Chapter 27
Aftermath
“Are we live? We’re live? Great. Hello again faithful viewers and we are sorry for the extended service interruption! I am your host True Faith and you are watching GNN live across all channels! As the fires still burn from skirmishes fought with authorities just outside the capitol building, hundreds of thousands of people have gathered at the Senate Hearing building for what has to be the greatest moment of our lifetimes. As we speak officials from the former NSR are handing authority over to the free peoples of the old republic leaving everyone asking the same question: What will happen now?"
- 3377 E.C.- New Canterlot Summit - As racial tensions continue to rise in the nation, the surviving leaders of the NSR concede all authority to an intermediate council to determine the shape of the new government. All direct hostilities cease but fail to stem the tide of growing dissent in the Empire.

Joe dropped the cleaning rag he was holding in his TK and immediately ran into the back with the clink of bottles and mild cursing following in his wake. It was something like six in the morning by the time we rolled into Joe’s empty bar. The three of us numbly took a few adjacent seats at the counter, tired, pissed off, and generally cranky.

“Did you really have to break open the snapper like that?” Nightshade said, rubbing a slightly swollen spot on her foreleg from where the trap’s manacles had secured. Granted, Jess had shot them open with her stun rifle. If I was Nightshade I would have been pissed too. Not that she didn’t have enough reasons to be pissed at us already.

“Don’t take me for an idiot, Jess. It’s keyed to your WAND. Which you are wearing,” Nightshade replied.

I spit my left wing onto the counter, the metal appendage landing with a solid thunk, drawing both of my companions attention. The limb was in bad shape. I had a hoof shaped dent in the elbow deep enough to punch out one of the inner actuators and the entire assembly was twisted from where I had wrenched it free from its socket. Looking at it, I grimaced.

“Horizon, when I said you were a fighter I didn’t mean go out and get beat up again.” Joe said as he returned, carrying a bottle of rainbow colored fluid and three shot glasses. As he set them down, he stopped, blinking at Nightshade. “Why do I feel like I’ve seen you before… wait. Eightball?”

“Nightshade,” Nightshade corrected, “Although I suppose Eightball might work as well. Eh Clementine?” Nightshade smiled.

“You have no idea,” Jess replied, still nursing the shiner she had gotten during the scuffle. “Got any ice?”

Joe lit his horn and pulled a scoop from under the counter. I didn’t see where he kept the ice, but after a quick motion from his horn and a small plastic bag floating up from further down the row, Jess quickly had an icepack. She nodded her thanks as she pressed it into the bruise and softly hissed.

“Alright you three, what happened.” Joe asked, his voice full of fatherly disapproval.

“Short story, we were stupid, Ahhh,” Jess said easing the ice pack into position.

Joe shook his head, and started pouring the rainbow whiskey. “Ya don’t say. Well, I hope you at least learned somethin,” Joe said, passing the now full shot glasses to each of us.

“Yeah,” I said, taking the proffered drink and downing in it one go. It burned all the way down, with a strange, cherry finish, or was that orange? “Nightshade’s sister is a bitch,”

Nightshade spat her drink, almost dropping the shot glass on the counter while she coughed. “Oh, you have no idea.”

What followed was probably the most unpleasant dressing down I had ever received. Made worse by the fact that Tex used the opportunity to make approving commentary in my head. Thankfully it was a lecture shared with friends. Well, sorta friends. I wasn’t exactly sure what we were now. Indentured servants maybe, complete with death threats from ponies who kill in casual conversation. By the end of it we were all a little shell shocked.

We paid for the drinks and then some, and then sat in silence for a while simply digesting what it really meant to beware the wrath of a quiet buck. We spent a long while in silence, knocking back drinks and generally trying to forget how stupid we all just were.

“You know I can’t say I’ve ever seen you drink,” I said, two thirds of the second bottle later.

Nightshade coughed down her latest shot and slipped the shot glass back onto the counter. Squeezing her eyes shut for a moment before sniffing. “You can thank the bender for that. Can’t mix it with alcohol.”

“Drugs don’t mix, huh?” Jess asked, having abandoned using her WAND for the shot glass and instead cradling it in her fetlock.

Nightshade shook her head, “No, it… Horizon you remember that little cocktail I made you a few weeks back, right?”

I shuddered, “How could I forget,” I said, the mere mention of the syrupy thing made bile rise in my throat. Totally unrelated to the drinking. Totally.

I immediately felt queasy. But again, totally unrelated to the whiskey. The stuff was actually kinda kickass, now that I think about it. The flavor changed with every sip. It was like a new drink with every shot, no wonder Joe was so impatient for it.

Nightshade made a throaty laugh. “It’s an old recipe I got for curing hangovers. I got it off an old accomplice who was part of the Apple family. He called it the sludge vomit. The first time I had it, it took months to get the flavor off my tongue. The original recipe was actually made with some earth pony magic. Then it got banned because the flavor stuck with everything but cider.”

“I haven’t noticed a difference,” I said, cradling my nth shot and questioning my life choices.

Nightshade poured herself another shot. “Story goes that was the first time the family got sued by another brewer,” she said with a smile. “Still, it wears off after a while unless it piggybacks off some other effect. Like the bender.”

“Oh you saw that, huh? Yeah, that’s the booster. I have to take one every now and then to keep up appearances. Literally. Tastes like piss, though.”

“Nah, that’s Aetra’s shtick. She was the socializer in our little duo. I was the trigger,” Nightshade said.

Jess shook her head while downing the rest of her shot, grunting as it went down. “Never thought I’d see the day when I’d drink with an assassin,” she said, setting her shot back on the counter.

Jess frowned. “I have a name to protect. After dad got disgraced, I had to learn to keep my nose clean or else everyone else would start making assumptions. Say what you want about the force, but I have to do my best to uphold the law. Otherwise I just shit all over dad’s memory.”

“Fuck, you too?” Nightshade said actually surprised. “At least you didn’t shoot him.”

“Why do we all have daddy issues?” Nightshade laughed, a moment of silence later.

“Stupid shit, probably,” I replied. “I mean, come on. What are the odds? Three ponies with parental issues?”

“Sadly more common than usual,” Jess replied, “and it’s four if you count Tick.”

“Good luck,” Nightshade said, smirking. “You might want to take the rest of the bottle with you while you’re at it, ‘cause when she sees that wing…”

Joe returned, looking sour. He glanced first at the two nearly empty bottles, then at the rest of us. “You folks sober?” he asked, his tone short.

“Fritter’s not returning my messages, I need yall to check on 'im.” Joe replied, slapping a keycard onto the countertop.

I rang the buzzer, I pounded on his door. we gave him exactly twelve seconds to open it before we started trying the card.

“Fritter? You there? Open the door!” I called into his intercom. There was no response. I felt sick. “We have a card, we’re coming in!” I announced.

The reader beeped as Jess flashed the card over it and the light turned green. A few moments later the door slid quietly open and the three of us piled inside.

We found Fritter on the couch. An empty bottle in front of him, and staring dead off into space. His glazed eyes looked over us for a moment before he slumped back into the seat of his couch and stared dead ahead as if we weren’t even there.

“Whoah, hey there buddy, look at me.” Jess said, sitting down in front of him and gripping his head with both hooves. She started looking over his eyes, and took his pulse “What did you take?”

“Nothin,” Fritter slurred, “Fuck everthn tho. Evythins fucked. Yur fucked, we’re all fucked. I’m fucked.”

With alarm, I noted the house was empty. Nightshade disappeared down the hall. “Where’s Pearl, Fritter?”

“School,” Fritter responded, slightly more alert at the sound of her name, “watchin Nutters. Safer that way. Too bad it dozzn’t madder now.”

Nightshade returned, “Medicine cabinet is full. Whatever he’s drinking it’s just alcohol.”

“And it doesn’t look like he’s anything but drunk on this end,” Jess replied. “Sorry about this in advance by the way,” Jess said, pulling something out of her uniform and slapping it onto Fritter’s neck. Whatever it was, it hissed. Fritter grunted, squinting tightly before burping and coughing.

“Wh--” was as far as he got before he leaned over the side of his couch and barfed on the floor.

Fritter groaned, sounding more and more coherent by the minute. He cradled his head. “Ugh, the fuck was that?”

“That was a neurostim,” Jess replied. “Don’t worry it’ll hurt like a bitch later, I just need you coherent now. What happened?”

Fritter shook his head out, knocking over a bottle in the process. “Gah, fuck,” he said, wobbling in place and nearly falling over. Jess steadied him.

Fritter’s mouth tightened as he sniffed. “I fucked up is what happened. Somepony rang my buzzer early this morning. I got up to check it, and found a visitor standing in my living room.”

A single flap of his wings took him out of his seat, stumbling wildly backwards as Jess tried to pin him back down.

Fritter merely nodded. “Yeah, although seeing you now answers so many questions.” He said, pausing to catch his breath, “and raises so many more. I’m...sorry. I’m sorry for everything.”

Nightshade’s expression remained neutral. “All’s forgiven, more or less. With Aetra hounding your ass now, that’s more than enough punishment for what you all did.”

Fritter squeezed his eyes shut, cursing silently, before hanging his head and sighing. “Punishment is putting it lightly.” With a hoof, he nudged a piece of paper on the table. “Read that,” he said. “It was a little present she left me insidemy nightstand.”

It was a small, neatly folded piece of paper. Jess picked up the piece of parchment, read it twice, and then swore, before hoofing it over for me to read. On it, in elegant, neat mouthwring was a brief message:

“I fucked up,” Fritter mumbled, “I fucked everything up. My guess is she found you when you met with me before...everything. I should have known. Now we’re all fucked.”

Fritter shook his head. “I can’t tell her. I tell anyone who isn’t here about this and I-I’ll lose everything that matters to me. She copied my contacts. I can’t even warn them.”

“I wouldn’t worry about your contacts too much. If anything she’s just going to use them to broaden her own network. They’re compromised, sure, but as long as you keep your nose clean they won’t suffer. You probably got all your dirt on me from her anyway.”

Nightshade shrugged. “What’s done is done, and this was the best outcome for the circumstances. Trust me when I say you don’t want to know the other options. My path hasn’t changed. I’m pissed off, sure, but I’ve had a few hours too cool off, and unleashing my sister on you is more than enough punishment in my opinion.”

Fritter nodded, “She told me to tell you that the ‘King has stalled the plan.’”

Fritter shrugged. “Only that it was strange. She said some important pony gave him an offer he couldn’t resist, just as long as he held off for a time. Or at least that’s what she gathered.”

That got Nightshade’s attention. “Did she say anything else? Anything at all?” she asked.

“Just check-in instructions for me, and something about a goddess, but I didn’t understand.” Fritter said with a sigh.

From the look on her face, neither did Nightshade. Or any of us for that matter.

“Now there’s a terrifying thought,” Nightshade said, “Celestia in the hooves of a despot.”

“Yeah and you’d know all about that, wouldn’t you Jess?” Nightshade chided.

“You’ll be able to tell him yourself in a week or so,” I said. “Estoc invited us to dinner in the NSR. Some celebration feast, or something, now that he’s returned.”

Jess’ eyes went wides as plates as a smile broke over her face. “Really?”

I nodded. “Yeah, that’s half the reason Tex dragged me off to go suit shopping with Tick the other day.” Speaking of which I was supposed to pick that up today, fuck!

Jess’ smile went from euphoric to scandalized. “And you didn’t invite me?!” she crowed.

Fritter gave a tired laugh chuckled. “I hope you ponies never change. Thanks for the pick-me-up. I needed it. I-” Fritter stopped, his eyes screwing up as he suddenly grabbed his head and hissed, “Ah… holy shit that hurts!”

We returned to the ship a little later in the afternoon. Jess went her separate way, stepping off the hangar docks toward her cruiser so she could freshen up a bit while I boarded the Bandit with Nightshade. A distinctly sick feeling crept into my gut as the two of us piled into the airlock and closed the hatch behind us. If Tick was here at all, the next few minutes were not going to be pleasant, especially since I held my broken wing in my mouth. The taste of metal was already getting old, I didn’t need to add the natural variety to the mix too.

I peered into the main access corridor in the airlock porthole, so far, no sign of her. Then again, she didn’t linger above decks very often.

“So what are the odds that I’m going to survive the next few minutes?” I asked Nightshade, as we waited for the pressure to equalize.

Nightshade turned her head towards me. “Knowing Tickintime, about one in a hundred.”

Nightshade replied with a smirk, “odds are lower if you say something stupid, and much better if you turn around now and book the first shuttle back to the PC.”

The airlock sensor beeped and the door opened, admitting us inside. Nightshade went ahead, making a purposeful trot toward the ladderwell while I reluctantly followed behind her. By the time I hit the bottom of the stairs she was already passing Tickintime in her rush to get to the cargo hold, and presumably, her chems. Tick emerged from the cargo hold at the same time, staring confusedly back at Nightshade’s path and looking somewhat conflicted.

She was still staring when she started saying, “Who was that mare and why does she look like, Night...shade?” Tick stared, her mouth freezing in the open position.

I spat my wing onto the ground where it landed with a solitary metal clack. “Hi Tick, I don’t suppose you could fix this could you?”

With a flash of magic she whipped a wrench out of her jumper and roared like a griffon warrior taking to battle. “AAAAAAAH!”

I flinched to the side as said wrench sailed past my ear, impacting off the bulkhead behind me with a loud bang. I spared it only glance before noticing that Tick’s horn was still glowing.

“AAAAAAAH!” Tick’s eyes were twitching as she glared at me from her battle stance, horn crackling with lightning.

I didn’t stay to find out what would happen next. The next second was a literal blur. I was up the ladderwell and onto the airlock, mashing the door control as fast I dared while listening to the the sound of hell and hades pounding their way up the stairs.

The airlock door opened with a hiss, and at a rate that echoed eternity. I scrambled inside, mashing the flush control while Tickintime charged down the corridor, flinging a ball of lighting in my general direction. I wheeled away from the door, just in time to watch the ball zip past me and impact the far wall with a bright flash. The door shut. A clang sounded. Pressure normalized. The light in the airlock flashed from red to green, and then shut off entirely.

“Oh, no.” I muttered, rapidly tapping at the offending bulb and hoping it was just the ship toying with me again. “Oh, mercy please no.” I tapped it again for good measure, and then every light in the airlock shut off. My world became a wash of grays. I whimpered, staring at the offending hatch and scrambling around for the manual release.

A quick glance at the airlock porthole saw Tick’s wickedly smirking face on the other side and holding a severed cable in her magic.

“I am so disgusted with you right now,” Tick said, lightly rapping me on the head with her wrench.

“Fix it! Hah!” Tick said, cranking hard on my back with her wrench while trying to bend a pinion straight. “Do I look like a neurosurgeon to you? You’ll be lucky if I can even get this attached much less working!

“I just can’t believe you! It hasn’t even been a WEEK andIt’s already broken! And for what? because you can’t control you stupid paranoia?!” There was a another hard pull, something deep in my back twinged and I cried out.

Tick held up a hoof to silence me. “No talking. I don’t want to hear an excuse from you right now. You’ll just make me angrier and then I’ll break something. If anything it’ll teach you not to run off into trouble like you’re so prone to do.”

Tick muttered a curse under her breath. “Guh, I don’t have the parts to fix this actuator. It’s twisted too far.” She smacked me hard on the shoulder. “What the hell did this?”

“An earth pony with a temper and plenty of leverage,” I replied. “The alternative was being a stain on the floor.”

Tick grumbled something I couldn’t understand, yanking hard on my still working wing. It didn’t hurt, but the feeling was viscerally uncomfortable. I felt my back clench in places I didn’t even know I had.

My ears must have done the talking for me. “You’re fine. Probably, I’m just trying to figure out how they attached the other wing so I can make this work,” Tick said, “You’re lucky my talent is fixing things, otherwise you could kiss these things goodbye.” Tick said.

“No, I’m an engineer. Although I suppose working miracles is part of the job,” Tick said. “Ah, that’s how they did it. Hold still, this might sting a bit.”

I didn’t have a moment to collect myself before what felt like a lightning bolt shot through my back where my wing used to be. My left side seized as all the muscles clenched and then suddenly the sensation passed. The hollow sensation of my wing returned, or at least, back to roughly where it was before. I waited for Tick to give the go ahead before trying to move it.

“You know you could have been great at the hokey pokey. If you left it as is.” Tick said, as she replaced the casing around my wing joint.

“You know, you put your left wing in, you put your left wing out…” she sang tunelessly.

Tick giggled softly. Before giving the wing a final tap with her wrench. “Okay, I pronounce your wing mostly fixed. You can go ahead and test the range of motion and tell me if you find any hitches. I did what I could, but the fine tuning is beyond me. The ponies who installed this were specialists at the cutting edge of their field, so forgive me if I don’t quite have their level of skill.”

“Yeah, well, you see you’re going to need a lot more routine maintenance after this.” Tick explained. “I don’t have the right parts or the expertise to fix this like new, and from what I can tell, there might have been some damage to the neurofiber connecting the wing to your spine, so I can’t fix the internals there without risking the entire wing. I’m not qualified for that, and I’ve already spent too much money getting you set up with these to risk them on something stupid.”

Tick frowned. “Dumping cash on a problem doesn’t fix the problem, it just makes the problem very expensive. I got you the best because I wanted you to have the best, especially after… nevermind. Just don’t expect me to keep shelling out money to cover your ass. Especially if you keep running headfirst into trouble like this.”

Tick shrugged, in reply. “It’s what I do. Just please try to take better care of them? I don’t want to have to repair your wings like this again. Once is enough.”

“I’m surprised it did so much damage, to be honest. I thought the wings were built to disengage in case of an emergency,” I said, “I know it wasn’t ideal circumstances but...”

“Sure, in a controlled fashion, but not literally ripped out of the socket, and that’s the sort of thing that they’re only supposed to do once.” Tick replied tersely, then shook her head. “Look, I’ve done what I can. Test the wing lightly and if it holds, great, but if it starts to get a little loose you’ll have to get it tightened up again.” Tick shut her toolbox with a clack and sighed. “You know where to find me if you need it.”

“Don’t mention it. No, really.” Tick stood, hefting her toolbox in her magic and heading toward storage. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go find something to help me forget seeing Nightshade swap genders in the cargo hold.”

“A mare walked into the cargo hold, a stallion walked out. I don’t want to know. I just want to curl up with a hard cider and drink enough to stop questioning everything I know.”

“Have you tried Joe’s rainbow whiskey yet? It’s something else,” I replied.

“I think you’d like it. It changes flavor between shots. Weird, but fun,” I said.

Tick looked thoughtful. “Well… maybe I’ll give it a try sometime, just not now. I’ve got too much shit to do.” Tickintime facehoofed. “Oh, geez you ponies are rubbing off on me.”

“So Tex, are you done ignoring me?” I said later that night as I strode up to my apartment.

“Suit yourself,” I replied, slipping my card up against the reader before my front door opened.

You know what you did wasn’t okay. Tex said. I’m really mad at you right now. All of you! How can you ponies just shrug this off as if nothing happened?!

“We’re alive?” I answered, strolling inside. The door shut behind me and I was greeted by an almost familiar dark. The lights in my apartment were off, clearly, but the wash of grays made me feel… I dunno, cozy. I didn’t even bother turning on the lights. If anything I’d be saving a little cash on utilities now that I didn’t really need them. “I’m sure we’ll have plenty of arguments in the future, Tex, After last night I think everypony just needs a little time alone.” I looked at my mostly fixed wing. “I know I do.”

You ponies are weird. My friends would have never stood for that. They would at least be hurt, and that would make me feel awful.

So I did. I took off my WAND, took a shower and went to bed. I slept like the dead. The next week came faster than I would have liked.
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The Stars Beyond The Veil

by Charlemane

27 - Aftermath