osterman, Joe remembered, whose daughter had died of a tumour a few months back. His arms were folded, his eyes downcast. “And they’ll get another gottverdammter HLF purge started to boot!”

“Oh, it’s started already!” one of the retreating prisoners called over. “What with Celestia promising her big hit in about a week, the PHL has decided… no loose ends.”

“What?” Crane started, shuddering at the man’s tone.

“There’s not much HLF left,” the prisoner said. “What’s left, they’re fighting harder than any HLF ever have. You think this is the only military base we’ve been taking supplies from? Look up Blount Island, ya cowards. Yesterday, Kraber and Ze’ev wiped out Taskforce Paris.”

“Get that idiot out of here!” Idle yelled angrily.

As the prisoners were dragged away, though, the crowd’s talk only grew more frantic.

“Taskforce Paris is gone? What the hell?”

“Can’t believe those idiots, attacking bases,” another voice muttered.

“But if they start attacking bases near here, the PHL will find us!” one of the younger women cried. “Won’t they?”

“They might,” growled a man with a red stripe down one side of his armour. “Motherfuckers!”

“Calm down, Martell!” Idle called. “We don’t know that those idiots’ll start anything!”

“But they might,” Crane said loudly. “We have our families here, our homes. If those idiots stir the hornet’s nest, whose to say we’ll be safe?”

“We’re not ‘safe’ now!” Martell yelled. “We’re all one step away from some PER raid or some fucking PHL purge or something else! I say we–”

“ENOUGH!” Joe yelled, so suddenly that a shocked hush fell on the entire crowd. Both his hands were held up high, the expression on his face was hard, and he was deep in thought.

“Joe?” Preston asked quietly. “What do you want to do?”

Slowly, Joe lowered his hands, looking around the assembly. Men, women, children. People whom Maxi Yarrow had brought together. Whom Maxi Yarrow had protected, had saved from the ruins of the HLF. People he had died for. Maxi had always said that they deserved better than to be forgotten, but Maxi had been beaten down and worn out by the fight. as well any of them might have been. Now the responsibility was on Joseph Rither’s shoulders.

“Look at us,” Joe said, very softly. “We’re scared. We’re angry. We’re making bad decisions on the spur of the moment. And for all we know, Taskforce Paris did something really stupid. That is not what we do!”

“How do we know they did?” Martell asked.

“We... don’t,” Joe admitted. “But attacking a military base isn’t a decision people make when they’re calm, or thinking rationally. Not all have ATC guns, and tech pilfered from Armacham. Maybe Taskforce Paris was another bloodbath like Defiance, maybe it wasn’t. We don’t know the whole story.”

Idle snorted. “We could just ask little Vikky next time we see him.”

“That… bastard!” someone swore.

Idle shrugged. “Kraber’s always been honest with us. Ahem. ‘Look, Idle,’” he quoted, “‘I’m not going to mince words. I’m fokkin’ evil. But the PER we’re fighting? They’re something else.’”

Someone in the crowd snorted. “Was he being honest when he lied about his identity, spent all that time in Vermont?”

“New Hampshire. Technically, he wasn't lying to us,” the calming voice of Preacher spoke from the crowd. “He had every opportunity to lie to me, and he didn’t.”

“Didn't he threaten to kill you for no good reason?” Idle smirked.

Preacher shrugged. “He and I exchanged words. I never said he was a model human being, and I doubt anyone ever will, himself included. But he didn’t lie to me, which more than I can say for many who claimed they were our allies. And like him or not, Yarrow gave him a second chance to seek repentance.”

“And to be fair,” Preston added, “these mediocre dogs don’t seem like they’d be perfectly honest with us... or at least, they don’t seem like they’d tell the whole truth.”

Joe cleared his throat. “Whether Banner was lying or not, it’s clear as day to me. We can’t just sit here anymore.”

“You’re not suggesting fighting the PHL?” Crane asked, horrified.

“No,” Joe said simply. “I’m not.”

“You’d bloody better not,” Idle said. “I’d rather find Maxi’s fucking ashes and snort all of them with some recreational drug than do that. If I were to desecrate him and his memory, I might as well choose something quicker.”

“How very vivid you are, John,” Preacher said wistfully.

“Speaking it like it is, Richardson,” Idle replied with a wry grin. “Besides, I think everyone here can agree that turning into bandits would essentially be the same thing. Am I right?”

There were murmurs of assent.

“I said, am I ri-” Idle started.

“Enough,” Joe said. “It’s immature, Idle.”

Admittedly, Idle was probably coping in his own unique John Idle way, but there were more important things that deserved their attention. He remembered the Purity, when he had seen Maximilian Yarrow speak for the first time. He remembered then the fire that had inspired him to follow. He raised his head slightly.

“John,” he addressed Idle, “how many fighting people can we take out, assuming we leave behind a decent defensive garrison?”

“Fully armed and equipped?” Idle replied at once. “I’d say seven hundred, maybe eight hundred at a pinch, if we want to leave more than a skeleton crew with Bastion. Most of ‘em should still be equipped in top notch gear, but fuel’s a bit lower than I’d like.”

Joe nodded. He sought out a woman in the crowd, and when he found her, he motioned to her.

“Sandra, how are the Valkyries?” he asked.

“We’ll have to cannibalise parts from 6 to make 9 and 1 flyable,” the woman said smartly, “but they’ll fly once that’s done. Better two that’ll fly than one that’ll fall.”

“How long?”

“At top speed?” Sandra asked. She sighed. “A day.”

“Make it three hours,” Joe ordered. He marched over to Crane. “Richard, Can I trust you to guard Bastion while we’re gone?”

“It would be my honor,” Richard said quietly.

Preacher joined them. “What are you thinking, Joe?”

Joe looked at him. “Viktor Kraber got his chance at redemption, clawed his way toward it, and hit his karmic jackpot. What are we doing with ourselves it we lagged behind him? I dare say it’s high time we gave a few others theirs, or else stop them from fucking things over for the rest of us.”

Crane nodded, a slow smile creeping onto his face. Joe, meanwhile, looked out at the people of Bastion, before turning to Preston.

“Fetch my hammer,” he said.

Preston nodded, and a cheer went up from the crowd at those three words. Joe held up a hand for silence.

“Out there, right now, they say the PHL has found a miracle,” he said. “Another Equestria, free from whatever fuckuperry happened to the one we’ve fought!”

A hush fell over the crowd, quiet murmurs of disbelief.

“Now, I don’t know the truth of it,” Joe said. “I suspect we’ll never find out. It's bigger than us, and bigger assholes are involved. But I know this; they’ll be focused on the bigger war, which means they’ll miss what’s happening now. Right now, if we want to win, we can’t let the world descend into insanity. We can’t let riots and rogue HLF and opportunistic PER burn this world down while the PHL are making nice with another one!”

Behind him, Preston walked out of the cabin, holding Joe’s hammer. Joe didn’t take it yet.

“Right now, there’s rogue HLF out there ready to start tearing the world apart! PER just waiting to prey on the defenceless!” he yelled, raising a fist into the air. “We can’t let them! We can’t let there be fire and savagery in the midwest, night in the cities! We can’t let the vultures pick at our wounded Earth and leave nothing but ruin and ash! We are the Reavers!”

A cheer went up.

“We have given our blood before!” Joe continued. “But it wasn’t enough! When people speak of the HLF, they speak of Galt, of Lovikov, of Zhou! They forget that we bled for them, that we fought. To those people, history is already written.” He paused, letting those words sink in. “Well, I say, it's time to change that! Time to rewrite those history books!”

Another cheer, louder. Joe held out a hand, and took the hammer from Preston, raising it up.

“What are we?!” he called.

And the crowd shouted back. “Reavers!”

“What do we do?!” Joe yelled.

The reply came. “Ride the road!”

“Where do we ride the road?!”

“To the road's ending!” they called back.

“And where does it end?!” he asked them.

And the cry, exultant, arose. “VALHALLA!”

Joe planted the hammer’s haft in the ground. “Brothers! Sisters! Arm yourselves, for we are riding to war!”

“Rither for Valhalla!” John Idle called, and the cry went up.

“Rither for Valhalla! Rither for the HLF! Rither for Yarrow!”

Joe turned to look at Idle, who was grinning.

“What?” Idle asked.

“Doesn’t quite have the same ring to it,” Joe replied.

“Fuck the ring,” Idle said. “Today’s the day we make Yarrow’s dream real. We’ll go knock some donkey heads, and then we’ll make the poor confused lions of the HLF follow a better road.”

Joe nodded. “And it's about damn time.”

The public perception of the Reavers was tinted by the public perception of the entire HLF, but in turn the Reavers tinted the perception of the HLF themselves. Too often, we consider them the ultimate exception of the HLF that proves the rule, the only good men among the Lovikovs and Galts. The truth, of course, is more complex. When the Reavers made their fateful meeting to try for unity on the HLS Purity, they did so with such infamous units the Thenardier Guard and Taskforce Paris, it's true, but there were other units less well remembered. Kraken Grenadiers, Richard Thomlinson’s Rangers of the North, Soren’s Skydivers, the Redstripes… these were individuals who fought under the banner of the HLF following the militarisation, but did so with honour, focusing on the larger war. However, from the beginning, these units began folding in with the greater force Maximilian Yarrow was assembling. Take Andrea MacMurdo’s Valkyries, an all-female group of pilots and commandos - they began as a separate group, but as a unit, became one facet of the greater Reaver force. Eventually, as the war dragged in and others were killed, the survivors of other groups gravitated to the Reavers. Not helping was that PHL would attract more idealistic people, while angrier, more dispossed people would filter into what we commonly know as the HLF - precious few would fall in between and join the Reavers.

The Reavers became the ‘face’ of the good HLF, and that was a face the PHL demonstrably turned from, choosing to play up atrocities and starve the HLF of good attention. Perhaps a concerted effort to convince the saner elements within the HLF to join the PHL’s forces rather than remain attached to a force that, while allied to the same principles, never submitted to PHL authority. This can be seen in all the highly publicised speeches decrying all HLF, speeches which conveniently forgot the many people who had fought and died under that banner, defending people the way the PHL did. Angus Reid’s oft-quoted speech, Victor Kraber’s diatribes, all of them neglected to mention that the Reavers even existed. All of them painted a picture of an HLF that was united - united under psychopaths and monsters. An HLF that was easy to hate. Faced with this, there was no wonder the Reavers retreated. Even as the war came to a close and they finally succeeded in reuniting the remaining HLF under a single banner, stopping the assaults on PHL bases and cleansing at least two dozen PER cells in a matter of days, they still faced suspicion and resentment.

Can the PHL be forgiven for trying this tactic? Perhaps. The war was a desperate time, and the need for unity was great. But there is no denying that a great many men and women, heroes in their own way, still do not receive the same praise and recognition that the heroes of the PHL do. Perhaps - though Maxi Yarrow himself died defending humanity and free ponies alike - we will never remember them the same way. Maxi Yarrow might have said that such things were not why he fought, but there is no denying that the surviving Reavers, now resettled as an independent settlement in the reclaimed British territory, would be grateful for such a recognition. It may make the deaths of hundreds of their comrades more palatable.
– True Quill, Unsung Heroes of the Conversion War

“Now, I’ve made no secret of my disdain for the Reavers at this point. Maybe that makes me biased. It hasn’t earned me any favors from the other three writers, but… imagine this. Imagine you are a frightened Malaysian girl who immigrated to America, and then your town goes off the map.

And you wake up as it’s doing so. There’s newfoals everywhere, so you find an M4 (because doesn’t everyone here have one? I like Kalashnikovs more. --Kraber) and you shoot your way out. Then the HLF rescue you, and you… you earn a living best you can. I don’t want to talk about how, but HLF men had… appetites. Then, you get dragged into atrocity after atrocity. Start shaking people up for the most money you’ve seen in awhile. Use newfoals as punching bags, it’s not like anyone around will complain. End up in the most vile, disgusting shit you ever thought.

And here comes Yarrow, thinking he can reform that. I didn’t think it was possible. As far as I could tell, you’d be better off starting another organization entirely. I’d seen and done so much impossible, disgusting things in the HLF that I didn’t think it was worth it, either.”
A War In the Pocket: The Decline of the HLF. Written by Dayoung Tengku, Viktor M. Kraber, Aegis, and Yael Ze'ev.

Bert Donovan was sick and tired of arguing.

He wasn’t the strongest man, nor the cleverest. Nor was he particularly handsome. The eyepatch he wore over the ruined spot where shrapnel had once been sent hurtling into his skull, combined with his scraggly, unwashed beard, were his constant reminder that he looked and felt anything but cheery. At one time, in the days after the evacuation of Britain and that accursed grenade, Rachel was there to joke that he looked just like a pirate. It had never left him that on the day she last made that joke, she’d been ponified.

There were scars all over his body from fighting. He wore a battered leather coat over battered kevlar armour, battered boots, and battered who knew what. He was, all things considered, lucky. Back during the recruitment drives following Britain, they, the PHL, had told him he couldn’t fight due to his missing eye. As if it was their choice.

Now, to a man who has just lost everything, this is hardly the sort of thing one wants to hear. As it turned out, he wasn’t the only one. A man called Thomas May, an old friend and drinking buddy of his, actually, had been recruiting a few of the people who’d been told they weren’t fit for service. Eventually, those few people grew into many, enough to start a group, a group that had moved to America and ended up killing PER. It hadn’t been an easy life, and regrettably, had sometimes required asking for “donations” from the same humans who were getting saved, although no-one was left to die if they couldn’t provide. But he’d killed PER. Lots of PER.

Under the loosest of senses, they had been HLF. They’d received help from a stranger named Kevin, a very strange fella who’d always worn flowery armor, and had kept contact with a couple other groups (loosely), but despite all the noise that had gone on about HLF, PER and PHL clashing with each other, nobody ever bothered them about anything, and they had been allowed to keep protecting people.

Until Yael Ze’ev’s purge came.

Now, the HLF were hunted, and anyone who’d ever so much as spoken to a member of the HLF was subject to investigation. Thomas and Bert had kept their people underground as best they could (despite losing a few good men to PHL patrols, shot ‘resisting arrest’), but it hadn’t been what they wanted. They had wanted to keep the fight going.

The problem was, not many of the other HLF seemed to know what the fight was. Most wanted to kill PER, but nobody could agree on where they were. Some of them wanted to protect towns, but the events of Summer 2022 and onwards had left them unwelcome. Some of them wanted to attack any ponies in sight, PHL included, but Bert had just never felt the need. Most ponies weren’t PER, they were just people wanting to be away from a dangerous regime. Albeit colourful, four legged, furry people, escaping a regime run by a demigod. But hey, he’d known a guy who’d tattooed his face with a picture of an anus once. It took all sorts to make a world. Didn't mean he'd ever want to have sex with them (seriously - how the hell did people not think that was weird?!), but he could live with them being in his neighbourhood.

At Tom’s request, Donovan’s people had come to the meeting called in by a man called Jackson, not a name anyone actually knew. Set in the burnt-out remains of a barn, the meeting place looked like it been chosen because maybe there’d been a fight here, a long time ago. Maybe even a fight Jackson had been part of, though to look at him, he didn’t seem like the sort who got into fights. More the sort who, if not ran away from them, preferred to avoid them. There were different groups present that Donovan might’ve recognised. Survivors from around a half-dozen groups, such as a couple of people in Christian Marine gear wearing stripes of the Prussian blue that William Kraft had instituted before Viktor Kraber murdered him (and most of the Christian Marines too). Some Menschabwehrfraktion survivors that had inexplicably survived Montreal, before Kraber (again) killed off most of them. There were a couple Thenardier Guard survivors, and more than a few running around in kit of no particular allegiance.

That’s what they were, wasn’t it? Survivors.

For all Donovan knew, these were the last remnants. In fact, he was almost certain he was in the presence of the last Thenardiers. Something, the news hadn’t touched on it, he’d only heard confused reports, had utterly shredded every HLF unit near Nova Scotia. The town of Truro had been taken over by Atlas Galt, then, from what he could gather from the scattered Thenardiers, a crazy bastard from their unit had flooded the town, dooming thousands. Which hadn’t been before a…

A super-Newfoal of some kind? Or several? The stories were vague. Seemingly, you never really fought super-Newfoals, you’d only meet someone who claimed to have done so, and even then they had to have embellished a detail. Or met someone who claimed to have met someone who fought one. Regardless, if the PHL or PER were good enough to have done that, there wouldn’t be many HLF left.

There wasn’t much of anyone left, to be blunt.

Jackson was an ugly son of a bitch, with a turned-up nose broken more than once, acne scars and a balding pate. He wore what might have been stolen military fatigues with a set of black kevlar over them, and held a battered-looking pump shotgun with a wood grip held together by electrical tape. If Donovan was a pirate, Jackson looked like a bad cosplayer. Even as Donovan watched, he was speaking to a couple of his men, irritated.

“Wonder what that’s all about?” Lem whispered next to him.

Donovan shrugged. “Guess we’ll find out.”

“Alright!” Jackson said, holding a hand to silence the hubbub. “Listen up, you guys!”

Donovan folded his arms. Jackson’s voice was nasally. He radiated authority like a broken lightbulb radiated light.

“The PHL are focusing on something, something big!” he said. “Word is there’s another Equestria! With its own Celestia, its own Element Bearers!”

Bert’s eye widened. Another Equestria? Like one wasn’t enough?

“They’re gonna be stronger than ever!” Jackson continued. “Which means we have to take advantage now of what’s going on, and strike, strike hard!”

“And strike who?!” asked a young voice. A girl, no older than fifteen, with a permanent scowl etched on her face, stepped forward, backed by a good score of men adorned in all-black gear identical to hers.

“The horsefuckers, who else?” Jackson asked, as though the question were obvious.

“What about the PER?” called out someone else, a haunted-looking woman in a black, sleeveless leather coat. “There’s rumors of cells acting in this State alone! Whatever’s fucking going on with Equestria, they’re–”

“I’m not talking about the PER!” Jackson snapped. “The new Equestria just threw in its lot with the PHL! You think we can let the PHL have that kind of power?!”

“How d’you even know they’re getting reinforcements?” a white-haired Thenardier man yelled back at him.

“Look,” Jackson said, “the point is–”

“The point is, you want to go kill PHL when the PER are out there, ponifying people!” the fifteen-year-old from before snapped. “I don’t care ‘bout some new Equestria, I care about–”

“What do you think that new Equestria will do?!” Jackson cut her off angrily. “You think it'll shit rainbows and the bad ponies will go away? Do you think things’ll magically be better?!”

“The PHL clearly thinks they will,” a man pointed out, his armor decorated with a floral pattern.

“Yeah, of course they do,” Jackson snapped. “The PHL is gonna get reinforcements, more of the fucking gluesticks!”

There was a long pause at that declaration.

“And what if they’re not the enemy?” Donovan spoke up. Lem shot him an incredulous glance, but Donovan ignored him.

Jackson, on the other hand, laughed. “Not the enemy, he says. So, what? They’re our friends?”

“They might be,” Donovan said with a shrug.

“Yeah right,” Jackson snorted. “It’s clear as fucking day what’s happening. They’ve got more like themselves, and those newcomers will help them take more of our liberty, kill more of our people!”

“The PHL isn’t an ally of Queen Celestia,” another woman, blonde hair tied back in a ponytail, cut him off. Her heavy combat armour was in decent shape, and a tall man in even better gear with a shotgun was standing behind her. “You... no, we can stand here lying to ourselves about it all we want, but fact is, they’ve been her enemy as long as we have. Other groups know that!”

“What other groups?” the Thenardier Guard asked. “We’re all that’s left.”

“She’s got a point,” Donovan threw out. “The Skydivers, the Rangers of the North, the Kraken Grenadiers, those guys got by without fighting PHL.”

“Those guys are dead,” said the woman in the sleeveless coat.

“So are the Thenardier Guard, the Menschabwehrfraktion, Taskforce Paris,” the fifteen-year old pointed out. “And they killed more civilians and PHL than they ever did Empire or PER. Galt made a truce with the PER, if I hear right.”

“You did,” the Thenardier Guard said sullenly. “Bastard. I’d say I hope he rots in hell, but knowing how Truro went, he hasn’t been afforded that kindness.”

“Why’d that even…” the girl asked the Thenardier.

“I honestly have no idea,” the Thenardier said. “When those weird Newfoals started attacking, when Birch had us–”

“Is Birch dead too?” someone else interrupted. “Or ponified?”

The Thenardier looked vaguely sick. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

The blonde woman looked at him quizzically. “We had a pool going, back in my old unit. Ten on Batshit Birch getting killed by PHL, twenty on-”

“I don’t. Fucking. Want. To talk about it,” the Thenardier Guard said, enunciating every syllable.

Going by what Donovan had heard of the Thenardier Guards’ most recent actions, it was hard for him to keep himself from remembering the old Discworld quote: ‘Some things sicken even jackals.’

“So how the hell did you get out?” someone asked.

The Thenardier shrugged. “I stole a motorcycle and headed out. I think about six more followed suit. Fuck my unit, and fuck Galt for dragging us into this.”

“So many of us are dead, now,” the woman in the sleeveless coat said quietly.

“Which is why those of us who are left need to unite, to hit back hard now,” Jackson said, trying to regain control of the conversation. “Sure, we disagree on some things–”

“You're not the first one to discuss unification,” the Thenardier Guard said with a snort. “I was with Birch when Yarrow first called a meeting of HLF leaders on his old rustbucket, the Purity, back before Helmetag got garrotted and Galt called himself that.”

“I was in that meeting, too,” said the woman in the sleeveless coat. “Didn't work out then. Why should it work now?”

“It didn't work then, Packer, because you and half the HLF there just wanted to go kill gluesticks without a plan,” the floral-armored man said shortly. “Plenty of us stayed when you lot left. Plenty of us listened.”

“Then listen now,” Jackson said insistently, almost petulantly.

“What you’re talking about is the opposite of what we agreed,” said the floral-armored man, pointing at him in something like bland derision. “We agreed to prioritise, to pick our battles. You're talking about–”

“I’m talking about bringing us together to make a difference!” Jackson snapped.

“No, you’re talking about group suicide without even the comforting delusion of survival,” the floral-armored man said.

Jackson bristled. “Why you fucking -”

“Shut up, Jackson,” a stern voice said, cutting him off.

A small group of men and women entered the barn. They all wore heavy armor, with the leader and a couple more wielding large custom sledgehammers. Many carried advanced-looking weapons. Was that a Type-7? Those things had become ultra-rare.

A few people started muttering under their breath at the sight of this group.

“Reavers!” Lem hissed, not entirely unhappily. “I thought these guys were dead!”

The leader was a grey-haired, man with a no-nonsense look as he scanned the gathering. He planted the haft of his hammer into the ground. Behind him, the rest waited.

“I take it you are Reavers,” Jackson said, his voice a kind of forced neutral, though his face was twisted in a grimace. “Nice of the traitors to show up.”

There was a collective murmuring.

“That’s a word you get to use once,” the leader said grimly. “After that, I start getting unfriendly.”

“And I take it you're Maximilian Yarrow?” Jackson asked with a sneer.

“No,” the blonde woman whispered. “No he isn't.”

“His name’s Joe Rither,” the man behind her said. He stepped forward and saluted. “Sir.”

“McReady,” Rither said, nodding. “The hell have you been?”

The man ‘McReady’ pointed to the blonde woman. “Protecting something important.”

Rither frowned, looking at the woman, before looking at McReady, who simply mouthed “later”. With a frown, Rither turned to address Jackson again.

“So,” he said. “Let me guess. The plan is, ‘go kill some PHL and then hope they don't send more to kill you later’. Right?”

Jackson sniffed. “The plan is to hit while they're distracted.”

“And then what?” Rither asked. “What next? What about after that? What about if the PHL beat the Empire? Or the Empire beat the PHL? What then?”

Jackson fidgeted slightly. “We’re working on the plan.”

“Oh? And what is that, pray tell?” Rither asked scathingly.

“Normal shields do fail against sustained attack,” someone said. “In theory–”

“It takes the equivalent of eight or nine people sustaining fire with non-augment weapons to drop a standard unicorn shield,” one of Rither’s men said bluntly. “The Barrier is nearly the size of a planet. Got eight or nine planets worth of guns, have we?”

“And the Barrier isn’t even a normal shield,” someone else added. “Normal shields, things just impact on. The Barrier disintegrates them.”

There was an awkward silence.

Jackson kept fidgeting. “What else is there?”

“How about those PER?” Donovan called out, pointing to Packer. “She says there’s loads of cells running around. Why not put a stop to that?”

“They're not the real threat–” Jackson began.

“Yes, they are,” Rither cut him off, turning on him with a glare so strong Jackson quailed. ”I got two questions for all of you.”

The steel in his voice made it certain everyone would listen to him. This was not a man used to being ignored. Or if he was, he simply didn’t have patience.

“Any of you play video games?” Rither asked.

The crowd murmured, confused.

“Fuck’s that have to do with anything?!” the Thenardier Guard yelled. “I mean, I did, but…”

“I had a friend who liked to play. A lot.” Rither said with eerie calm. “Fat lot of good that did him when the real apocalypse came rolling. But the thing about friends, gentlemen, is that you cherish them for the little things they bring into your life.”

“Spare us,” said the Thenardier, not to be put off. “Games are just that, games. Whether you’re talking pixelated shit or tin soldiers from two fucking centuries ago, children’s fantasy battles fought in their bedroom can’t measure up to good, hard military knocks–”

“Like you, I suppose?” Rither said placidly. “We all start somewhere. I’m certain you began playing with your little tin soldiers, once.”

The Thenardier fell silent. Satisfied, Rither moved on.

“One game springs to mind,” he explained. “Fallout: New Vegas. And I’m sure you’re all wondering right now, ‘what the hell does that have to do with ponies’? Well, it doesn’t have all that much,but it has a lot to do with us, with our situation for when it’s well-written, and more for when it’s not. Because one faction there, the Great Khans, biker mongols, essentially… well, this friend of mine, he couldn’t stand them. ‘They’re so poorly written,’ he’d say. ‘Because they keep poking the bear.’ Even as their enemy, the only functioning government, gets more and more powerful, they keep poking it. Then cry when it actually fights back after years of being pissed off. They sell out to an enemy that’ll steamroll them, just to get back at the people they’ve done nothing but provoke from the beginning. Seeing as Galt did that, I can only assume, that’s us.”

“Spare me this self-loathing bullshit!” Jackson roared.

“What? You afraid it’s true?!” Rither yelled. “Yarrow would’ve been fine if none of you had decided the PHL were as bad as the PER. If you hadn’t let the crazies run the asylum. You had one job! ONE JOB!” He sighed. “There’s only so far I can take this reference, but... Maxi Yarrow wanted us to be heroes. Not the PHL, no, just an independent faction that stood for the rights of others, and fight where the PHL couldn’t. Maybe even make sure that we had a point when we called the PHL out on some of their actions. The near-martial law, the propaganda bullshit.” His face twisted into a scowl. “Bastards like you made that impossible. Who gives a shit about 1930’s style propaganda and full on martial law when there are humans raping and skinning ponies, huh? You managed to make totalitarianism look appealing!”

No one said anything for a moment.

Rither turned to the others, looking around the room. “I’m going to state this as bluntly as I can.”

Everyone, even the glowering Thenardier Guard, listened, staring at the Reaver. Some looked highly on edge, Jackson and his men especially, but most, like Packer and the floral-armoured man, looked thoughtful.

“The HLF has one last chance to pull itself out of the shithole,” Rither said. “Whatever war you lot wanted to fight against the PHL, you lost, and I reckon we’re all better off for it. Men like Galt–” and the Thenardier’s glare deepened, “–and Lovikov fucked over the HLF. They turned us into the enemies of mankind. And look where it got them. Dead, or…” Rither struggled for a second. “Or whatever happened to Galt. I don’t know, don’t particularly care. Well, that’s over. As of now.”

“Who says?” Jackson asked.

“I say,” Rither growled vehemently, and Jackson shrank back. “Me and mine have seen too many friends die, given too much, for shits like you to be those deciding how history remembers us.” He looked around the room again. “The HLF have a chance to be better, and that chance is today. With us. We can root out the PER and make them bleed. We can stop the Empire from having a hundred little footholds. We can fight, and we can help. History doesn't have to remember us as monsters. We can change the world for the better, today.”

“And if we don't?” Jackson asked with a sneer. “If we don't go along with your grand plan?”

“Then that’s its own punishment,” Rither said, simply glaring at him. There was a soft murmur that seemed to permeate through the room. After a moment, the floral-armored man stepped forward.

“I stood behind Yarrow before, when he wanted to unify the HLF,” he said, for all to hear. “Because he was right. We would have been better if we’d listened then. Well, I’m still listening.”

Rither nodded. “Good to see you still alive, Kevin.”

Packer scowled, before stepping forward as well.

“I didn’t listen to Yarrow before,” she said. “I thought the PHL were gonna try and trick us.” Her expression softened. “And I was wrong. Yarrow had a good idea this whole time. But it's too late, far too late.”

“Too late for Yarrow to see his dream come true,” Rither said slowly, “but not too late for us to make it happen, for the HLF to stand united, to sweep away the supporters of the Empire. We can make a difference.”

Packer nodded evenly. “If you think that, if you really think that, then I’m with you. All the way.”

“Me too,” Donovan said, stepping up as well. “It’ll be good to make a difference again.”

“We’re with you too,” the fifteen-year-old girl said, motioning to her group.

“And us,” the blonde woman added. She shared a glance with McReady. “It's… in my blood.”

A few others nodded as well. Jackson sputtered a bit, but said nothing. Finally, the Thenardier Guardsman stepped forward.

“I hate this,” he said simply. “I’ve hated you guys. I hate what happened to Galt, I hate that we were dragged down to the point of doing something stupid, and I hate what we’re doing. But, and here’s the thing, I also hate sitting around doing nothing.” He laughed. “I’m basically not a positive person. But hell, if it means I can kill PER? Why the fuck not. I know a couple other Thenardiers - they'll probably fall in, too.”

Rither nodded, before looking at Jackson.

“Well?” he asked.

Jackson looked around, at the crowd of HLF who looked hopeful, determined, some for the first time in years. And whatever else Jackson was, even he wasn’t that stupid.

“Fucking hell,” he swore. “Fucking hell.” He ran a hand through his hair. “This is on your head, asshole. If we get ponified by this new Equestria, I’ll fucking kill you and wear your skin.”

Rither raised an eyebrow. “Uh huh. Well, then I’d better make sure we don't get ponified, hadn't I? Fortunately for you shitbags, we’ve got… friends.”

Interview for Mysteries of the Multiverse: An Amateur Exploration of Space/Time, by Doctor Whooves (Downtime) and Doctor Whooves (Uptime) with notes from Doctor Richard Bowman. Interviewer True Quill (T.Q.), and interviewees Uptime Doctor Whooves (D.W.) and Doctor Bowman (D.B.).

I am sat in the same room as two Doctors. Doctor Bowman is well dressed and appears young, with long, messy hair. Doctor Whooves is the same as ever.

T.Q.: “Okay, so you're both...”

D.B.: “The same person. Yes.”

D.W.: “Albeit from different points in space time. Technically, I will never become him.”

D.B.: “But he may become a version of me.”

D.W.: “Hopefully one who doesn't like cords so much.”

D.B.: “What’s wrong with cords? Anyway, you can’t talk fashion. All you wear’s that blasted necktie.”

D.W.: “I wear a bow tie occasionally. Bow ties are–”

D.B.: “Don’t.”

D.W.: “What?”

D.B.: “Honestly. When I was you–”

T.Q.: “Ahem. Doctors.”

There is an awkward pause.

D.W.: “Sorry. We always do this when we meet.”

D.B.: “We’re surprisingly fractious for the same man.”

T.Q.: “So, those familiar with Doctor Who know a little bit about the process of regeneration–”

D.B.: “Am I going to have to explain that we’re not the show?”

D.W.: “Nobody ever made that mistake with me.”

D.B.: “Probably subtle racism. You didn’t look like a human, so they didn't make the connection as readily as they do with a young, lanky humanoid like me.”

D.W.: “Great wickering stallions, I’d never seen it that way. Now I’m wondering if I’m supposed to be offended.”

D.B.: “... ‘Great wickering stallions’? Is that really something we say?”

T.Q.: “If you could focus? I'm trying to ask in what ways you're different.”

D.W.: “Aside from the obvious?”

D.B.: “Don't be rude. Anyway, Miss Quill, you see how it is... we share a sense of what humans might call ‘eccentricity’...”

D.W.: “Mine tempered by experiencing this war.”

D.B.: “But he’s generally happier than I am, since I’m tempered by things he’s yet to experience. A lot of differences, mind you, come from different circumstances. He’s married, I wasn't, he had a stable life in one space and time, I still had my wanderlust, he didn’t have responsibilities, I do–”

T.Q.: “Responsibilities?”

D.B.: “I owe a debt to some people. (*pause*) When I first came here, I had already been through a conversion war of sorts in my own universe.”

T.Q.: “Really?”

D.B.: “Let’s not get into that.” (*pause*) “Honestly, I shouldn't have mentioned it.”

D.W.: “He doesn't like talking about that.”

D.B.: “Needless to say, it granted me perspective. And so I decided to help.”

T.Q.: “It's worth noting you’ve been somewhat more… obscure than Doctor Whooves. His involvement with the PHL is rather known. Yours, I understand, was more... clandestine.”

D.B.: “It was.”

D.W.: “Then there was that business where you died.”

D.B.: “Let's not get into that business.”

D.W.: “Sorry.”

T.Q.: “I’m… sorry, what?”

D.B.: “Long story.”

T.Q.: “I… take it you… ‘got better’?”

There is a pause. Doctor Bowman becomes more serious, his expression what I can only describe as ‘grim’.

D.B.: “No.” (*pause*) “I didn't.”

A man with a knee-length coat and red hair was sat in a room in one of the experimentation rooms inside the PHL’s HQ. The coat was tweed, brown and softly checkered. Beneath it was an open-necked shirt, a black waistcoat with little lapels, and a pair of brown corduroy trousers, set off by black boots. His eyes were hazel and warm, full of a twinkling merriment.

He was waiting.

The PHL building was oddly quiet. There hadn’t been many troops on guard – somehow, there never were at this time of night, even in the PHL’s stronghold. To be fair to them, though, they hadn’t come in here and he had come straight in. Whatever anti-TARDIS defences they might have had, they didn’t work (would the stallion here have even thought of anti-TARDIS defences, or were they just set up to repel other TARDIS’?). His eyes drifted to the familiar blue box, and he smiled. If that wasn’t the best way to announce oneself, he didn’t know what was.

A brown Earth Pony stallion with a dark brown mane and a tie on entered, and the young man simply smiled. As the stallion wandered around the room, he seemed entirely oblivious to the man’s presence for a moment, focusing on a piece of paper with some complex looking equations.

“No, no, no, no,” the stallion was saying. “None of this makes sense!”

“Can I?” the young man asked, standing up and holding out a hand.

The stallion passed him the equations, and the man tutted as he read over it.

“Lots of thaumic nonsense, here,” he said. “Very difficult to work out. Maybe if you subdivide the differential and take into account the frequency alterations?”

“Maybe,” the stallion said, nodding thoughtfully.

After a moment, the stallion looked at him, his eyes widening in realisation, shock entering them as he saw the box sitting in the corner. He looked back to the man, and the man winked.

“Oh,” he said. “Oh.”

“Yup,” the man said. “Hello, Doctor.”

“Hello,” Doctor Whooves said quietly. “Doctor. Doctor…?”

“Richard Bowman,” the man said with a smile. “I figured ‘John Smith’ might be too obvious.”

There was a pause as the two regarded one another, neither of them entirely certain where to begin.

“So,” Doctor Whooves said after a moment. “I was right.”

“You knew I was pottering about?” Bowman asked. “Or did Renee tell you?”

“I suspected something,” Whooves said quietly. “I asked Hex - he had a suspicious reaction when I specified Chalcedony as my friend.” He paused and frowned. “Marcus knew?”

“He did,” Bowman said with a smile. “He said he presumed you already did.”

“No, but as I said, I suspected,” Whooves said softly. “Too much tech they wouldn't know how to start. Too many ideas that made no sense unless someone came back and gave them then.” He took a breath. “Dare I ask if it's soon?”

Bowman blinked for a second, then laughed. “Oh. Oh. You think I’m your future. Oh, no, no. I’m from a parallel timeline. Entirely different business.”

Whooves paused. “A - a parallel timeline? The other Equestria?”

“No,” Bowman said. “More like one a few dozen universes to the left. Different histories entirely. Celestia was about seven thousand years older, there were Moles, magia instead of thauma. That kind of thing.”

“Moles?”

“Trust me, long story.”

Whooves sighed. “I… I don't know where to begin.” He paused. “I’ve not been given access to your file, but I know Richard Bowman – so, you – was accused of helping the HLF.”

“I worked with the Reavers from time to time,” Bowman said airily.

“Why?!” Whooves said, half-yelling. “Why help the HLF?”

“I wasn't,” Bowman replied evenly. “I was helping Maxi Yarrow.”

“He was HLF,” Whooves pointed out.

“So was Kevin the Mildly-Miffed, and Soren Hagen, and Isaac Richter, and Trevor Ducane, and Andrea MacMurdo, and Rickard Thomlinson,” Bowman said, reciting the names with the soft finality of a dirge. “They were also good men and women. People who wanted to do something and weren't prepared to wait for ‘permission’. Yarrow was the best of the lot.”

“The HLF have done too many things to -” Whooves began.

“No,” Bowman said, holding up a hand. “No, don't. Don't generalise. You've been in that body a long time - don't tell me you've forgotten how to think like one of us.”

Whooves sighed. “I knew Sutra Cross.”

“And Sutra Cross delivered Angela Crane’s baby, Rebecca, during the fighting against Imperial Creed,” Bowman retorted with a sarcastic expression. “Without even blinking when she knew they were HLF. Which was what was so good about her, really, though I fear her good experience made her too trusting. How is it that a relatively normal mare could look past three letters on someone’s shirt, and you can't?”

Whooves paused, and shook his head. “Let’s not have this debate. You’ve done different things to me.”

“That much is obvious,” Bowman said simply.

“Why didn't you trust me?” Whooves asked.

“You mean, apart from the fact that I do things differently to you?” Bowman asked, folding his arms.

Whooves looked hurt for a moment. “You think I’d have betrayed you, your friends?”

“As always, in a heartsbeat if you had to,” Bowman said quietly. “Or thought you had to. That much about us both remains true.”

“And you think I would have?”

“Yes,” Bowman said simply. “From your perspective, my friends were potentially dangerous. I don't doubt that you would have had them arrested or… otherwise handled.”

Whooves looked upset for a moment, but he didn't contradict him.

“Alright,” he finally said. “But that can't be all the reason.”

“You're exiled,” Bowman said simply. “And I’m not your future. I’m your alternate. For all I know, you might not be trustworthy.”

“We’re not that different, surely?” Whooves asked quietly.

“When I was an equivalent of you, retired and enjoying the peaceful pony life, I never married Ditzy,” Bowman said, pointing to a picture of the Whooves clan. “Or… ‘Derpy’. That was only a cruel nickname where I was from. Can’t believe it’s really her name here, actually. Makes me wince.”

“That doesn’t mean you and I are different,” Whooves pointed out.

“Still,” Bowman said. “There were considerations. I couldn’t risk what I was doing. And there's a question you've not asked.”

Whooves frowned slightly, his eyes drifting to the box in the corner. “Your TARDIS.”

“Yes,” Bowman said.

“It's fully functional,” Whooves continued. “Isn't it?”

Bowman nodded slowly.

Whooves took a deep breath. “I… won't deny. I want to… to use it. To go out there. To take my family and run.”

“But you won't,” Bowman said softly. “In that, at least, I guess we’re not so different.”

“Course not,” Whooves said. “We’re us.”

There was a long pause.

“So,” Whooves asked quietly. “Why are you here?”

“A few reasons,” Bowman said quietly. “Firstly to let you know that I am here - we’ve reached the point where even if I wanted to keep hiding from you, I couldn’t. Not considering everything I’ve still got to do.”

“And that would be…” Whooves asked.

Bowman ignored that. “Secondly, to ask if there’s anything you can think of that might need two heads, rather than one.”

“Really?” Whooves asked, raising an eyebrow. “It’s taken you all these years to finally come here and ask me that?”

“What can I say?” Bowman said with a shrug. “I’ve been preoccupied.”

Whooves narrowed his eyes. “There’s more to it.”

Bowman smiled wanly. “What makes you say that.”

“I know me,” Whooves said grimly. “You’d have come looking for me immediately. You’ve actively been hiding from me - you just said so - and there’s no reason for that unless…”

His eyebrows raised, his eyes widening in horror. “Oh no. No, you didn’t. Tell me you haven’t…”

Bowman said nothing.

“Your TARDIS - it’s fully functional, you said as much,” Whooves said quietly. “No limitations - it can go into the future, can’t it?”

“Yes,” Bowman said quietly.

“And you…” Whooves said, eyes still wider, “you’ve.. actually changed things, haven’t you? The timeline I’m living right now is the product of you messing about with this universe’s established history.”

Bowman said nothing. His silence was damning enough.

“How did I not know before… what are you doing, interfering like that?” Whooves asked, shocked. “It’s against the rules!”

Bowman nodded slowly. “For you, yes.”

“What does that mean?” Whooves asked, frowning. “It’s always been against the rules - it’s number one on the big bloody book of the Rules!”

Bowman sighed, looking at his TARDIS with a sorrowful expression.

“Tell me,” he asked quietly. “What’s your relationship like with Them?”

“Them?” Whooves asked nonplussed, before his expression became one of dawning comprehension. “Them? I… I don’t really have one. I’ve not been back in… well, I don't know how long. Not since before I regenerated last.” He paused, frowning. “Why?”

Bowman rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. “My relationship with them has become… somewhat complicated.”

Whooves narrowed his eyes. “They… sent you here?”

“Yes,” Bowman said quietly. “They sent me here.”

Whooves blinked, trying to run this through his head.

“How can you work for them?” he finally asked. “After… after everything they’ve done?”

“I’m twice your age, Doctor,” Bowman said with a slight smile. “For me, there’s been a lot of… shall we call them ‘ups and downs’? I owed them something.”

“‘Owed them something’?” Whooves repeated. “What can you possibly owe them?”

Bowman sighed. “A long time ago, I accidentally let someone escape who ended up selling weapons to one of Their enemies. I stopped the attack, and They… asked for my help.”

Whooves narrowed his eyes. “You mean They made you.”

“If you like,” Bowman said quietly. “Even though I stopped working for Them properly a long, looong time ago, They still see fit to ask for my assistance on occasion.”

“I… alright then,” Whooves said, shaking his head. “Then what’s Their interest in this?”

“That’s an interesting question,” Bowman said quietly. “They’ve been wanting to catalogue different worlds for a long time. They sent me because I’m good on ‘aimless wandering for the sake of exploration’. I was also tasked with ‘preventing powers from becoming threats to Their interests’, which has a lot of carte blanche.”

Whooves frowned. “So you used your ‘carte blanche’ to interfere with established history.”

“Believe me, I had to be careful,” Bowman said, a wry smile on his face. “Nothing drastic - stop a PER agent on a boat here, fix an engine there… make a schematic, make a friend, help some people meet some other people…”

“Help the Reavers,” Whooves said with narrowed eyes.

Bowman nodded. “Right now, this world’s gone from ‘definitely going to hell’ to ‘might not go to hell’, which is - after more tries than I would really like to think about - the best I can do.”

“So that’s why things have been so inconsistent lately,” Whooves said. “I had suspected a time travelling influence, but I assumed someone else. Actually, I thought you were here trying to stop them.”

“On any other day, I would,” Bowman said with a wry grin. “Remind me to tell you about an annoying little upstart called the Watchmaker.”

“Something tells me I don’t want to know,” Whooves snorted. He frowned. “Hang on. Did you have anything to do with this other Equestria thing?”

“No. And I don’t think that anybody could have seen it coming,” Bowman said. “This isn’t merely a curveball, this is… this is replacing the ball with a Toclafane. Even I was surprised, and I’ve actually done the whole ‘Conversion War’ thing before.”

“Now we’ve made contact with the other Equestria,” Whooves said. “It’s an endgame. Last gambit, etc, etc.”

“Everyone’s going for their last gambits,” Bowman said, a slight smile on his face. “The forces of the Solar Empire have pulled out all their stops, hoping that once they’ve broken what you’ve got that there’ll be nothing left to stop them. The last of the PER and the HLF are making noises - some of them not as bad as you think, if the rumours I’ve heard from Bastion are true -”

“Bastion?” Whooves said.

“And you, the PHL, and Downtime Equestria are preparing to launch the last strike on the Solar Empire,” Bowman finished, not acknowledging the interruption. “So. Last gambits. Hope and glory. Damn the torpedoes.” He smirked. “And this time -”

“- there’s two of us,” Whooves finished, nodding. “Alright, I see the point.” He smiled. “I’m gonna have a hell of a time explaining this to Derpy.”

“Well, that joy I leave entirely to you,” Bowman said with a smirk. “She’s your wife.”

“Who knows, maybe she’ll see this as an opportunity?” Whooves asked.

Bowman blanched for a second. “Um.”

Whooves blanched too. “Oh. No, no, no, not like that. Not even gonna. No. No.”

“Seconded,” Bowman said quietly. He smiled. “Right then, Doctor. Where to begin?”