Chapter Thirty-Five: Date with Destiny
“These are demons I have to face alone.”
I glanced up at the front entrance of Crossroads. Repair efforts were already underway, and the dead had been buried by their friends and loved ones. The zebra prisoner was remaining in his cell for the time being, the rest of us preparing for Xena’s and my departure.
Our friends had insisted on seeing us off. As had the Sheriff.
“And you’re really sure you don’t want us to come with you?” Moon Blossom asked. “Again, that’s a lot of bad guys for just the two of you.”
“We’ve gotten better at it,” I pointed out, checking over my assault rifle for any damage or malfunction. “We’ll figure something out. Play it smart and safe.”
“Just don’t get killed. I don’t want to be stuck in this place.”
“What’s wrong with ‘this place’?” Spring Haze asked with a frown.
“Nothing. Just didn’t plan on retiring a couple weeks into this ‘search for redemption’ bullshit I’ve got going on.”
“We shall be fine,” Xena assured our friends. “I know Xaro, and I know the Remnant. They are as arrogant as they are fanatic, outsmarting them may not be hard.”
Just don’t jinx us there, dear.
My rifle was good, and I hope the rest of my equipment gathered. Altrix had made sure we had a plenitude of healing potions, Med-X and whatever other medical supplies we’d need for the road ahead. I was glad for that, taking down this camp with only two of us was going to be rough. We needed everything we could get…
“Worst comes to worst, you could always lead the Steel Rangers to them, let them sort it out,” Cobalt stated. “I know Stripe wants this done all personal and whatnot. But it’s something to think about, no point getting yourselves killed over this.”
“As I said, we’ll figure something out,” I responded, slinging my saddlebags onto my back and securing my assault rifle. “Besides, after this morning they’re going to be hurting. What better time to hit them?”
“Just be careful…” Altrix asked quietly.
“We will,” Xena assured the changeling, offering her a small smile. “But I’m sure the town could use the help you will bring. The scars will be seen for some time.”
“You’re not wrong, we lost some good people today,” Spring Haze agreed. “Hell, I’d be coming with you to make sure it doesn’t happen again. But I don’t think they can spare me. Besides, Altrix and I have plans!”
“That sounds… lovely,” the changeling muttered uncertainly.
Here’s hoping changelings can’t be talked to death.
“But we’ll all be here when you get back,” the Sheriff continued. “Don’t worry about a thing, just look after yourselves out there.”
“We will,” I said to the kirin. “Stripe, you good?”
“I have all I need,” she confirmed, glancing down the street and closing her eyes a moment as she let out a slow sigh. “Let’s go. Before I… decide against it.”
She clearly wasn’t looking forward to facing her brother. I’d never exactly been close to my family, and being an only child… Well, I was having a hard time imagining just what she must be feeling. But it wasn’t a good feeling, that’s all I needed to know.
I placed a hoof on her shoulder, giving her cheek a small nuzzle before turning back to the rest of our friends one final time.
“Try not to start anything without us. We’ll be back in a day or two.”
“Just get moving,” Cobalt said. “And be fast. We have a hub to look through.”
“We wouldn’t miss it.”
And with that, we started to walk. And as we did, my E.F.S. gave out a small ‘ping’ that only I heard as a new map marker appeared alongside a few words in my vision.
Find Xaro and the Zebra Remnant.
Xena kicked open the fire escape, the doorway leading us out onto a metal balcony with a rickety staircase leading down to the street below. We were making good progress towards Platinum Plaza, even though I had almost gotten turned around once or twice due to there being two markers on my Eyes Forward Sparkle now. Good thing I spotted an option on my PipBuck to turn the one for the MAS hub off for a little while. At least until we dealt with Xena’s brother.
I mean… would he be my brother in law? I know we’re not married, but given how few marriages even occur in the modern world does that really…?
You know what? Not thinking about it. At all.
We descended down the staircase and back out onto the street, circumventing one of the many rubble barricades turning the city into some kind of elaborate maze. Is it even worse here than in Manehatten, or is it just me?
Whatever the case, we had to press on. The day was passing by fast, and while I’m sure getting through Vanhoover would have been a quick breeze back in the day, in the present it was a long and tedious trek through all kinds of filth and decay.
We both knew that radroach infestations were the least of our concerns in this place.
“A sign for the plaza,” Xena noted, pointing up at an old and bent street sign that was still just legible. “We are getting close.”
“Then the Remnant will probably be around here too,” I mused. “I don’t like being out in the streets. They could spot us out here, no problem.”
She hummed, stopping at an intersection and glancing down both directions. One road led on directly ahead while another branched right, while the map marker was leading diagonally between both directions. Either could be the way to go, or even both for all I knew.
Then I glanced up. A nearby rooftop seemed to have some kind of makeshift fortification connecting it to another building in the direction we needed go.
“There’s a bridge between those buildings, it looks like it’s made of scrap,” I pointed out to my marefriend. “Old raider fortifications maybe?”
“It might be a way to traverse the distance without being seen,” Xena concurred. “We should have a look.”
Then it was a plan.
We found that the entrance we chose led into a small shop, the place looking long picked over and probably the location of a shootout or two. Several skeletons littered the floor between the aisles, and there were even a few spent bullet casings still scattered about. No weapons or armour to speak of, though. That probably got looted a long time ago.
We bypassed the remains, heading behind the counter and trying an old wooden door. It swung open when I pushed it, and another glance showed that the lock had been busted.
Lucky for us, I guess.
The doorway led to a flight of stairs leading upwards. It led to what was probably the home of whoever used to own the shop downstairs, but it was just as trashed and long picked over. Still, whatever fighting had gone on here was once again in our favour. The living room and kitchen were dead ends, but when we entered the bedroom, we saw that something had busted down a wall and made an entrance into the room beyond it. Stepping through the hole revealed some kind of storeroom, though most of the shelves and cabinets were bent and twisted out of shape by whatever had crashed through the wall.
Still, it provided us with a way to continue upwards.
From there we quickly located a double backed staircase leading to further floors. The place looked like old offices for all kinds of businesses way back when, all long abandoned and the home to some creature or another at some point in time. We ignored most of it, just heading up as far as the staircase would take us.
When we stepped out onto the top floor, the first door we saw was hanging on a single hinge, blackened and burnt nearly into charcoal. Inside was an old meeting room, a long wooden table spanning most of the room with several tattered chairs strewn around. All the windows were blown out and a whiteboard was toppled over in the corner. One end of the table was completely flattered where the roof had caved in, providing a convenient ramp for rooftop access the raiders who used to call this place home probably used to get in and out.
“Well, that’s how we get up there,” I said, watching Xena as she walked to the row of what used to be window panes and looking out on the street below. “Hopefully that gets us a little closer.”
“Hopefully,” she responded, not turning to look at me.
I sighed, scratching the back of my head as I thought about what to say next. The reason for that? Well… I had a couple questions about the Remnant. And Xaro. Mostly Xaro.
Now, just how was I going to approach the subject…?
“So…” I started, trotting over to Xena and standing alongside her as she continued to look out the shattered window. “Listen, I know it might be a sore subject, but… Xaro. What is he like?”
“Do you wish to know what he is like now? Because it seems self-explanatory,” she deadpanned, and I felt my ears wilt a little at her tone. “Or do you wish to know about the brother I knew before the Legate destroyed all I had?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I… just want to know what we’re going into here. He’s your brother, Xena. Just that fact alone makes me… Well, I’m worried about you. A lot.”
She looked towards me, and slowly a small smile appeared on her face. “I know. And you are likely the only pony I would ever tell of this.”
“I promise I won’t snitch,” I joked half-heartedly.
“I shall hold you to that,” she responded with a chuckle, turning from the window and trotting towards the old meeting table as her smile and humour quickly melted away again. “Things between Xaro and I before the Remnant were… complicated.”
I turned to look at her, slowly returning to her side. “How so?”
“I’ve told you before how my brother always believed so strongly in all the tales of our heritage,” she recalled. “Nightmare Moon. The Starkatteri. All of it. While I was always more… sceptical.”
“I remember,” I said, sitting down onto the cold floor. “That’s why the others joined the Remnant. Us ponies are destined to be crushed, right?”
“Or so he believes,” she replied humourlessly. “It wasn’t always quite so bad, however. While he always believed, his hatred wasn’t always quite so strong.”
I stayed silent, letting her take a moment to collect her thoughts before continuing.
“When we were little, things were better for us. When we travelled the land, and though we had hardships, we made the best of it. We were children after all, we would help our parents collect old cans of food during the day and chase one another for fun at night before sleep. Him being the older of us, I recall Xaro becoming rather protective over me one time when we ran into a particularly large radroach.”
“A radroach? That’s not much of a threat to us, but to a kid…”
“It was fortunate that our father was nearby with his rifle,” she stated. “But even if he always believed, Xaro at the time was far too young to take it so seriously and fanatically. But as our teenage years approached…”
“Things changed,” I noted.
“Yes. He became increasingly eager for stories about the old empire. I believed he desired to be one of the heroes in those tales, carving a path through the enemies of our people. And, perhaps, the prejudices we faced during our childhood helped forge his hatred of ponies.”
“It didn’t for you, though. You call yourself ‘Stripe’ for ponies sake.”
“Hatred comes from all corners, Xaro proves that much. There was no need to perpetuate that cycle further.” She sighed, finally sitting down herself and leaning against the wooden table. “No, I hated it. We’re all survivors in this fucked up world, the past war no longer matters.”
“How did that affect things before Hoofington?”
“Many sibling squabbles,” she answered. “He would argue that it was us versus you, I would argue how pointless it was to even try it. Our parents would have to step in to stop it, they… were always more on the fence. At first.”
She leant back, gazing up at the roof though staring into a thousand miles away.
“But we still loved one another, even as our views began to differ. His symbolism against my practicality, I suppose. Still, despite his increasing aggression, I could temper it and keep him from doing anything too brash in pursuit of ancient tales. Until the Legate.”
“The Zebra Remnant.”
“Yes, but I mean their leader specifically,” she explained, turned from the ceiling and looking me dead in the eyes. “We met him. The Legate himself. A monstrous zebra with a skull atop his head and enough wives to repopulate a village.”
Well… he clearly has an ego.
“It started a normal day, you see. We were heading towards a hub of trade in the region, a town built inside an old shopping centre. Megamart, as unoriginally named as it is, was said to be a prime location for resupply,” she said, and I saw her eyes narrow a little as she recalled the details of that day. “But on the way there we found them. It was a large group of zebra, migrating across the wasteland to a new staging ground. Before we knew what was happening, they had pursued and surrounded us. Father directed us to take cover in a nearby ruin, he was ready to defend us from a force we’d heard was little better than raiders. But then…”
She closed her eyes, blinking back tears.
“He emerged, surrounded by zebras in black barding and with… soulless eyes. How he talked about the old empire, how it was our duty to continue what they left behind. My brother was so easily swayed by his charisma, and it was there that his bitterness towards ponies was formed into a murderous obsession by the Legate.”
“So why did your mother and father join up? You said they were more on the fence on how to feel about my kind, what changed them?”
“Xaro did,” she replied simply. “With the Legate’s support, he professed how it was ponies alone who doomed the world and kept us in this apocalypse. I argued, trying to make them see how blame should be cast all around us. After all, the Equestria Wasteland was created by zebra megaspells. He didn’t listen, compounded by the Legate’s talk about Hoofington being ‘unholy’ and that it and all those within should be purged. Eventually, they were swayed.”
“He also offered you things, right? Knowledge about… what was it you said a little while back?”
“Old martial arts, herbal remedies, and of course even more stories of the Zencori,” she recited.
“And you weren’t even swayed? Not even a little?” I questioned, hoping to Celestia I didn’t offend her with the idea.
“Perhaps a small part of me was,” she admitted, and honestly that surprised me a little. I couldn’t imagine my Xena being tempted the promises of a maniac. “If only to remain with my family. But… the price was too terrible. The Legate preached genocide, no knowledge was worth that.”
She sighed again, gritting her teeth.
“If only my brother had seen that simple truth. But no, his hatred was so true that the Legate’s words soon had him becoming a loyal soldier of his insane cause.”
“How did you even get away?”
“Not by fighting my way out,” she stated. “We were still surrounded after all. And they have tanks.”
They have what?
“I had to feign compliance,” she explained. “We went with them; my brother was so pleased that I was finally ‘seeing sense’ about the evil of Equestrians. Never mind the fact that our family were citizens of this country before entering Stable 3. But once the Remnant chose a location to camp for the night… I left. I took nothing but my rifle and a bag of supplies before fleeing Hoofington as fast as I could.”
“And you made it all the way to Manehatten before they caught up with you.”
“I did. I travelled for months before that happened, practically doing a circuit of Equestria, too afraid to stay in one place but equally looking for that elusive purpose I have now found with you. I believed they would not have searched for one zebra for so long, but I was proven wrong on the day we met.”
“Because they’re people who cannot let go of the past to the extent that they become monsters who’d destroy the future,” I stated, recalling that those were the exact words she’d used to describe the Zebra Remnant after Our Town. “They must really hate you.”
“I’m sure they do,” she said in a low growl. “The feeling is mutual.”
“I bet,” I responded, gingerly raised a hoof and placing it tenderly down onto her shoulder. “I’m sorry if it hurt to tell me, but…”
“I’m glad I did,” she said, smiling and turning to look at me. “It was time you knew the whole story, rather than the fragment I had told you thus far. But there you have it, my life in its completion.”
“Thank you. For trusting me,” I said honestly. “You couldn’t save them from themselves, Xena. There’s no helping the foolish, right?”
“And this world is full of fools,” she agreed, head tilting affectionally down onto my hoof. “Some more than others.”
We remained like that for several moments more, just enjoying each other’s company as I rolled around the new information inside my head. The full story of the mare known as Stripe, all the blanks filled in.
A story we still had to bring to an end.
“It’s close,” I said to her. “We’ll deal with him. Who knows? Maybe we could talk some sense into Xaro?”
“I would not count on it,” she said sadly, pulling away from me and standing up. “As much as I would wish it.”
I also got back up onto my hooves, looking up the makeshift ramp leading up to the roof. Then, wordlessly, I hopped up onto the table and made my way up the steep incline.
When I emerged onto the roof, I saw a whole host of old scrap structures all around us. This place must have been home to some serious raider activity once upon a time. But like the battle-torn buildings below us, everything up here was battered and abandoned.
“I wonder if the Steel Rangers were responsible for clearing this place?” Xena mused as she also made it up on to the roof. “But there is the bridge. Come, Platinum Plaza is just beyond these buildings.”
We made our way past all the old scrapped fortifications and the skeletons of their former owners. When we reached the edge of the rooftop, I placed an experimental hoof on the scrap bridge the raiders had made to see if it would hold. Despite some worrisome creaking, it seemed to do its job well enough.
“Watch my back,” I asked of her, slowly beginning to cross to the bridge until I had made it to the other side.
Once I was safely down on the opposite rooftop, I took a turn keeping an eye on our surroundings as Xena followed me across. Once we were both on the other side, we left the bridge behind the began to traverse past the last of the raider fortifications and go along the rest of the conjoined rooftops ahead of us. My Eyes Forward Sparkle remained clear for the time being, but I was aware of how that could change at any moment as we approached Platinum Plaza.
We followed the rooftops around until we were more in line with where the map marker was wanting us to go. Eventually, we reached a small drop from the roof we were currently on to get to the next one over, and when we did a notification on my E.F.S. popped up to indicate that we had arrived at our destination.
We couldn’t see it yet, as it was just beyond the lip of the building. But we left that for the moment, instead moving towards a jagged hole in the building’s roof that seemed to offer a way down into one of the rooms.
Looking inside, it looked like yet another meeting room. Though it was a tad smaller than the last one and had been far more destroyed when the roof had caved in. There was no ramp up this time, so once we dropped down there was no getting back up again.
We took the plunge.
It was an uncomfortable landing on top of the rubble pile, but we made it. The door leading out into the hall was ajar, and we silently moved through it.
Which was when the first red bar appeared on my Eyes Forward Sparkle.
I stopped, holding a hoof out to indicate to Xena that something was wrong. I shared a glance with her, and wordlessly she seemed to understand what I was suddenly worried about. She drew her weapon as we slowly moved out into the hall and looked around a corner.
The hall led out into a small open lounge area. Two sofas were backed against the wall facing a cracked television mounted opposite. A dead plant sat in the corner, and the final two objects in the room were a small table in front of the sofas and a toppled water fountain. But there, lazily glancing out of an intact window overlooking the plaza below, was a zebra.
This guy must be a sentry, keeping an eye out for any trouble. Judging by the sniper rifle, a model similar to Xena’s, he would be an issue for anypony trying to make a frontal assault.
We would have to deal with them before making our move, starting with this guy.
I guess his post wasn’t exactly an exciting one, given how bored he looked and the way he was idly staring out of that window. But that was his downfall as Xena crept up behind up and cracked him over the head with the butt of her rifle.
“Ouch,” I commented. “If he was going to wake up, that would hurt in the morning.”
“If he was going to waken,” she agreed before finishing the zebra off. “There will be more of them stationed around in the other buildings.”
“We’ll need to circle around, clear them all out one by one without alerting them. If we get spotted, well… this probably won’t go very well.”
“Then let’s not be seen,” she said as if it was the simplest matter in the world. “But on the topic of seeing…”
She glanced out of the window the zebra had been looking out of, and I trotted over to join her.
This… was going to be hard.
The plaza was a large square area surrounded entirely by buildings. It had no roads or open paths lead to it; the only access was through the ground floors of the buildings around us. Overgrown hedges littered the area, and in the middle was a marble gazebo containing the statue of a beautiful unicorn mare adorned in royal regalia.
Tents had also been set up across the plaza. Many seemed to serve specific functions, I could already see one that looked like an armoury, a bulky zebra stallion working on one of their weapons there.
They also had guards across all entrances to the plaza. And besides them, every single zebra inside the camp was already armed. In all, in the plaza itself, I would guess there had to be around fifty legionnaires.
“Not to say this was a bad idea, but how are we going to take all of them on without the rest of our friends?” I asked her a little incredulously. “Taking out the snipers will be a start, sure. But then what?”
“I would imagine they came here with a hundred in number. We should be thankful to the Steel Rangers for killing so many,” she said, always looking on the bright side as she drew her sniper and peered through the scope.
I sighed, taking a seat on one of the sofas as I attempted to bleed out my rising frustration. “At least tell me you see something good.”
She hummed scanning the area through her scope. “They appear to have plastic explosives down there, stacked near the armoury. The kind they would have used to make a hole in Crossroad’s wall.”
“Explosives. Great.”
“We could use those?”
I groaned, closing my eyes as I tried to formulate a plan. I mean, if I could somehow steal their explosives and plant them all around the camp. But how would I even…?
Ah!
I shot up and whipped open one of my bags! Rummaging through it with the help of my PipBuck’s inventory spell, I quickly located and extracted the StealthBuck I had recovered in Buckingham!
“See? We may yet have a chance,” Xena said a little smugly, before turning back to her scope. But the way her smile then fell… I didn’t like that one bit. “Oh.”
“Oh?” I asked as I trotted back over to the window. “What did you see?”
“Him.”
I frowned, looking out of the window and down into the camp. And then I saw him, or at least I believe that had to be him. It was a zebra in ornate armour heading into the largest tent. Having the largest tent must be like how a sea captain in those old books would always have the largest hat. That zebra had to be their leader.
It had to be Xaro.
“It’s okay,” I said tenderly to her as she lowered her rifle in resignation. “We’ll deal with him.”
She was silent, eyes downcast before she released a slow sigh. “We should wait until nightfall, and spend the time waiting by taking out the other sentries. Then we strike.”
“You can do this,” I encouraged her, hoping that my words would at least give her some degree of strength for what we were about to do. “I’m with you.”
Despite it all, she found the will for another smile. “I’m glad you came, Scrap Heap.”
“Yeah, well… I can’t wait to see his face when he finds out he has a pony brother-in-law.”
“He will definitely try to kill you.”
“He can get in line.”
The smile brightened a little, though I could still see the pain in her eyes. But we were here, and Xaro was down there. Tonight, one way or another, Xena’s past troubles would finally be brought to their end.
And I would be right beside her as it happened.
Footnote: Max Level