//------------------------------// // Let It Die // Story: The Light Despondent // by Doctor Fluffy //------------------------------// Light Despondent 24: Let It Die / We're Sorry / Fury Oh Fury Co-authors/editors: Jed R RoyalPsycho ”It’s not shame that makes a man a failure, Carl. It’s giving into it.” --Donnelly Ferguson, Astro City “WE’LL FIGHT, until we fall, We’ll rise, to take a stand! We’ll fight! Until we fall! We’ll rise, to take a stand! Till we die! Let it, DIE! ” --Survive Said The Prophet, Let It Die Speaking to Lieutenant Steven Chen, F.E.A.R. Interviewer (I): “Lieutenant, it would be safe to say you've dealt with paranormal incidents before this one, correct?” Chen (C): “What, you actually believe it?” I: “I don't think any of us are in a position to dispute you, Lieutenant.” C: “Alright, then yes. Mainly Amarillo, but there have been a few fucked up things over the years.” I: “Alright then.” Pause. “You’ll have to tell me about a few of them…” C: “Well, there’s a bunch of stuff in the files. Mostly, I just deal with… I dunno, would you believe the ‘less insane insane stuff’?” I: “After all these years, I just might.” Pause. “For now, though, tell me about the Albino.” There is a pause as Chen considers this. C: “Definitely through the looking glass with that one.” I: “What do you mean?” C: “You read the report, right? That thing was not normal, no way.” He pauses. “I mean, it had already been active when we got there. The PER… it… I don't know what you’d call what it did. The only one we found after just kept gibbering stuff about being sorry and begging to not be forgotten.” (Pause.) “And then there was the standoff.” I: “What standoff?” C: “Man, I know F.E.A.R guys say this a lot, but you had to be there.” I: “I’ve honestly lost count of how many times I’ve heard that…” Kraber One minute, it had been summer in Lyndonville. The next, the yellowish and brown unicorn stallion had let loose his magic and it had become winter. Snow littered the streets, icicles dripped from roofs. Then the enflamed pegasus would rush forward and melt it all, singing every visible surface. And somewhere, voice sorcerously enhanced, was Shieldwall, laughing. He wasn’t laughing like a crazy pony, or like a foal, like.... Like an unsettling amount of Solar Empire ponies seemed to, actually. He was laughing with undeniable glee. Sounds like I do when I get to really enjoying hurting things… Kraber thought. Not a pleasant thought. “Why didn’t you use the shield disruptors?” Aegis hissed at him, seemingly more annoyed than anything. “Because I forgot it in the chaos!” Kraber hissed. “Not to mention, the bastard ran away as soon as the unicorn did that fokkin’ district 9 trick with the bullets!” “RETREAT TO THE RAILYARD!” someone was calling. Almost certainly a Reaver. Kraber didn’t know specifically who said it, but assumed it was a good enough idea. Aegis and Heliotrope ran and flew (respectively) along behind him, panting heavily. Anything to get away from the town’s main drag. It looked for all the world as if the town was tearing itself to bits before their eyes, buildings burning, freezing, then repeating in minutes. Somewhere, he could see the Reavers moving citizens along, taking up firing positions behind buildings and cars, behind anything. They were struggling to move civilians back into the main village, leading them over the bridge back towards the town. God, if you’re listening, Kraber thought, Don’t let me die to something with such a fokkin’ stupid name. “Found yooooooooooou,” someone cooed. It didn’t sound like Vanilla Ice, it was probably… The flame newfoal. It was trotting towards them from one side of the intersection. Its wings were folded against its sides. Fok, Kraber thought. The three of them were cornered now. “GUYS!” Nny yelled futilely, Fiddlesticks next to him. Neither one looked tas if they were willing to fire their weapons at the newfoals, going by how close their friends were. “Oh, it’s so cruel to separate a family,” said Vanilla Ice. “Tell you what, Claw Hammer... You come with us, and maybe we let the two of them live.” Like fok they would, Kraber thought. “We’ll even fix you,” Firewhirler drawled. “Make you a better father. A better pony. And you’ll never have to think about these humans and Betrayers ever again. Kraber and Heliotrope looked at each other. Then to Aegis. Fok no. The way Aegis was looking at the two newfoals that were without a doubt anomalous, it must’ve been almost tempting. Do they do that? Essentially newfoal-ify their own ponies in all but body? That’s kind of fokked up, but if the Queen Kontgesig is that much of a fokkin’ control freak... “Hey,” Kraber asked, looking over to Heliotrope, pointedly ignoring the two newfoals. “Do they…” he looked over at Heliotrope, pushed all his fingers together in a vaguely triangular shape, and twisted them against the side of his head. She caught the meaning pretty quick. “Not that I know of,” Heliotrope said. “But when has Equestria promising to ‘make you better’ ever meant something good?” Kraber thought back on all the times he’d heard that and realized just how pissed off he was. “Our offer still stands,” Vanilla Ice said. “I have an offer of similar philosophical import,” Kraber said, and he stood silently for a few seconds. The two newfoals looked at him expectantly. “KISS MY ASS!” he yelled, and opened fire on the two of them. It fell into chaos almost immediately. Aegis galloped off into the distance, hooves beating against pavement as he followed the Reavers. Heliotrope spread her wings and ascended, guns roaring in full-auto, bullets rushing towards Vanilla Ice - who was projecting some kind of shield. Aegis Aegis could barely tell what was going on around him. He felt like he was standing on the beach, cresting waves splashing all over him. That was as best he could describe the feeling of being caught in the middle of so many people. All around him, people fled from the school, following the road towards a bridge. And behind them, newfoals. They were stupid, sure, but they were much faster runners than humans. “Get gunners out, anything with range!” he heard Shieldwall yelling, his voice still sorcerously enhanced by… by whatever spell it was that let them hear it. Whatever it was, Aegis had no idea. “I want these useless apes and Betrayers dead or ponified ten minutes ago!” Aegis could see just behind the school. It looked like they were wheeling something out from behind it. A gun? A bomb? Aegis couldn’t guess. “IN!” he could hear the Reaver APC gunner yelling, as someone with an SMG waved towards it open doors. The townsfolk, the refugees, the former HLF… whoever the people that Shieldwall had been abducting were… didn’t need to be told twice. They swarmed after the APC, rushing in the general direction of the river to Aegis’ back. Aegis tried his best to ignore it, even with the hateful looks some of the rushing humans flashed at him. He looked through his assault saddle’s goggles, scanning for newfoals or PER, and fired off his assault saddle in short, staggered bursts. Wherever he pointed his machineguns, PER died. “Small horse!” yelled the SMG-wielding Reaver guarding the door. “Get in! There’s room enough!” “NO!” Aegis yelled, trotting backwards in the direction of the APC. “I’d take up too much room, get more people in!” Reaver characterizing section. Off to the side, he could see Frank and Heliotrope fighting the two anomalous newfoals. They were moving towards what looked like a field... Kraber Do they play football here? Kraber wondered idly, as he and Heliotrope rushed across the green field. Firewhirler followed Heliotrope, and flames licked off of her wings. Firewhirler’s mane, already the color of flames, seemed to actually become enflamed, trailing behind her as she flew for Heliotrope. “JOU BASTARD!” he roared, as Firewhirler chased after Heliotrope. No matter how many bullets lanced towards the flaming pegasus, none of them seemed to hit. Oh, that is fokkin’ kak! It was just then that Heliotrope flickered out of existence. Vanilla Ice scanned the nearby area, his eyes narrowing. “WE’LL FIND YOU!” he yelled, firing blasts of freezing vapor from his horn. “Huh? Where did she-” Firewhirler wondered, absentmindedly, before a bullet gouged through part of her leg. “FOKKIN’ HIT!” Kraber yelled. She went silent for a second, and turned to Kraber. Yay, I pissed it off, Kraber thought. Fokkin’ lekker for me. “Are you shooting me?” Firewhirler asked sweetly, “That’s adorable. Now RUN!” Kraber would have. He tried, anyway, but his legs simply refused to move. Fok fok fok, no no fokkin’ no… why can’t I move my fokkin’ legs! No no no, fokkin’ no... He looked down to see that his legs were frozen to the grass. He could barely feel his feet, and he could see a thin trail of ice winding through the road to Vanilla Ice’s hooftips. Are you tuning me kak?! Ice does NOT work that way! Except right here, now, it was. Freezing him to the pavement, the cold jabbing into his legs like needles. Kraber roared incoherently, unholstering Sylvia’s ACR and opening fire in their general direction. “COME ON, HAVE A FOKKIN’ GO! JOU FOKKIN’ THINK YOU’RE HARD ENOUGH?!” “No,” Vanilla Ice said, his horn glowing. “Hate to break it to you, Kraber. But it looks like you’re on thin ice.” His horn glowed, and raw telekinetic force pounded against Kraber’s skull. It was like being beaten with an icicle the size of a baseball bat. Kraber rocked back and forth, barely able to feel his face. My gun, my gun, where’s my fokkin’- That train of though derailed as a thought occurred to him. If he couldn’t break out of the ice, he had a good idea of what might get him out. He’d landed close to Firewhirler, too. She had a vial of potion in her mouth. If he could lure Firewhirler up, he could… He could…! He fell to the ground, wheezing. And close to Firewhirler, too! Perfect. Now if only he felt like it’d been perfect. Something about his ankles didn’t feel right, and he looked to be frozen to the ground. Every bit of him hurt beyond belief. His hands, he couldn’t move his fokkin’ hands, he was stuck propping himself up on his left arm, this was so fokkin’ uncomfortable! “I can’t believe it was that easy,” Vanilla Ice said, smirking. “This ape, he’s Shieldwall’s nemesis. He killed his brother-” “Who?” Kraber asked. Should I be concerned I don’t know who that is? Huh, I think I remember. It was back in- “GET SOME!” Heliotrope yelled, visible once more, her guns firing on full-auto and fragmenting against Vanilla Ice‘s shield. Nevermind, I forgot. “YOU BETRAYER WHORE!” Vanilla Ice screamed. His horn glowed, and he stomped down on the ground with both forehooves. It was like the ground split and ice came out from within the fissure, cutting through the field’s grass in an uneven, zigzagging line. Kraber could see frost accumulating on something hidden in midair. FOK! “GOT YOU!” Vanilla Ice yelled. “I FOUND YOU!” He bowed his head, firing a blast of freezing vapor from his horn. The frost-encrusted spot rushed up into the air. For a second, Kraber could see the outline of a pony. Vanilla Ice growled - not like you’d imagine from a horse, more like some kind of large carnivore - and galloped towards it, screaming at the top of his lungs. “FRANK!” Heliotrope yelled, “Frank, I promise, I’ll get you! You’ll be fine, just hang in there!” “Just for that,” Firewhirler said, that inspid fokkin’ newfoal grin on her face, “I’m potioning him now.’ “What a fokkin’ ridiculous way to die,” Kraber said, surprised at his own calm. “It’s not death,” Firewhirler said. “It’s transcending. Now, you have a choice… the only one the Solar Empire needs you to ever fulfill. Do you want to drink, or… do I have to drench you?” She was giggling madly. And Kraber smirked. He couldn’t move his hands, but he could move his neck. Idea! “Just let me say one thing before I drink it,” he said. “Oh, very well,” she sighed, and flittered up to him. “It’s not like you can do anything this way…” She reached into one of her saddlebags - apparently made of a fireproof material - and pulled out a vial of potion. “Come closer,” Kraber said, taunting Firewhirler. “There's something you need to know…” John Idle “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!” Idle rushed over the bridge, making his way to the main body of the town. PER were so much easier to fight when they’d been under the delusion that all they needed to get by in the world was more Potion. It’d been almost therapeutic, back then. You could have PER who’d drowned every bit of a person’s soul or self under the Potion, convinced it was the only weapon they needed. The only moral weapon suitable to be used by Celestia’s army. PER who went unarmed, drunk on the thanks of the newfoals that they created and the capacity of the potion to simply stop everything. They didn’t last. Either these PER were killed, ponified, ponified then killed, or they had to adapt. Which was why they all had PER with more-or-less modern weaponry, blazing away in their general direction. Official PER doctrine involved shooting to wound, but years of fighting had taught Idle that was a fool’s game. If someone shot him through the leg - like these PER might - there was a good chance he’d bleed to death from an artery rather than simply become incapacitated. John legged it, not even stopping to fire pot shots as he raced for the APC, which - sensibly - was further back from this mess than those freaky Newfoals (Oh, not again! Not again!) could apparently reach. The back ramp opened, almost as if Sykes had gotten the message just from his running. Bentham was already on the turret. “What the hell, John?!” he yelled. “What are you doing?!” “Strategising!” Idle yelled back. He ran up the ramp. “What do we have?!” Ellie Sykes turned in her chair. “What do you mean ‘what do we have’?” “I mean ‘what do we fucking have’?!?!” Idle snapped. “Tell me you brought something big!” “Yeah,” Bentham said, hopping down the hatch. “The APC.” “Nothing more portable?” Idle asked desperately. “No,” Bentham said with a grimace. “What's going on out there?” “Fucking weirdo super-newfoals, that's what!” Idle replied. He scowled. “Alright, what do we have?” “Standard shit,” Sykes said. “Seegert pistols, Hill had a Type-7, the rest of the team had PK470’s and G2A2s. Think we might have a SHO shotty somewhere…” Idle blinked and grinned. “Hell, I’ll take a shotgun at this point.” Sykes shrugged and went to the driver’s cab, retrieving the shotgun and tossing it to Idle. “Not really ‘heavy ordnance’,” Bentham commented. Idle racked the shotgun and gave a predatory grin that a video game fan might have described as not unlike the Doom Marine from the original game. “True,” he said, “but dayum does it feel good!” Aegis They’d holed up in what Aegis would uncharitably consider the warehouse district. You can probably guess the kind of place. Poorer houses with overgrown lawns just to the side of the tracks, old buildings the railroad had once used, unused cars. A railroad siding nobody really seemed to know the purpose of anymore. Scraggly lines of trees. Most everybody seemed to have holed up around there as Shieldwall’s newfoals rampaged through the town. But nobody knew how long that’d last. If only there was a unicorn! Aegis thought. Unicorns were - if he was putting it bluntly - something of a story breaker power. When he’d fought in Europe, helping to evacuate his foals and so many others, a unicorn had usually been able to come up with something useful at the time. Now. Hypothetically, if there’d been a unicorn with them, if they’d thought things through, if Aegis had pressganged in one of his unicorn neighbors (who was in all likelihood hiding, but hopefully not dead) then they could just get a cloaking spell. A ‘please ignore me’ spell. No luck on that one. There they were, hiding in a warehouse’s basement with all the refugees they’d managed to get inside. Thankfully, the civilians had - mostly - been evacuated out of town limits. “Everyone okay?” Heliotrope’s voice came in on the radio. “Variable definitions,” Aegis said grimly. He looked around - several of the Reavers had joined him in this basement, which was less concerning than it would have been on any other day. Yay, he thought. Enemy of my enemy still applies. Aegis recognised one of them - a man called Osterman - but he didn't know the others names. Not that it mattered much. “Hey Karl,” one of them, a woman, said quietly. “Where's Preston?” “He and I got separated, and there's too much interference for our radios,” Osterman replied quietly. “But don't worry, Amber. He's got Jack, Pete and Eloise with him, he should be fine.” The woman - Amber - snorted. “Chances are none of us will be ‘fine’.” “Hey, you guys have decent gear,” Aegis pointed out. “Pre-war top of the range! You've got to be able to do something!” “This is not exactly what we came prepared for,” one of them, a man with a red stripe down one arm, said grimly. “The APC is still out there, and Sykes is no doubt pulling the craziest moves of her life to keep it moving, and we were expecting PER.” “But we didn't come armed to take down these freaky newfoals,” Amber added. She hefted her own weapon, an ATC Type-7. “This might.” “If we get a shot in,” the red-striped Reaver snarked. “Better than nothing,” Osterman said grimly. “Still leaves the question of the civilians in the area.” “Well, what can we do?” Amber asked. Osterman motioned, and he and his Reavers went up the stairs to the front hall of the warehouse. Aegis followed, wondering what they had planned. Once upstairs, Osterman pointed across the street. Gunfire was still cracking across the way, but it was sporadic, the fighting further away from them now. There were still a few PER taking pot shots at anyone they saw, but not many. “I noticed a locomotive and several freight cars,” Osterman said grimly. “We can take those, drive everyone out of here.” Aegis frowned. “That sounds… almost suicidal.” He noticed the red-striped Reaver giving him a dirty look, but Osterman simply shrugged. “If we fail,” the Reaver said, giving him a look, “then it's the only option.” He threw a glance at the other Reavers. “Amber, you're up for escort duty. The rest of you - we hold the line.” “Yarrow for Valhalla,” muttered the red-striped soldier. “Guess the road might be endin’ here.” Aegis frowned. “You'd really die to save these people?” Osterman gave him a look. “Of course. We’re HLF. Human Liberation Front. We take the name seriously.” “Oh,” Aegis said. “Then I should probably tell you, you… miiiiiight not need to die. We kind of called for PHL reinforcements earlier. We just don’t know when they’ll get here.” Osterman and Amber exchanged a look. The red-striped Reaver just snorted derisively. “So they could get here to save the day,” he summarised, “or they could get here to find ashes and grotesqueries.” “Uh… yeah,” Aegis said sheepishly. “Sounds less hopeful when you say it like that.” “Most things do,” Amber said cynically. “Any reason you didn’t tell us about this?” “Either way, we’re not going,” Osterman said. He turned to Amber. “Alright, get moving, I’ll cover you.” She nodded and jogged off, taking potshots at the PER as she went. Any shots in her direction couldn't get through the heavy armour she wore. Osterman laid down a few lines of suppressing fire with his assault rifle, but none of it made contact - the PER’s position was too secure. “Dammit,” he muttered. “Excuse me,” a voice said from behind them. Osterman turned, frowning, and Aegis blinked. Well, it looks like there are miracles after all. A Unicorn was standing with them: she looked like she had some kind of Albinism, with red eye, white fur and mane, and no visible cutie mark. She wore a white robe and had a golden-hilted sword girt at her side. “Hello,” the mare said blandly. “Can I help?” “How did you -” the red-striped soldier began. “Yes!” Aegis said excitedly, cutting him off. “Yes you can! Oh, thank the Lord. Can you help us fight these PER? They’ve got us pinned here.” “PER?” the mare asked as though she’d never heard the term, before frowning as a group of PER broke cover. “Oh. Those people. One moment.” Her eyes widened slightly, and then the PER stopped moving. There was a moment of almost silence, and then suddenly one of them brought a pistol up and put it in her mouth. There was an almost apathetic crack as blood sprayed from the back of her head, and she dropped like a stone. Another drew a knife and stabbed himself in the throat. Some of them knelt, before banging their heads against the cold hard ground until they stilled and slumped. Aegis blinked. What the absolute fuck. A moment later, they were all dead, except one girl who had covered her head with her arms and was gibbering loud nonsense. Their warehouse erupted into screams of what could have been exultation or fear. “The hell did you…” “Thank you God!” “She sure as hell saved our bacon!” “What the-?!” “Good goddamn riddance!” Aegis stared in shock at the devastation in front of him, not sure how to react. “The one in the blue shirt who put both barrels to his head was going to ponify someone next week,” the mare commented idly. “That person, saved from ponification, would have had a daughter, who will now be conceived and grow up to cure Syphilis. The dead man in the bowler hat would have done something horrific in Quebec City, and been rewarded for his atrocity as an administrator for PER-held territory there. It’s curious, consequence. I wonder if I've done the right thing.” “But… there won’t be any PER there for more than a year,” Aegis said, confused. Montreal was, by all accounts, the safest city on the East Coast. PHL R&D, for whatever reason, had set up shop there. Back during the Europe Evacuation, it had a steady pool of volunteers for the PHL, most of whom stayed there. It had some of the most advanced tech. PER holding Montreal just seemed so… so faraway, somehow. “As far as you know,” the mare said cryptically. “Say what?” Osterman said. “What… what did you do?” The mare tilted her head. “I said hello. Now if I may be excused. There are other people I must also say hello to.” Everyone stared at her, uncomprehending. Aegis blinked again, uncertain how to comprehend what he was seeing. Y’know, when I thought ‘story breaker’, I wasn't thinking ‘Deus Ex Machina’. Then she looked to Aegis. “You. I can lead you to your foals.” “She could be…” Osterman started, but his voice just seemed to peter out as it gone. Someone more pessimistic would have deemed it more pony magic, but Aegis wasn’t so sure. Maybe, just maybe, the unicorn’s presence was so bizarre that nobody could truly comprehend just what she was. But then, what else could she be but a friend? So Aegis started trotting behind her. The two of them trotted out from the warehouse, carefully trotting over the railroad tracks. Aegis kept his mouth trigger firmly within his jaws, though he wasn’t biting hard enough to open fire. All around him, he saw dead PER. “Hey! Huge pony!” he heard someone yelling from the APC turret. “Where you going? Hey!” The two of them trotted by a hardware store, and Aegis saw Nny and Fiddlesticks in cover behind a car, their guns trained on the dead PER, if only because they didn’t seem to know where else to point their weapons. “Aegis!” Fiddlesticks yelled. “Where are you going?! Who’s that?” He didn’t answer. Kraber “Oh,” Firewhirler said, taking the potion out of her mouth with one hoof. “I get it. You think I’ll melt the ice?” “Well. Ja?” Kraber asked. “It’s not going to work!” Firewhirler laughed. She was so close that Kraber’s head could almost touch her. Almost… “That’s Vanilla’s ice, and I can control my flames. I-” And then Kraber realized he was going to get ponified. That there was absolutely nothing left to lose. ‘If I have my mind left, and I fokkin’ go out,’ Kraber thought, ‘I’m going out my fokkin’ way!’ So Kraber remembered one of the thin, large-eared canines from back home. The African Wild Dogs. Painted Dogs. Painted Wolves. Strandwolves. Whatever the fok. He wondered how one of them - specifically Mianda - might think, and bit down on Firewhirler’s ear. It burned him as he held it in his teeth. He hurt all over from the position he was stuck in, from the ice, from supporting himself with his left arm so long, from the fact that Firewhirler’s ear was the hottest thing he’d ever eaten. Yet he kept on biting, thinking strandwolf thoughts. “LET GO OF MY EAR, YOU BUCKING APE!” Firewhirler screamed, and he heard the clink of the potion vial dropping to the ground.. “I swear, I’ll-!” Then she stopped talking, and started screaming. Something had given, and Firewhirler was tumbling back, burning like a shooting star. But then, Kraber was rolling to the side, finally free… with Firewhirler’s ear in his mouth, drenched in the meltwater from the stupidly-named unicorn’s ice. She burns brighter when she’s in motion, Kraber thought idly, even as he was picking himself up and running in the direction of his discarded ACR. ...Kwaai. He grabbed it by the barrel and rushed across the bridge behind him, looking for cover. There was a house on this side of the river - large enough he probably wouldn’t be noticed. Lekker! He ran out from the field, past the bleachers. He’d seen a footpath there, leading right up to the RIVER. Before he knew it, he found himself pounding along the trail, breathing raggedly. He turned to the right and rushed down a narrow footbridge over the river, feet pounding against the wooden slats. He was in a narrow strip of trees now - not quite a forest, but it was the first thing that came to mind. “Hiding in the kindling?! Firewhirler laughed from off in the distance as Kraber rounded a corner, still running. He pelted through a parking lot, and slid into hiding behind what looked like it could’ve been another school. Just off in the distance, he could see the Reavers moving towards a railyard. He couldn’t let himself relax, not when those two monsters were there, ready to strike. For all he knew, they could be right next to hi- “Frank?!” someone hissed. Kraber shouldered his ACR, standing and aiming before he knew it. Heliotrope Heliotrope couldn’t believe it and there he was, right in front of her. Near this building that looked like it could’ve been a school. Frank, looking a bit singed, a bit worse for wear, his skin a bit… a bit too raw-pink near his mouth, pants soaked. Pointing his obviously stolen ACR at her. But otherwise fine. She had to stay silent, but seeing him survive was just too bizarre. “How did you survive?!” she hissed. Frank spat something out onto the grass at their feet. “Guess you could say I gave her an earful,” he said, and it was just then that Heliotrope saw it. He’d just spat out a pony’s ear. “Oh, Frank, no…” “Frank yes,” Frank whispered bluntly. “I have an idea. See… I was just trying to rip her ear off out of spite. But when she flew back, the ice melted. She got hotter…” “When she was moving!” the two of them chorused at once. The building behind them rumbled, and they could hear Firewhirler and Vanilla Ice laughing in the background. “So,” Frank said, “We have to immobilize her!” “Any plans for getting rid of Vanilla Ice?” Heliotrope asked. “Publish a terrible biography,  get him to star in a critically panned movie, and drive him into a self-destructive spiral of drugs?” Frank asked. “What,” Heliotrope said. ‘What the hell does that even mean?!’ “Joking,” Frank said, panting slightly. “All I’ve got so far is the one-liner for when he dies.” “One day, you’ll have to explain what that means,” Heliotrope said, as the two of them approached the main body of the town. Heliotrope heard sporadic from her right, far-off. And it absolutely wasn’t from the same direction as the Reavers. Though there was something odd - it ended far too quickly. She could hear a shotgun, an SMG, maybe a rifle, all firing at once… and then all stopping. “What was that?” she asked. “Gunfire?” Frank asked sardonically. “No,” Heliotrope said. “I’m telling you, something’s not-” “GET DOWN!” Nny screamed from the other end of the street. Heliotrope folded her wings to the side of her body, and flattened herself against the road. Frank did the same. FSSSSSSSS A beam of frozen vapor lanced above their heads. Just nearby, they could see Nny and Fiddlesticks, in cover at the end of the street. And beyond that, they could see the Reaver’s defensive lines - the APC, firing away with its automatic grenade launcher. An unremarkable, rusty diesel locomotive with freight cars, resting comfortably on a siding. And... Dead bodies littered the street. Heliotrope saw two dead PER men lying in the middle of the street. One woman in a shirt that had once been blue lay on the ground, both barrels of a double-barreled shotgun to her chin. Another wore a bowler hat, and had slashed open their wrists. “They killed themselves,” Heliotrope breathed. “What could even…” “What the fok is this?” Frank asked, looking over the carnage. “Actually, whatever did this, can I have some?” “You can’t run forever!” Vanilla Ice yelled. Heliotrope kept flying. “There’s a car nearby,” she said. “We can take cover behind that. Try and think of our next move.” Frank ran just behind her, avoiding the corpses like an Olympic runner over hurdles. Finally, they came to a mostly-empty parking lot, though there were still a few scattered cars there. Frank and Heliotrope slid behind a large pickup truck, not too far from Nny and Fiddlesticks. Heliotrope could see them, and whatever had happened they looked awful. Fiddlesticks  was wheezing - it looked like she’d gotten hit, somewhere. Blood ran down Nny’s skull, just over his eye. They both looked to be rubbed in grime, bruised, overall battered. But they were still standing. “Frank! Heliotrope!” Nny yelled. “Aegis, he… he ran away, and the PER all died…” “Wait, Aegis is gone?!” Frank asked, a panicked look in his eyes. “What happened? Is he okay?” “What happened to these PER?” Heliotrope added. “Okay,” Fiddlesticks said, taking deep breaths. “I’ll explain everything. We’re holding the trainyard, but just barely. Thanks to the Reavers. But something… really screwed up just happened.” “How screwed up?” Frank asked. “A unicorn just sort of… appeared,” Johnny C said. “She walked out from the trainyard, and I think she made the PER kill themselves. And Aegis was following her. We told him to stop, yelled for him, but he…” “Didn’t say much of anything, really,” Fiddlesticks said. “So, on the one hoof, we’ve got some territory for ourselves. On the other, I have no damn idea what’s going on.” “What did she look like?” Heliotrope asked. “She was an albino,” Johnny C said. “Definitely not a newfoal. I could see a sword on her side.” “Huh,” Frank said. “I’ve met her.” What?! Heliotrope thought. Everyone stared at him. “She appeared while I was in White River Junction,” Frank said. “I didn’t know what she could do, but-” “BURN THEM!” they all heard Firewhirler scream. “BURN THEM ALL!” “Ah, fokdammit,” Frank said. “I guess you’ll have to explain it later,” Nny said. “What the hell makes you think I can do that? I have no idea how to explain,” Frank said. Heliotrope peered up over the car, and swore when she saw it. Firewhirler and Vanilla Ice trotted up to the lot, to the area they’d carved out through superior firepower. There was a small herd of newfoals following both of them, in all the colors of the rainbow. “If anyone has a plan,” Nny said, his rifle shaking in his hands, “I’d love to hear it.” “We need to paralyze the flaming one,” Heliotrope said. “I’m thinking, we need to distract them both while somebody runs back to the Reavers, gets a Penetrator, and-” Wordlessly, Nny reached into Fiddlesticks’ saddlebags, and pulled out an HV Penetrator rifle that absolutely could not have fit inside. “...Why?!” Heliotrope breathed. “[url=https://www.fimfiction.net/story/312770/2/snowbound/chapter-two-that-haunted-melody] That old thing? We’ve left that in there almost a year!” Fiddlesticks said, a wry smile on her face. “We’re going to keep Firewhirler occupied,” Heliotrope said. “We need you to lock her down. Can you do that, John?” Nny got a weird look on his face. Almost despairing. No, I can’t. What if I fail. Heliotrope could tell he wanted to say something like that. But instead, he made what could almost be considered a smile, and picked himself up. The gargantuan assault rifle looked like it barely fit in his hands. “...Can I have one?” Frank asked, looking like he was almost drooling over it. “You can look, but you can’t touch,” Nny said, shouldering the thing. Suddenly, the parking lot became far hotter. Heliotrope could feel her skin blistering under her fur, and the invisibility suit. But she ignored it. “Hello, Johnny,” Firewhirler cackled. “How many of you,” Frank asked, “Do I have to kill. To get my friend’s foals back.” “Over my dead body,” Vanilla Ice called. “If you insist,” Frank said, smirking. Crap. He took that as a challenge, Heliotrope thought, watching Firewhirler draw closer. The stump of her missing ear was an ugly green-white-pink. It looked like she’d cauterized the wound herself. “Remember me, Johnny-boy? How I died of frostbite?” Nny was impassive. “The fuck are you?” he asked, bluntly. Preston. Preston pressed himself against the wall of a living room in a small house, hearing small arms fire impacting against the brickwork. He was fortunate - this living room, unusually for American houses, had only one, comparatively small outside window. The PER’s attack had forced him to fall back, his people scattering. Verbinski, Rodriguez and McReady were with him, along with a few civvies they'd been protecting, but he didn't know where the rest of his team had ended up. He hoped they were keeping themselves alive and human. He'd killed enough of his own friends to save them. “Who the fuck are you people?!” one of the civilians he was protecting, a nervous looking woman, swore at him. “Some kind of PHL special ops?!” “No,” Preston said quietly. “Does it matter who we are?” Verbinski muttered. “We’re risking our asses keeping you people human.” “I know who you are,” a man with a balding pate said darkly. “You're HLF. Your friend had a red stripe down his arm, I recognise that symbol - I saw it before, when I was at Agua Caliente before they retired me.” “You were at Agua Caliente?” Rodriguez asked. “Huh - so were we. Well, me and Preston anyway - you were still with the Sternguard, right Verb?” “That's right,” Verbinski said with a sigh. “Poor old Stan.” “Save memory lane for later, people,” Preston said quietly. He looked out of the small window, and sighed. “PER out there are laying down a decent suppressing fire -” “HLF?!” the woman hissed, as she looked from Preston to Verbinski to Rodriguez and back again. “Get the fuck away from me!” She moved to race out of the door, but Rodriguez grabbed her and flung her to the ground. “Keep down you moron!” she yelled. A hail of bullets tore through the hallway outside the living room, and the woman paled. Rodriguez swore, before stepping out and laying down a quick hail of fire with her Andra FD-99 SMG. “One guy trying his luck,” she muttered. “Think I winged him.” “I’ll check,” McReady said, popping his head around the corner. He came back a second later, shaking his head. “Ah, shit, bastard potioned himself…” “Hang on,” Rodriguez said, pulling a grenade from her belt. She threw it down the corridor. “Down!” Everyone covered their ears, and the explosion shook the house. A moment passed, and then Rodriguez popped her head back around. “He's dead,” she said. “Grotesquery bits all over the corridor. Pity the bastard who has to clean that shit.” “The fuck are HLF doing here with ponies?” the man asked. “I saw your APC come in with that big pony and his friends. What gives?” “We’re the smart ones, asshole,” Verbinski said with a smirk. “We know when to not go apeshit on people.” “Unlike you,” Rodriguez said to the woman. “What the fuck were you thinking?!” “HLF killed my friend,” the woman growled. “You fucking mad dogs should have all been -” Preston held up a finger. “Hold that thought.” He motioned McReady towards the window. The other man moved there carefully, and Preston held up two fingers, before making one half length. McReady nodded, before popping up, his rifle blazing as he fired off a few shots, taking out a PER stallion as he and a human rushed the house, a bandolier of potion on his belt. The vial splattered, hitting his human ally, but the Reaver’s rounds killed him too before he could do much more than cry out. McReady sighed and got back behind cover. “Sorry about that, just saving your lives. You were saying?” The woman blinked. “I - you -” “Just leave it,” the man said tiredly. He looked at McReady. “Thanks, I guess.” “You're welcome,” McReady replied. “I guess.” Preston looked to be thinking about something. “Boss?” Verbinski asked. The big man motioned to the hall. “Rodriguez, go see if there's another entrance. Don't want to be caught on the back foot.” “Gotcha,” Rodriguez said. “Verb, cover me.” “Got your back,” Verbinski said, following her. They crouch-walked out of the room, carefully heading for the back of the house. “So,” the man asked. “You got a special name, your lot? Like Thenardier Guards, Christian Marines, Menschab-whatever?” “Reavers,” Preston said tightly. “Reavers,” the woman repeated scornfully. “Like the Marvel villains, those cyborg douches? Or the things from Firefly?” “Viking term, actually,” the man said quietly. “A kind of raider. Though I assume that's your group’s ‘theme’, right? Vikings? I heard one of you yelling something about Valhalla earlier.” “This really the time?” McReady asked. Preston shook his head. “Whatever questions you've got about us, I'm sure they can wait.” “If you're protecting me, I’ve a right to know who the fuck you are and what you represent,” the man replied testily. “All the HLF I've seen are -” “We represent protecting your sorry arse at the moment,” McReady snapped irritably, “which I’d have thought was the most important thing at the present moment.” He glanced out of the window to the other side of the street, and frowned. “Huh.” “What?” the man asked. “They've stopped firing,” Preston said after a moment. “The sound of guns stopped before I sent Verb and Jack out to check the back.” McReady looked again. “Looks like something’s distracting them - God knows what.” Aegis [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ozft-BDgOBE] He watched the Albino mare trotting gracefully through a collection of dead PER. Need to keep a brave face, he reminded himself. The PER just seemed to melt out of the trees once he crossed the river. A man with an axe coated in potion stepped out from behind a tree, a blond man with a homemade double-barrel made of pipe, a girl with a knife, and a brunette with a paintball gun. “TRAITORS!” the ax-wielding PER man screamed, rushing at the two of them. “Oh, you’re one to talk,” Aegis said almost contemptuously, ready to aim, ready bite down on the mouth trigger for his assault saddle-! The Albino held out a foreleg to Aegis’ barrel in what was almost certainly a gentle reminder to let her handle it. If you can handle it… Aegis thought uneasily, watching the Albino stare down the axe-wielding PER man. Something strange happened as the man ran towards them. Or rather, something didn’t happen.  The man didn’t keep running. He didn’t swing the axe. He just sort of stumbled, and fell to one knee awkwardly in a pose that had to be painful. And then he screamed, a high piercing wail that made Aegis momentarily tap a forehoof to one ear to see if it was bleeding. It wasn’t. The PER man probably was, though - blood issued forth from his nose, dripping along his lips, down his chin, even into his open mouth. It was the look in his eyes that made Aegis stagger back, openmouthed. It was a look he’d rarely, if ever, seen on PER. Guilt. Reproach. Self-loathing. It actually looked… kind of like Frank’s default face, come to think of it. “God, oh God, this is what happens,” the man sobbed, tears coming from his eyes. “That’s it, an endless nightmare. They have no mouths behind their smiles and they must scream! AND I’VE MADE THEM DO IT!” He turned the head of the axe to himself and swung it into his nose. It didn’t kill him, even with the blood spilling out from the ruins of his nose. He had to try several more times, ramming it into his skull until Aegis could barely see any face left. “HENRY!” the man with the homemade shotgun screamed, swinging his weapon towards at Aegis and the Albino. “SWEET CELESTIA, I’LL… I’LL-” He didn’t fire. Instead, with a complete absence of any expression on his face, he flipped the shotgun upwards as if it was the most natural thing in the world, both barrels to the underside of his chin. “I am beyond redemption,” the shotgunner said calmly, and fired. His head exploded outwards, painting a wall in brains and blood. A woman nearby - barely more than a child, her hair almost waist-length - held a knife to a wall, the butt of the grip held to the bricks so the tip pointed directly to her ear. Aegis swore he’d seen her at the party over in White River Junction, the one where Kraber Frank had nearly killed Popover. Oh, jeez, Aegis thought, his mind somewhere else as he desperately tried not to notice the horror only a few feet away. I forgot about Popover! Is she okay?! Is she- The woman screamed. “LINSEY! GOD, WHAT’D I TURN YOU INTO?! I TOOK ADVANTAGE OF YOU, MADE YOU SOMEONE ELSE, AND I’M SO SORRY!” And she headbutted the knife with the side of her head, the knife piercing through her ear, directly into her brain. As with the axe-wielding man, it took multiple tries for her to finally end it. What looked like enough blood to fill a decently-sized water bottle spilled out onto the floor. “W-what in Luna’s name are you doing to them?” Aegis asked, forcing stoicism into his voice and probably failing. I have to stay calm, he thought. For everyone’s sake. They need to know that Claw Hammer - not Aegis is a rock in the river, they need to know… But it was just him and the Albino. She probably didn’t care. “I’m not doing anything to them,” the Albino mare said. “I’m just letting them understand. The fundamental, objective truth about themselves and what they have done. They’re doing this on their own. Making their own decisions based on new knowledge.” Another PER soldier, this one a brunette girl, looked down at what looked like a paintball gun and tossed it to the ground. It cracked in half, potion spilling out, and she fled into the darkness beyond. “Few of them are capable of knowing the truth,” she said. “For those with pretensions of transhumanism, they can be quite small-minded.” She glanced at him. “I can show you the same truth I showed them, if you like.” Aegis shook his head. “I’d… uh, rather not. I get the feeling it'd be -” ...abandonedyourwifewhenshewasscreaminginsideherownmindtrappedpervertedyourlandisinvadedandconqueredandyouranandtoldyourselftheyhadchangedontheirown… Aegis shook his head, eyes widening. “What - what was -” “Objective knowledge,” she said, her tone neutral. “Nothing more.” “I… I…” …abandonedhertothedepthsoftormentanddespaorandfledinsteadoftryingtosaveherorbringherfromthatplaceofhorror… “Don't. Don't do that. Please.” He felt sick, a wave of guilt and nausea he didn't quite understand and didn't want to almost making me him vomit. “I don't want that truth.” The Albino tilted her head. “You are sad. I understand. Don't be afraid. All will be well. Maybe even with her.” And with that, she trotted merrily down the street, leaving the bodies in her wake. Somehow, Aegis was left with the impression that she had other people to meet today. Having got a glimpse of what they had seen, he found a wave of pity rising up to the forefront of his mind. Kraber Kraber knew from experience that running into a newfoal that claimed to know you was never fun. They’d guilt-trip you, insult you, all while telling you things only your friend could have known. They’d laugh at you. Mock you. As Firewhirler was doing at this very moment. “Why, I’m your friend!” Firewhirler said sarcastically, batting her eyes at Nny. He looked sickened. Disgusted. “Yours and Fiddlesticks.” “Firewhirler,” Vanilla Ice said, “This is just getting old. Burn them already so we can go!” “In a minute,” Firewhirler said, “I just want to be sure John and Fiddlesticks understand just. How. THANKFUL. I am.” “Should I…” Kraber asked, looking from Nny to the two super-newfoals. “Did ya… did ya huv something?” Nny was shaking again. Sweating. Eyes darting from side to side. “N-no,” he said finally. “I have no idea who this is. I’m pretty sure I’d remember leaving a woman to freeze to death.” [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7T-fEbu-s68] “That is something you’d probably remember,” Kraber agreed, nodding. “Not even gonna ask,” Heliotrope said, shaking her head. For the best, Kraber thought. “I can tell you who I was. I can forgive you. I can make sure you make up for what you did,” Firewhirler said, twitching. “All. You need. To do. Is go. Pony.” If there was anything Kraber had learned about the remnants of a newfoal’s mind, it was that you didn’t get an answer until it was too late. Or at all. So he responded in the most appropriate way he knew when it came to newfoals attempting to convince someone to be ponified. “I’M GONNA REDECORATE THIS FOKKIN’ TOWN WITH YOUR FACE, VARKNAAIERS!” Kraber yelled, and shot a newfoal stallion just where neck met barrel, practically cutting the once-human in half. Lengthwise. ‘Didn’t think that was possible, but I’m just not gonna question it!’ Kraber thought. Nny flashed one middle finger to Firewhirler and started firing. “Like hell I will, YOU PIECE OF SHIT!” And all hell broke loose. “BURN!” Firewhirler screamed, and shot forwards like a bullet. Towards Nny… Who ducked and rolled behind a car, swearing in barely-complete sentences. He poked himself up from behind the hood and fired, desperately trying to lead his target. “PIECE OF SHIT COCKF-” Nny swore, watching the heavy Penetrator rounds miss Firewhirler by… Well, Kraber couldn’t quite tell from the tracers, but it was a lot. Firewhirler laughed as the heavy projectiles missed her, again and again. Which left her heading straight for Kraber. He swore and rolled to the right as Firewhirler flew overhead, trailing fire behind her. I really wish I’d brought a fokkin’ helmet! Kraber thought, wondering if his hair was singed, or if his face had gotten any more burnt. With Firewhirler came newfoals. Thankfully, not the kind Shieldwall was known for, just the usual garden-variety chargers. Good. Kraber aimed for a pegasus newfoal with twin potion bandoliers encircling their body, and fired. The newfoal hurtled towards the ground, its face ramming against the pavement, one wing flapping uselessly. “Oh, JOHNNNNNYYYYYY! FIIIIIDDLESTIIIIIIIIICKS!” Firewhirler crooned. “I missed you! Remember when you let me die, Nny?!” Kraber didn’t think too hard about it. It wasn’t the first time he’d seen newfoals claim that somebody had let them die. Nny was cursing a blue streak, practically bouncing from sidewalk to sidewalk, Penetrator in hand. He was firing it semiautomatically, nailing newfoals to the pavement. Like every fokkin’ plan, everything in Kraber’s damn life, no no no stop, it’d gone awry. Immobilizing Firewhirler with a Penetrator had proven easier said than done. A rock slammed into Kraber’s face, and he staggered slightly. He could see a newfoal levitating another group of rocks in its horn TK, ready to throw them. “WHO FOKKIN’ THREW THAT SHIT?!” Kraber yelled, unholstering his revolver and firing. THOOM The .44 round sheared through the newfoal’s skull, splashing blood everywhere. The stones exploded outwards, embedding themselves in houses, and at least one unfortunate newfoal. He heard the pneumatic click of a paintball gun, and dove behind a car. Just far away enough that he probably wouldn’t be hit. He watched, fuming as purple dots of potion splattered against the fiberglass body of the car. He’d… well, borrowed a facemask. It was hopefully enough to prevent the purple siff liquid from getting him, but he never felt truly safe with potion splattering his gear. Some of his friends had been like that, moved wrong, and then you might sloooooooowly start growing fur… Six rounds left in the revolver. Five newfoals. And that prick with the paintball gun. I can fokkin’ do this! He crawled to the other side of the car, sighted the revolver in, and fired. A newfoal simply lost everything between its forelegs and skull, flopping to the ground bonelessly. The little splats of potion flew lightly overhead, but he ignored it. He was fokkin’ woedend. “JOU WANT ME IN JOU FOKKIN’ EMPIRE! HERE! HAVE SOME FOKKIN’ MORE, I FOKKIN’ HOPE JOU CHOKE ON IT, BLIKSEM!” He squeezed the trigger. The revolver kicked in his hand, and- FOK! MISSED! A magnum round landed harmlessly in the support beam of a house’s porch. He fired again. Another miss. Stay calm, Viktor, he thought. Stay- That didn’t last. He fired again, punching through a sea-green newfoal mare. Her skull simply vanished, the remnants of her head splashing outwards. “WE’RE GONNA FIND YOU, HUMAN!” one purple newfoal screamed, at the top of his lungs. “AND WE’RE GONNA MAKE SURE YOU THANK US FOR ALL THIS TROUBLE!” “THE FOK DOES THAT EVEN MEEEEEAN!” Kraber yelled, aiming for a headshot. But at the last second, the purple newfoal dashed to the left, just towards cover. Kraber struggled to track the sudden movement, and fired again... Only for the newfoal to collapse, screaming and hemorrhaging blood like a fountain. Kraber had somehow threaded the needle with the .44, its heavy magnum round nailing the moving target between its legs... “RIGHT IN THE FOKKIN’ EIERS!” Kraber yelled, as the newfoal bled out. Some would say that it was a stupid way to kill a newfoal. They were probably right, but there was only so much an inborn lack of pain receptors could do in the event of a major artery being fokkin’ vernietig. “He got Woodpulp!” a newfoal yelled. Kraber thumbed a speedloader into the cylinder, and snapped the revolver closed. All he could think at that revelation, no matter how little sense it made, was ‘Seriously? His actual name was Woodpulp? Somepony must have really fokkin’ hated him.’ And then the newfoal slaughter simply… ended. At least on his end. Firewhirler shot in front of the newfoals, sparks trailing behind her. “They were saved!” she pleaded. “Just like me, just like-” “FOK JOURSELF!” Kraber yelled, firing off his ACR. He smiled, waiting for them to impact, waiting for some indicator that he’d finally fokkin’ hit the thing. Except he hadn’t. Vanilla Ice was projecting a shield around Firewhirler with his horn. Nothing made of ice, just a normal unicorn bullshit energy shield. “GETTIN’ FOKKIN’ TIRED OF THIS!” Kraber yelled, and fired off a shield-disruptor from the grenade launcher. It made the telltale foop as it was fired… Only to impact uselessly against a wall of ice almost a foot thick, along with the bolts from Nny’s Penetrator. “DIE!” Vanilla Ice screamed, and the wall exploded into seemingly hundreds of shards… Al of which hung suspended in midair, the sharp ends pointing at Kraber. FOK FOK FOK FOK FOK- Kraber thought, and sprinted to the left, to a space between houses. Behind him, shards of ice shattered against the pavement. Can’t I even get in one fokkin’ hit on the fokkin’ kontgesig?! he thought. Right before the ice wall had just exploded out of the ground, Kraber thought he’d seen Vanilla Ice smirking. “You’re running out of aaaaaammo, Johnny-boy! Firewhirler laughed. “Just like I did back in Alaska.” “I HAVE NO IDEA WHO YOU ARE!” Nny yelled, opening fire. “Here’s the thing, Johnnyboy! Fiddly pony!” Firewhirler cackled. “See… last time I tried to show one of you apes mercy, I lost an ear. I know one of you will trick me, so I’m just going to kill you.” “Firewhirler!” Vanilla Ice yelled. “If you’re gonna kill them, just do it. Quit screwing around.” It was then that Kraber saw Heliotrope vanish, and he smirked. Good. He rushed to the other side of the street, ready to aim for Vanilla Ice through a narrow gap between the ice wall and a house… Only to watch the ice wall crumble. Vanilla Ice vanished too, his horn glowing as he teleported in front of Kraber. “Let’s leave those three to whatever,” he said. “I’m taking you down.” Preston “Jack hasn't reported,” McReady said quietly. “Rodriguez, report?” Preston asked, tapping his helmet radio. “Clear as a whistle, boss,” Rodriguez replied. “PER bodies but no sign of anything living.” “What could have caused that?” the man asked. Preston was frowning. “Rodriguez, vocab-check,” he said. “Seriously?” Rodriguez replied. “Wouldn’t me answering to my own fucking name be a clue by now?” “You never know,” Preston said tightly. “If you're sure it's clear, get back here and help keep an eye on these civvies. Verb, you and I are going to try and find Bentham and Sykes in the APC, see if we can get them back in the thick of it, lay down some heavier fire. If we can link up with Karl and the others, that’ll help.” “What about Idle?” McReady asked. Preston shrugged. “Lost track of him at the outset. We’ll hopefully run into him again, if he didn't already link up with the APC.” Kraber He had the best one-liner lined up, and no way to use it. No plan. No nothing. Vanilla Ice flung blasts of ice towards him, and Kraber zigzagged across the street, intermittently firing one of his rifles. Either the stolen Kalashnikov or the ACR. I’m running low on ammo! But he couldn’t let that bother him. Maybe… one in five of his bullets was actually hitting. At least that was how it felt. “See, magic comes from the soul,” Vanilla Ice laughed. “Way Shieldwall figures it, newfoals get given a newborn soul, full of all kinds of energy we don’t use. That’s why I’m so powerful, human. That’s why I’m gonna put you-” “If you say ‘on ice,’” Kraber interrupted, “I’M GONNA SHIT ON YOU! THEN SHIT ON THAT FOKKIN’ SHIT! THEN YOU’LL BE COVERED IN SHIT!” Vanilla Ice just looked… Well, he still had the ‘characteristic’ - much as a Newfoal could be said to have one - grin of a newfoal, but it looked sarcastic. Less sincere than normal. It was then that he stopped casting spells, and Kraber watched four of his bullets hang in midair over the unicorn’s horn. Aweh, He thought to himself. The only sane option is to- And then it occurred to him. Wait a minute, I’m mentally ill! FOK THE SANE OPTION, YOU’RE IN THE KRABER ZONE, VARKNAAIERS!! he thought, and started firing again, sweeping the ACR to the right, pointing it slightly upwards. It was stupid. It was a plan only a dom nool would conceive. It was probably just wasting ammo. But then, here was Kraber. Fighting a unicorn with the same name as a rapper he didn’t even like that much. He watched the bullets curve towards Vanilla Ice’s horn, and moved them ever so slightly. “You’re a terrible shot, you know that?” Vanilla Ice asked, laughing. “I-” And then Kraber saw it. A bullet missing the unicorn’s horn, impacting just behind his tail. He didn’t seem to have noticed. He wouldn’t be able to replicate the shot, not ever again. Wouldn’t be able to replicate the fraction-of-a-millimeter adjustment to the ACR’s position, could never copy this spectacular feat of un-aim. Ten rounds left. It always comes back to ten rounds against newfoals, doesn’t it? Kraber thought, and let loose. Vanilla Ice had a second for his expression to change before the bullets curved past his horn, punching into his ribs. Preston vs. PER Kraber Kraber rushed forward, revolver and 1911 in hand. He held them both in front of his face, pulling each trigger simultaneously. Unloading every bullet into the fokkin’ abomination’s body. It looked to Kraber like the newfoal was struggling. Struggling to keep smiling, to keep standing up, to cast a spell - any spell! - to do anything. Better not give the fokkin’ poes kakker naipoes the opportunity! Kraber thought, peppering the newfoal’s body with bullets. They weren’t doing as much as he’d hoped. Vanilla Ice’s horn gave off a unicorn’s telltale glow, and the wounds seemed to be healing almost as fast as Kraber could make them. Still. ‘Almost.’ So Kraber kept firing. ‘Just once, I’d like an anomalous newfoal I can kill with a bullet to the head! ‘Hi, I’m Fuck You Viktor the Pretty Private! I’m gonna-’ KABOOM, BABY!’ Kraber thought, holstering his revolver with his right hand and bringing it back with a fresh magazine of .45 ammo. “CELESTIA-FORSAKEN SON OF A-” Vanilla Ice yelled, and stomped down with both forehooves. The ice exploded out from cracks between pavement, but Kraber was ready this time. He jumped to the left the moment Ice’s hooves touched pavement, catapulting himself across the street and sliding behind another car. Don’t know how much more of this I can take! he thought, reloading his revolver and switching to his Kalashnikov. Wait, that came out of the ground, can’t he still- And Kraber ran. Ice erupted from the pavement, then the sidewalk concrete where he’d just been standing. Blades of grass turned grey-brown where the ice touched them, but Kraber was long gone at that point, rushing by yet another car. I have two magazines left for this thing, he thought with dawning horror. Another ice wall sprang up under the nearest car, and before Kraber knew it, the damn thing was dropping down towards him. Fok! He scrambled out of the way, just barely avoiding it as it crashed to the ground. “Where are you…” Vanilla Ice said, suddenly and inexplicably singsongy. Kraber didn't answer, running faster. Somewhat southerly, just towards what looked like a hardware store. Aweh, what did I do last time?! To Reaper?! The bullets to the flank looked like they'd hurt the fokkin thing, but he wasn't sure that'd last. This would be so much fokkin easier if the unicorn couldn't cast spells! Wait a minute. If I can shatter his horn, I’ll be fine! Wait, fok, how do I do that? Kraber didn’t have time to think on it, rolling to the side as a ball of frozen vapor flew within inches of him, leaving rime ice crusting his right shoulder. And now my burns have frostbite. Fokkin’ lekker, he thought sarcastically. Heliotrope Heliotrope yelped and ducked as Firewhirler shot over her head. Heliotrope could almost feel the tips of her ears being singed. Balls of flame flickered off from the trail of thaums Firewhirler left in her wake, dropping down to the pavement below her. ‘One of those hits me, I’m dead!’ Heliotrope thought, blazing away with her submachineguns. Or, maybe she wouldn’t be dead, but it’d still hurt like hell. It was not an easy fight in any sense of the word. Firewhirler would zigzag side to side, fire trailing behind her like a comet, and Heliotrope would struggle to center a burst of automatic fire on her. Why is she so damn fast?! Heliotrope screamed internally. Sparks and fireballs trailed from Firewhirler’s wake to the street below. Heliotrope followed her on a zigzagging path through the town, Nny and Fiddlesticks following along or helping Frank to kill Vanilla Ice. At least, that was what Heliotrope could guess as she shot down the town’s main drag in hot pursuit of Firewhirler. It was hard to focus on much of anything but Firewhirler. As far as Heliotrope could tell, Firewhirler was the most impossibly erratic flier she’d ever seen, bouncing from side to side of the street, up and down, above the houses and practically skimming the pavement. Heliotrope cursed under her breath as Firewhirler skimmed the wall of one house on the right side of the street, and kicked off with all four legs, catapulting herself down, almost parallel to the street. It was a sloppy maneuver, the kind they told Heliotrope to avoid in flight school. But Firewhirler did it anyway. Heliotrope banked to the right, willing her wings to flap faster as she pursued the newfoal. “Try and catch me, Betrayer!” Firewhirler cackled, corkscrewing across the street in a flaming spiral. And Heliotrope followed, firing her guns sparingly. FUCK! she thought, as one 9x32mm round flew what looked like two inches above Firewhirler’s barrel. MISSED! She gritted her teeth as she coaxed more and more speed out of her wings. How could this weird newfoal, this abomination be faster, she’d- WALL! There was a wall ahead of her made of ice. The kind of thing that only that other newfoal, Vanilla Ice could have made. Out of the corner of her eye, Heliotrope could see him smirking. Not for long though. Firewhirler flew straight up into the air like a rocket, perpendicular to the street. Heliotrope left her wings spread out, using them to aim her upwards, and followed. ‘Will this thing just die?!’ she thought incredulously, and bit down on the mouth trigger for her assault yoke so hard she thought she heard something crack. If she hadn’t been clenching her teeth, she might have been screaming. Firewhirler laughed mockingly and twisted to the side in that same annoying corkscrew motion. And for a moment, it didn’t matter to Heliotrope, who simply angled herself towards Firewhirler and spun through the center of Firewhirler’s corkscrew, her SMGs roaring at her sides. Dammit, dammit, dammit! Heliotrope thought, screaming internally as she watched Firewhirler slow. Watched her seemingly tire for a second. I have the perfect shot, Heliotrope told herself as she squinted, the reticle on her assault saddle’s aiming goggles turning red as it centered on Firewhirler. Except she didn’t. She wasn’t able to make any shot. Her guns were dry. Not now not now not now! Heliotrope thought frantically, and she saw Firewhirler smirk. That’s why she slowed down, Heliotrope thought. Still smirking, Firewhirler twisted to the right, dropping like a meteor, one hoof outstretched. It was too late to dodge. Firewhirler punched Heliotrope in the face. And it hurt! Heliotrope’s jaw burned in agony, and she hoped that it wasn’t literal burning. Heliotrope screamed in agony and fell, tumbling, to the pavement below. No no no! she thought, only realizing after a second that she was screaming as she struggled to maintain control. Her wings flapped, though she could barely think straight, could barely breathe from the heavy blow. The ground was coming closer, closer, closer! “NO!” Heliotrope yelled, flapping her wings ever more frantically, desperately trying to keep herself aloft. She pulled herself into a quarter loop, finally leveling about two feet above the ground, flying parallel to the street “TIME TO FINISH THE JOB!” Firewhirler yelled, a malice in her voice that Heliotrope had never heard. Heliotrope banked to the right, twisting around Nny and Fiddlesticks, each staring at her openmouthed. “AND TO FINISH THEM T-” Firewhirler started. A line of rounds from Fiddlesticks’ machinegun stitched through Firewhirler’s flank, blood spattering out and evaporating through Firewhirler’s absurd body heat. “COME ON, YOU BITCH!” Fiddlesticks screamed, running from side to side, gun still blazing. Beside her, Nny was opening fire with his assault rifle - the Leshiy, not the Penetrator. “So annoying!” Firewhirler yelled, twisting to the left in what could be considered another corkscrewing motion, flying parallel to the ground. “We have to exhaust her eventually!” Heliotrope yelled, looking for a place to reload. She cast a quick look to Kraber Frank, who was running along the sidewalk, firing away with a Kalashnikov. ‘Dear Luna, Faust, God, anyone out there, please let him have this under control!” Heliotrope turned invisible and shot down to a space between two houses like a bullet, fast enough that she likely would have left a purplish-pink and blue trail behind her. “You can hide,” Firewhirler yelled, “But you can’t… Uh… HIDE!” ‘They really have us on the ropes!’ Heliotrope thought, sweat running through her fur under her invisibility flightsuit. She was shuddering. Wheezing from the exertion. Back in Equestria, flying this fast, pushing herself this far would have practically had her marefriends dragging her out of the gym. ‘Yael, for the love of all that is pure and holy, where are you?!’ She reached into her saddlebags, pulling out two fresh mags for the SMGs in her mouth. Reloading was easy enough - there was a PHL enchantment near the magwell that would align the two mags come hell or high water. Yes, even if Heliotrope was flying at ridiculous speeds and should have by all rights lost her grip on them and left them spiralling backwards through the air. Frank did not look like he was in control as he rushed from side to side, bobbing and weaving as his heavy, brutal assault rifle barked out round after round. Every line of spiked ice that the newfoal would spawn, every ball of frozen vapor - like the antithesis to the bread-and-butter fire spells used by unicorn Royal Guard - bowling towards him, he seemed to just barely dodge. Or not dodge at all. What looked like an icicle flew out from just above Vanilla Ice’s horn, and rammed into Frank’s leg. “GARRRGH!” Frank howled in what could have been pain or anger, yanking the icicle out and throwing it to the ground. It shattered at his feet, but he kept going. He swore in a language Heliotrope couldn’t understand (That was weird. Wasn’t he Scottish?) and fired off another burst from his Kalashnikov, the bullets impacting Vanilla Ice’s left foreleg. The newfoal stumbled slightly, and Frank rushed forward. ‘Stupid! What are you even trying to-’ Heliotrope thought haltingly. And before her eyes, he rammed his boot up into the newfoal’s face. There was a slight crack, and the newfoal’s smile seemed to falter. He’d broken the thing’s jaw. Frank grunted, and - holding the Kalashnikov by the barrel like a golf club - drove the wooden stock into the newfoal’s skull, just above the horn. The newfoal grunted in what could have pain, and Frank took advantage of that moment. “SON! OF! A! BITCH!” Frank yelled, punctuating each word by mashing the Kalashnikov’s stock against the newfoal’s skull. “WILL! YOU! JUST! FOKKIN’! DIE?! JOU! FOKKIN! BAWBAG?!” There were wet clunking sounds as stock impacted face. Eh, he’s fine, Heliotrope thought approvingly, and banked to the left, wings outstretched. She wasn’t firing this time, and somehow the breeze rushing over her was almost relaxing. Almost. She folded her left wing slightly, extending her right, and curved around towards Firewhirler, firing her SMGs full auto. It was an easy shot. Or rather, an easy eight shots, as Firewhirler was desperately bobbing and weaving to avoid Fiddlesticks’ minigun… But not Heliotrope herself. The bullets punched through Firewhirler’s wings, and the flaming pegasus dropped to the ground, blood spewing from her barrel, trailing burnt feathers. “Not… gonna die… like this!” Firewhirler yelled, and dashed forward, flying down the street like a comet, sparks flickering from her mane and tail as she raced down the street. Towards Frank! Heliotrope didn’t need to look at Nny or Fiddletsicks for confirmation that they knew. All three of them rushed for Francis, firing desperate shots in Firewhirler’s direction. They were too late, and Heliotrope had just enough time to see Firewhirler smirk, to hear her laugh mockingly as Firewhirler hit Frank like an airborne bulldozer. “FRANK!” Heliotrope yelled, just as Frank was flung off Vanilla Ice. With a look of  either or pain on his face, he tumbled through the air, towards the plate-glass window of the hardware store. She rushed to help him, but- The newfoals that had accompanied Firewhirler and Vanilla Ice stood in front of the three of them, each wearing smiles so wide it looked like their faces would split in half. “Well?” one demanded. “Betrayers? Human?” Heliotrope spread her wings. “Get the hell out of my way.” Kraber Suddenly, everything went white. Glass was spiralling through the air all around him, and he could dimly perceive the shards bouncing off his skin, lightly cutting him. KRANCH Kraber yelled wordlessly, not sure if he was angry or in pain, as he tumbled bonelessly across the floor. And here I was, hoping they had it under control! Kraber thought, as his head smashed into - and bounced off - a wooden crate. FOKKIN’ DAMMIT! He wasn’t completely sure if he was angry or if he hurt. The two sensations had been blurred for awhile. But then, he was standing up, staggering to his feet. Can’t hurt that much, right? he told himself. ‘Gonna bliksem her so hard she’ll be a puddle on the fokkin floor!’ The alarms screamed as he staggered to his feet, but he paid it no mind, trying to guess where he was. Looked like a hardware store. That's sort of helpful…. “You,” Firewhirler snarled. Kraber couldn’t tell where her voice was coming from. Kraber slid behind a large vending machine, Kalashnikov in hand. He tried to stay silent. “Everyone in this town is just so intent on driving me mad,” Firewhirler said, and Kraber could almost imagine the heat radiating off her. “The Betrayers. Yael’s puppet. The lying sack of fat who says I laid my life down for him. And now there's you. The spanner in the works. It's enough to make me want to flare up and burn this place to the ground! Burn every board humans have ever nailed together till there's not! Even! A SPECK! OF ASH!” Her voice sounded like it was coming from in front of Kraber now. “But Shieldwall won't let me,” she said, almost petulant. Kraber shouldered his Kalashnikov and stared into the store beyond. He could see a flickering light off in the distance, off towards the right. He crouched low to the ground, by the cash registers, heading away from that light. “He wants to keep all that tinder if only for a little bit,” she said. “Can you imagine? How boring that'll be?” The light disappeared, and suddenly the room went icy cold. “Hello, Frank,” Vanilla Ice said, and Kraber could just hear the smirk in his voice. Oh fok no. “Two of you and one of me?” Kraber asked. “Doesn’t seem very fokkin’ fair for you!” “You’re right,” Vanilla Ice said, and Kraber heard his hooves on the linoleum floor. “It ain’t a fight for us. It’s pest control and we’re gonna squish you like a bug.” Kraber looked to the other side of the vending machine. The emergency lights didn’t reveal any shadows, and as far as he knew they weren’t anywhere. But he could hear hoofsteps! Can’t let them find me! He crouched low to the ground, sliding behind a crate full of unidentifiable junk. He couldn’t explain where he was going, or what his plan was. All he knew was that they’d find him eventually. First thing first - he had to leave. Going to the back of the store would be fokkin’ dof. He’d just be in an area with more space for the newfoals to hide. Only question was how to get out of there. He could hear more hoofsteps from over by the window. Kraber couldn’t tell who it was, but his best guess was that it was Vanilla Ice. On account of Firewhirler rarely touching the ground. So then where is she? Carefully checking if anyone was watching, he kept low to the ground, not quite crouching and not quite walking towards one aisle. He held his back to one shelf, Kalashnikov readied. He looked side to side. “I think you need to chill,” Vanilla Ice said, and Kraber could hear more and more hoofsteps. “Come on. You gonna be way happier like this. You never have to worry about being afraid, or depressed, or lonely, or unhappy ever again. Don’t I sound happy?” If Kraber had not heard some variation of this speech every time he killed an intelligent enough newfoal, it might have still had some impact. Maybe. Of course. No emotions. Nothing to actually make happiness mean something. And it all sounds so fokkin’ lekker dux I could shit fokkin’ rainbows. And don’t I-’ “-sound wonderful? You can become…” Something more than human, OH MY FOKKIN’ GOD WHY ARE THEY SUCH FOKKIN’ BABBELBEKKIES, SWEET LORD WILL THEY JUST HOLD THEIR FOKKIN’ BEKS, GAAAAAAAWD... Kraber thought. “Can you imagine what you’d become? How glorious this very opportunity is? If you give yourself over to Shieldwall’s work, you can become like us. This is the best opportunity you can have.” The voice looked to be heading over to Kraber’s old crate. His eyes darted from side to side, and he made his way to another aisle. And where the hell is Firewhirler?! “I’m begging you,” Vanilla Ice said. “You know what newfoals like us are used for by most of the Empire. That’s why I’m so grateful to Shieldwall. He made me… me. Don’t let yourself be swept up in the chaos, just let yourself… become something new and beautiful. You’ll be happier that way.” ‘Okay,’ Kraber thought. ‘That is something new.’ It was weird. Newfoals simply didn’t make pleas like that. Appeal to your fears. Sound so… understanding, if newfoals could be said to have that. It might’ve been absurd, but Kraber felt sure that the emotion was somehow genuine. Newfoals never had complex emotions. And Newfoals never sounded so genuinely worried. Could it be that Vanilla Ice meant it? That Shieldwall would truly be better than whatever the Solar Empire did to him? Ah, fok it. Still killing him, Kraber thought, crouching near the floor, just hiding himself with one aisle. An aisle lined with what looked like heavy tools of some kind. Saws, circular saws, nailguns, chainsaws… Sledgehammers. ‘Okay, this could work…’ “And you’ll be happy like us,” Firewhirler cooed. “Do you want to be another playmate? Don’t you want to be pretty just like us?” ‘Why does so much of their dialogue sound like it’s from fetish comics?’ Kraber wondered as he inched toward the window. Her voice was from the opposite end of the store as Vanilla Ice. She sounded…. closer. Like The window was so close… so fokkin’ CLOSE! Heliotrope “It’s got me!” Nny screamed at the top of his lungs, struggling to move in the newfoal unicorn’s TK. A vial of potion levitated towards him. With a strength Heliotrope didn’t know she had, she reached for a knife, wings outstretched, and rocketed towards it. She had about five knives outstretched as she flew towards the newfoal. One in each foreleg. The blades strapped to her wings that’d give her a cutting edge if she needed to fly through some newfoals. And the one in their mouth. Heliotrope chopped through the newfoal like a hot knife through butter, each blade rushing in and out, across and through the unicorn’s body. It simply seemed to forget everything about how to hold together. Its legs, skull, organs, and most of its blood exploded outward in wildly different directions. “Oh, thank God!” Nny said, one hand to his chest. “I could’ve been ponified.” “Heliotrope,” Fiddlesticks said, wheezing slightly, “We’d be dead in the water without you.” “Just doing my part,” Heliotrope said, a weak smile on her face. ‘Tartarus, I am tired. Damn, I cut him up!’ Her blood ran a little bit cold when she realized just how satisfied she seemed. ‘Am I… am I enjoying this? Am I enjoying it, killing these things?’ It was a sobering thought. “Now,” she said, “Hate to cut and run-” she suppressed a quick chuckle at that awful joke. “But we’ve got a friend in need.” She pointed to the hardware store. “Nny?” Heliotrope asked. “How much Penetrator ammo do you have left?” “A mag or two,” Nny said, checking the oversized assault rifle. “I think… I think I’m going to need to husband the ammo.” “You do that,” Heliotrope said. “Nny, it’s all up to you. You’re the only one with something that can stop her.” Nny swallowed nervously. “Well,” he said, “Can’t be the hardest thing I’ve done.” He’ll be fine, Heliotrope thought. I know how Nny is. He’s not going to fail something like this if there’s no other choice. She surveyed the front of the hardware store. The glass was either shattered or splayed out from the windows like curiously flat icicles. The door was… well, she had to squint to see if there still was one. It lay broken in front of the store, simultaneously burnt, waterlogged, shattered, and frozen. Heliotrope tapped a button on her goggles, staring through the store. Immediately, the view from her goggles changed - the store was rendered in a spectrum of purples, greens, blues, yellows, reds, and orange. She rarely used heat vision, but she appreciated the utility of it.  Especially at times like this. Where are you… she thought, scanning the store. After a second, she saw it. A newfoal on top of one of the shelving units. Where’s the other one?! she thought frantically, eyes darting from side to side over the store before it occurred to her. Okay. Vanilla Ice can control ice, so it makes sense I wouldn’t see him… She looked down and saw Frank, making his way to the entrance. Right below the one newfoal she could see. There was no time to warn him. Somehow, Heliotrope knew in her heart of hearts that if she yelled, Firewhirler and Vanilla Ice would pounce for Frank. So she did the only thing she could: She turned on her cloaking function and shot through the window, heading for Firewhirler. In that moment, Firewhirler spread her wings and jumped from the aisle, heading for Frank. “NO YOU FUCKING DON’T!” Heliotrope yelled, curving to the right, her foreleg knives and wing blades extended. Frank looked up. “FOK!” he yelled, scrambling out of the way. Firewhirler had less than a second to stare open-mouthed before Heliotrope cut through her. Barely three feet below them, Frank looked up at them, looking… surprised? Angry? A bit of both? It could have been both. “You saved my life!” he gasped. “Heliotrope, thank you!” Then he smiled, looking almost impressed as one of Heliotrope’s wing blades cut through Firewhirler’s leg. Hot, steaming blood splashed forth, landing in his hair. Whatever was on his face, it quickly faded. He turned around and dashed to the right, vanishing from Heliotrope’s field of view. “You Betrayer WHORE!” Firewhirler screamed, clutching the remains of her leg. “When we take this ground, you’ll-” Heliotrope rolled her eyes and bit down on the mouth trigger. Firewhirler gritted her teeth, and lifted off, flapping her wings desperately. At this range, it didn’t matter. The 9x32mm rounds were admittedly slow and heavy, but at this range that didn’t matter. She fell about three seconds later, one wing flapping uselessly, the other one limp and bloody. Firewhirler dragged herself forward with one remaining leg, leaving a trail behind her. ‘Fuckin’ finally, she’s dead!’ Heliotrope thought, and stepped forward for a better shot, ready to hose Firewhirler down with yet more bullets… Fate conspired against her. Something slammed against the back of her head, and Heliotrope fell to the floor, gasping heavily. Blood dripped down the back of her head, under her fur. And then, a sharp pain behind the eye, so violent and so sudden it felt like her eye was going to explode out her skull. Heliotrope screamed, trying to move, trying to do anything… only to find her legs and wings wouldn’t respond. Vanilla Ice trotted into view. “So much for ‘Frank’s gratitude, huh?” Vanilla Ice asked, looking down at Firewhirler. “You did this?” Heliotrope spat on the floor. The headache intensified, and for a second Heliotrope was blind. “Heliotrope!” Nny yelled from the front of the store, shouldering the Leshiy… Only for Vanilla Ice’s horn to glow. A massive wall of ice exploded upwards from below the linoleum, filling the space between the aisles and cutting the three ponies off from Nny and Fiddlesticks. “You did that to her, huh?” Vanilla Ice asked, and Heliotrope was blind again. She could distantly hear someone screaming, and recognized that it could have been her. Heliotrope couldn’t tell what happened next. But she remembered - or imagined she could remember - Vanilla Ice casting some kind of healing spell from his horn, closing up Firewhirler’s wounds, restoring her ear. “Firewhirler,” Vanilla Ice said, “Find Frank, then go after Nny and Fiddlesticks. Shieldwall’s going to love having the two of them around.” He smirked. “I guess I could give a speech,” Vanilla Ice said lamely. “Something about how you have no chance. But what’s the point, anyway?” Heliotrope glared at him and gritted her teeth. It was the most intimidating look she could muster. “Nobody’s going to save you,” Vanilla Ice said slowly, manifesting an icicle from ambient water vapor. “And we both know it.” Kraber It would have been simply rude for the universe or Kraber Frank not to respond to a challenge like that. Kraber hadn’t seen the point of the sledgehammers the Reavers carried. Sure, they looked cool. Sure, they gave an impression of overwhelming force. Sure, it could hit a man like nothing else. Sure, it'd hurt like hell. But one slow, devastating hit was probably inferior to something lighter and smaller. Like an axe or a baseball bat. Or even a medieval maul, which actually looked slightly more like a golf club than a fearsome warhammer. Still, he saw the appeal at this moment. “VANILLA ICE!” Kraber yelled, raising the sledgehammer. The newfoal looked away from Heliotrope, confused. “Huh?” “YOU’RE ABOUT TO BE…” Kraber paused, and lowered his voice. “Under pressure.” “That don’t make a lick of se-” the newfoal started, almost indignant. And then, quicker than Kraber knew was possible, he slammed the sledgehammer down on Vanilla Ice’s skull. KRANCH “AAAAAAAAAAIIEEEEEEERGK!” There was a wet, meaty, thumping, crackling sound, and a dull clunk as the stallion’s head abruptly impacted the floor. Blood and other fluid, possibly the remains of an eye, oozed from under the head of the hammer, dripping onto the linoleum. And, most importantly, Vanilla Ice’s horn looked crushed. Well, Kraber wasn’t sure, but going by the place the head of the hammer had hit, there probably wasn’t much horn left. The newfoal twitched slightly. So Kraber twisted slightly and kicked him in the back of the skull. The newfoal wheezed slightly, his mouth opening... and closing on the bottom shelf of one of the aisles. “MMMMRPHM!” the newfoal yelled, the bloody ruins of his horn looking to glow ever so slightly... ‘I don’t know what that is, but it can’t be good!’ Kraber thought, raising the hammer over his head and stomping down on Vanilla Ice’s lower leg. “GRAAAAA-” He slammed the hammer down on the newfoal’s skull. And he… Well, there was no easy way to put it. But he exploded. More blood than Kraber knew a newfoal could have splashed up into his face, covering the front of his body. The mostly-headless corpse slumped, and went still. Firewhirler was silent for a few seconds. “Another one bites the dust,” Kraber said, tossing the hammer to the side. “Was that a reference?” Heliotrope asked, confused. Idle “Feel the hammer, shitbags!” Idle yelled, grinning wildly behind his helmet. He fired the SHO once, then again, then again, blowing away PER members left and right. He heard the heavy cannon of the APC going off behind him, giving him covering fire. “Idle,” Bentham’s voice came in over the radio. “They’re pulling back into the buildings. Don't wanna have to start blasting through people’s homes here, boss.” Idle swore. “Right, then. Get the APC through to a different position. Take up a position across from the school, start shooting up the PER hunkering down opposite.” His radio crackled. “Spotter One? Odinson Three. Spotter One, you out there?” Idle tapped the radio. “This is Spotter One, I copy you Odinson Three. What's up Preston?” “Callsigns, Idle,” the other man reminded him with an audible sigh. “Am moving to engage hostile forces. Need backup.” Idle cursed. “Copy that, Odinson Three. I've got… well, me, a driver and a gunner.” Preston was silent for a moment. “Just send someone. I'm leaving half of my team guarding HVC’s. Heliotrope She pulled herself back to her hooves, slightly dazed, and looked at the ruined mass of flesh and bone that had been Vanilla Ice’s skull. It was probably one of the most brutal deaths Heliotrope had ever seen from a newfoal, and that was saying a lot. The newfoal lay on the floor, its skull a pulped ruin. It’d been a terror of the battlefield. It’d made a mockery of bullets. It’d had them all on the ropes. And Frank had crumpled its head in with a sledgehammer. Which was a refreshing change of pace from how anomalous newfoals usually went - inflicting unspeakably massive casualties, and requiring huge amounts of backup to kill. ‘I’m beginning to think,’ Heliotrope thought, staring at the bloodstained German Afrikaner Scotsman, ‘that we need to hire this man.’ “You saved my life too,” Heliotrope said, looking up to Frank. “Now we’re even,” Frank said, a smile on his face. “Don’t worry about being even,” Heliotrope said. “I wouldn’t have even said you owe me. Tell you what, let’s just be happy that we’re both alive.” Frank shrugged, a slight grin on his face. “That’s doable.” And then she heard a shriek. A couple feet over, she could see Firewhirler, screaming in horror at Vanilla Ice’s corpse. Her gaze tracked from Frank all the way towards the flaming newfoal. She was shuddering slightly, and Heliotrope had to wonder: Does this one feel grief? “I can't believe it, he's-!” Firewhirler yelled. “He's gone! You monsters, do you have any idea what you've done?!” Or just grief filtered through the lens of anger? Heliotrope wondered. “I honestly thought it was kind of self-explanatory,” Frank said, drenched in blood and bits of brain. “Whatever,” Firewhirler said, and Heliotrope saw newfoals everywhere. Fluttering above the aisles, filtering through them. Some of them looked to be armed with proper weapons like hoof blades, others held blunt instruments and knives in their TK fields, and others had bandoliers of potion vials. “Now do me a favor,” Firewhirler said, “and die.” ‘Oh, shit,’ Heliotrope thought. “Now…” she looked the newfoals over. “Whoever you were before, I’m sorry for what I’m about to do.” With a mighty yell, she dashed towards one of the aisles, wing blades and hoof blades extended, SMGs firing. It was impossible for her not to hit something. Newfoal limbs, blood, and weaponry streamed out all around her. Her body and wingtips screamed in protest, every limb in her body save for possibly her forelegs felt like it’d been punched about twenty times over. Kraber “COME ON JOU FOKKIN’ PRICKS!” Kraber yelled, following behind Heliotrope. He held one assault rifle in each hand, nestling the stocks in his armpits. It was a stupid tactic, and removed any semblance of precision. But at this range - if he could call it range - then there was pretty much no way he could miss. His weapons roared in time with Heliotrope’s, and the two of them screamed at the top of their lungs as they forced their way through the newfoals. “ALMOST THERE!” Heliotrope yelled to nobody in particular as she did a barrel roll, one wing blade slitting the side of a newfoal’s throat. He stumbled. “FOK!” he yelled, looking down to see a large earth pony throwing itself against his knee. “You can’t kill me, I’m already dead tomorrow!” it yelled. Kraber lowered the Kalashnikov slightly, and the earth pony’s skull vanished. Going by what Heliotrope had said - her apology - the existence of newfoals saddened her. This wasn’t how it worked for Kraber. That these goddam fokkin things, these miserable little half-people with tattered little bits of mind left in them had once been people? That they were trapped in what looked for all the world like an endless nightmare, without even the sweet release of death? It didn’t quite make him sad. “GYAAAAAAAAA-” Kraber yelled, and drove a boot up into a newfoal’s face. He felt something crack, then barely-perceptibly give at the tip of his boot. It staggered back, and Kraber pushed forward, guns both blazing. A pegasus newfoal shot forward towards him, a knife in its mouth. Kraber headbutted it out of the air. A green earth pony newfoal rushed him again - the only fokkin’ thing the mompie varknaaiers could do - and Kraber let loose the last four rounds or in the Kalashnikov. It was like an inexperienced anatomy student had been let loose on the newfoal. As it jumped up towards him, its limbs flew off the body, lightly trailing blood through the air. No, the existence of newfoals didn’t make Kraber sad at a time like this. It made him absolutely fokkin’ livid. “I’M SCREWIN’ INVINCIBLE AND FOKKIN’ YOUR MUM!” Kraber yelled, and threw the spent rifle at another pegasus. It dropped to the ground, not overwhelmed by the weight but definitely surprised. Which didn’t necessarily make a lot of sense, but nobody would ever accuse Kraber of being good at directing his anger. He grabbed an axe off a nearby shelf. “FOK JOU!” he roared, and drove the head into a unicorn newfoal’s skull, just in front of their horn. Sylvia’s rifle - the ACR - hung off of one shoulder, its magazine spent. At this range, reloading would only get him killed. So he pulled out his .45 in his right hand, axe in his left hand. A pegasus newfoal flew for Heliotrope, and Kraber’s pistol punched through one of its wings, sending it spiralling for the linoleum floor. “JOU THINK JOU CAN FOKKIN’ TAKE THIS?!” Kraber yelled, as he neared the entrance to the store. He plunged the axe downwards into an earth pony newfoal that looked like it could’ve been a child, then kicked another in the throat. It tumbled backwards, wheezing, coughing up blood. “FOKKIN’ KILL!” Kraber yelled, twisting around and snapping off two rounds, both of them finding home in a newfoal mare’s skull. He couldn’t tell what kind of pony, but they were dead. It probably didn’t matter. “NOOOOO!” a pegasus mare screamed, rushing at Kraber. “I WON’T LET Y-” “MORE!” Kraber yelled again, and blocked its face with his axe. The axe broke into splinters, the head tumbling tail over teakettle into the darkness of the store, leaving Kraber with only a sharp, pointy wood stick. The axe had gotten off favorably compared to the newfoal. With a grunt of irritation, Kraber plunged it into a nearby newfoal, firing his pistol wildly, almost randomly. The door was about eight feet away. “FRANK!” Nny yelled distantly. “RUN FOR THE WINDOW!” Kraber looked at the window. Saw Fiddlesticks spinning up her saddle minigun, Nny with the Penetrator. And another fokkin’ pegasus at the window! “OUTTA MY WAY!” Kraber yelled, firing the .45 wildly behind him at nothing he could see. Still, he was probably hitting something. The pegasus rocketed towards him, and Kraber found himself smirking, despite the fatigue. The pain all over his body. The fact that his lungs were struggling for air. So he jammed the remains of the axe into the newfoal’s eye. By the time he got to the window, he could hear Nny and Fiddlesticks hosing down the store, Fiddlesticks’ massive weapon buzzing as it spat out lead in tandem with the dull pneumatic THUP of Nny’s gun. “LATER, FOKSUCKERS!” Kraber yelled as he vaulted through the shattered window. He landed awkwardly on the sidewalk below, one knee not quite stable on the concrete. He turned back to the store window, flashing it a middle finger. Then, for a second, he hurt. All over. Am I dying?! he thought. Nah, I’d probably feel if I was dying. There was a purplish-pink blur just in front of him, flickering steadily…! “Frank?!” it asked. “Frank?!” Heliotrope! “Oh thank God,” Kraber said, pulling himself to his feet. Never in my life thought I’d be this glad to see a pony… “You… I thought they were gonna take you there,” Heliotrope said. “I’m glad you’re okay.” “I’m glad you’re okay too,” Kraber said, leaning against a pickup truck. He winced, slightly. Later. I’ll deal with that later. It’s not that bad... He looked over to Nny and Fiddlesticks. At the rate they were going, there probably wasn’t going to be much store left. Each of them was chopping away at the store with their oversized weaponry, the rounds punching through the wood like it wasn’t even there. “Thing was a monster,” Heliotrope said, and Kraber saw just how tired she looked - her wings slumped to her sides, her mane lank and matted with sweat. “Damn right,” Kraber said, reaching for one of his spare mags and fitting it in the ACR’s magwell. “Now all we gotta do is-” The hardware store vanished. Okay, it was more like an explosion. One minute, there’d been a small-town hardware store. The next, there was a raging inferno several stories higher than the actual store, the flames looking to almost eclipse the stars. “Fokkin’ really?!” Kraber yelled. “CAN’T I GET A FOKKIN’ MOMENT OF REST?!” Heliotrope and Kraber shared a Look. “I’m guessing that means retreat,” Kraber said. Heliotrope running for the main street of the town behind Heliotrope before she could even say yes. Which was okay, because Kraber was following behind her. They made their way to the main drag of the town, gasping. Nny had a nasty gash on his forehead, and blood was running down Fiddlesticks’ foreleg. “That backup,” Fiddlesticks said, her legs wobbling slightly as she stared at the burning remnants of the store, “Would be much appreciated round now.” Firewhirler flew out of the flames, somewhat worse for wear. One eye was missing, and her left rear foreleg was half as long as it should have been. But Kraber could plainly see the hate in her remaining eye. “For the love of God,” Kraber sighed, not sure if he was angry, tired, or both, “Can she just. Fokkin’. DIE?!” Aegis “Where are we going?” he found himself asking. “To the school,” the Albino said. “Right between the Reavers and PER?!” Aegis asked, forcing an artificial calm into his voice. “Yes,” the Albino said. “You act like this is new to you.” “I…” Aegis shook his head. Admittedly no. It wasn't. Didn't mean he liked it, though. “Besides, it's not our place to fall,” the Albino added. “If it was, we would've both been hit.” For a second, her eyes narrowed and she motioned for Aegis to follow. He did, and why wouldn’t he? She was just… she was in motion, that was as best Aegis could explain the way he absolutely knew he had to follow her. They stood between the walls of one house and a fence. THOOM Something impacted the road behind him. The hell was that?! A spell of some kind, probably, human artillery doesn’t usually feel so… Aegis shook his head. He couldn’t think of the words. “Still, you must use due caution,” the Albino said, trotting around to the back of the house. “Come.” “Why are you doing this?” Aegis found himself asking. “You’re obviously…” he searched for the word. “Powerful. The kind of powerful we don’t usually get helping the PHL.” “There is a saying about gift horses,” the Albino said blandly. Aegis snorted. “Yeah, well, Celestia was a gift horse for humanity.” “The twisted thing that truly rules the Solar Empire does not share any goals with me,” the Albino said, showing the slightest hint of impatience, the first emotion he'd seen from her. “If you do not wish for my help -” “No, I - no,” Aegis said hurriedly. “I’m sorry, that was beneath me.” “Yes, it was, Claw Hammer,” she told him. “As for why I’m here to help… souls are at stake. Your foals.” Aegis suddenly felt a little… ashamed. “I’m sorry for doubting that, then.” “But not just them,” the Albino said. “Millions are at stake as we speak - human, pony, all the other races that have fled here for a fleeting glimpse of freedom. Not just from the war, no. But from Shieldwall’s designs in the immediate future. I am… arranging things so that this may change.” “How?” Aegis asked. “I cannot tell you.” “Is there a rule keeping you so cryptic?” “Yes. Several,” the Albino said. “I might create a paradox by telling you the unvarnished truth. My being here is nothing to do with you. My interference must be light, if you'll forgive my pun.” “What pun?” “Otherwise my brother will see,” she continued, ignoring him, “and he will take umbrage.” She paused, and looked almost awkward. “My brother is not as... accommodating of you mortal things as I.” Aegis’ felt an inexplicable chill down his spine. “Your brother? Wait, mortal things?!” “Yes,” she said without further acknowledgement. She paused. “One moment.” Suddenly she was behind Aegis, except it wasn't her, but a tall man in a hooded cloak, a shield blocking a hail of bullets from a PER man. The figure lowered the shield and then the PER man, with no warning, turned the muzzle of his submachine gun on himself and blew the top of his skull out. And then the Albino was back where she had been, head tilted in curiosity. “He was just depressed and suicidal anyway,” she said blandly. “This was his first day. His plan was ‘suicide by PHL’. I suspect this is what he wanted.” “Did - did you just shapeshift?” Aegis asked. “What do you think?” the Albino asked, merely smiling blandly. Suddenly another PER member - this one another young woman, barely twenty, with striking black hair streaked in purple - leapt out, trying to tackle the Albino. The Albino, however, didn't budge, and the girl simply landed in a heap at her hooves, the Albino looking down at her blandly. Aegis moved to fire - but again, the Albino held up a hoof, as the girl looked up at her. For a moment, the two’s eyes met, the girl’s brown eyes and the Albino’s red ones. “My God,” the girl whispered softly. “No,” the Albino replied with a smile. “Not quite.” “What I did…” the girl said, “what I almost did…” “You have done nothing, yet,” the Albino cut her off, placing a hoof on her shoulder. “They lied to you, lied to themselves, as is their wont, but you have the chance to survive today.” She motioned to some of the wrecked buildings nearby. “Hide among the ruins, and surrender to the Reavers when you are done. You will find a purpose.” The girl sobbed. “But - but I -” “Trust me,” the Albino said softly. “Do as I have bade, and I will remember you.” The girl’s expression brightened slightly, and with a hurried whisper of thanks she turned and ran off. Aegis frowned. “You let her go?” “It was her first day, too,” the Albino replied. “Sometimes all that is needed is a course correction. Had I chosen, many could have been inspired to choose a better path.” Aegis frowned. “Then why didn’t you?” The Albino gave him a bland expression. “Which path is more noble - the wrong one you choose, or the right one chosen for you?” “But you could have helped us!” Aegis said. “If… if whatever you are, you have the power to… do these things… you…” The Albino’s expression didn't change, but Aegis felt the air almost chill, and for a moment the shadow of something taller and more menacing seemed to stand behind the Albino, almost making Aegis quail. “I am not your shepherd, Little Pony,” she said, her voice almost imperceptibly changed, yet more authoritative. “The matters of you mortal things are beneath my consideration. My business is my own. I go where I wilt. I act as I must. That my path takes me through this place is a stroke of fortune, and it is not a gift horse you should seek to look in the mouth further. Do not,” she finished, the shadow deepening, “take me for some conjurer of cheap tricks.” And with that, the shadow faded out of existence and she carried on, Aegis following. The big pony, despite the shadow vanishing and the unassuming mare carrying on, was still freaking out. He was now entirely convinced that he was dealing with something far beyond his experience, and that was not something he knew how to react to. Heliotrope “Oh, like the Empire would ever be that kind,” Nny muttered. Kraber Frank cracked a brief smile at that. Fiddlesticks made a quick chuckle. And Heliotrope stayed silent, her guns trained on Firewhirler. “Oh, once was enough. I froze to death out there, you know!” Firewhirler said, apropos of nothing. “But Shieldwall ensured I’d be warm forever. That I’d burn for my Queen… I suppose this is excruciating, but knowing that I burn for my Queen is enough!” “I didn’t leave any woman to die out there,” Johnny C said, squinting through the HV Penetrator’s red dot sight. “She’s lying.” “Oh, but I wasn’t a woman before,” Firewhirler smirked. “Shieldwall fixed me. Made me more… fitting to Equestria.” Heliotrope saw something flash in Fiddlesticks’ eyes. It was impossible for Heliotrope to believe that Fiddlesticks wasn’t saying something along the lines of “Oh, shit.” Firewhirler laughed uproariously. “That’s right. Take that away, remember the fire…” Heliotrope didn’t know what that meant, but she could guess.  About one of the party members of the Alaska Eleven who hadn’t come back with Nny and Fiddlesticks.  And here this former man was, a pegasus mare wreathed in fire. She didn’t charge them. She didn’t burst into flames. Somehow that was scarier. She snapped her neck towards Nny, the movement entirely too quick. “Johnnyboy,” she said. “Joanna. Whatever you like to call yourself. I know what you do in your spare time. I know how happy it makes you. If you’re a newfoal, you can do it! You’ll be one of our playmates, you and the other human? Don’t you want to be pretty just like us? You’ll be happy all the time! Just like us! Just like us!” The look of fear on Nny’s face didn’t change, but his voice still rang clear: “Does every plea for me to ponify myself have to sound like it’s from a fetish comic?” “Yeah,” Fiddlesticks said. “It’s honestly getting kind of cliche at this point.” Frank looked to Heliotrope, pure confusion on his face. She just shrugged, eyes wide, in a posture that simply screamed ‘Hell if I know, Nny’s weird.’ Frank seemed to accept this, going by his shrug. Even Firewhirler looked confused at that. “No matter,” she said, after a brief pause. “I’m going to…” She started tuning it out almost immediately. Newfoal speeches had a higher success rate of causing natural-born ponies to kill themselves from sheer boredom, as opposed to humans self-ponifying. “Nny,” Heliotrope hissed, “If you’re going to nail her with the Penetrator, do it soon!” “I’m out of Penetrator ammo,” Nny said, looking scared. Haunted. “I think we’re-” “I knew it! You’re out! You’re FINISHED,” Firewhirler said, almost hungrily. “You humans, you’re not worth even ponification. The two Betrayers, I’ll burn them to cinders! And I’ll burn it all for Shieldwall, incinerate every last human down to the LAST! STRIP! OF! D! N! A! Preston vs. Third Newfoal Reinforcements? Preston asked, as he looked towards the helicopter. Then: Oh no. That was not a Reaver helicopter. Kraber And then they heard it. The sound of rotors whipping side to side, and the distant beat of… music? Nny laughed. It was a deep, throaty belly laugh that sounded for all the world like a supervillain’s cackle. “Huh?” Firewhirler asked. “What’s that?” “That,” Nny said, “would be the cavalry.” The music grew louder, and Nny was still laughing. “GET DOWN!” Kraber and Heliotrope found themselves yelling, and they dove to the sides of the road, behind cars. Nny and Fiddlesticks followed Heliotrope. Kraber watched in awe. He could swear he heard a crackling sound, could smell something like ozone… Everything went purple for a second. There was a crackling, violent BOOM, then a high-pitched noise not quite unlike hammers against metal cords in a windstorm.  The air whipped over their heads, smacking into their faces… then abruptly reversed, rushing back into the void. A red mist - far more blood than Firewhirler seemed possible to hold, but it wasn’t like Newfoals played by regular biology rules - sprayed out from her. Firewhirler stood there. Sort of. There wasn’t much left of her. All the flesh on one side of Firewhirler’s body had been flayed away, down to just fractions of millimeters above the bone in some cases, and straight through them in others. Electricity crackled over her. I can see her organs, Kraber thought. Oh, they’re burnt. That’s… It was not that Kraber was grossed out. He’d caused plenty of wounds like this. It was just that this level of destruction was kind of new on him. He’d never expected to see intestines that were burnt, with visible holes dripping blood and other fluids down to the pavement, reddish steam wafting up from the holes. This is pretty fokkin’ brutal, Kraber thought, not quite approving and not quite disgusted. Daaaamn though. Can I get whatever does this? Firewhirler’s wing was featherless, fleshless, and stood out from her body like a dead tree. Half her skull was scored through to the bone, and there was an orange orb the size of a marble in the empty socket. “NNY! FIDDLESTICKS!” Firewhirler screeched. It was such a painful noise that Kraber’s eyes actually watered to hear it. It made him think of broken glass, vocal cords pulled to the limit like overstretched rubber bands. Like Anka’s voice that time she got the croup just after midnight and he’d realized he needed a hospital, an emergency room, anywhere sterile and safe and drove her there while Kate took care of Peter. Kraber stared at the remains of the newfoal, not quite sure whether or not to use the last mag from his rifle. “YOU LET ME DIE, NNY!” she screamed. It was like laryngitis with the volume cranked up till the knob fell off the machine. “YOU LET ME DIE, YOU SONS OF BITCHES! YOU LET ME DIE! YOU LET ME DIIIIIIII-” Everything went purple for a second, and then the rest of Firewhirler was gone. Her bones exploded outward in every direction, a mist of blood - again, more than she could possibly hold, especially at this moment - wafting outwards. Electricity arced from bone to bone, bouncing against the pavement. “I think,” Nny said, “That was about the most disturbing thing I’ve seen in my life.” “And also the most metal,” Kraber added. Heliotrope glared at him. “No, it was pretty metal,” Fiddlesticks added, staring at the street-sized splash of red that had been Firewhirler. “He’s right.” “Actually, it might be the second-most metal thing we’ve ever seen,” Nny said. “Oh yeah, with the…” Fiddlesticks said. “Yeah,” Nny said, looking down to the mass of gore. “I think I’ve got a good idea of who you were, and I’m so sorry. We would’ve gotten you back if we could, but then we’d all be dead, and… well, then Equestria would have….” The rotors of the helicopter drowned him out before Kraber could hear anything. Kraber looked to Heliotrope, sighing in relief. “Oh, thank God it’s finally fokkin’ dead!” he said, shouting to be heard over the rotors. “Damn right!” Heliotrope yelled back, as the two of them looked up to the helicopter descending to the pavement. Kraber looked up, following her gaze, to see...! “Yael!” Heliotrope yelled, laughing slightly. “Oh, thank God. What kept you?!” It was her. Kraber felt an almost reflexive stab of fear - Oh God, it’s Yael, she’s gonna kill me, she’ll shoot me where I stand!  and was surprised when it left him. A few weeks ago, Kraber might have shot her. But by now he just… well, he just fokkin’ couldn’t. She was the same woman who had gone to synagogue, clearly loved her cousin Nny and his marefriend, (maybe?) and been nice enough to Kraber under his assumed name that he couldn’t muster any hatred towards her at this point. Military personnel - none of whom were from any outfit Kraber could recognize - poured out from the helicopter. He could see another chopper not far behind it. “I can’t believe this thing took two blasts from a Type-8,” Yael sighed, stepping out from the helicopter. Kraber couldn’t recognize the model. “Why do these things have to be so hard to kill?” Kraber, Heliotrope, Fiddlesticks, and Nny looked at each other and laughed hysterically. “I miss something?” Yael asked.