A Long Journey

by Y1

Prologue: A Horse

Shifting uncomfortably, Spike lazily tried to get whatever it was that was digging into his back to stop. Finding it impossible to get back to sleep he began clumsily groping behind himself for whatever the thing was. He yelped and sat bolt upright when something slid across the skin on his arm, leaving a deep cut. Holding his arm in front of him he began to gingerly touch the wound as an unusual thought entered into his head.
Skin? Why would I have skin?
Spike blinked.
Why wouldn’t I have skin?
Looking around he realised he couldn’t see and felt around himself, trying to figure out where he was. Standing up on something unsteady, Spike banged his head against a roof of some sort. Spike rubbed his head and noticed a bit of light seeping in through the cracks around the edge of the “roof”. Pushing at the ceiling raised it, and he realised that it wasn’t a roof but a lid. Once the lid was all the way open, he stood to his full height (not very high for an eight year old boy) and examined his surroundings. Apparently Spike had been sleeping in a dumpster. This raised one important question.
How the hell did he fall asleep in a dumpster?
This is weirder than that time I woke up with a lampshade on my head… Wait… I don’t remember that. When did I ever wake up with a lampshade on my head?
Climbing out of the dumpster, Spike headed out of the alleyway and onto the road. Scratching the side of his head, Spike wondered what city this was. Everything in sight was abandoned and crumbling. It was all collapsed buildings, cracks in the road and not a soul to be seen. Spike wandered down the abandoned road for a while until he came across a faded orange backpack lying abandoned in the middle of the street. Bending over and picking it up, Spike opened it and found some clothes inside. A cold shiver made Spike remember he was naked, and, suddenly feeling vulnerable, he put the clothes on. They were a bit too big for him, but fit well enough that he didn’t feel uncomfortable. Pulling out a jumper, Spike noticed a tag with a name written on it.
'Samuel Everson.'
Shrugging Spike put the jumper back in the bag and shouldered it. Looking around he wondered why there was no one around.
Why would anyone be around?
Helplessly shrugging once more, Spike set off in search of answers.

The shovel barely impacted the clay-like soil it was being slammed against. It wasn’t important though. This hole would be dug no matter how long it took, and it was taking a long time indeed. Philomena had started at sunrise, and the scorching sun had now achieved its apex. The sweltering heat had forced her to stop long enough to erect a shade over her head with a tarp and some tent poles before resuming her digging. Eventually that wasn’t enough and Philomena was forced to take off some layers to help regulate her body heat. Though she still kept her sunglasses and the grey rag wrapped around her face.
Normally Philomena wouldn’t bother digging into hard clay when there was perfectly good sand just twenty metres in another direction, but she didn’t care about practicality right now. Damn logic, and damn her own needs. The dead deserve respect, and this was someone that she was going to give all the respect she could. (Even if that respect was a hole that was less than six feet deep in the middle of the desert, and a gravestone that was just a vaguely flat chunk of granite she’d carved into with her combat knife. It had taken a long time to carve too.)
The sun was setting as she finally climbed out of the hole. It was deep enough that it was over her shoulders, so she had to struggle to pull herself out. Normally doing something like that would be easy, being as fit as she was, but after working that shovel all day, her hands were raw and her arms were tired. Still, she got out of the pit and stood there a second panting to help catch her breath again. After a minute of putting it off, she walked out from under the shade over to the black Humvee parked nearby and opened the boot of the car. There he was: zipped up in a military issue khaki brown body bag. Picking him up and slinging the man over her shoulder, Philomena grunted at the weight. He’d never been a large man, but Philomena herself was short in height and small in frame. Simply moving him across the handful of metres that separated him from the hole she’d dug was an effort, especially after digging all day.
Arriving at the hole and laying him down beside it, she gently turned him to face upright. Slowly drawing down the zipper so that his face was visible, Philomena looked at the man with her eyes burning with tears. Lowering the grey rag that concealed the bottom half of her face, she choked back a sob. With her mouth and nose bare, the smell of ten hour old corpse consumed her senses, but she ignored it and the gag reflex that was kicking at her stomach.
The sweltering heat, and stay in the body bag had not done the man justice. His eyes were a milky white, and his skin had turned a waxy yellow. But despite that Philomena could see many of the features that made him the man he was in life. The frown lines on his forehead remained, his hard jaw, that salt and pepper beard, a slight crinkle around the eyes and a scar on the bridge of his nose; they all reminded Philomena that this was him.
Unbidden, the words he had said with such passion entered into her mind: 'We are more than just a collection of cells that cling together for mutual survival, and more than just proteins hitching a ride on the back of a rock floating through space. We are more than just the base chemicals we decompose into upon death. We are people, and we are so much more than the sum of our parts.'
Leaning forward and gently kissing him on the forehead, Philomena sat back and zipped the bag up again.
She pushed the bag into the hole and flinched at the sound of a bone breaking from the drop. Standing up and wiping tears from her eyes, she returned the grey rag to her mouth and began shoveling dirt back into the hole. Filling the hole was much easier than digging it had been, and she was finished in short order. Philomena turned and went to the truck to pick up the rock she was using as a grave stone. Walking back to his resting place, she settled it above the freshly tossed earth.
It had taken hours to carve the gravestone using just a combat knife. It simply read:

Philomena stood and disassembled the tarp she’d set for shade before returning all the tools she’d used to their rightful place in his car. Hers now.
Standing over the grave one last time, she tried to think of a eulogy for herself and him but couldn’t. Eventually she settled for a promise.
Speaking in the quiet almost-whisper of a voice he’d always stopped to listen to, she began. "Don’t worry, Elijah," her voice cracked on his name. "I’ll find her. I’ll find your daughter, and I’ll make sure she’s safe… and I’ll tell her that you’re sorry…" she swallowed. "I promise."

The smoke was the first Rachel ever saw of the fire; a great black pillar of ash rising into the air, choking out the night sky. At first she thought it was unfortunate. Some poor soul had accidentally set fire to their home. But as she approached the turn off to the street leading to her house, she noticed that the smoke was coming from a home very near to hers. That was when she started to think that maybe it would be best to hurry home and aid whoever it was with the fire. If it spread it might be bad for her.
Breaking into a jog, Rachel ran up the hill towards her home. Manehattan was as nice a city as you could hope to find in Badworld. Luna Industries did an excellent job keeping the metropolis that they owned running smoothly, so she was unsurprised to see several fire crews standing around dousing the blaze. At least they would have been standing, if they weren’t all dead and lying in pools of blood mingling with the water running from the unmanned, still spraying, fire hoses.
Rachel froze in place and she stared in open mouthed horror. It took a few seconds for her to process that everyone was dead, and a few seconds longer for her to notice that the fire was coming from her own home.
"Bella!" she shrieked and ran past the corpses towards her home. It was far too late for her to do anything; the heat radiating from the building alone was enough to keep her away from it. Unable to get closer than a couple of metres, Rachel backed up and could only watch as her home burned down.
This was her home. The place she’d lived in for years. Her mother, her father and her younger sister Bella all lived here. Now everything was gone, everything; childhood photos, clothing, food, paper work and ID, money and most importantly her family. Rachel then realised she had no way of knowing if her family was alive. All that she had left were the clothes on her back, the phone in her pocket and the shoes on her feet.
Rachel stood there in simple incomprehension of the event transpiring before her. The phone in her pocket vibrated against her thigh. At first she ignored it in favour of her horror, but after a minute she could ignore it no longer and dug the phone out of her pocket. The caller ID listed her younger sister.
Flipping the phone open, Rachel answered quickly. "Bella?"
"Rachel?" her sister's’ voice came from the other end.
Relief flooded the elder sister’s chest and she breathed a sigh. "Oh, thank goodness you’re Okay! Where are you? Are Mother and Father there?"
A sob came from the other end of the line. "They’re dead…"
Rachel felt her blood run cold.
"Sh-she killed them…" Bella stated quietly and hesitantly.
"Wh-who killed them? Who is she?" Rachel asked, desperation and panic creeping into her tone.
‘Sh-sh-she says to say that she’s taking me north.’
Rachel swallowed her rising panic. "Bella I-"
"And that I’ll be safe and that you shouldn’t follow her.’
"Bella, who is she? What does she look like? Tell-" the phone hung up from the other end. Rachel hit redial but only received Bella’s voice mail.
Pocketing her phone once more, Rachel let the enormity of what had just happened sink in. Her hand's started to tremble so she clenched them into fists to hold them steady. Now was not the time to... to... Oh god, she had nothing. Nothing. Everyone was dead-
No, not everyone. No, Bella was alive. She had to find Bella. That was it. That was all that mattered. She'd go into the house and pack some clothes and-
Rachel glanced at the burning building.
Never mind then...
With nothing but the clothes on her back, Rachel turned headed for the city gate. Was she really about journey out into the Badworld? Was she, a sheltered child from Manehattan, really going to step out into the horrifying wilderness to rescue her sister from a mass murderer? Could she even survive out there? Maybe she could stay in Manehattan and earn her place through maintenance work or something.
No. Staying was not an option.
What was that phrase she'd once heard? 'Forward unto the breach'?
She would have smiled to herself at the laughable idea of her using that phrase if she wasn't seriously in this situation. Or if she hadn't seen everything she loved burn down mere minutes ago
Oh god, oh god, oh god, oh-
No! Now was not the time for that. Rachel would find Bella come hell or high water. No matter what it took, she would survive this and see to it that her sister did too.

Theresa bent over and picked the 32 calibre snub-nosed revolver out of the pile of broken glass. Guns like these were definitely not Theresa’s first choice; inaccurate, prone to jamming, poor penetration and only six shots. Truly it was a gun for people who didn’t know better. It was Clara’s gun in fact, and those were Clara’s bullets strewn across the floor, and the broken glass had come from her computer.
"Listen, Theresa. I know you’re angry at me."
Ignoring Clara’s protests, Theresa loaded one bullet into the cylinder before snapping it back into the gun and giving it a spin. Now it was randomised.
Clara continued "But you have to understand if I’d told you-"
Theresa interrupted her in a bland voice. "One in six."
Clara blinked in confusion. "What?"
Pointing the gun at her face, Theresa pulled the trigger.
Click.
Clara screamed. When she realised she wasn’t dead, she spoke shakily. "Theresa…"
"One in five."
Click.
Clara flinched. "Theresa please put down the gun and we can talk about this-"
"One in four."
Click.
"Please, I’m sorry-"
"One in three."
Click.
"I’m sorry!"
"One in two."
Click.
Clara trembled as Theresa thumbed back the hammer one last time "please, I-"
"Mathematical certainty." Theresa paused. "He was my brother, Clara."
Theresa shouted out now. "I know and I’m sorry! What I did was wrong, I should have told you!"
"Yes… You should have."
Theresa pulled the trigger back, activating the spring mechanism that caused the hammer to slam forwards into the bullet with the intent of creating an explosive chemical reaction. This reaction would result in the bullet being ejected from the barrel at high velocity, sending it through the air and passing into the body of whatever it was pointed at. In this case it would be ripping a hole through the skull and entering into the brain of its victim, displacing brain matter and tearing apart vital neural connections, resulting in death upon the target.
Except that didn’t happen.
Click.
The gun jammed.
32 calibres truly were the gun for people who didn’t know better. Dropping the revolver, Theresa reached under her coat and pulled out a 9mm semiautomatic. These were much more reliable and far less prone to jamming.
"You’re very lucky." Theresa said as she flipped the safety off and chambered a shot. "You had a one in seven hundred and twenty chance of surviving the first five, and your chances including that last one were about one in two million." Pointing the gun at the petrified Clara’s face, Theresa continued. "If I ever see you again, it’ll take more than a miracle to save you."
Clara trembled as Theresa flipped the safety back on, holstered her pistol and turned away. Her footsteps crunched on the broken glass as she walked towards the door.

The door to the saloon banged open, and Jack glanced around the room. There he was sitting on a stool at the bar. The man named Joe. The room was mostly empty except for a bartender, Joe and a musician who wasn’t going bother to play in this heat for an empty house.
When she saw him, Jack felt a variety of emotions stream through her. One was a little thrill, a jolt of excitement that raised the little hairs on the back of her neck. She was looking forward to this. Another was a touch of fear that crawled into her belly, a reminder of how she’d felt when she’d last seen the man. That fear was rapidly crushed and tossed aside. Now things were different. Now Jack had the power. Lastly, a red hot bolt of anger rose into her mind, a fury so complete and utterly consuming that it took all of Jack’s formidable self-control not to rush over and strangle him right then. All she did in response to these feelings was scowl and approach the man slowly.
Her boots hitting the floor boards must have alerted him to her presence, but he chose to ignore her for some reason.
Big mistake.
Sliding into the seat next to him, Jack eyed him up. "Joe?" she asked in her accented voice.
"Who wants to know?" The man responded rudely in a rough voice, raising his shot of whiskey for a sip.
Jack paused. She wanted to kill him, but he had to know who she was first. "Do ya’ll recognise me?"
Turning in his seat, Joe examined the woman next to him. She was tall with sun darkened skin and her blonde hair was tied back into a ponytail. A freckled face and green eyes glared at him and atop her head rested a worn brown Stetson.
Shaking his head, Joe answered. "No I don’t know you, miss…?"
Not breaking eye contact, she responded. "Jack. But back then Ah was called Jacqueline."
Scratching the side of his head, the man searched his memories. "Jacqueline...? Nope doesn’t ring any bells."
"Well ya might remember me from when you last came through this town, ‘bout twelve years ago. Ah was around eight back then, an’ wearing frilly pink dresses with a beehive hairdo."
A look of recognition dawned on his face, and he reached under his coat for what Jack guessed was a gun. "Yeah I remember now… What do you want?" he asked examining Jack more carefully now.
"Ah think ya can guess." Jack said, staring the man in the eye and making no move.
The man paused and cocked his head. "You don’t have a gun."
Jack nodded and continued to stare into his eyes. "Yep. Sherriff heard you was coming and figured Ah’d try somethin’. So he stopped over and took mah guns, mah bowie, mah tomahawks and all the rope Ah had lyin’ around, before taking me to a holding cell... Ah got out."
Joe chuckled, and Jack could see his confidence returning. "Well I do have a gun so you might have some trouble with that… You were planning on killing me, weren’t you?"
"Ah still am."
Joe shook his head, seeming bemused. "You’re insane. I work for Celesticorp. Even if you do somehow kill me, you’ll have a bounty bigger than what I’m even worth on your head."
"Ah know." Jack said, leaning in closer.
They stared at each other for a second before Joe started to draw his gun. He just managed to clear the holster before Jack’s hand rammed into his throat; he started to choke briefly, stumbled to his feet and knocked his stool over. Standing with him, Jack grabbed his gun hand and twisted it behind his back before slamming her palm into the elbow joint. It broke at an unnatural angle, and with a gurgle of pain he dropped the gun. She kicked his legs out from under the man, and caught him as he fell backwards into her arms, which she wrapped around his head and neck before twisting sharply.
Crack!
Letting go, Jack stepped back and let the corpse drop to the floor.
The bartender watched wide-eyed, and the musician bolted for the door. She made no move to stop him. Jack stood there watching the corpse for a second trying to feel something about what she’d done.
A voice getting closer from outside the door sounded out. "Damn it Braeburn! How’d you let her get out!" Jack recognised the voice as the sheriffs. The saloon door banged open and the Sheriff strode in followed by his three deputies. "If she kills him then it’s deep shit for all of…us…" He trailed off as he saw her standing there over the corpse of Joe.
"Sheriff," Jack said with a polite tip of her hat. "Ah’d like my stuff back now."
The sheriff glanced between Jack and the corpse before pulling his revolver. "Ah’m gonna to have to arrest you now."
"You can try," Jack stepped over the corpse. "Or you can give me mah stuff back and we’ll never see each other again."
"Ah can’t do that Jack," the man thumbed back the hammer on his revolver. "Celesticorp will want you now and Ah can’t just say Ah let you get away. Damn it Jack, we needed this!"
Rolling her shoulders and neck, Jack didn’t respond.
"This wasn’t just about you, you know. Everyone’s in the shit now, thanks to you."
Sighing, Jack adjusted the hat resting a top her head. "Ah’m gonna need my stuff back."
"You’re not gonna come quietly are yeh?"
Jack simply shook her head.
The sheriff sighed "so be it," and pulled the trigger on his revolver.
Click.
Pulling the thumb back again, the sheriff fired once more.
Click.
Cycling through all six cylinders produced nothing but more empty clicks.
Turning the gun over and examining it, the Sherriff said aloud, "Blanks. That’s why you didn’t put up a fight this morning. You heard he was coming, snuck over in the night and replaced our shots with blanks!"
Jack reached into her back pocket and pulled out a key which she tossed to Braeburn.
"And you pocketed the spare cell key. That’s how you got out." The Sherriff holstered his gun and drew his bowie knife instead. "You’re still not getting your gun back, and you’re still under arrest."
"If you say so," Jack said as she lowered herself into a fighting stance.

Skipping down the hall, Patricia whistled a jaunty tune to herself.
Surrounding her were countless relics of cultures and histories long forgotten from before. Somehow this one man had created one of the last true vestiges of human history here in these remote mountains. It was incredible really. A single man working alone had somehow constructed all of this.
There were books, tablets, statues, scrolls and a thousand more examples of culture and history lying around the room. Literally lying in pools of gasoline and lighter fluid Patricia had carted up from the basement. The occasional corpse joined them; other students of this man, maybe a servant of his or two. Patricia didn’t know who they were. She’d never really paid attention to the other people who lived here. They’d all tried to win the game, but in the end they’d lost too. It had taken a decade and a half but now… finally after so long Patricia had won. That fact alone made this the greatest day of Patricia’s life. (Not that that was saying much.)
Following the trail of gasoline to the front door, Patricia stepped outside to where she’d prepared her things and where she’d left him waiting. A few backpacks for food, clothes and other supplies, her swords and of course the most important one: a packet of roadside flares. Patricia stooped over and pulled out the flares, lighting them all one by one and tossing them into the house behind her.
Not all the flares landed in gasoline, but the ones that did lit it up instantly. It didn’t take more than five minutes before the timbers in the walls started to burn too. The fire would start at the lower levels and work its way up. Slowly the whole structure would burn down, and everything this man had worked so hard to build would be destroyed.
Her work done, Patricia turned to face the one who’d built all this. "Well here we are. Bet you thought you were gonna win didn’t you?" Tilting her head to the side, Patricia examined the man from another angle trying to read any reactions he might display. "You could have won the game at any time at all but noooooooo," Patricia shook her head slowly, "you had to let me stick around. Well, you should’ve killed me when you had the chance, because now I’m the winner."
The man didn’t say anything back as a single drop of blood formed on his top lip and dripped out onto his chin.
Patricia turned back to examine the burning home. "I like fire."
Turning back to him, Patricia smiled. "It’s been fun but I have to go now, you know, other places to go, other games to win. You never taught me much about the world, but I’ll figure it out as I go…"
Patricia plucked the disembodied head off the spike she’d embedded it on. This was all that was left of the man. His legacy was being destroyed, and the only person who carried his lessons anymore was the one who had removed his head in the end.
Staring at him forlornly for a second, Patricia shrugged once more. "Well… bye I guess..."
Tossing the head up and catching it by the jaw, Patricia pulled her arm back and pitched the head into the building. It shattered a pane of glass as it passed through a window. That was the last Patricia ever saw him.
Sitting down and crossing her legs, she watched the fire spread to the roof of the building. It was a treasure trove of knowledge that the world would never recover. Patricia felt deeply satisfied.
"I won," she repeated to herself.

"No!" Gilda said as she paced back and forth across the black stone platform suspended above the gaping void. "Not this shit again!" she shouted out to the abyssal heavens.
"We told you we would return," her lone companion stated.
Gilda turned on her and shouted, "Well you shouldn’t be able to tell me anything, you’re a fucking dream! I don’t care what you say or how often you appear, I’m sick of this shit! Get the fuck out of my head!"
For her part the winged, horse, unicorn, thing looked bemused. "Is it really so hard for thee to accept our existence as truth?"
Gilda shouted out, "Yes it fucking is! I don’t care what the fuck you say, or how many times you show up in my dreams, you’re not real!"
"Dreams that thou rememberest as clearly as day? Dreams that repeat in thine own mind for an entire week? No Gilda, these are more than simple dreams, we are-"
"You’ve said this already," Gilda interrupted. 'Thou art Luna,' she said in a mocking copy of the alicorn’s regal tone. "Not just Luna, but Princess Luna, co-ruler of Equestria and responsible for raising and setting the moon. You’ve told me before, and I still don’t believe it. You’re not real; this is just a really fucking weird, lucid, reoccurring dream."
"If it were lucid, it would fall under thine own control," the horse answered with infuriating calm. "Aside from that, we would remind you that there is no end to our patience. We shall appear in thine dreams every night for the next twenty years if need be. Eventually you shall do as we ask."
Gilda rubbed her eyes with her fingers, "No… No. No! Fucking no! I’m not going all the way to fucking Trotonto on the words of a goddamn dream horse!"
"Pony," Luna calmly corrected.
"Whatever! I’m not going to Trotonto."
"Yes, thou art," the horse smiled calmly and confidently. "Because we shall prove our existence on this night."
"No you’re not because you don’t exist, there’s nothing for you to prove because you can’t prove anything."
"Circular reasoning,’ the horse said with an ever patient shake of its head. "Regardless, we shall make a prediction tonight that shall be proven true over the coming months."
Gilda shook her head. "Why the fuck do you speak like that?"
The horse was somehow able to shrug despite using four legs to stand. "A thousand years spent in banishment upon the moon has left us ill-prepared for the modern tongue."
"That doesn’t make any goddamn sense."
Luna chuckled. "Regardless, these are our predictions. Your leader Sierra, or Spitfire as she is known, shall receive an agent of Luna Industries. That agent shall make an offer to end the bounty that is upon her head in exchange for one thing," the horse paused dramatically and pointed a hoof at Gilda. "Thy life."
The human responded with confusion. "Me? Why the fuck would Luna Industries want me?"
The horse smiled as it answered. "Because we are speaking to thee."
"That doesn’t make any sense."
"In any case it is the truth. We do not know when it shall happen, but happen it shall. Be wary of thy friends, for when their lives are on the line their loyalty to you shall be tested, and you shall find them wanting."
Gilda shook her head, refusing to believe what she was hearing. "No, that’s bullshit. Me and the Wonderbolts are brothers. Spitfire’s like my big sister, Soarin’s my boyfriend for fucks’ sake, and no way is Rebecca gonna let anyone turn on me. Just go away, I don’t care about your crap."
"No, we shan’t leave you."
"Why not? If you do exist, then there’s gotta be someone else for you to bug."
The horse sighed sadly. "We are afraid not. We have no else to speak with, and we are desperate for companionship."
Gilda blinked. "You want to be friends, with me?" she said in a disbelieving tone.
The horse nodded. "Yes."
Gilda shook her head and paced away. "This is un-fucking believable. My subconscious is feeling lonely!"
Luna chuckled. "No… What is unbelievable is that we should be so desperate for companionship to seek it with one such as thou."
Gilda turned to face her. "Was that supposed to be a joke or an insult?"
"Both, we should think," Luna said with a smile. "Is that not part of the give and take nature of friendship?"
"I don’t need an imaginary friend!"
Luna shrugged "Well then it’s a fortunate thing that we are not imaginary. So how-"
The black stone platform they were suspended upon started shaking violently and muffled sounds could be heard.
The platforms movement caused Gilda to fall to her hands and knees. "What the fuck is happening now?"
Luna appeared unaffected by the shaking. "I believe someone is trying to awaken you."
"Why?" Gilda shouted.
The horse gave a wry smile. "Perhaps it’s because a Luna Industries employee has arrived asking for thee by name. Whatever the case, I’ve enjoyed our conversation, however brief, and shall allow you to awaken now. Fare thee well."

Gilda’s eyes snapped open, and she shot bolt upright. The blanket that had been covering her slid down into her lap, uncovering her bare chest and shoulders.
"Fucking finally," a voice to her left said. "You sleep like you’re dead."
Gilda turned and saw Rebecca standing there staring down at her. Blinking a few times, Gilda eventually realised she was no longer trapped in a dream with a talking horse, but rather back in the tent she had fallen asleep in.
Rebecca and Gilda were quite different in appearance. Where Rebecca was of below average height and athletic, Gilda was tall and brawny. The smaller woman had rose-coloured eyes and the gayest hair around; a short cut splash of bright rainbow colours that were completely natural and had been there since childhood. She had a pretty, well-proportioned face and a single piercing in the side of her nose. Gilda on the other hand had muddy brown eyes, was completely bald from a young age, and was damn ugly with fairly masculine features and a nose that bore the marks of having been broken repeatedly. The two of them dressed similarly in biker gear with black jackets and what-not, but Rebecca kept her arms bare for some reason and always wore a sleeveless jacket.
"Dude, get up," Rebecca said, leaning down and offering Gilda a hand.
Gilda didn’t take it immediately. "Why’d you wake me up? Also where the fuck is Soarin’?"
Rebecca took her hand back. "Soarin’s with Spitfire and the other Wonders. I woke you up because apparently the god-damn helicopter didn’t."
Gilda blinked. "Helicopter?"
"Yeah," Rebecca grinned. "A helicopter, showed up in the night and a bunch of guys from the moon hopped out."
A small amount of apprehension started to rise in Gilda. "Luna Industries?"
Rebecca nodded.
"What did they want?" Gilda asked, feeling worried.
Rebecca didn’t notice Gilda’s apprehension and gave a light hearted shrug. "I don’t know, but I heard your name get mentioned a few times so I thought I better wake you up."
There is no fucking way that horse is right.
Rebecca continued, "Come on, put your wig on." She tossed Gilda the grey and red patterned bandana she wore to hide her baldness. "And get some clothes on. Why were you naked anyway?"
"Soarin’ was in here," Gilda grumbled as she stood up and pulled on her clothes.
"And he’s here now." A confident voice said from the outside the tent. The flap popped up and in came Soarin’, the devil that had been spoken of.
Soarin’, like Spitfire, was one the deadlands mythical super mutants. For some reason the deadlands produced a high number of weird mutations in the people that lived there. Most of the time it was something harmless, like Rebecca’s hair or Gilda’s baldness. But occasionally it would cause painful defects, like the bones in your hand being melded together or maybe your eyes growing to be much too large, or even finding yourself unable to walk on your own two feet and having to crawl everywhere. But stories did exist of people who were granted strange abilities by the deadlands mutagenic effects. Spitfire for example, could create and hold fire in the palm of her hands.
Most people didn’t believe super mutants existed. They were just one of those example of the Deadlands many myths, like the striped woman and her bone garden or the flying city that drove everyone who saw it insane. But unlike those two, super mutants definitely existed.
Gilda tried to glare over her shoulder at the man, but felt her apprehension die at the sight of him.
No way he’s gonna turn on me.
Rather than glare she smiled. "And if he knows what’s good for him he’ll get the fuck out while I get dressed."
Smiling, Soarin’ winked as he crossed the distance between the two of them. "It’s funny how you weren’t worried when I was undressing you just a few hours ago."
"Shut up dumbass." Gilda said with a smile and a roll of her eyes before the two of them kissed. Gilda had to lean down slightly being taller than Soarin’, who was of slightly above average height.
"Get a room," Rebecca muttered.
Gilda pulled away and said in a jovial tone, "You’re in my tent bitch, and this is my boyfriend. So you can go fuck yourself, as you usually do." Rebecca didn’t have a girlfriend at the moment, a fact that Gilda was more than a little happy to poke fun at her for.
Chuckling, the shorter girl walked out of the tent. "I’ll leave you two alone then."
Turning back to her boyfriend, Gilda noticed Soarin’ eyeing her appreciatively. "What are you looking at?" she said with a smile.
"Fuck you’re ugly," he said with a happy stare.
Gilda’s good mood vanished. "What?" she said angrily. Yeah Gilda knew that she wasn’t winning any beauty pageants, and yeah she knew that was the sort of girl Soarin’ was into, but still. There’s just some shit you don’t say.
"You dressed then?" the man asked stepping back towards the tent flap.
"Yeah…" Gilda answered slowly, still feeling pissed off.
"Good, come on Spitfire wants to see you," he said stepping outside.
Following him outside, Gilda muttered angrily to herself. The two of them walked towards Spitfire’s large command tent past all the assembled Wonderbolts. The camp was way busier than normal for this time of the night. Gilda spotted the helicopter Rebecca had mentioned sitting outside the main camp. Its crew were sitting around and waiting on whoever was in the tent to be done with Sierra. Pushing open the tent flap, Soarin’ stepped inside and Gilda followed him in. Sierra stood in there, alone with some other guy in a business suit. In the man’s hand was a laptop and she was leaning over him to look at it.
Sierra looked up at Gilda and pointed at her, speaking to the man next to her. "She’s the one you want right?"
Soarin’ entered through the tent and was standing just in front of Gilda with his back turned.
The man in the business suit nodded. "Yes that’s her."
Spitfire nodded at Soarin’, and he turned around and splayed his palms at Gilda. A blue ball of energy shot out at her. The blast of energy sent Gilda flying out of the tent and onto her back several feet away. Her ears ringing and a massive headache splitting her mind, Gilda rose to her feet surprisingly steadily given how she felt like she was just caught on the edge of an explosion. Yanking a knife out from under her coat, Gilda broke into a run towards her boyfriend, who looked surprised but still fired another ball of energy. Gilda stepped to the left, but the ball still caught her shoulder and sent her spinning onto her face on the ground once more. In a world of hurt now, Gilda climbed to her feet once more and was again struck with a ball of energy. Seeing the knife just in reach, Gilda grabbed it and shakily climbed to her feet.
"Fuck you’re a tough bitch!" Soarin exclaimed. "Most people would stay down after the first blast let alone-"
Spinning around, Gilda threw her knife at Soarin’, interrupting him and forcing him to dodge the knife just in time for it to scratch his face rather than kill him. The knife embedded with a thunk in the wooden post at the centre of Spitfires tent. Aiming his palms once more, Soarin’ fired another blast of energy that hit Gilda directly and knocked her onto her back. Slowly raising her head to try and stand again, Gilda’s progress was halted by a boot smashing into her face.
"Stay the fuck down!" Soarin’ shouted at her.
Gilda was rolled onto her face, and her hands were tied behind her back. She was too dazed and hurt to resist. Pulling the hurt woman to her feat, Soarin’ dragged her over to Spitfire’s tent where he forced her down to her knees.
The man in the business suit looked at Gilda for a second before he turned to Spitfire. "Well that’s that then. If you’ll hand her over to my men then-"
"Hold up a sec," Spitfire interrupted him. "We don’t know if you’re gonna stick to your end of the bargain. We signed the contract yeah, but until I see what we agreed on you ain’t gonna get her."
The man considered her for a second. "Very well then, I’ll return on the morrow with evidence of our claims and we can do the exchange then."
Spitfire nodded.
The man stood up and pressed a fedora down onto his head. "Ma’am," he politely nodded at Spitfire, "Sir." He nodded at Soarin’ as well and stepped outside the tent.
Turning to face Gilda, Spitfire shook her head. "Goddamn moon men." She stared at Gilda sadly for a second before shrugging forlornly and turning towards Soarin’. "Some of the Wonder Bolts might be upset about this, so take her out among the Bolts and keep her there for tonight. Pick two Bolts who you can trust and set them to watch her."
Soarin’ nodded and pulled Gilda to her feet once more.
Gilda could scarcely comprehend what was happening to her. "Soarin, why are you-"
"Shut up," he said and shoved her towards the exit.
"Spitfire we-"
She was interrupted by another shove from Soarin’. All the Wonderbolts were standing around watching the events unfold before them.
Gilda felt like a hand had reached down her throat and wrapped its fingers around her gut before proceeding to violently yank it out. There was no way Gilda was gonna cry in front of everyone, but damn was it a tempting option. She felt torn between burning rage at being betrayed and horrible despair and sadness upon realising that the three people she cared for most in the world barely gave a shit about her.
"Some fucking brothers we were!" Gilda shouted out loud for all to hear. All the assembled Wonderbolts stood and watched without intervening. "After all the shit we’ve been through, this is it?!"
Soarin’ shoved Gilda once more.
Standing among the other Wonderbolts and looking confused was Rebecca. Locking eyes with her, Gilda felt her hurt, her betrayal, her confusion, her fear and everything else, all poor into her own brown eyes and moisten them. Gilda tried to hide her emotions, but in this case she couldn’t. This was a betrayal of almost everything she believed in. Her boyfriend, her brothers and her sisters had all shown just how little their bonds were worth.
Unbidden, the words from Luna returned to her head. 'Be wary of thy friends, when their lives are on the line their loyalty to you shall be tested and you shall find them wanting.'

Parking the bike carefully, Rebecca put her helmet on and lowered the visor over her rose-coloured eyes. The gun in her hand wasn’t the best but it’d have to do; an assault rifle with bullpup configuration, meaning the grip and trigger was located near the front and the magazines were inserted near the back. Rebecca had chosen this gun because it had decent effective range and could be fired one handed. Not that it was meant be, but it could be, and that would have to do.
This was it, a few seconds from the point of no return. If she went through with this they’d call her a traitor, but if she didn’t, she’d call herself a traitor. There was no way she could sit by and watch this happen. Gilda was her sister, not in blood but in bond, and now the Wonderbolts were going to hand her over to Luna Industries. This whole situation made Rebecca feel as conflicted as a warzone. The Wonderbolts, her gang, the people she’d fought with, and ridden with, and partied with, and who had given her everything she had in life, were now selling out one of their own. That one had to be Gilda. Rebecca couldn’t stand by and watch, she just simply couldn’t. The Wonderbolts had proven themselves disloyal, and a friend was about to die because of their betrayal. That didn’t change the fact that she felt like she was about to shove a knife into the back of someone she loved.
But still, she just couldn’t forget that look on Gilda’s face. That look of complete vulnerability and betrayal was something she’d never seen on anyone’s face before; she just couldn’t get it out of her head. The way it was directed at her only made it worse.
Damn it this was a dumb plan. Hell, to call it a plan was an insult to good plans everywhere. Really it was less of a plan and more of a general idea of what was going to happen and why it wasn’t going to work. Having only learned of what was going to happen last night, Rebecca had scrambled around the gangs camp trying to cobble together the means to save Gilda. She’d only had moderate success. Sure she had a gun but it was far from an ideal one, even with the under-slung grenade launcher. Yeah she’d managed to get the fuel bombs set, but they were small and hastily made, and she couldn’t guarantee they wouldn’t be found or even be certain that they’d go off even if they weren’t uncovered.
On the plus side she’d been able to snatch a couple of refined power cells, or RPC’s, from their supply buggy’s trailer. Some people hated them because they were so unstable and a decent flame could detonate one, but Rebecca swore by them. A refined power cell could keep a semitrailer going for thousands of miles and were way lighter to carry then fuel. Most people drained most of the energy from them into several smaller cells to make them more stable, even if they lasted nowhere near as long.
The camp was divided into the core group of the Wonderbolts, real tough hombres that handled most of the real combat and sticky shit, and just the plain old Bolts, more or less just a freaking huge gang. All together the Wonderbolts and Bolts were the biggest and baddest biker gang in the deadlands, and that was saying something. Rebecca and Gilda were both born and raised among the scattered communities in the Deadlands that call the gangs that roam it lord and protector. Just like every other dumb kid in the Deadlands, they wanted to become Wonderbolts when they grew up. But unlike every other kid, Rebecca and Gilda were tough enough to pull it off.
The Wonderbolts were supposed to be a brotherhood; they had a freaking initiation ritual that’s how tight they were. Rebecca clearly remembered sharing shot glasses of rattlesnake venom and blood with Gilda and the day's afterwards spent vomiting and shivering. Good times.
They were led by Sierra or 'Spitfire' as she was known and Sam 'Soarin' as her second in command. Never mind that initiation or all the shit they’d been through together. They were going to sell Gilda out like she was just a shitty little Bolt. No apparently she was worth even less than that, since Spitfire would supposedly never even sell out a Bolt. Yet somehow here it was; Gilda being turned over to Luna Industries with barely even one night to think it through.
There they were, just coming into sight now at the edge of the horizon. That helicopter. The people that in the end were responsible for this mess, but not the ones that she would have to kill for it. Luna Industries. With a final sigh Rebecca checked to see if Gilda and her three captors were where they should be. Yep they were, about a hundred metres out front of the mass of bikes and leather jackets. Hundreds of Bolts between them. This was it then.
The bike rocketed forward as Rebecca applied the accelerator, and a few surprised gang members in front of her jumped out of the way cursing at her, but she ignored them. If they didn’t pull a gun on her they could live, even if they were traitors. Rapidly weaving through the crowd, Rebecca caught sight of Spitfire who was raising her hands and shouting at Rebecca to stop. Ignoring her, Rebecca raised her rifle and fired a flashbang grenade from her underslung launcher. The grenade detonated and all the nearby Bolts were thrown into pandemonium by the device, as they clutched at their eyes and screamed in pain. Rebecca’s silvered visor shielded her vision from the blast.
Having cleared the crowd all that stood between Rebecca and Gilda were Soarin’ and two regular old bolts armed with guns. Twisting the handlebars so she wasn’t racing directly at the four people, Rebecca aimed her rifle as carefully as she could.
This was the really bad part of the plan. At a distance of about 80 metres Rebecca would have to precision shoot three people, with one hand, using a two handed rifle, all of whom had a better firing position and more accurate guns then her. She had to do this while in motion and not hit Gilda. This was particularly remarkable because the rifle’s maximum effective range was just one hundred meters, making this officially a dumb idea.
Time slowed down for Rebecca as she raised the gun and fired. The first shot went wide, and Rebecca mentally noted it as a point of reference for future attempts. Her next shot hit its mark and. Soarin went down with a wound to the shoulder. The third and fourth shots were complete failures; one of them actually grazed Gilda. The two standing Bolts turned around and started to return fire, but they were shooting full auto in sheer panicked reaction mode and failed to hit Rebecca, zigzagging as she was. As she closed in, Rebecca’s marksmanship improved, and she knew her chances of missing would decrease. Her fifth shot nailed one in the chest, as did the sixth, ending one member, and the seventh was a perfect head shot on the last man standing.
All the gang members down, she dropped her rifle and let it hang from her shoulder by its strap. Rebecca allowed her bike to slow down and reached out a hand. Gilda saw her coming and raised her bound-together hands to grab onto Rebecca’s and was swung up onto the back of the bike. Landing less than smoothly, the bike jerked to the right with the sudden weight change, forcing Rebecca to compensate to stop the bike tipping over.
"Holy fuck, am I glad to see you!" Gilda shouted over the wind.
"I’d never leave a friend hanging!" Rebecca shouted back. "Are they following us?!"
Rebecca could feel Gilda shift around in her seat. "Yeah!"
"How many?!"
"All of them!" Gilda shouted over the wind.
Rebecca swallowed and reached under her jacket for the detonator. Trying to ignore the guilty feeling she was suffering from, she flipped the cap off and hesitated to press the button down.
"What’s that!?" Gilda shouted out.
Just eight fuel bombs, just eight. At most thirty people will die, they’ll have to stop and we can get away. They’re not your brothers they’re a pack of traitors. A pack of traitors and it’ll be less than thirty people. Traitors, only thirty. Thirty traitors. That’s it.
Pushing the button down, Rebecca watched the explosions in her mirrors. At first it happened as Rebecca more or less planned on. The first of the bombs went off, sending fragments and drops of burning fuel scattering in every direction, leaving the bikers reeling and breaking formation. Plenty were wounded and fell from their bikes screaming in pain as they patted the burning oil fires that coated their skin. But then the fourth went off, and it was different from what it should have been. A fuel bomb shouldn’t make a dome of brightly coloured orange energy.
An RPC must have been caught in the fire. Wait… RPC’s !
With a growing sense of dread, Rebecca prayed that one of the fuel bombed bikes had not moved closer to the massive haul of refined power cells that were being pulled behind the gang’s supply buggy.
An initial explosion twice as large as the first was followed by a scattering of similar sized explosions as RPC’s were sent flying through the air and detonating amongst the pursuing Bolts, both Wonder and regular. Soon there were so many explosions going off that not a single gang member was visible between the orange domes of energy. All the shock waves kicked a massive cloud of dust into the air.
Rebecca slowed her bike down before pulling to a stop. The two of them watched for a minute as the entire gang was killed. The people that they’d fought alongside and grown up with, friends and rivals, all dead in under a minute. Upwards of a hundred people, gone. Just like that.
Neither of them said anything for about a minute, just staring at the grey cloud of dust that had commandeered the horizon.
"Fuck em." Gilda was the first to speak.
Rebecca didn’t say anything, still too shocked to respond.
"They sold me out." Gilda continued. "Soarin’ was my goddamn boyfriend, and he sold me out. We were practically raised by those people, and they were just gonna sell me to Luna Industries. Fuck em."
"Yeah… fuck em." Rebecca repeated, but quietly and with less conviction.
Turning to face Rebecca, Gilda asked, "Dude, that was a big-ass boom. What the hell did you use? Were you trying to kill all of them?"
Rebecca shook her head dumbly.
I killed all of them.
"Fucking horse was right," Gilda said, shaking her head in disbelief and turning back to watch the dust cloud.
"Uh huh," Rebecca agreed, with no idea what she was agreeing to.
The taller woman hopped off the bike and turned to face Rebecca. "Get these off me will you?" she asked, holding out her bound-together hands.
Rebecca dumbly nodded and took out her combat knife. She began to cut the cords that were tying Gilda’s hands together. In her shocked state, Rebecca barely even heard the next thing that her friend said.
"Looks like I’m going to Trotonto..."