It is true, that most ponies would consider immortality a boon, dear representatives. However, I would ask you to consider that I have been buried, frozen, struck by lightning, stabbed, exsanguinated, hung, and poisoned multiple times. On a long enough time-frame, I will experience every hideous injury from a stubbed hoof to a shattered skull, kept from the relief of death by my connection to the Sun. I will watch each of you die of old age, stand over your graves, and cry like it was the first while putting on a stoic face so the crowds know that this world moves on despite their grief.
It takes a special sort of mind to live forever with that prospect to look forward to. I hope one day that all species discover a means to live as long as they wish to, in ultimate harmony, but I do not hold out hope for it anytime soon. The good moments will make up for the bad moments, but only if you seek to shape the world in a more positive fashion. That is the immortal's task, after all.
-Princess Celestia before the House of Nobles when asked why she keeps the secrets of her longevity so closely guarded.
-
“Lay it out for me again. How on Equis did you screw this up so badly?”
“I made a deal to save lives! There weren’t many other options!”
“Yes, and how many lives will be lost if we can’t retrieve the Helm of Nightmare Moon?”
“No more than would have been lost if we let the status quo persist another few months. I’ve bought us some time.”
“But you gave up our only bargaining chip! What are we supposed to do now? Do you even know who you gave it to?”
“No, but that doesn’t matter. Time was always short. Now we have a chance, however slim, and what happens from here on will depend on whether or not we hold up our end of the other bargain...”
“Wait...what other bargain?”
----
It was an hour after I’d laid Hollyhock to rest. Lily and I were cuddled up beside the fire, her horn glowing softly as she maintained a simple soundproofing spell around my head. I was still, more or less, in full stream of consciousness, but Gale seemed to have given me at least a modicum of self-restraint in the intervening period and I could feel my thoughts starting to clear.
Mags seemed to have taken a liking to Iris Jade, and was using her for a pillow on the other side of the firepit. I’d even caught Jade smiling at her a couple of times, too, which was disturbing. Jade’s smiles tended to come in three flavors: malicious, smug, and self-satisfied. Seeing an honest grin on her olive face was giving me a bit of gnarly cognitive dissonance.
Swift and Bones were playing that card game of hers. I’ve no idea how she taught my grandfather to play, but judging by the frustrated expression on her face, he’d picked it up pretty quickly.
Lastly were Firebrand and her little band. Despite having five dragons in the room, the space still felt decently open, especially considering Firebrand was the largest amongst them. I’d missed them coming in, but the Emberites seemed friendly enough when we went around for brief introductions before dinner.
Little Altrak and his sister Scorch, who were both the color of spinach and wore matching pairs of sawn off shotguns encrusted with gemstones, seemed content to curl around one another like a pair of nesting geese, snoozing after their patrol. Then there was Crask, a heavyset male with a sharp cutting blade attached to his tail by a series of straps, and lastly, Tonic, who’d only stepped into the light of the fire long enough to make introductions before retreating into the shadows again. Her scales were the color of a moonless sky, and she moved with a dangerous grace. A small sub-machine gun was holstered at her hip.
Lily had managed a pretty tasty meal from the remains of our field rations, and my stomach was full as I tried to settle my desperately racing mind.
‘Gale, how go the repairs?’ I thought, as loudly as I could.
I felt a light sense of frustration emanating from somewhere inside my chest.
‘Right. Should I take that to mean ‘stop breaking fleshy-things for a little while’?’
My head jerked up and down in an involuntary and slightly aggressive nod.
‘I’ll do my best,’ I paused, then quickly added, ‘By the way, thanks for keeping me alive and taking care of me while I was out. I couldn’t have done this without you. I’ll try to make sure you get put into somepony who deserves you, if it looks like I’m going to die for good.’
One of my hooves rose on its own and touched the socket on my chest, followed by a flush of comfort and appreciation that spread through my entire body. Message received.
Much as I might have been enjoying the short downtime, the hour was growing late.
Giving Lily a bump with my hip, I pointed to my face. She blinked at me, then made a soft ‘oh’ with her lips, and her horn-glow died. With the soundproofing dispelled, I could hear again, but better, I could speak. Better yet, I could hear my own thoughts, and nopony was looking at me like I was drunk and doing hoofstands.
I cleared my throat. It wasn’t a terribly loud noise, but it got everyone’s attention.
Reluctantly pulling away from Lily, I shook some soil off my coat and stepped toward the fire.
“Ladies, gentlecolts, and lizards of all stripes...we’ve got to talk.”
Jade cocked an eyebrow at me, levitating Mags onto the ground beside her. “Are you still...ahem...damaged?”
I crossed my eyes towards the end of my own muzzle for a moment. When my innermost thoughts were not forthcoming, I grinned and sat down. “Seems not. It doesn’t matter, either way. We’ve waited long enough. With the truck trashed, we have to get back to Detrot the old fashioned way. So, what are we going to do?”
Firebrand raised a claw. “If you mean ‘trotting’, then it will be a two day journey at maximum gallop. Even with your provisions replenished, you will pass through multiple areas which are held by hostile forces. In all likelihood, you will be attacked by another group of those PACT creatures as well. I would count your odds of survival as ‘quite low’. That we witnessed you enter the forest is the only reason all of you still live.”
“So...that was one of you?!” Swift piped up. “Before we went into the forest, I saw something in the sky, but it got away from me when I tried to chase it.”
The burly male dragon tucked his claws under his chest like a cat and said, “You gave me a pretty chase, little one. I thought I was being stealthy.”
“You couldn’t stealth your way out of a pack of sleeping yaks, Crask,” Tonic growled from her place just outside the fire’s light. “You just got lucky she didn’t catch you. Her weapon would have turned you into an icy-pop before you could draw your blades.”
Rather than take offense, Crask chuckled and tapped the jeweled sword pommel sticking out from under his right wing. “It would have been a fine contest, thinks I! A fine death, as well. You saw how she fought those toothy-terrors! I have never seen such agility, but from the Wonderbolts themselves!” He turned to Swift, whose cheeks were turning bright red. “You! Young mare, whose name I have already forgotten. You must teach me a few of those maneuvers!”
“Later,” Firebrand cut in. “Point being, you cannot reach the city on hoof. You shall have to be carried.”
“Wait...you don’t mean…”
“Yes! You shall receive a rare honor, Mister Hard Boiled! You will fly with dragons!”
----
“Now, before I go on, I want to say I wasn’t enthusiastic about this idea. You remember the ride in the air chariot? This was that, but about three times as fast and ten times as agile.”
“Sir, it was one of the coolest things that you’ve ever done and you know it!”
“No, kid, it was one of the coolest things you’ve ever done. I didn’t have the benefit of wings keeping me from planting face first into the countryside, so we’ll clock this as one of the scariest things that ever happened to me.”
“Hard Boiled, I really don’t care about your journey, fascinating as it is. What I care about is how you managed to lose the Helm of Nightmare Moon!”
“I didn’t lose it. I know where it is. More or less.”
“More or less?!”
“Like I said, it was a busy few hours, but a friend of mine can narrow that down for us.”
“Will this involve another ‘bargain’?”
“Of course. That’s the theme of the day, isn’t it?”
----
“If there are no other options, then we’ll fly. Swift, stop looking so pleased,” I growled.
“No can do, Sir,” she hummed, spreading her wings in anticipation. “I get to fly with dragons!”
“Leaving that aside, Miss Hollyhock—”
“Who?” Jade interrupted.
“The PACT trooper we just buried. Did I not say her name at any point while my mouth was running?” I asked.
Iris shook her head. “No, but it’s irrelevant. What did you learn?”
“Well, Miss Hollyhock was transformed against her will and apparently without her knowledge. She killed her wife during the transformation, too.”
Swift sucked a soft breath and Lily’s ears lay back, but those were the only reactions. How far had the world fallen that news of that sort barely warranted a whisper of shock?
I continued. “She got her orders from someone she called ‘Cannon’. Don’t know. Big guy, wearing a full face mask. I didn’t get a very good look at him in the memory. They sent two of something they call ‘xeno-squads’ after us. Again, don’t know what those are.”
“Sir, xeno-squads is the internal name within the PACT for squads dedicated to killing creatures known to be intelligent or sapient, but still lethal and who would refuse negotiation,” Swift explained, tapping the side of her head as a slightly worried expression grew on her face. “I...sort of hoped to get on one. Did we really just kill two entire—”
“They were mutants, kid. Their minds were gone. You didn’t kill anyone. Whoever mutated them did this. Either way, she also called this guy ‘Dragon-Eater’.”
Firebrand bared her impressive teeth and leaned forward over the fire, which curled around her throat, blackening her scales.
“They wouldn’t dare,” she hissed. Crask and the other dragons shifted uncomfortably, looking at one another.
“Wouldn’t dare?” I asked, cocking my head. “I think these people have proven they’ll dare damn near anything. Be specific.”
“Three weeks before the eclipse—the Darkening, as you ponies are wont to call it—my clan was raided by an unknown group,” she replied, black smoke leaking from her nostrils. “They left almost no evidence, but we found a scant magical signature which we used to track them back to Detrot. These...persons...killed two caretakers and stole half a hatchery of our young. Thirteen eggs.”
My stomach did a quick bounce, using my bowels for a trampoline.
“Thirteen eggs?” I asked, incredulously. “That’s why you came to Detrot?”
Firebrand coiled her spade-headed tail around herself. “We were sent to retrieve them.”
Crask’s teeth ground together like creaking steel beams.
“These beasts would not eat dragon eggs. No being alive would eat a dragon’s egg! It is the last heresy! Only death and damnation can follow from such evil!” he spat, but I could hear a note of uncertainty in his voice.
Before the situation could escalate any further, I raised my hooves for quiet.
“Look, it could just be a name. People call me plenty of ridiculous things, too. For now, we’ll add that to our checklist to get at our next destination. We’ve got to get back to Detrot and find...something called a ‘sky bunker’. Hollyhock told us to find the ‘sky bunker’ and that everything was there. Swift, you’re our resident expert on the PACT. Does that mean anything to you?”
My partner shook her head. “No, Sir. There’s a bunch of buildings with heavily fortified top floors. The Crusades made everypony want a strong roof overhead.”
“What about you, Jade?” I asked.
“Couldn’t say. That’s a crap bit of intel,” Iris Jade replied. “Even PACT headquarters is fortified right to the roof. I can think of ten different buildings in Detrot with reinforced rooftop facilities of some kind. That’s a dead end by itself. Was there anything else?”
It was then that I noticed that there’d been a certain silence in the back of my mind for the last several minutes and turned to find Bones idly toying with some pebbles at his hooves. His cigarette was out, and he hadn’t made a move to relight it. Reaching out, I put a hoof on top of the rock he’d been playing with.
“I know the Hard Boiled family thinking face,” I murmured. “You know something.”
Bones’ jaw worked in a little circle. “I don’t have a face, colt…”
“Irrelevant. Family thinking face is universal. What’ve you got?”
“Well...Sky bunker doesn’t mean much to me,” Bones mused, his thin tail sweeping some dust into the fire. “Couldn’t...hrm...nah. Never mind. Been thirty years. Probably just a coincidence. Parallel technological evolution and all that.”
Lily—sweet Lily—smacked him in the back of the head, making a hollow thunk.
“I know it’s got to be your genetics making you do it, but for once, please stop being dramatic!” she demanded.
Bones rubbed his skull where she’d hit him, and I had a sense that he’d be grinning if he could.
“Eh...well, Miss Apple Bloom used to like her storehouses,” he explained. “We had one particular on the top floor of a skyscraper: the Office. It was a bit away from Uptown, and we used it for testing prototypes. It was about the safest place you could hole up, so long as you could defend the door. I seem to remember we had something there that was very similar to one of those weapons the PACT fella back at the house was carrying before you flattened his head. Funny looking thing with circles of metal around a central rod?”
“Lightning cannons?” Swift asked, a little reverently. “The Crusaders invented those?”
“Well, Princess Luna’s boffins had some much bigger versions during the war, but nothing like those slick bastards you could put on your back. That was Bloom’s work.”
“The first lightning cannons for equine use were put into production twenty-five years ago,” Jade added, slowly wagging her tail back and forth. “Timeframe matches up, at least, assuming they somehow got ahold of your prototypes.”
“When the war ended, all the surviving Crusaders decided it was best we disappeared. Bloom probably locked up the Office. Still, we had so many places out there that blowing or disassembling all of them was right impractical. It’s a stretch, but...who knows? Might still be there.” Bones nodded at my gun. “Besides, don’t imagine Scootaloo or Sweetie Belle trusted the dragons to take to the peace treaty any more than I did. If I kept my weapon, you can bet they tucked away a few things for a rainy day, even if Apple Bloom wasn’t willing to violate the letter of the law.”
“Considering some of the pieces she’s decked out her little band of gangers with recently, I wouldn’t bet against you,” I replied, thinking back to the minigun I’d seen strapped across an Aroyo’s back at Supermax.
“The treaty is a piece of paper to most of my kin,” Firebrand rumbled, dragging her claws through the dirt and leaving deep furrows. “Honorless snakes they are. They live for gems, slaves, and fodder. The only reason they’ve not attacked since my mother entered her long sleep is that they fear to give up their individual lives. This flight which hounds your city must be well paid to put themselves in the crosshairs of Equestrian weapons.”
“My source says they are,” I murmured. “Does the name Carnath mean anything to you?”
Firebrand flashed a whole lot of fangs, and the other dragons surrounding us let out a collection of reptilian noises that sent my hackles climbing right to my ears.
“Yeesh! Don’t do that!” I barked testily. “Former prey species here! We’re known for our itchy trigger fingers and loose bowels! Who is this ‘Carnath’ character?”
“The voice of the Usurper,” Crask snarled, his forked tongue lashing at the air. “He’s the chief gem finder and slave taker of the Dragon King. We have not seen him, but it would be entirely like that beast to snatch ponies and their wealth in this time of panic.”
“He’s got instructions from someone higher up in the food chain just to keep people from leaving the city,” I answered. “I haven’t heard anything about him taking prisoners, though.”
“Strange...he enjoys his slaving,” Scorch rasped, in a voice that sounded like broken leaves. A strange scar around his throat that I hadn’t noticed until then seemed to move and deform with every word.
“He would not fail to collect a few prisoners unless his payment was meteoric,” Altrak, Scorch’s sibling, added, running a talon over the stock of her shotgun. “He likes pony flesh too much.”
“Well, the Family could buy loyalty and obedience,” Bones chuckled, swirling his hoof beside his temple. “They are also not above offering the entire city to some dragons to do with as they please. I’d bet they told this ‘Carnath’ gent he could eat to his heart’s content once they’re done with the place. With the PACT working for them and the Shield down, there’s not much to stop them.”
“Or so they think,” I growled, running a hoof over my revolver. “Then next stop is the Vivarium. We’ve got resources, weapons, and forces there.”
----
“Did it never occur to you, that you could have simply taken the helm to the Vivarium?”
“Yes, it did, but that would have been suicide. Look, you can blame me all you like for this, but these characters wouldn’t have lost any sleep killing every foal, filly, and stallion inside the Vivarium, much less the City Morgue. Slip Stitch doesn’t have a fraction of the weaponry the Vivarium had stockpiled away, and we didn’t have time to coordinate evacuations or a functional defense. It would have been a slaughter, especially if they’d brought Carnath’s dragons down on their heads. Right now, we have time and they think they’re invulnerable.”
“Yes...but to make a deal with...her…”
“She’s got nothing to gain by betraying us.”
“And...How do you know her motivations?”
“We’re getting to that. Get some tea, have a scone, and get yourself seated comfortably...because this is where things get ugly.”
----
Iris Jade’s offer of sedation was sorely tempting.
Riding on a dragon’s back only really works in the movies or with truly gigantic members of the species, and whatever the Emberites might have made up in combat skill, they sorely lacked in size. Something to do with not keeping personal hoards. Unfortunately, considering the area we were moving through was likely to be dangerous, sleeping through the trip wasn’t an option.
Standing outside the quarry cave, we made final preparations to leave.
Swift had the Hailstorm strapped to her sides, and the turrets were peering back and forth alertly at the dragons as well as Bones. Jade was levitating a bag with most of our supplies onto Crask’s back as Bones smoked and Lily stuffed clean bandages into the pockets of her slightly dirty nursing scrubs.
Mags was sitting on a rock nearby, warily watching the dragons and Bones like they’d just climbed straight out of the blackest pit of the underworld. She’d made a bit of a fuss when she woke up, but seemed to have calmed down considerably once I gave her back her gun. I hadn’t given her any ammunition, but just having the weapon was enough; a girl after my own heart.
For their part, the dragons seemed altogether too relaxed for creatures about to fly into the jaws of death itself. Or creatures about to fly. The flying part was still bothering me.
I paced back and forth, trying not to let the nervous energy fade, lest I start actually thinking about what we were about to do. Even if the flight was only an hour at top speed, it was enough to give me the willies. Then, I was faced with the prospect of seeing Taxi and Limerence again.
Why did that scare me so much?
‘Because you’re worried they’re dead,’ I thought, shivering internally.
The last thing I’d seen of my friends was them disappearing into a hole in the ground. Even if the Underdogs were as trustworthy as they seemed, there was nothing stopping the PACT from gassing their little village if they managed to find it. What was stopping the Scry from revealing the locations of my friends, now that I wasn’t around? Nothing.
Damn.
Thankfully, Firebrand broke me out of my thoughts as she padded out of the cave with a heavy rucksack across her powerful shoulders. The light from the eclipse cast her scales in shades of red, almost the color of blood.
“Crusader Hard Boiled? Are you and yours ready?”
“You’re coming with us?” I asked, gesturing at the pack.
“You have the closest thing to a clue we’ve unearthed since we arrived in the city,” she replied, hiking the sack up between her wings. “If this ‘sky-bunker’ of yours contains our eggs, then it is there we must go. This ‘Vivarium’ your small pegasus described seems like a friendly enough place. We must present ourselves to the local dragon lord, as well. I assume that is this ‘Mister Stella’?”
“Stella’s more of a ‘queen’, but close enough. Once we hit the Vivarium, they’ll provide us with intel on this building Bones remembers. If they can’t, then I’ve got a contact in the Wilds who runs a covert warehouse for magical artifacts. I should check in with them, too.”
“Warrior prostitutes helping save our eggs. My mother would find that funny, considering she once looked down on ponies for their kindly ways.”
“War has a way of changing people,” I replied. “So, how we doing this? I don’t think I’m gonna fit on your shoulders, but we could get a rope and tie my hooves, because I really hate—”
Firebrand’s lips drew back in a terrifying and mischievous smile. “Miss Iris Jade spoke privately to me and made a recommendation. Hold still.”
“Wait, what?! No!”
Her pounce was so quick I barely saw it coming and had absolutely no time to react. Her claws wrapped around my middle in a vice-like grip, and then the thunderous beat of dragon wings filled my ears along with the rush of fast-moving wind. I was ripped off my hooves, and the ground dropped away, spinning off into the distance so quickly it stole the breath from my lungs.
----
“So, I screamed like a newborn filly for about twenty minutes, then Firebrand punctured my vocal chords with one of her claws. That done, we flew toward—”
“She what?!”
“Look, it’s been generally accepted by now that I am very hard to kill. A minor laceration is nothing the healing magic in my body can’t handle with a good charge. Can I continue, please?”
“You just told me she stabbed you in the throat!”
“Yes, and it was extremely unpleasant and embarrassing, so I’d rather not spend too much time dwelling on it. Besides, she was very careful and missed all the major arteries. A decent unicorn healer could have cleaned me right up in no time. Just had to breathe through a hole for a little while.”
“B-but to do that—”
“Iris Jade told her I’d be fine.”
“Did Former Chief Jade know you would be fine?”
“Do you think that mattered to her one way or the other?”
----
Note to self: the word ‘friendly’ means something different to dragons than it does to ponies. A friendly dragon will still happily poke you in the neck if you’re annoying her badly enough; screaming and flailing while she’s trying to carry you and a heavy pack over a death-infested no-pony’s land qualifies.
I spat some blood on Firebrand’s claws and tried to glare at her, but she was ignoring me again and concentrating on following Swift’s contrail. The puncture wound hurt like a son of a whore, but nopony else seemed to have noticed I’d stopped shrieking. Endorphins were slowly flooding my system, making everything pleasantly hazy as a thin smear of red ran from my neck down my stomach. The hole in my throat was quickly knitting itself shut, but my vocal chords still burned and as much as I wanted to go back to wailing my head off, the minor injury she’d done me had managed to tamp my panic down a little.
Off to my left, I could see Iris Jade and Lily both dangling from Scorch and Altrak’s claws, respectively. Jade was clinging on tightly, not seeming to enjoy the heights any more than I was as she levitated a magic bubble containing Mags along beside her, while Lily had her forelegs spread and her tongue hanging out like a doberman with its head out a car window.
As the city grew in the distance, however, my foul mood lifted.
At the moment, it was just a dark, irregular splotch on the horizon, but the closer we got, the more details I could make out. Black clouds swirled over Uptown, illuminated from below by the massive, glowing shield which surrounded the center of the city. A few fires burned in the outskirts, but many fewer than in recent days. Automated streetlights were even winking at us from most of the eastern side of town. Despite what I knew to be going on down there, it looked oddly peaceable.
Swift tilted her huge wings and started coasting down toward one particular part of the city which was almost completely unlit. The dragon flight moved to follow her.
Something about that seemed slightly wrong.
Why should that be wrong? We were headed to the Vivarium. The Vivarium was a safe place, right? Nopony would dare follow us without an army at their backs, and we were being carried by—
Oh.
I struggled violently in Firebrand’s arms, waving my forelegs at her and tapping on her chest as hard as I could for attention. For a few seconds, I was worried she would think I was just having a fit, but one of her eyes rolled down in my direction. I immediately stopped flailing and tapped the side of my head, then pointed toward the ground where we were headed, trying to mime ‘danger’. There is no especially good way to mime this with hooves, but I’m pretty sure the ‘play dead, tongue hanging out, then gesturing at spot’ probably got the message across.
If it hadn’t, the flak shell detonating above and to our left, showering Firebrand’s shoulders in superheated lead sure did. Even with my ears pinned against my head, the shockwave made my skull ache.
A bloom of massive fire and metal, like a firework straight out of Tartarus, lit up the night sky. Dragons being dragons, Firebrand shook off the worst of it with a deafening snarl and swooped for the deck at speeds that would have torn my hat off if Swift hadn’t thought to tie it to my head. Crask and the others immediately peeled off and dove, trying to get below the flak cannon targeting range. Gravity seemed to pull my anatomy in the wrong direction as we winged toward the ground. I sucked another breath, and my neck made a disturbing whistling noise, but I forced myself to ignore it, waiting for another explosion.
When it didn’t come, I lifted my head to find us below the level of the buildings, rocketing down a darkened avenue narrow enough that Firebrand’s wings almost touched the walls on either side. The sensation of speed was enough to make me queasy, but puking at however many dozens of miles an hour we were still going was probably just going to get me dropped.
There was a bellow of pain from somewhere behind me, but I didn’t have time to glance back as we turned down the nearest street. Suddenly, Firebrand let out a squawk of alarm and braked so hard my lungs hit my ribcage. I wheezed, and then I was flying again, sans protective dragon.
Sky, tarmac, sky, tarmac—
‘Sorry Gale...This one isn’t my fault!’
Sky, tarmac, sky, massive pile of garbage bags.
I crashed muzzle first into a heap of uncollected trash mounded up in the mouth of an alleyway and was instantly buried. I laid there for a long moment, my nose resting uncomfortably close to a moldy takeout container and my stomach fur getting slowly soaked in something that felt like warm pudding. There was a slow ‘drip, drip, drip’ on the brim of my hat which had miraculously stayed in place, but besides that, I was feeling no particular incentive to get up.
‘Why should I move?’ I thought. ‘I am obviously in my natural habitat. See? This is friend lint trap, and that is friend taco wrapper…’
Somepony was shouting nearby, and I tried to ignore it.
‘Shouting is loud. Ponies should be quiet and lie in their nice puddles of sticky goop. Maybe my intestines? Yeah, probably intestines. Oh well.’
I wasn’t in any particular pain, but I took that to mean my neck was broken and I’d soon be gasping out my last into a bag of rancid crisps. Would Gale save me again? Maybe. I wouldn’t have much blamed him for being a tad resentful, considering all the work he’d put in lately keeping my wretched tail in one piece.
My pile shifted, and I began to slide, and then the bag above me glowed brilliantly before being flung off to the side. A bright light expanded in front of me, and I tried to reach towards it, finding my limbs wouldn’t budge.
“Ah! Here he is, ya’ll! Keep those dragons covered!”
A wrinkled green face slid into view, with the light levitating along beside her head.
‘Ah, so I have broken my neck, then, and the reaper is here for me,’ I thought. ‘And the reaper looks like...Swift’s grandmother.’
The burn in my throat was fading, so I decided to see whether or not my lungs were paralyzed alongside everything else.
“Mmm...C-could—” I paused, coughed up a disgusting, mucus-y wad of something metallic tasting, and quickly swallowed it again, then tried once more. “Could you just put that bag back? I’m dying, again, and I’d like to do it in p-peace for once.”
Granny Glow raised one shaggy grey eyebrow, and then her horn shimmered, projecting a thin beam of light at my head. She scanned it over my body for a few seconds, concentrating particularly on my throat. A frightening smirk developed on her pencil thin lips, and the light intensified, surrounding me from head to hoof.
“Ye ain’t hurt, so no excuse to be lazin’ around! On yer hooves, buttercup!” she barked.
I felt myself go light and scrambled to grab something to cling to, suddenly finding my legs working now that she’d removed the bags pinning them to my sides. The most I managed to snag was a headless teddy bear with a bit of loose fluff coming out of the neck. I clutched it close and whimpered as she dropped me on the pavement. My back legs immediately collapsed under me, so I settled for slumping on the sidewalk, hugging the bear to my filthy chest with one foreknee.
A dozen lights were focused on me from various directions, and for a few seconds I was back at the mansion. I whimpered and squeezed the decapitated stuffed animal a little tighter.
After Glow jammed her hoof against my cheek, forcing me to look up at her. “Hrm...colt, ye in there? Where’s mah grandchild? Who’re these here dragons what was carryin’ ya?”
I slowly turned my head to find the street crowded on both sides with upwards of twenty ponies, all of them heavily armed and wearing white sashes in the Stiletto style. Some were attached to the walls of the nearby buildings with soft glows around their hooves, while others stood in the street or flew overhead. They were pointing some extremely heavy ordnance down range.
Turning my head the other way, I saw Firebrand, Crask, and Altrak standing in a defensive formation, backs together, facing the Stillettos with their weapons drawn. Iris Jade, Mags, and Lily huddled below them. Iris’s horn was glowing, and I could see the faint gleam of a shield around the dragons, but against the quantity of firepower facing her I doubted even Jade could hold for long.
Bones, Tonic, and Scorch were nowhere to be found. I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing, or not.
“Th-they’re with me,” I stammered, rubbing at my eyes which were suddenly blurry. “L-look, could...could we put our guns down for a bit, please? I don’t think I want to do guns for a little while...”
“Once ye tell me where Swift is, ye git! An’ what’re ye doin’ with Iris Jade? Thought she hated yer guts.”
“S-Swift is...um...I’ve no idea. She was just ahead of us—”
“Incoming!” somepony shouted. Fluttering orange wings filled my vision as my partner dipped below the skyline, coming in hard and fast.
I had barely a glimpse of her before she skidded to a halt, sparks flashing off her hooves. Giving herself a good shake, she grinned and swept both forelegs around her grandmare’s shoulders, squeezing the elderly pony to her chest.
“Gran! You’re awake! It’s so good to see you!” she chirped, folding her wings against her sides as she took in the scene around us. “I thought Tourniquet told everypony I was coming?”
“She said ye was comin’ about five minutes ago. Didn’t say ye had dragons on yer tail! Ah don’t know as Ah trust that robot. Still not takin’ chances,” After Glow huffed, pushing her granddaughter back so she could get a good look at her. She lifted the edge of Swift’s body armor, peering at the bloodstains all over it. “This yours?”
Swift shook her head. “Mostly Hardy’s, I think. He had a couple of strokes, and then I had to help tie off a severed leg on a PACT trooper, and...I don’t actually know where it all came from. I sorta lost track. When did you get up and about, Gran?”
“Eh, that weird stallion from the Morgue showed up wi’ a couple of Diamond Dogs. Burrowed right up through the pavement, they did. Stitchy or whatever his name is had this funny lookin’ lil box with wires on,” she replied. “Ah was the first’un they tested it on. Worked a treat, too. Ah swear, it fixed mah arthritis! Guess a few-weeks-long nap does wonders, even if Ah gotta git some muscles back.”
Swift gave her a sharp look. “Shouldn’t you be resting, then?”
“This is me restin’! That Taxi pony is still doin’ all the logist-ic-al garbage, an’ Ah go walk the street.”
“C-could you please stop them from pointing guns?” I whispered. My entire body was shaking, and I felt a chill creeping into my bones.
My partner looked down at me, and then her eyes widened. “Sir, are you going into shock?”
Looking down at my teddy, I carefully put him down and backed up, trying to compose myself. I’d never been a particularly big advocate of exposure therapy, and falling out of the sky didn’t help my fear of heights one little bit. I shook my coat out and tried to wipe the smear of blood and other substances out of my mane.
“I think I passed shock a while ago. I’m alive, though.” I tried to smile, if only so everypony would see I hadn’t lost it entirely, but my mouth wasn’t cooperating. “Look, we need...we need to get somewhere private. Can we get moving?”
“Eh, ye smell like a corpse, but Ah ain’t gonna argue,” Glow put in.
I had a sudden thought. “Kid, you said Tourniquet let them know we were coming? From way up there?”
“Um...yes, Sir. Her influence is a little bigger than—” I quickly cut her off with a hoof on her muzzle.
“No...No. On second thought, don’t tell me. Where are Scorch and Bones?”
Swift looked up at the sky for a moment, then frowned at her grandmare. “They’re four streets over on Consternation Road.” She turned to her grandmare. “Gran, could you please tell whoever all these ponies are to stop shooting at my friends?”
From somewhere nearby, I could hear the distant snap and pop of gunfire. After Glow’s lip curled, and then she snatched a walkie-talkie out of her mane and snapped it to her muzzle. “Team Bravo! Stand down an’ hold yer fire!”
The walkie-talkie crackled, and a frightened voice came through, “Ma’am, there’s two dragons with a living skeleton down here! The skeleton coldcocked Miss Masala, and now they’re holed up in an alley!”
“Ah said stand down, les’ you wanna be on latrine duty till the end of the world!” Glow snarled, giving me an even glare as she released the ‘talk’ button. “Did that colt just say ye was travelin’ with a livin’ skeleton, or am Ah gettin’ old?”
“That’s what he said. Look, can...can we please go somewhere quieter? I would sincerely appreciate it.”
From the middle of the street, Iris Jade shouted, “Hard Boiled! What’s the story?! You drop us into some kind of trap here?!”
“No!” I shouted back. “We’re safe! Just friends here!”
“Define ‘safe’ and ‘friends’, Crusader!” Firebrand growled, her eyes following one particular pegasus who was carrying a shoulder-mounted wooden staff of some kind covered in brightly glowing runework.
“They’re safe, dammit!” I snarled, directing my voice toward that particular pony. “You! Yeah, you! I’m tired, I’m pissed off, and I’m covered in trash! You already took at shot at us with a flak cannon! Do not make me come up there and stuff that artifact up your backside! Same goes for the rest of you! Guns down, now!”
Glow gave her group a nod, and slowly, reluctantly, everypony started to lower their weapons.
Raising my voice had taken more out of me than I thought it would, and I found my knees trembling, violently.
“Sir...do...do you need me to have somepony carry you?” Swift asked.
“No. I’m fine.”
“Are you—”
“Fine, I said!” I snapped, a little louder than I meant to. Swift, rather than being insulted or hurt, just pressed herself against my foul-smelling side and opened one wing over my back.
----
“Tourniquet...well, if she was anyone else and controlled by anyone else, I might have some worries, considering she saw us coming miles away. No idea how far her power could spread. She didn’t see enough to keep them from launching a couple flak shells at us. Like I said, though, we were headed to the Vivarium—”
“Wait a second! How did you explain Bones to these ponies?”
“You’d be surprised how little explanation is required for something like a telepathic skeleton when you drop out of the sky with a group of dragons. That or everypony who took one look at me decided to go ask someone else.”
“And...they just accepted that you’d somehow showed up with a bunch of dragons?”
“I’ll admit, it was a new low for me, but what other choice did they have?”
“Eh…”
“Exactly. May I continue?”
“Go on…”
----
After Glow’s group split off in all directions, vanishing back amongst the buildings like a hoard of wisps. They kept to the alleyways, moving in groups of two or three, until at last it was just Glow, Swift, and the rest of our group.
“Ah’ll git yer skeleton brought round to ye,” Glow grumbled as her patrols filtered away. “Ah can’t afford to come wi’ ye, but Ah’ll be there in an hour or so. Them nasty fellers wi’ the teeth like to strike unprotected areas, so ah gotta keep them patrols spread out like Scarlet’s back legs.”
Swift tapped the side of her head and smiled. “Tourniquet can guide me anywhere I need to go, Gran. I’m safe so long as she’s watching me.”
“She’s been a right help, last day or so, but yer gonna talk me through that robot havin’ a wire into yer brain, ya hear?”
“It’s...it’s more like I’ve got a wire into hers,” Swift giggled, her wing around my shoulders tightening slightly.
“Yeeeah, well, don’t know as Ah like it either way. By the way, yer mother’s gonna want to wring his neck.” Glow flicked her thin mane at me. “Stella might not be too cheered havin’ other dragons about, either.”
“I know, but they’re here to help.”
“Ah’ll believe it when Ah see it. See ya soon. Take Seventh Street. The illusion field is still up, and Ah don’t need no dumb-ass buncha rubber-neckers wandering out to see you lot and getting picked off by the Black Coats or them crazy monsters. Love ya, birdie. Back in a bit.”
After Glow gave her one last pat on the shoulder, then loped off into an alley.
“Crusader, those ponies had enough weaponry to turn us into a thin soup,” Firebrand commented, letting out a slow breath now that the patrol had dispersed. “Quick response times as well. I daresay, they are a formidable army.”
“I...uh...I really need to get indoors sooner, rather than later,” I murmured. “I’m not holding our unexpected flight against you, nor the punctured vocal chords, but please don’t do that again.”
Firebrand licked her lips, and a wicked smile lit her face. “Then I shall not hold the flak cannon popping one of my eardrums against you. How did you know the attack was coming?”
“I remembered, at the last minute, that our friends here mounted an anti-air gun on their roof,” I replied, turning down the road.
“Hardy, are...are you going to be alright?” Lily asked, worriedly. “You were shaking pretty badly a minute ago.”
I held up my leg, and my hoof quivered right up to the shoulder. I quickly put it down again. “Nopony else gets to ask me if I’m alright for a bit. I am here and I am alive. Please move on. Swift, you know the way. Take us home.”
----
For as quickly as the Stilettos had responded to our incursion, I expected to see some checkpoints or armed guards roaming the streets, but we didn’t see so much as another pony on the empty roads until we were three blocks from the Vivarium itself, headed down a discreetly unlit alleyway whose only defining characteristic was a lack of garbage and slightly fresher hoofprints in the dirt. The back wall of the alley had the subtle, telltale shimmer of a low-intensity illusion; enough to fool a casual observer, but it probably wouldn’t stand up to regular magical scans.
Swift was ahead of us and pushed her way through as gentle ripples spread around her body, reverberating across the brick surface as though it was made of water.
“After you,” I murmured, holding one leg out for Firebrand to go ahead.
She gave me a critical look. “Are...you intending on hiding behind me, Crusader?”
“It’s not my fault you make good cover.”
With an unladylike noise and a puff of smoke, she turned on a back leg and marched through the wall. Crask rolled his eyes, and Altrak strolled by, his tail flicking at the end of my nose. That left Lily and Iris Jade.
“Hardy, can we talk...later?” Lily asked, pausing in front of me.
I grimaced hard enough that it might have looked like a smile, and she must have taken that for agreement. Turning, she followed after Swift and the dragons.
Iris paused in front of me and used a flicker of magic to grab my chin, forcing my head back. It was an awkward position, and short of shooting her I couldn’t really stop her without my anti-magic armor, which was still in Swift’s bag.
“You weren’t exaggerating,” she mused. “I wonder if that magic could absorb a bullet or two—”
“Let me go, Iris. Now.”
She drew back slightly. Maybe it was my expression, or something in my tone that said ‘not playing with you anymore’. Pursing her lips, she patted me on the cheek, then released my head.
“You know, you might have made a pretty good Chief of Police in another life,” she observed cooly. “For just a second there, I thought I saw my own reflection.”
I shut my eyes, listening as her hoofsteps retreated, then faded as she passed through the illusion. Before my brain could start mulling over her words, I cantered toward the wall, half hoping it’d suddenly turned solid so I could dash my brains out. What would be one more dead pony in an alley?
We all need things to hope for in life.
----
Bones was leaning casually against the wall on the other side, fresh cigarette pinched between his teeth and jacket sporting a new splash of blood. Ahead, I could hear ponies shouting and raised voices from the adjoining streets as people came out to see the strange sight of dragons freely walking the avenue. He raised his head as I staggered out of the portal.
“Ah, colt. You look like Tartarus warmed over.”
“Says the guy without any skin,” I grumbled. “Look, I just had an hour long flight—”
“Don’t like heights any better than your daddy did, huh? Well, one of these sweet ponies you seem to have gotten involved with strongly suggested I should wait for the street to clear, then take a sewer shaft to one of the back entrances, rather than go for a walk in broad daylight. I can’t say I’ve been to the Vivarium since the war. Stella still running things?”
“Yeah. Look, can we move along?”
I started to trot past him, but he put a bony leg across my chest. “Can I give you a piece of advice, colt?”
“Can I stop you?”
“Probably not. Not without a year and a half of special forces combat training, seven years veterancy, and possibly being one of the undead.”
“Then go ahead.”
He carefully adjusted one of my bloody lapels, smoothing it flat as he said, “I can see you’re crashing. You’re right on the very edge. Trust me, I was there. That prison camp I had to sneak into to get the other Crusaders meant quite a while swinging a pickaxe for the dragons, watching better ponies than myself die around me every day. When I got back, it took one very special pony to get me back from that place.”
“Gran?”
“Nope. Just a friend, who offered me a bit of comfort and didn’t ask for anything in return. I could have rejected it, easy. But it was what I needed just then.”
“So, what’s the advice?” I asked.
“I just gave it to you. Now, come on. Our entrance is this way,” he murmured, then turned to the nearest street and darted off towards another alley.
----
We managed to avoid the crowd who were welcoming Swift back and gawking at the dragons, hopping from alley to alley until Bones found the sewer grate he was looking for. Wrestling the grating open, we started down a set of stairs into a short, undecorated concrete hall which led to one of those ubiquitous, dirty-yellow ‘City Personnel Only’ doors.
My head felt like it was full of rat-crap-laden cotton candy, and moving all four legs without tripping over myself took considerable effort, but Bones made no comment about my slow pace. He pushed open the service door, peered inside, then waved me forward. I’d been tired before the flight, but day after day of running, fighting, bleeding, dying, and crawling back was catching up with me. When had I last truly rested? Before the Castle fell?
The tiny room on the other side of the door was a broom closet with a second door at the back. Through that, there was a long hallway that reminded me of a cheap hotel, with paisley wallpaper and thick carpets. Bones tilted his head back and took a deep whiff.
“Ah, the scents of the city. I used to take friends of mine here, undercover, back in the day. It was one of the most secure public spaces in all of Equestria. You could get a beer, take in a show, and discuss foreign espionage all in once place. Speaking of beer, I haven’t tried whatever qualifies as hops in thirty years. Mind if I go find myself a tray to stand over and a pint?”
I swayed a little, using the wall to prop myself up. Rest. Rest was the world. I smelled terrible, but more than anything, I needed rest.
“G-go on,” I murmured, slowly sinking onto my stomach.
“That bad, huh?”
I didn’t answer, opting instead to put my head between my forelegs. There was a shuffling of hooves on carpet from somewhere close, then a yelp of fear and the sound of a rump hitting a wall. I didn’t have the energy to roll over and see who my grandfather had just traumatized.
“Now, that’s interesting. If I’d seen me, I’d have scampered like my tail was on fire. Why aren’t you running?”
The pony, whoever they were, stammered something I couldn’t make out.
“Oh...hehe. I see. Well, point me at a beer and I’ll leave you to it. Take good care of him. He’s had a rough day.”
The anonymous pony muttered a few words, and my grandfather patted me on the shoulder, then strolled off whistling a merry little tune through his complete lack of lips. I let my eyes drift closed and swallowed against a suddenly dry throat. Celestia, I’d never been so tired.
A cautious presence slid up beside me. I caught a hint of sweet perfume, and then a soft leg was laid across my back. My shoulders tensed at the contact, and the leg withdrew.
Tilting my head, I opened the nearest eye and saw a feminine, rose-colored face.
“Scarlet,” I murmured.
Hot tears were streaking down Scarlet Petal’s cheeks, leaving thin lines in his mascara as he moved a little closer. Even though I was covered in blood and stank like a swamp, his nose didn’t wrinkle, nor did he shy away. Makeup couldn’t disguise the bags under his eyes, nor his quivering lip, nor the pleading expression as he waited, just out of range, not quite touching my foreleg.
I slowly slumped onto my side against him, and he threw his legs around me.
“C-come on, Hardy. Please get up. There’s a place you can rest nearby. I know you don’t care for me, but just this once—”
I hid my face against his neck, and he tentatively helped me to my hooves, propping me up with all his strength as we limped down the hallway. I could feel his hip shaking from the effort, but he didn’t complain. My body ached and my heart probably needed a charge, but the warmth of another pony was enough to keep me moving, despite how desperately I just wanted to lie down and wait for the batteries to run dry. Nopony seemed to be in the area, either by coincidence or design, and we made it to a small, tiled locker room down a side hall.
With greatest care, he began stripping me, pulling off my hat and working my sweaty, soiled trenchcoat down over my shoulders. I didn’t have it in me to stop him, but he was as respectful as it was possible to be as he pulled me out of my clothes, leaving me shivering in the cold air with just my gun and harness. Taking my hoof, he led me through the other end of the locker room into a small shower. The hot water felt like boiling lead poured over my back. As Scarlet picked up a scrub-brush and got down to the nitty-gritty work of scouring the impacted scum off my body, I felt my own tears start to come.
So much violence for two short days. The gazes of cops I’d watched die flashed behind my eyelids. There was Hollyhock’s stricken face as she burned in the darkness of her own mind. Worst of all, the dead, tortured faces of all those children, their souls sucked dry to fuel some great evil hidden in the mansion.
Scarlet’s hooves and scrub-brush worked down my flanks, picking up one hoof at a time to clean my toes and frog with gentle touches. When he was close, I’d shove my face into his fur and sob until he had to move away. I must have shed a gallon of tears into that colt’s shoulder, but still he stayed right there beside me, patiently working the dirt out of my pelt.
Finally, after what felt like an hour, the water started to run clear.
I’d cried until my eyes were red, and Scarlet bore it silently. It was some time before I realized he’d put down the brush and was just sitting there, his forelegs around my neck and his head resting alongside mine. I’d cried myself out and was left feeling strangely hollow.
Sniffling softly, I dropped my forehead against Scarlet’s chest. A big, fluffy towel came down over my neck, and he began ruffling my mane dry. It was so ridiculous to feel better because of a fluffy towel that I couldn’t help a tiny smile. A minute later, the job was done, and he slid his foreleg into mine.
“There’s a bed next door. You can sleep there, okay?” he murmured.
I nodded, weakly, staggering as we left the empty shower room. He was still propping me up, but the shower had been the right thing. How some warm water could be enough to bring a pony who’d been through what I’d been through back from the brink, I’ll never know.
The room he took me to was a small bedroom which looked like it’d been lifted straight out of a fashion magazine for sixteen year old fillies: a few dozen throw pillows with encouraging slogans sewn onto them, a couple posters of the Wonderbolts in swimsuits, and a simple bed with an orange stuffed horse with slightly oversized wings and a red mane. I stumbled to the bed, not really thinking about the decor too deeply until I saw a tiny picture on the side table; it was a photograph of a very young, very familiar filly with her legs wrapped around a tiny version of Scarlet.
“This is...your room?” I asked, glancing back at him.
“Oh...y-yeah,” he stammered, then stood a little straighter. “I don’t bring clients here! I swear! T-the sheets are clean!”
I sagged onto the soft mattress and sighed, reveling in feeling clean for the first time in too long. “At this point, I don’t think I’d care if it was a heap of garbage. Thank you, Scarlet.”
He trotted to the door and put his hoof on the handle. “There’s an empty room nearby. I’ll be there. Just knock on one-oh-two—”
Sliding off the bed, I wrapped a leg around his slim shoulders. He gave me an uncertain look, resisting for only a second before taking a tentative step toward me. I tugged him along as I sank onto the blankets again. I could feel his heart pounding as I held him close, his back to my chest and my nose full of the scent of his mango shampoo. Stroking his mane, I laid my head on the pillow and shut my eyes. He was shaking, but soon stilled and lightly wrapped his foreleg around mine.
After a few minutes, as drowsiness started to claim me, a thought occurred.
“Scarlet, why do you have a plush toy of Swift?”