Light Despondent

Chapter 5

Burn It Down

It wasn’t that Heliotrope wasn’t used to what she’d consider to be police work, it was more that she barely fit and she knew it.

Sure, there were plenty of times she’d had to do it. Try and keep refugees from rioting, de-escalate situations, keep other troops from snapping, trying to keep planes from getting overloaded, move people here and there, trying and mostly failing to keep the Coffin Ships from being full past capacity. Things like that.

She stood near Oscar, looking over the various witnesses. A bunch of motorists they’d managed to get to this PHL base in Maine, who’d been at an HLF checkpoint. In the room just in front of her, she could see

“They stole the furniture I was hauling!” said the short, potbellied, balding man sitting in the chair. Going by what Heliotrope had heard, his name was Darren Pines. “And… Jesus, I thought I was gonna die!”

“Right,” Summers said, nodding. Gardner sat behind him, leaning back in a chair so that it was practically at a 45 degree angle.

“You’re sure?” Pines asked. “They… they held me at gunpoint. If I’d made a sudden move, they would’ve killed me.”

“No, nobody has died,” Pines corrected. “These checkpoints… I used to think they did good, y’know?”

“Not always,” Summers said. “I was a cop before the War, and trust me - there was nothing I hated more than people trying to do my job for me.”

‘What would that mean?’ Heliotrope thought. There were so many little gestures, so many little facts humans knew that she didn’t. Like whatever it was that made Pines look so strangely skeptical.

“I know, I know,” Summers said. “But the law is there for a reason. When people try to take it into their own hands, deciding that maybe - that maybe they should be the law of the land, it doesn’t end well. Especially if it’s a bunch of pissed-off rednecks with military-grade weaponry.”

“Maybe, maybe not,” Gardner said. “But like he said. The law is there for a reason. We’re talking people who you said could’ve very well murdered you. With no respect for due process, and willing to turn their weapons on anyone they don’t like. We saw that after the Purple Winter. And I am not letting that happen again. We cannot afford anarchy.”

“...Exhausted,” Heliotrope said. “It feels like we’ve been at this for hours.”

“Probably because we have,” Yael said. “QS is getting… really annoyed.”

“More than usual,” Yael explained. “This, this just doesn’t work for her and Oscar. Neither of them can carry an interview in a bucket, but Gardner dragged them with us.”

“Want to talk about it?” Heliotrope asked. She understood what Yael meant - about feeling almost cheated, about feeling like none of this made sense. And it was starting to get to her, too. There were a lot of things that didn’t quite make sense.

“Maybe later,” Yael said. “For now, we have another interview. With a mother and her foal.”

“The ones that Nny said…” Heliotrope said, her voice trailing off. “Nope, can’t say that horseapples with a straight face.”

So is this the ass end of the PHL or not? Yael asked herself. On the one hand, it was exactly the kind of grunt work Heliotrope hated.

She sat in a dusty room with Heliotrope, Oscar, QS, Lorne, Eva, Smoky, and Summers. Along with Gardner and a thin man who looked Indian.

Mamjudar Whitman, she thought. An FBI agent with a reputation for brutality against PER. The stories went that he’d taken a vial of potion and shoved it down one person’s throat. Without opening it.

“She’s a child,” Whitman said. “She refuses to talk about it without her mother in the room.”

“I don’t care,” Gardner said. “We’ll have them one at a time, like I said.”

Yael and Heliotrope stared at him. And Yael watched something dark cross her friend’s face. The same anger that’d led her to tell Yael they had to stop the HLF and attack Nipville, the same anger that’d led her to cut HLF to ribbons time and time again.

So she placed her hand in her friend’s short, unruly bluish-green-and-pink mane.

“I… Whitman said it himself, she’s only a child,” Heliotrope said. “If it makes her more comfortable, more willing to talk, then I don’t see a reason why not.”

The unicorn filly that came in looked like she could have done propaganda for the Solar Empire - her colors were so sunny and bright. She had a yellowy-orange coat, with a pink and light yellow mane. Her mother, however, looked absolutely nothing alike aside from being a unicorn mare too. She had a bluish-black coat, a purple mane, and purple eyes. She had a cutie mark of a telescope, while her filly had a set of hoofshoes resembling ballet shoes.

Yael knew their names from the mission brief - Dancing Day and Astral Nectar, respectively.

“You’re listed as ponies of interest in an attempted PER Vanishing,” Yael said. “I know what that sounds like, but it’s more… because of your contact with the HLF not long afterwards.”

“I don’t know how we’re still alive,” Astral Nectar said. “Viktor Kraber himself walked into Chipmunk’s truck-”

“Her real name is Keisha Nicole,” Gardner said. “The PHL contracts the company she works for to transport things all across New England.”

“Well, Heliotrope doesn’t want to go through everything, and I…” Yael yawns. “I have the feeling we’ll be here awhile.”

She looks towards Aegis.”You’re the only other narrator here, what do you think?”

“I think,” the big stallion says, “That it’d make sense to get her perspective. She was there at the beginning of most all this.”

“We were supposed to be heading to Montreal,” Astral Nectar said. “They needed unicorns, so both of us were scheduled to head to PHL R&D for work.”

“Your Child Would Be Working Too?” asked a strange white mare with a dirty-blond mane.

Or at least, Ithink it’s coming from her? Dancing Day thought. Sounds like it’s coming from a speaker under her red bandanna, in the same area as her mouth. Just under it, that’s so weeeeird…

“I volunteered,” said Dancing Day. “The PHL needed more unicorns, and, well… I’m one. I’m not the strongest unicorn, but I have to do something!”

Right now she sat with her mother in a PHL base just near White River Junction, in what used to be a railroad roundhouse. And autoturrets, of course. Though only a fool would try to bomb it. You would desperately like to be off indulging in summer activities, just swimming but evidently, you are needed for…’debriefing’?

According to some humans, like Chipmunk or Nny, ‘briefs’ are human underwear. And that makes Dancing Day giggle slightly.

“That’s very admirable,” said Yael, the dark-skinned woman sitting before Dancing Day. She’s lighter-skinned than Chipmunk, but darker than most humans I see around. Why are humans referred to as ‘white,’ anyway? It’s more of a pinkish color anyway…

“I couldn’t stop her if I tried,” Astral Nectar said. “And I did try-”

Sure, mommy was mad, but we got so much done! And I helped her out! Why’s she mad? Dancing Day thought.

“Do you know what makes you persons of interest in this?” asked Heliotrope, the purplish-pink pegasus next to her.

“The fact that we saw Viktor Kraber,” Astral Nectar said, and you stifle a gasp.

It’s so hard to imagine that you came face to face with the boogeyman of any pony looking to make a life outside Equestria. The man responsible for massive amounts of pony deaths (and the death of any humans that happened to be helping them) during the Purple Spring and afterwards.

Viktor Marius Kraber, you think. You can’t believe you didn’t know it was him before. Not the worst of those horrible HLF man. That’d probably be that nasty Mr. Carter or his daughter. But Kraber’s certainly up there, and Chipmunk said he had enough crimes to his name to spend a looooong time in prison. He’s a serial killer, whatever that is.

A cereal killer? Why would anybody would want to hurt breakfast cereals? Count Chocula never hurt anyone, Dancing Day thought.

Heliotrope growled under her breath, and Dancing scooted back slightly. As she did, she saw Heliotrope’s face twist in rage. She didn’t know that much about people, and couldn’t possibly guess, but it was clear that she had some grudge.

“And he… didn’t stab you? Say anything?” Heliotrope asked, biting back the obvious rage in her voice. “Put a tracking device on you?”

“No to all of those,” Astral Nectar said. “I think we would’ve noticed a tracking device.”

“He just walked out of there!” Dancing Day said, eager to help. “He didn’t even do anything, and when we got to the bar, mom got so drunk, and Keisha met this really nice woman and-”

“Dancing Aphelion Day, no,” Astral Nectar sighed. “They do not need to know that.”

Astral Nectar made an effort to look thoughtful and contemplative. Dancing Day even made an attempt, even as someone offered ‘the brave little filly’ a chocolate chip cookie the size of her head. Gracefully she accepted it, and tried to chew on it in a manner that at least looked worldly and knowledgeable.

Maybe Mr Kraber and his friends just need cookies like this to see why they’re on the wrong team… Dancing Day thought. So what would help? What would a man like Mr Kraber need to feel happy? Nobody deserved to lose as much as he did.

“A man with a Russian accent,” Dancing Day said. “Big human, too - I’m guessing he could’ve looked handsome if he didn’t have a receding hairline and wasn’t covered in scars.”

“That’d be Leonid Lovikov, alright,” said the man in the suit. “Nasty, nasty fucker. Ex-Russian-Military.”

“What branch are we talking, Agent Whitman?” asks the big, bearish, dark-skinned man behind Yael.

‘Whitman’ sighed, pinching his nose and pushing his glasses up to his forehead. “It’s really stupid.”

“Agent Whitman,” said the dirty-blond mare with the strange, computerized voice, “I Am An Alien That Looks Like A Prey Species On Your Homeworld, And My Home Is a Fascist State That Wants To Turn You Into Smiley Zombies. How Stupid Could We Possibly Get.”

“What. Do You Have Any Idea How Often I Get That Shpi… shpil.. Spial.. Oh Forget It,” the mare said, making a strangled noise that could’ve been a sigh. This time with her real vocal cords.

“The part about this being silly, or us hearing that too often?” Heliotrope asked.

“How the shit does that count as a military?!” asked a helmeted man in gray armor. A nametag on his body armor read “MIKKELSEN.”

“Okay,” said a dark gray or black earth pony, “That’s just… wow. I don’t… how in the…”

“Look,” Whitman said. “This biker gang… The Night Wolves? They were basically an arm of the Russian military before the Purple Spring, fighting in Ukraine alongside the actual military. The less said about what they did during the Purple Spring, the better. But even by their standards, he had a reputation for brutality. Course, that changes when he’s caught in the whole clusterfuck in Kiev. He comes back from the dead, months later, with a high-ranking position in Gregor Helmetag’s Menschabwehrfraktion. Refines his reputation for violence, earning hundreds of kills on PER, suspected of friendly fire on PHL forces. Pretty similar to Kraber, really. The two of them earn a reputation as blunt cudgels in Helmetag’s hands, until after Spader’s death. At which point, Helmetag starts talking integration, he starts talking about working with us, with the Reavers… and then Helmetag winds up garrotted. With barbed wire. Then, all of a sudden, Lovikov’s in command. He’s considered one of the most dangerous combatants on the kill-maim-burn end of the HLF split.”

“I know a lot about his reputation,” Gardner said, stroking the stubble above his chin. “Him and Kraber…”

”I’d been told the best thing to do in Europe was go backpacking, and I got as far as Innsbruck, Austria, before the Purple Winter kicked off.

I mean, maybe heading for a place that had a Bureau was a bad idea. But it was Austria. I was hoping to see some of the sights, maybe pick up some skiing while reared up, take photos… y’know. I signed up with this program that’d let me find host families. And I found this nice couple with two teenage daughters, they lived near the Bureau.

...What? I can eat meat. Griffons do it, so can I. Besides, it… it’s not a big deal to humans, and it would’ve been rude. They cooked this special for me. Anyway, I had a great time, living at their house, eating the food, trying to play videogames with their daughters. So, we’re all out at a restaurant, enjoying ourselves, when there’s an explosion.

I don’t know what’s going on, but… we sit. We wait. We pretend to relax and eat dinner. And someone sees [i/]them - beaten, bloodied - filtering into the street. We’re not at the window, so all we’re going by is hearsay. But before I know it, everyone’s pressing to the window of the restaurant, and we see protesters. They’re beaten and ragged, they’re carrying broken signs, and there’s ponies among them.

They look scared, and I’m about to cry out to one of the ponies before I see it’s a newfoal. I have just enough time to think ‘Oh no’ before someone follows them. Equally angry, equally ragged HLF. And they’ve got armor, they’ve got clubs, it wouldn’t surprise me if they have guns, either.

The PER and pro-pony side are right in front of the restaurant. The HLF are staring them down. We’re just about to leave - the waiter didn’t blame us for getting the check early - when we hear the shot.

And they go crazy. We don’t even have time to pay, we’re rushing for the back of the restaurant, stuck in a mob of screaming citizens of Innsbruck, and also something’s on fire.

The way I heard it, the bullet hit the pavement - right between an HLF woman screaming at a PER man. Conveniently between, in fact. Then, guns get pulled out, unicorns start throwing spells, the Bureau’s security guards open fire, and someone’s throwing a molly.

Storefronts are kicked in. Potion gets tossed into the crowd at random, hitting PER and HLF and civs. I see a pony getting thrown through the air, screaming at the top of his lungs.

Anyway, we’re all crowding out through the back of the restaurant, and I hear someone’s been thrown or jumped through the plate glass window of the restaurant.

We’re trying to get back to the apartment, so we turn down a street - I don’t remember where - and then at the other end is Kraber.

He’s flanked by men and women with bike chains, baseball bats, molotovs, rifles, shotguns, pistols. I don’t think he’s leading them. He doesn’t seem like the leading type. It looks more like they’ve just… gravitated toward him. There’s a few dead men and women on the ground in front of our group.

“Give us the fokkin’ pony!” he yells. He’s hefting a Kalashnikov. Pointed right at us.

The family I’m with doesn’t respond. I can tell they don’t want to give me over, but what choice do they have?

“What the fok are you, PER?!” Kraber yells in German. “More fokkin horsefokkers?! Far as I’m CONERNED, this is a fokkin’ favor! You know WHAT THEY DID TO ME?!”

He jerks the gun towards us. He’s not making any dramatic motions with it, not pulling the charging handle. Somehow that’s worse.

“You’d shoot through all of us to get to him?” asks that same person who wondered whether Kraber would kill us all.

“Would I?” Kraber asks. The HLF men and women behind him laugh and jeer, the only sounds I’ve heard them make in all the time I saw them. “Oh, I don’t know, would I? I mean, I’m just here to fokkin’ help, and here’s this blond little FOKKIN’ KONTGESIG-”

And Kraber shoots him in the head. I scream at the top of my lungs, the crowd surges back and forth. But the HLF behind him train their guns on us, and we fall silent.

“-trying to shit-talk me like I’m that teacher he hates,” Kraber says. “Aweh, look at that! Guess I might!”

Part of me shuts down. And I realize that there’s no way out of this where the family that’s given me safety this whole time gets out okay. So I realize I have only one option. I’m about to stop forward, when-

Flaming shapnel rains down the street, bouncing against the pavement. Someone screams.

“SHIT!” Kraber yells, and everyone immediately understands we have to run. We rush down the alley the other way, and he doesn’t seem to pay us any attention. We manage to get to the apartment, we pile everything in the car, and we head out to the mountains.

Others weren’t so lucky. Kraber was one of the worst out there during the attack on the Innsbruck Bureau. If anyone came at him, he’d hit them with the baseball bat, disassemble them, just cut them up. Didn’t matter if you were neighborhood watch, police, army, or innocent - if you walked on hooves or associated with ponies, he butchered you.

On the third day after his arrival, a police officer tried to arrest him...and Kraber just shot her in the leg, and belted her with his baseball bat till there wasn’t anything left to hit, ranting in more languages than I know. Meanwhile, her partner stood by and just watched. There’s video of it.

Knowing what I know now about guns, I don’t think he was shooting to kill, just to wound. Then he could get in close and beat the shit out of them with his hands.

There are so many people that owe crippling injuries to that bastard. So many friends dead.

He killed children. Foals, even. He crushed the skulls of newfoals. He’d stab ponies to death, skin off their cutie marks. He hung PER from lampposts, garrotted them, left them to die of shrapnel in their windpipes.

Then - once they built a big enough bomb - they blew up the Bureau. And with that, they left Innsbruck.”

“There is so much blood on that man’s hands,” Smoky finished. “From his week in Innsbruck alone, that it doesn’t matter how many of either side he killed.

“There’s one thing I don’t get, though,” Yael says. “What about that thing with CG?”

“You?” Gardner asks. “You’re asking that, Ze’ev? Why the fuck would you care?”

“I don’t,” Yael says. “But it still bothers me. It just doesn’t fit.”

“We can ask him about it personally. For now, he needs to go down,” Heliotrope said.

“Look. Dancing Day, was it?” Smoky said, “Don’t waste pity on the man. By the Golden Lyre, I don’t think there’s much left in him to separate him from the beasts. He’s probably doing something truly, unspeakably evil at this very moment!”

Light Despondent Remixed

by Doctor Fluffy

05: Burn It Down