//------------------------------// // 07: El Mañana / Dope Fiend Massacre // Story: Light Despondent Remixed // by Doctor Fluffy //------------------------------// Light Despondent chapter 7: El Mañana / Dope Fiend Massacre Co - Authors / Editors TB3 VoxAdam Kizuna-Tallis “It wasn't just the baby that died that day; something inside Sick Boy was lost and never returned.” Renton, Trainspotting I had a vision I saw Mr. Brown on the television He was talking crap as he always does I had to reign him in, why? Because I don't like who he is And I don't like who I am I don't like what he does And he makes me a man On the verge of his mind A spectacular view Mr. Brown, I've got an issue and its got to do with you Biting Elbows, Dope Fiend Massacre August 8, 2022 Off the coast of Maine Near the Sorghum The sun was sliding down the horizon just behind Portland, and lights flicked on second by second. Sunlight glinted on the metal of Arctic Warrior, and not too far above, Kraber could see pegasi and griffons, and maybe a few other species of Equus flying above the rig, from boat to boat. His best guess was that they were couriers of some kind - before his eyes, he saw a blue-green pegasus fluttering toward a nearby island. It reminded Kraber of before the War. Even with all the time in the HLF, it was hard not to maintain some fondness about that time. Things had just felt so…. Perfect back then. Ponies had flooded into his college in Boston during the last year he was there, he’d seen a pony street performer making some fokkin’ tom near Faneuil Hall with spinning gravity tubes that were also on fire. This had been after Kate was pregnant, of course, and he’d been left with a feeling of almost childish wonder. Like he’d been reading his old Edge Chronicles books when he was a kid. I’m bringing my kids into a world of wonder, is what Kraber had thought at that moment. Aliens that look like plushie horses! This could be fokkin’ lekker! He’d talked things over with Heather, Terry, Polo, Corinne, Burt, Strychnine, Jamie, and his usual chommies from all over the city. Also, Nny - his friend who’d played Grave Robber in that shadowcast of Repo! The Genetic Opera - had been there infrequently.  None of them had a pony friend gravitate towards them, (they expected to) and they’d all had plans to try and make things better. Plans they’d discuss in Burt’s favorite dive bar, over beer and burgers the size of hubcaps. Never mind that Strychnine would never have a degree, or that barely any of them had any business skills, but they didn’t let that stop them. What did stop it was Kraber’s mother exercising the supreme power of nepotism to get Kraber to Germany, so he could complete his residency as fast as possible, and put him on the fast track to paying for his family. And she even managed to get him to a location near a ski area. But all the time he worked to move there, he kept thinking. About what kind of world his kids would grow up in. That’s gone now, Kraber thought. Fokkin’ gluesticks showed us what they really were. “Rig ahoy!” Verity called out, as they approached the colossal bulk of the Sorghum. The mobile platform truly was truly immense, its light shining out over the sea in the sunset. All around him, Kraber could see boats swaying gently in the sluggish, frigid current. Some were recognizable as… whatever they’d been before the war… but others were either so modified or built from so much scrap that they were nigh-unrecognizable. To Kraber’s amazement, there looked to be small stores on sone of the boats weaving in and out of the mass of vessels. Most of those were taking turns at the docking ports around the feet of the rig’s support columns. Squinting, he saw that on one moored-up boat, a large earth pony in a lifejacket was passing baskets of fish up to a longshoreman on the rig. And there were many more boats clustering around the rig. Tugs not-so-different to the Arctic Warrior (barring the submerged compartment) along with a smattering of gunboats, both purpose-built and improvised, and patched, half-scuttled ships that clung to the Sorghum’s bulk like pilot-fish to a whale. Kraber doubted that a lot of them had more than one voyage left in them, save for the last desperate trip down south as the Barrier made its way to America… Down below, hovering just above the waves, he saw a pink pegasus hammering in a large metal patch to a boat that looked like it should have been scrapped… in the nineties. It listed to one side, on account of the various houses bolted onboard like odd growths or barnacles. The label ‘Winterstraw Market’ was emblazoned on the side of it. Yeah, Kraber reflected, Someone out there definitely has a sense of humor about this. Tethered to the market and other boats, he could see aerostats made from a reclaimed and incredibly large potioneer ship, the PHL logo sprayed over eight-layer-thick graffiti on the gasbag. A man lay on one of them, straw hat pulled over his eyes, a fishing pole propped up next to him, line descending town into the sea. A number of Coffin Ships floated nearby, one of which looked to be built on the tanks of two oil trucks. And, not too far away, an ancient container ship (Kraber knew little about boats, but it looked far older than it should have) seemed to dwarf the rig, its containers almost ready to spill out into the ocean. Music played up from above, with humans, ponies, and something that looked equine but had a beak dancing atop some of the containers. Strange glowing lamps hung above them. The words ‘BOREALIS’ were written on its prow. ‘Somebody’s a half-life fan,’ Kraber thought. ‘The end of the fokkin’ world, and STILL NO EPISODE THREE!’ If the rig was a city upon the sea, then here was the umkhuku suburbia, exiled from who-knew-where or making their way down from the wilderness of northern canada. Some of them looked to have beaten to high hell.  Lots of the boats bore the scars of some kind of offensive magic, such as strangely transmuted wood with grain that appeared to be interspersed with metal wire, or shoots of plants growing up from the wood. The largest of the support ships bore the name Genesis, and appeared to have began life as a bulk grain carrier. Now, its lengthy foredeck was a colossal hydroponic greenhouse, glassed and tented in to grow crops, likely the closest that most ponies on the rig would have to an orchard or vegetable patch. Kraber had heard that most of the PHL’s ‘oceangoing’ ponies were pegasi – their ability to fly made staff changes easy, and a life on the ocean wave satisfied their avian desire to roam, but a ship like Genesis would probably have at least some earth ponies at hoof to staff the greenhouses and artificial orchards. ‘Pegasi are simple, they usually have SMGs or bombs or molotovs, but earthlings favor those ridiculous little assault saddles with the light machineguns...there’ll definitely be some unicorns, if only because the PHL is addicted to with their magic...’ Still, even with those considerations in mind, the majority of the ponies present would be ‘peggies’, who tended to be overconfident and had lightweight, easily broken bones. So this should probably be an easy job. “Shit,” Mariesa said. “I didn’t think there’d be this many people...” “Huh?” Viktor grunted, and then realised that he had been so focused on the ponies that he’d neglected the veritable army of human security personnel patrolling both the rig and the large ships. So many guns were out there… and of course, he doubted the people on the boats were unarmed. That was a luxury few could afford nowadays. “That makes things interesting,” admitted Lovikov, who had come out onto the bridge wing to join them. “...Are we changing plans? Doing something else?” Verity asked. “No. If we wait, the actual tow will arrive, and then the rig will leave. And once it’s underway, getting aboard is going to be near to impossible,” Lovikov said.  “And since they swallowed our cover, they’re expecting us, so we have to do it now. There’s no other option.” Hundreds, Kraber thought, making a mental shrug of acceptance. “Stay on course,” cautioned Verity, checking repeatedly forward through a pair of binoculars. Everyone else stood alert, but Lovikov in particular had a huge smile on his face, staring up into the huge cannons mounted on the PHL rig.  Or at least, what they presumed to be cannons. “I’m gonna go check on the belowdecks,” Lovikov said. “Make sure we’re all on the same page.” “Aweh,” Kraber sighed, walking up to the prow of the boat. He watched as the Arctic Warrior passed yet another strange boat - a multilevel barge that looked to have a mobile home or prefab of some kind suspended a good ten feet above the hull on stilts. Men, women, ponies, and other Equus species sat on the underside of the mobile home, fishing, drinking, smoking, and playing cards. “Oh, it will be gone soon enough!” chirped a forest-green newfoal mare, balanced on the gunwale like a sprite. Kraber whipped out his .45, ready to shoot it in the face, only to find that- “Oh, what the shit is this fresh hell...” Kraber sighed. That’s how you react to me? The inexplicable newfoal mare asked. Wow, you’re jaded! She was covered in blood, one eye a mashed and jellied mass, pulped against a bullethole in her skull. Kraber could see her mane visible through the hole in her skull. A little hair actually appeared to have gotten stuck in there, waving out the empty eye socket.... her smile appeared to be held open with rusty hooks, blood oozing out from where they pierced the skin, the fur and skin underneath discolored by both blood and rust. Maybe she had once been beautiful, or as much as a pony could be nowadays… but there looked to be lines through her face, around her eyes. She looked like a porcelain doll, a decayed piece of Victorian automata, steadily cracking and unwinding... “Isn’t that just wonderful?” she giggled. ‘Fok me, another hallucination?’ Kraber groaned inwardly. “Who are you?” He thought, doing his best to think at it. He was on a tug with the Thenardiers, after all. He had to… he couldn’t get shot too early into the mission. “I’m you, silly! I’m Victory, your Pretty Private!” FOK! It even sounded like Pinkie Pie. “Or at least, I’m what you will be…” “FOK…” Kraber was about to tell, but he stifled that. Looked down. Forced it into a whisper. “Fok... JOU! I’ll never… EVER take the FOKKING POTION!” “Oh, don’t be so defeatist! Who knows what the future holds? I don’t, but it looks wonderful…” “Hou jou fokkin bek…” Kraber gritted his teeth. “Now, now. Don’t be that way! You’re so grumpy aaalll the time. I miss your smile, Viktor!” “Well, what the fok is there to smile about?!” That one wasn’t subvocalized, provoking a concerned look from Mariesa. “As a human, there’s nothing,” the newfoal said. “But if you become me, you’ll be happy all the time! Just like us! Just like us! Wheee!” She jumps down off the gunwale onto the deck, trailing a string from her back that’d gotten stuck in a scupper… … A pullstring, like you’d see on a child’s toy. As she hits the deck it comes taught, and she moans lewdly. “You’ll be happeeeeeee, nice and happeeeeeee…beyond measure, purest pleasure. Sexy, sexy pleasure!” she giggled, sounding like she was on the verge of an orgasm. Kraber responded to threats only three ways. Punching it, running, and one more. He decided it was time to resort to that last one. “Okay,” Kraber said, “Why does so much of your dialogue sound like it was ripped from a fetish comic?” Victory froze. “What.” “I mean,” Kraber said, confusion written on his face, “‘You’ll be happy all the time! Just like us! Just like us! Wheee!’ sounds like it’d be from one…” Victory’s face slid into a frown, and she facehoofed. “Darn it, it totally does sound like it’s from that fetish comic that Cherry Blossom used to read when she was human! I totally forgot about that!” She froze for a moment. “Argh! Now I’m angry because of reasons!” Victory groaned. Then paused. “Hey, wait a minute! Why are you telling me this? I’m probably just a figment of your imagination, I’m supposed to be the one destroying your perception of reality!” She paused again, watching Kraber as he looked out over the ocean. “You know what’ll stop me from doing this? The free ponification plan! Now with free steak knives that never need sharpening, because you’ll never eat steak again, you sick, dirty carnivore! You’re bad and you should feel bad, which is why you should join up with us!” ‘They never need sharpening? What are they, Ginsu knives?’ Kraber thought. ‘As knives go, I prefer a Cygnetic.’ Victory sighed. ‘You know, you’re really not any fun right now. I’m gonna hide until this all inevitably fails and you have to confront that you could have stopped all the murder and death at any time, but you’ll never be able to unless you take the potion!’ Wait, wha- Kraber thought. ‘Oh? You want to hear more? I thought you didn’t want more of me! I’ve seen this happen before, you know,’ Victory said, matter-of-factly. ‘With a you very much like this you, except he was born in 1994. I don’t know why you’re a year older than that you-’ ‘Because the writers are hacks?’ asked a newfoal that looked like Kate, visible in the reflections on the water below, standing next to Kraber. ‘Wait, writers?!’ Kraber thought. ‘That’s some fokkin ka… actually that kind of makes sense. But they’re not real, so fok this noise!’ ‘Oh, most assuredly! But anyway. It was in a world much like this, except it was… well, let’s say a lot of its so-called-heroes deserved what they got… And then Viktor’s mind comes unbound. One minute, he’s on the Arctic Warrior, and the next... August 2023 ...(s)he’s on another deck. It looks like an oceangoing ship when she looks at the railings, but then she sees the wings and nearby propellers. The massive gasbag above her head. The city below. Victory is standing above Shieldwall’s territory, which he calls Utopia. The city that had once been called Montreal, a (DISGUSTING, WORTHLESS, UGLY FREAKS) human city surrounded by farms, with massive amounts of underground space. Shieldwall wants to keep it. He’s attempting to unmake and remake the city to Equestrian standards, keep the subways. Back in the Solar Empire there’s politicians, warhawks and chickenhawks alike, who see him as having gone native, and as a criminal of the highest order for keeping this human city, and using PHL knowledge. “This city - MY city - is not just a city, Secretary, ” Shieldwall had said before the Solar Empire Parliament, making it absolutely clear in that single syllable that he was claiming ownership. “It is a symbol. An idea. To all the humans who live in the HLF-ridden badlands between us and PHL territory, and even those poor benighted apes and Betrayers - yes, even Betrayers - who live in that squalid junta, Utopia is something… bigger than a city. It is stability. It is order. It is comfort. It is a place beyond all the little ways humans and ponies divide themselves. Look at how much I’ve been able to commit to the war effort, Secretary. The steel I’ve given, the valuable workers and Converted, and tell me you’d just do. Away. With all. Those. Gifts. To the Solar Empire.” The Secretary of the Department for the Preservation of Equestrian Dignity had blanched. “Why, I…” And that had been that. Shieldwall had made Utopia and the ship on which they stood utterly indispensable. “Victory,” Shieldwall said. “Watching the city again?” He was wearing a dress uniform, as he always did now. It was studded with virtually every medal that the Solar Empire could award. “Yeah,” Victory said. “It’s just… it relaxes me.” “You have everything you could possibly want in the suite,” Shieldwall says. “You’ve more than earned it.” He walks up to the railing as well. “It is relaxing, isn’t it?” They stand there for a few minutes. “Come on,” Shieldwall says. “It’s time to go.” And so they head to the elevators. They take one of the aerostats down into Montreal Utopia, weaving between the other skyliners, the towers and bridges, the signage taking up the sides of Montreal’s skyscrapers. They pass by what was one the base of a skyscraper, destroyed by now and replaced with a small park of sorts - a grassy, green staging area for the baskets that convey people up to the Fillydelphia. Ascension Park, they call it. Their aerostat - painted in Celestia’s typical white and gold - weaves past another, smaller skyliner. Neon signage, and even a massive TV screen festoon it. As Kraber Victory watches it from her seat next to Shieldwall, she sees the propaganda film. The New Order of Utopia. A film of everyday scenes of life in Utopia and its suburbs, ponies and humans living next to each other in ORDER harmony, smiles on their faces so wide and unreal it is almost as if they were painted in place. On the streets below, Victory sees totem proles virtually everywhere. They have replaced the internet within this city, and overtaken every communication network. Below the ship, citizens cheer. It’s Shieldwall’s personal aerostat, after all. It’s not long after that they get to the parade floats, which trundle down a wide main street. The potioneer ships that fly overhead - old, serviceable models that have been dressed up and brought out of storage - part as Shieldwall’s ship slowly merges into formation. It’s going to be a beautiful day to celebrate V-C day and PLEASE STOP Shieldwall’s newcalves trot contentedly through the streets. Each of them have a sort of saddle with a small decorative tent, which is protected by a pinkish lightly glowing thaumic shield. In the howdah sit Fillydelphia Campaign veterans armed with potion crossbows, paintball guns, and even Shieldwall’s favorite human weapon - a massive auto-grenade launcher. Megacorns, living equine artillery pieces with horns like narwhals, proudly display artisan-made stabilization braces that mimic the ones they used to anchor themselves during the Campaign. The rank and file appear to be humans with newly-built PER weaponry, airguns capable of firing flechettes and potion splats like a prewar paintball gun. “Take it,” Shieldwall says, passing her a weapon from the gun rack. A ceremonial machinegun, decorated in gold and white. Even the ammunition box has been decorated in gold! Some part of Victory thinks that is ridiculously wasteful. Victory is the first to step out, and she feels almost blinded at first. She feels a reflexive burst of fear. Don’t look at me! she wants to scream. Stop, stop, just make it stop! And she remembers. She remembers the moment she was ponified, she hears the sound of herself screaming, the noise as the ship came to Montreal, the screams as she ponified those who stayed to defend the city and no no no stop She has the most powerful urge to place the muzzle to her chin and pull the trigger on the unspeakably tacky thing. At herself or the crowd, it doesn’t matter, she both needs and deserves to end it for herself, for all of them and she needs to STOP All is forgotten as Shieldwall steps out of the ship and the cheering reaches a crescendo. He basks in the spotlight for a few minutes, waving, smiling, even making cheers of his own. “Thank you!” he yells. “Thank you all, for coming here to celebrate V-C day!” The cheering is earsplitting, and lasts for block after block as he... FOKKIN STOP ...takes his float down the street. They pass by the railroad bridge, which leads to Quebec, which is on the very edge of the Utopia Province. THOOM A shot! A lump of lead, glowing blue, hangs in midair against the thaumic shield around Shieldwall’s float. Then there is a detonation, and it punches through the shield, into Shieldwall’s right foreleg. He gasps, slightly. Lists to the side. But within a second, he regains his composure. “BETRAYERS!” a pony screeches. “PHL!” “Infiltrators!” “KILL THEM!” All these cries and more ring out through the parade grounds. People rush towards alleways, towards storefronts, towards anywhere with an open door. It’s as if the horrors of the Battle of Montreal have come back for one horrible moment. Shieldwall limps away at as fast a pace as he can muster, which isn’t too fast what with one pegleg, one foreleg shot, and the war wounds, some of which Victory remembers causing during the Bad Times when she was human. “Find the shooter!” Shieldwall yells. “FIND THE CELESTIA-DAMNED SHOOTER!” “There!” someone yells, pointing up to a rooftop. “Victory,” Shieldwall hisses through gritted teeth. “Sic em.” And Victory explodes off the parade float. She feels… alive. It’s like someone has turned up the volume, the detail, the sensitivity of the world. She’s rushing past the floats before she knows it, conscious of what moves she’s going to make within minutes of doing them. She is on the prowl, now. When she is within 20 feet of the building where they saw her, Victory leaps, her legs assisted by both the earth pony strength that Shieldwall bred into her and unicorn magic. She sees a slight, feminine human figure fleeing across the rooftops. Victory snarls animalistically, and a thin beam of orange light tethers her to a nearby rooftop. She pulls on it, and she flies toward the roof. The human notices, and makes a beeline for a fire escape. “NO YOU DON’T!” Victory screams, and an orange field forms before her hooves. Once it hits the rooftop, she bounces. She’s hanging in the air for a few seconds before she sends out another tether… Right to the fire escape. The human has enough time to stare in horror, scrambling up, before Victory hits the fire escape. With her impact, the entire thing collapses, and the human screams as the whole construction comes down against the pavement. Victory gently floats down to the pavement. “My legs…” the human hisses through gritted teeth. “You bitch, I can’t feel my legs!” She tries to crawl forward. It doesn’t work. “Now, normally we’d have a trial, but we’ve decided that’s all a waste of time,” Victory says. “You’ll be relegated to a basic worker model once you’ve told us who you’re working for.” The human snorts contemptuously. “Glory… to Lyra Hearstrings,” she says, and bites down. August 2022 And Victory was gone as if she’d never been there in the first place. Which, Kraber supposed, she hadn’t. It was at that moment that Kraber became acutely aware of just how much he hated his life. Under his breath, he muttered a quick prayer – “Shema yisrael, adonai eloheinu, adonai echad…” “Hey, Kraber.” Kraber stood bolt upright, hand on his .45 pistol, ready to shoo- “Whoa! Take it easy!” Mariesa yelled, hands up. “You’ve been jumpier than usual.” “Jammer,” Kraber apologized. “I’ve… I haven’t been sleeping that well lately.” “Wait, you actually sleep?” Mariesa asked, raising an eyebrow. “A lot of us hear you trying to sleep in that container you have. You never sound good, always thrashing around… some of us are worried you might be going hatchers.” Dancing Day December 24, 2022 ”‘Going Hatchers’ was their word for bosbefok,” Kraber explains. And then, seeing the looks of confusion on everyone’s faces, Aegis steps in. “Shell-shocked. The stress of battle getting to you. You know,” he says. Dancing Day does know, yes. Too many ponies and humans have had that happen… especially Mr. Kraber. It’s sad, really – sometimes, she can see glimpses of who she thinks he once was. But those are fleeting, and she’s not sure what to look for. “Because of Beatrice?” Vinyl asks. “Aweh,” Kraber says, and shudders like a skyscraper in a quake. “I’ve seen a lot of screwed-up kak, but that really stands out.” “I’ve been meaning to ask,” Vinyl Scratch says, “Remind me why she sewed a bucking speaker into a newfoal’s chest?!” “I saw that in person,” Heliotrope adds. “I… I just felt sick looking at it.” “It was all kinds of wrong!” Vinyl adds, nodding vigorously. “She claimed she could hear her son’s voice coming out of it,” Kraber says simply. Everyone in the room is mesmerized or vaguely sickened, staring in rapt attention at this sudden ghost story. “Well, could she?” Dancing Day asks after a brief silence. “I mean there was definitely something weird ab-” “That’s not important for awhile,” Kraber interrupts, a bit too quickly. “I’m not sure I want to ova about it.” “Trust him, it’s pretty fucked up,” Aegis says. “Anyway, Mariesa had just asked how I was. And I’d said... August 2022 Kraber “I… I don’t think I’m hundreds,” Kraber said. “What?” Mariesa asked. “Sorry… most of us don’t speak Afrikaans.” She paused. “Or, well, whatever other languages you speak.” “Means I don’t feel fine,” Kraber answered. “Just – I can’t shake this feeling. I keep on asking myself… the fok am I doing? I’m hallucinating my family calling me a bliksem–” “No we’re not.” ‘Hou jou bek, you.’ “And the worst thing is,” Kraber continued aloud, “they have a point.” “Are they telling you to join the Tyrant Sun?” Mariesa asked. “I’ve heard that the PHL have hypnosis spells they can use to lure you in…” December 2022 Dancing Day “No we fucking don’t!” Vinyl yells. “Only the PER does that!” “You’re sure of that?” Verity asks. “Maybe this is how you have a seemingly limitless number of ponies in your ranks.” Aegis stares at her blankly. Scootaloo just looks confused. Heliotrope is somewhere between appalled and ready to burst into laughter while knowing that she really shouldn’t. Vinyl scowls. “Oh, go choke on someone’s dick, Verity.” “You’d talk that way to me?!” Verity yells. “Go on, just rub salt in the wound, why don’t you-” “Hey,” Vinyl says, “What happened to you was fucked up, and I get that. And so was Kraber laughing at you.” Kraber… well, he doesn’t quite cringe, but he looks contrite at the mention of that. “Even if... but you’re not exactly making it easy for yourself here. I don’t like it either, but we don’t exactly have a way out for you. The best thing you can do,” Vinyl continues, not exactly unkindly but still not exactly kindly, “Is not make it harder for all of us. Especially uoi.” “So now you’re blaming me?!” Verity yells. “Fuck all of you. I’m out.” She storms out through the door. Aegis and Kraber look at each other. It is a look that simply screams ‘This crap again?’ “Can we… can we finish my friend’s stories?” Aegis asks. “We’re not even at the interesting part yet.” “Yeah, well the HLF are…” Kraber muses. “Well, here’s the thing. A lot of the HLF you see now, the ones who didn’t join the Reavers or whatever, do not fokking understand the PHL any more than I can understand vaporwave music or seapunk. Or normalcore.” “The hell is normalcore or seapunk?” Vinyl asks, head cocked to the side, one eyebrow raised over her huge purple sunglasses. “You’re the music pony, how do you not know?” Grayson asks. “I don’t know everything,” Vinyl says. “I barely know that much about synthwave, either. Vik, you made the reference, why don’t you explain?” “Fokked if I can explain. It’s too tumblr for me,” Kraber adds. “And this’d take too long.” “A thought occurs. Did you… you said ‘the PHL’. Do you mean they don’t understand us?” Aegis corrects him. “Right – sorry. Even if I’d say you’re all my chommies, it’s just a bit hard to get used to,” Kraber says. August 2022 “No, nothing like that,” Kraber said. “I’m just wondering what the fok I’m doing. I’m thinking, maybe I should have… I don’t know, helped build a railroad. Go work in a hospital, do something, anything that’ll help people outside Defiance.” “I get that,” Mariesa said. “But Viktor, it’s… it’s us against the world. Against ponies. If one of us brings back something from ponies–” “Are you fokking saying that, or is Lovikov?” Kraber asked. She looked open-mouthed for a second, and leaned against the tug’s gunwale, watching the waves below. Kraber did the same, right next to her. “Don’t talk like that near him,” Mariesa said. “Please, just..” “This sound fokkin’ mal to you?” Kraber asked. “Lovikov…. Look. He was our friend, right?” And why the fok am I saying ‘was’? Kraber asked. “Our commanding officer,” Mariesa said. “Our boss.” Kraber nodded, speculatively. “Aweh. But I make one fokkin’ mistake, and he decides to kick me while I’m down and grind me into the dust. This is someone we trust, Mariesa. Someone who leads us. So why are we acting like we’re walking on fokkin’ eggshells around him? When I was in college, I’d-” “I don’t want to know,” Mariesa interrupted. Then, turning away, looking at nothing in particular: “...Good question, though.” Something about the way she folded her arms seemed… off to Kraber. ‘Something’s happened. To her.’ He couldn’t explain how he’d guessed. “What’d he do?” Kraber asked. “What could he-” "What're you talking about down there?!" a voice called down from the bridge. "Kapitan Kraber..." It was Verity, and the snide on the last two words was acidic enough to etch steel. “NOT JOU FOKKIN’ BUSINESS!” Kraber replied, yelling over the roar of the tug’s bow-wave. “I don’t care what you call yourself, Kapitan, but right now this is my boat, and that makes your business, my business!” They glared at each other before Mariesa stepped in between, one hand placed on Kraber’s chest and the other held up towards Verity, palm out. “Please, we’re all on the same side here. We’re all HLF...and that’s what we were talking about, Captain Carter. The cause,” Mariesa said. Verity tipped her head and made a half-shrug. “Fine.” She didn’t move away however, she and the tall, thin, muscled, man continuing to cross-examine each other in silence. The young woman staring down from the bridge wing, and the soldier gazing up from the main deck. “Alright, what’s the deal between the two of you? Why do you get along so badly?” Mariesa asked, projecting her voice ever so slightly. There was a pause, as Kraber stared up at the pilothouse, feeling Verity looking down on him. “I think kids should have a chance to be kids,” he said at last. “I mean… look at yourself, Verity. You’re twenty-something years old and you’ve spent your entire formative years as a soldier. Before the war, even. You barely finished high school.” “How do you know that?!” Verity yelled back. Kraber raised an eyebrow. “It wasn’t like it was hard to find out. Besides, you kept talking about it when you were gesuip back in New Mexico. That time with the Brazilian po-” “Whoa whoa whoa,” Mariesa said. “Viktor, you got a minor drunk?! And there was a WHAT?!” “Hey, she was a friend! And Verity asked!” Kraber protested. “Besides, back home that’d be drinking age. It’s nothing my dad didn’t do with me…” “Wait, you were listening that whole time?” Verity gasped. “Well. Ja,” Kraber said. “Then you heard me say I wouldn’t take back any minute of this,” Verity said, leaning against the railing of the tugboat as increasingly bizarre boats passed them by. For example, at that moment there was a cheap pontoon boat that seemed to be dedicated mostly to a kitchen and small shack passed by, a sign written in Swahili and English advertising Nigerian buns. A zebra - the Equestrian one, not the Earth kind - stood next to a human, frying pan in their mouth. Haven’t eaten that in awhile, Kraber thought. And then he decided to leave his guns on the Arctic Warrior, jump off the boat, breaststroke onto the kitchen-boat, and buy a bun. That totally didn’t happen, but the idea of something like that, of just being able to stop for a few seconds it was very tempting. “All of it, I chose all of it. Because neither of you saw… saw what they did to my mother,” Verity said. “And you never saw what the potion did to my wife, my kids, my cousin…” Kraber answered softly, and the two hardened warriors, divided by age and gender, but brought together by circumstances managed to share a smile. “I met your mother once, did you know,” he said, tone cautious. “It was at a convention, once, in Boston, actually – I slipped out of class for it. I needed a fokking break...” “Couldn’t you have just waited for the weekend?” Verity asked, confused. Kraber raised an eyebrow. “Verity. Do I really seem like the kind of guy who wouldn’t skip class just to see if he fokkin’ could?” Verity thought on that for a few seconds. “No, not really?” “Wasn’t like I was all that wanted in class, anyway, “Boston Comic-Con 2013…” Verity mused, and both of the observers saw her visibly slip into nostalgia for back when people had big, flashy, decorated conventions like that, when there was money, clothes, and materials to spare for whatever costume you needed. When  pop culture was a hell of a lot more important than living hand-to-mouth on what scraps you could find. “That...that was my first cosplay… I was in an Autobot exosuit. Wait, were you the guy with the pompadour, at the IDW panel!?” “I’m assuming you don’t mean the stocky fat guy in the Kill La Kill shirt, right?” Kraber asked. “We all called him Nny, he actually starred with me in a production of Repo: The Genetic Opera. Funny guy. Could stand to shave a bit more, though… I saw him dressed as one of the Galaxy Girls the next day...” “So close… and yet so far...” “At least he looked good in tights…” Verity waved a desperate hand. “No, goddammit, no! The guy in leathers, dressed like a greaser… kept asking my Mom all the questions about her work for DC and Dark Horse, who was he cosplaying…? Oh yeah, Sweet JP from Redline!” “Oh, that dipshit…” Kraber said. “Yeah, that was me.” “You looked kinda funny,” Verity admitted. “Hey, I smaak Redline! I even ghostwrote a paper on it for a friend in film school!” Kraber said. “What the fok was I supposed to watch? Tailenders? Sies, man. Hated that so much.” “Really?” Verity asked. “I thought it was alright.” “Maybe, but I feel like it just can’t compare,” Kraber said. “Jou know what I mean?” They chuckled softly, sharing a memory. Then Kraber’s expression darkened. “Your mother was a brave woman. What the ponies did to her, that… that wasn’t right. Look, Verity,” Kraber said. “We might not get along, we might be too similar to really… get each other, but I understand your–” A crack over the radio snapped the conversation’s tail off. ‘GOOD NIGHT SORGHUM TOWN!” he heard someone yell. “The hell is that?” Mariesa asked. “That’s the PHL’s local radio station,” Lovikov said. “It’s broadcast from the Sorghum by some horsefucker and her friend. I was hoping to take it over too. Add a little… personal touch.” “I like your style,” Verity said approvingly. “Go ahead!” December 2022 “You… you can sympathize with Verity?” Amber Maple asks. “We all lost something in this war. Our pozzies, our chommies, our families, our lives… though that doesn’t mean it wasn’t hilarious what happened to her,” Kraber says. “Except the PER. I mean, they probably did, but fok them.” Vinyl raises an eyebrow. “...I’m not sure what to say about your attitude here,” Aegis says. “On the one hoof, you just said that. On the other…” A look of rare disgust crosses his face. “The f…. That was really screwed up, Viktor,” Aegis says. “I know!” Kraber not-quite-protests. “It was, but I don’t know how not to find it funny!” “Wait, really?” Elena asks. “Well,” Yael says, “Maybe... “ she rocks back like she’s been hit. “...I can’t believe I’m saying this about Verity. But just think about what happened to you.” “Ja-nee,” Kraber says. “If I didn’t have Aegis, I’d be fokking ponified, dead… or stretched out on a table somewhere with a toolbox next to me.” He looks up at Aegis appreciatively. “She’s got nobody, pony or human. And… why in the fok can’t I think it’s not funny?” Aegis moves  closer to Kraber, comforting him with his great bulk, and Kraber leans against his barrel, gently sipping some hot chocolate that Dancing Day strongly suspects to be alcoholic. “Thanks,” Kraber says, a warm smile on his face as he moves slightly, Aegis inclining his great neck towards Kraber for a hug. “Just… don’t squeeze too hard, alright? I still think you cracked some ribs,” Aegis says. “Sorry,” Kraber says, looking a little embarrassed as his best friend – his bru, his chommie – hugs him, and Kraber hugs back. “I love you so much, Aegis.” “Me too,” Aegis admits, blushing slightly, the expression out of place on such a huge stallion. “Hold on,” Kraber says, something dawning. “...I’ve got an idea. For Verity’s christmas present… Verksoon my a mo, I’ve got to talk to the Major! I’ve got a Hanukkah idea!” And with that, he and Aegis have dashed out the room to requisition, leaving Dancing Day looking confused. When they return, Kraber talks about the rig, and how it was... Kraber August 2022 In a word, enormous. Saying it was a city unto itself would have been trite and cliche, though it was one of the only descriptors that Kraber could think to use. It was massive, colossal towers, drilling platforms and pumphouses and inscrutable rugged-yet-kitbashed PHL machinery balanced by improvised buildings that made it look like nothing so much as a mass of paint, girders, and rust. Shipping containers and deceptively hardy driftwood dwellings had been hammered and welded into place where possible. A few didn’t look to have ladders down, and were perched high up on the rig. Probably pegasus houses? But beneath all that, Kraber could see those huge PHL weapons, bristling like hairs from the upper echelons of the four pillars that bore the Sorghum’s weight. The cannons had been modified in some odd, exotic manner, with additional machinery added on, strung and bound with cords and tubes that lightly glowed. The light cast by the platform reached down and illuminated the darkening ocean below the rig. With Verity keeping up a string of repeated commands from the rig over the radio, the Arctic Warrior muscled itself through the teeming vessels towards the nearest of the pillars. Wider across than the tugboat was long, the vertical pillar was coated in umber-red anti-fouling paint, and featured collapsible jetties around the base that unfolded for vessels to tie up to. There was even an elevator attached to one of the pillars. “Redd, be ready on the aft lines,” she instructed. “Viktor, go forward, and don’t try be a pirate. Just take the coil of rope and sling it to the guy on the jetty…” “...and then shoot him in the gesig while his hands are full?” “...And the gesig is…” “Face.” “Wait, so you keep saying ‘kontgesig’, so… DAMMIT! No, you hick. You want his buddies to return fire? Are you trying to get killed?” she snorted. “Once we’re made fast I’m going to use the tug’s engines to whip the whole jetty sideways and knock em’ to their knees. Then you can kill everything. But no guns. Keep it silent.” It was a beautiful, elegant plan… ...and unlike most, it survived first contact with the enemy. The enemy however, did not. “Alright, you’re tied up. You can shut off your engines n-hey! Hey! What are you doing! Go ASTERN, TUGBOAT WARRIOR, GO ASTE-ARGH!” Dancing Day December 2022 “This part isn’t easy,” Kraber said. “...Not the outright worst fokking thing I did in the war, probably. But it’s the one that hits the most.” August 2022 Kraber When they got on the jetty, the crew on the mooring platform had gone down like sacks of hammers. Kraber held one woman by the shoulders, dragging her to her feet. “It’s fine, it’s fine. We’re here to help, just… just sit tight. It’s gonna be alright, soon.” “Furrrggrrrwrrtthhhrrtrgbr,” the woman slurred, which Kraber - as a seasoned linguist who grew up speaking no fewer than six languages, including Afrikaans, English, German, Hindi, Swahili, and Drunk - assumed was a rough translation of ‘Fuck is with that tugboat?’ “Oh, come on,” Lovikov scoffed. Why the FOK does he feel like he can talk to me like that?! Kraber wanted to scream. Because that tone. THAT FOKKING TONE. The same one he’d heard from everyone that talked down to him, his children. From Mrs. Bennett when she acted like every day Kraber managed to dress himself was a great big mystery,  before Kraber kicked her in the face. From Anwar when he called a young Viktor Kraber retarded and tried to stab him, before it took about four teachers and the principal to get Kraber off him. From the PER pegasus stallion who brushed off his concerns about Cousin Richard. From the anti-vaxxer who tried to pass his mental issues off as vaccine injuries - and again, several educators had to pull him off her. From his fokkin’ stupid roommate insulting him at every turn, asking if he was pregnant, calling him gay, and insulting every girl he knew, even insulting him the amount of time he spent in the bathroom. Who, yet again, had gotten kicked in the face. Or partly eaten. It was hard for Kraber to remember. There were more, but Kraber didn’t feel like going further. “How did you know that’d-” Lovikov continued, still sarcastic. “You think this is the first time I’ve dealt with someone who took a head shot?” Kraber asked, glaring at his friend commanding officer. “It’s easy to confuse them. Watch!” He walked over to a man that Mariesa was holding up, and made a vaguely mystical gesture with his thumb and forefinger. “The tugboat had an engine problem,” Kraber said. “Nothing to worry about.” The man mumbled a noncommittal noise of agreement. “Aren’t you just full of surprises,” Lovikov said, as he and Kraber ascended the stairs, weapons drawn. At the moment, it was impossible for Kraber to tell if that was gratitude or sarcasm. Which would sound weird in roughly four months when he was telling it to Dancing Day, Vinyl, Heliotrope, Yael, Aegis, and all the others who’d gathered to hear the story. But then again, he was in a stage where everything about Lovikov counted as some sort of offense for him. Really, it could’ve been either. Now that Arctic Warrior was secured tight to the column, the boarding-party were disembarking from their secret compartment onto the platform… … and nobody or nopony knew that it had happened. “Perfect,” Lovikov said, smiling, as they walked the spiral staircase up one of the pillars. The top of the column’s spiraling staircase opened up into a courtyard in one corner of the platform’s main working deck. Pipes as great and huge as felled redwoods rumbled, spat and hissed, forming a lattice roof over their heads. It was like walking through an industrial jungle. “Hey. You’re… you’re the new tug crew, aren’t you?” asked a viridian-colored pegasus trotting up to them. He wore a light, inconspicuous assault yoke with two PDWs that vaguely resembled a P90, though Kraber could still pistol grips for humans protruding from the bottom of the things. Good touch. “Don’t think you’re supposed to be here. Especially after what that tu-” Now, there could have been a bloodless, easy way to do this. The HLF could have appealed to the reasonability of the PHL. They could have held the pony hostage. They could have been convincing. There could have been minimal bloodshed. That would have made too much sense. “Don’t think you do either,” Kraber said, and before he knew it, his revolver was in hand. The pegasus’ head exploded all over the hot pipework, congealing and cooking immediately upon contact. The smell of burnt flesh and blood filled the late summer air. A human in fisherman’s oilskins stared, a look of utter horror on his face. “Run,” Lovikov said, smirking slightly. The man in oilskins obeyed admirably, dropping his toolbox and rushing by a tangle of pipes… Before Lovikov dropped him with a 7.62x39mm round to the neck. As if to punctuate that, the assault team poured up the stairwell and spilled around Viktor and Lovikov, and like parasites introduced into a body, began to divide, and spread, and slaughter. The stamping of feet on deck and the first distant gunshots drew attention fast. “What’s going on Seafo–” blurted an older man with a shotgun, rushing into the courtyard before taking stock of the situation. A UN patch shone blue on his shoulder. He saw everything. The invading troops, Kraber and Lovikov… and the dead pony. “Seafoam! YOU SONS OF BITCHES!” he screamed, unholstering his shotgun. “I’ll–” Kraber’s LMG lifted his LMG clear of the duffel bag, and fanned the trigger. Three rounds cut through the man’s gut, leaving the varknaaier screaming, collapsed on the deck of the rig. The Battle of the Sorghum had commenced in earnest. It would be hard for Kraber to ever describe the firefight to secure control of the platform. Not for the violence involved, no. Nor was it because of brutality, or some new cruelty visited on people, like his masterworks of disemboweling PER members (and then tying them to trees for wolves to eat) or that time he pretended to dump potion on someone’s head and it was really… well, that wasn’t important. “See, in action movies,” Kraber would tell a grouping of fillies and young adult mares a little over a year later, “...And most of my life, actually, firefights are choreographed long-range spectacles. Blood spraying everywhere. And the Conversion War, that’s pretty fokking large-scale.” This… this was small-scale. Point-blank range for an MG2021. It ripped them apart, punching massive holes through humans, through ponies, through pipes, everything.. As the HLF force inveigled themselves through the corridors and compartments, ponies revealed themselves, along with men and women holding shotguns. They placed themselves behind corners and barricades, weapons at the ready… only for the HLF to launch grenades and pipebombs at them, the shrapnel and nails inside shredding the poor varknaaiers and adding dashes of colour to the industrial grey of the platform’s decor. “WE TAKE IT BACK!” Lovikov howled. Yes, howled. Don’t look at me like that, Dancing Day. It sounded like a howl at the time. He fired a quick burst from his Kalashnikov, chopping through men and women in jumpsuits and fluorescent vests armed with anything from high-end to cheap milisurp, to target rifles and bird guns ignored by more fortunate folk. And beside him, Kraber did the same, his LMG roaring like a wild animal in the closed confines. “...My God, we barely have a real military here!” Kraber heard someone scream. “They’re just murdering workers! And us, if we don’t-” Her voice was cut off, as Kraber saw a woman with dyed-blue hair cut like a pony’s mane, falling to the ground choking, clutching a .45ACP-sized runnel in her throat. Maybe she was dying. But then, maybe she wasn’t. And so a pattern established itself. Advance into another room, receive sporadic defensive fire, return with extreme prejudice. The defenders were loaded for bear, and the aggressors were loaded for tanks. Kraber's .308 rounds punched through up to two, even three of the PHL kontgesigs at a time. Blood spattered the walls, ceilings, and floors, He barely even had to shoulder it – at this range, he could just pull the trigger and any round he fired would probably hit something. With each trigger pull, humans, ponies, and others fell to the ground, clutching massive holes, screaming as Kraber fired… and fired… and fired again. When the MG2021 ran out of ammo, he simply pulled out his .45 pistol and fired that, the .45ACP rounds punching through head after head. When that was done, Kraber tried for the revolver – headshots with that thing didn’t leave pretty little holes, all he could see were a few remnants of the lower jaw when he fired. This was fun, wasn’t it?! WASN’T IT?! “You’re enjoying yourself, aren’t you?” that new hallucination, Victory said, as Kraber slipped into another room. “Go on! INDULGE YOURSELF!” She was holding her own pullstring in her hooves, and yanking it in tune to every dying scream and gurgle. “Hi I’m Victory, the Pretty Private. Hi, I’m Victory, I’m your death. Hi I’m Victory, your pocket-monster psychopath, hi, hi, hi, DIE!” “No, Kraber! This isn’t you!” the older newfoal screamed, using Kate’s voice. “HOU JOU FOKKIN BEK, JOU VARKNAAIERS!” Kraber yelled back, not sure if he was yelling at the PHL or the two newfoals in his head. Shouldering the MG2021, he aimed for one PHL man’s knee, the round tearing through it and shattering a pony’s hoof as it exited on the far side. “You fucking sonova–” the PHL man screamed, just before Kraber’s boot shattered his jaw again, cracking his skull against the wall. A purplish-colored earth pony stallion, behind himtried to jump up, but fell, the stump of his hoof oozing blood. He gritted his teeth and tried to move, but– Kraber drew back his fist and bliksemed the PHL man, feeling his nose shattering under his fist. In the corner of his eye, he could see Victory applauding him, and rushed on, laughing hysterically. “JOU FOKKING INVADERS! JOU THINK JOU CAN SCREW WITH US, JOU BLIKSEM?!” Kraber screamed, and rammed his boot into the purplish earth pony’s jaw. “Oh!” called out Victory, offering out her own golden horse-shoes. “Do you want to try these out? They’ve got bladed tips and are perfect for this kinda fun. Course, you’ll need hooves, but we have just the medicine for that.” “Stop it, daddy!” Kraber heard Anka screaming, from somewhere. “Please, just stop this and listen to me!” Kraber wasn’t listening. He was beating a pony with the stock of his shotgun. “JOU LIKE HURTING KIDS, HUH?!” Kraber screamed, feeling something crack. “JOU LIKE HURTING PEOPLE THAT JUST WANTED TO FOKKING RUN AWAY?!” Another hit with the pipe. “JOU FOKKIN POESNEUS!” “You… you’re one to talk,” the shade of Emil sighed in disappointment. “You… you’re just scared little children, murders and rapi–” “AAAAAAAAAAAARRRRGH!” Kraber yelled, and headbutted a fresh pony, the spikes on his helmet impaling her eye. The mare screamed, a high piercing note that made Kraber’s ears ache. “NOBODY! FOKKING! CALLS ME THAT!” Kraber yelled, pounding his fists into the earth pony.  This was… it felt good, right?! IT WAS FOKKING SUPPOSED TO BE RIGHT! NOTHING WAS RIGHT! Maybe if he pounded a corpse further into dust again it’d be fun. Maybe then he could finally feel like a hero! Maybe... if he punched her again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again AND FOKKING AGIN– “Kraber…” There was a voice screaming his name, but it didn’t feel unimportant. And then a pair of hands caught his fist, twisted his arm behind his back, and forced him into a submission hold, breaking his focus… and slamming him face-first into the floor. “I know who you are, you bastard,” the man hissed, and Kraber was thrown at a wall, choking as the wind was knocked out of him. He wheezed, and coughed up blood inside his mask as a booted foot slammed into his stomach. Kraber could see the name written on his PHL vest - Imbeault. “Viktor Kraber,” he said. “They’ll pay me good for your body.” Imbeault barely seemed bothered by the bullets punching against his armor. Kraber was left almost certain that he had some kind of shield. FOK! What do I do, what do I do… Kraber’s mind raced. What do I know about shields? It’s not like they’re immune to blunt impacts, so… Kraber did the most logical thing he could think of: He headbutted Imbeault, who looked stunned… if only for a moment, before throwing Kraber at another wall. FOK! He was so strong! Kraber was thrown out of the room, the door smacking against his back, as he tumbled back outwards. Oh, fok! “Dodge… this…” Kraber said, as he rolled over, unlimbering his MG2021, and opening full-auto. Now, strong as Imbeault might have been, good as his armor might have been, it was still a machinegun chambered for .308 at close range. And aimed at Imbeault’s head. Imbeault staggered back, the weight of bullets smashing against him. “But how?! How the hell did you get that PHL-” And finally, a hail of bullets shredded through Imbeault’s skull. He swayed for a second, and crumpled down. His armor was mostly intact, but his head was a pulped mess, barely more than a few scraps of flesh attached to the neck. “...Oh, holy shit!” Kraber wheezed. “Thanks for the save. Except you, Lovikov!” he yelled. “I’m your commanding officer, you sonovabitch!” Lovikov yelled. “Then why…” Kraber coughed, blood dripping onto his vest, “Didn’t you shoot the kontgesig?!” “You know, he’s right,” one Thenardier Guard said. “What the hell was with that guy?” “We’ve gotten as far as the radio suite” called down one other Menschabwehrfraktion woman named Katrin, originally from Amsterdam. “They’re resisting pretty heavily!” There was a scream, and a bang. “STOP!” someone yelled. “FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, STOP! WE’RE ALREADY DEAD!” “What goddamn resistance?!” the newfoal asked in Kate’s voice. “They were just doing their jobs! They were doing something that’d help during Barrierfall! And you've refused to do anything like that! Oh,” the creature said in his voice, playing back what he’d said last night, “And if I'm near one pony, one of those fokking invaders that destroyed our home – then they’ll kill me. Ponify me! They can’t be trusted! I’m willing to bet they’ve done more to help humanity than you have in the last couple years!” “Oh, don’t stress about it,” trilled Victory. “I mean, its all just more dead humans and traitors. You’re actually making it easier for Her Majesty by reducing the surplus population. When you’re me, you’ll thank yourself too! Keep up the good work.” “Shut the fok up…”, Kraber hissed as he walked in the direction of the Menschabwehrfraktion man’s voice, eventually finding himself in the radio facilities, a small cluster of soundproofed rooms, each broadcasting on a different frequency and topic. It wasn’t a long distance - for all its size, the rig occupied a very small footprint, after all. He practically waded through blood to get to this deck. Ponies, most of them pegasi, lay dying on the floor, some of them with their heads... ‘This just feels wrong, but… what else am I supposed to do?’ ...their heads missing, blown apart by HLF munitions, the gray-pink residue of their brains spattered against the wall. Some were still alive, and two HLF members, a short man and woman with an AK74S-U each (Burton and Sarah Mallett) held a screaming pegasus down, sawing her wings off with a hacksaw. ‘Does this accomplish anything?’ One dead pony looked to be a foal, and Kraber’s heart seized up as, for a moment, he saw the foal he’d saved two nights before superimposed over her. Looking at him with pity again - not anger, pity. An ass-mark of what looked to be ballet shoes fitted for hooves, whatever they were called, was emblazoned on her flank, but when he walked past her, it… It wasn’t there. He turned around – had she only gotten it on one flank? He turned around a little, curious, to find that it wasn’t there on that side either. It wasn’t there! Okay, just a…. just another hallucination. He had to keep going but– He remembered something. Something from back in Istanbul, a moment with Burakgazi. Right after they’d blown up the Bureau there... July 29, 2019 Istanbul, Turkey Right after the Istanbul Conversion Bureau bombing A cafe with really good baklava “Thanks for recommending this place," Kraber said appreciatively. "So... What was so important?" "I found some textbooks,” said Burakgazi, the strange, stocky man that Kraber had met planning a completely separate terrorist attack on the Bureau, through the use of what seemed to be homemade chemical bombs. He was perhaps best described as ‘indeterminately brown’ – he looked Turkish, but there was a trace of something asian in his features, owing to one Japanese parent, which, he claimed, owed to the fact that Japanese and Turkish were very similar languages. He had somewhat wrinkled tan skin, early graying, prematurely receding dark hair, and a thick short dark beard that appeared to go out in every direction.  “Textbooks from Equestria.” He looked to be somewhere into his thirties. It was hard to guess. They were sitting at a cafe in Istanbul, looking on approvingly at the emergency services rushing by them, ready to rescue the Bureau personnel. Not much point, really – Kraber was half-tempted to stand up, take a look at the various mosquitos (as a Boston policeman by the name of Django Miller had termed the onlookers that flocked to a crime scene, back when Kraber was still in college) and others rushing to the site of their handiwork, and call out “STOP RUNNING, JOU FOKKING KONTGESIGS! THE HUMANS THAT RUN BUREAUS ARE FOKKING DEAD ALREADY!” “Why the fok would you want to look at those, Mr. Burakgazi?” Kraber asked, disgustedly. “Please. Call me Kagan,” Burakgazi said warmly. “We blew up that fokking concentration camp they called a…” he paused. “Oh. Right. I’m sorry for that.” Kraber waved that off. “Reh, I don’t give a fok. You’re not wrong calling it that.” Burakgazi breathed a sigh of relief… then he made a noise of disgust. “Was that bad to you, eh?” “It was fokking Dachau in there!” Kraber exclaimed. “Praise the Lord and pass the thermite. But… why textbooks?” “Well, I cherish knowledge,” Burakgazi said. “...Eventually, your knowledge of where to get thermite grenades. But I even cherish knowledge from goddamned gluesticks. They’re quite fascinating, really. Apparently, ponies have something called alicornal tissue – it’s thaumaturgon-superconducting...” “Did someone read Perdido Street Station when they came up with that?” “....Huh. That is weird. Still, I suppose it’s a good name for the particles that alicornal tissue can interact with. Damn, you’ve read that book too?” “I love that book! New Crobuzon… amazing city, but I wouldn’t want to live there. I do like the point Mr. Mieville makes about criminals being marked for life…” “It’s really not all that different when you get down to it,” Kagan agreed. “Anyway – turns out those ass-marks they have grow out of super-concentrated alicornal tissue pockets in their flanks – sometimes in other places, but that’s rare – and marks them with the skill they’re best with at, what they’ll be happiest with… No damn clue what it’d be. Usually it activates by the time they’re eleven.” August 2022 Kraber staggered against a blood-spattered window, trying to keep down what little he’d eaten back in Portland. The navigation lights of ships on the ocean below danced in strange orbits, as he tried to comprehend the body before him. There were sporadic firefights all over the area, some of which were on the boats below. Let the kontgesigs come. He wouldn’t mind. Why… It had a cutie-mark. So that meant it wasn’t a newfoal – newfoals were always part of the PER or what have you. He’d shot a ch– ‘You fokking lying hypocrite…’ he thought, only for an unwelcome voice to finish the thought. Why? Why in the fok doesn’t this feel right anymore?! “You did this two days ago, and you laughed!” giggled Victory, the Pretty Private. “You stupid, stupid human! But don’t worry…” she said, waggling one hoof back and forth like a mother chastising her son, one of those STUPID FOKKING PSYCHOLOGISTS THAT TREATED HIM OR HIS KIDS LIKE SHIT! “You can forget this if you just go pony…” “Don’t listen! Viktor… this isn’t doing anything!” the other newfoal pleaded in Kate’s voice. “They know you, Viktor! You’re running out of choices.” “Then,” Kraber said, looking uneasily at the remains of yet another pony, pinned to the wall with what looked like a railroad spike, “I have to fight, if the PHL will resort to-” “It won’t be them that resort to despicable things” the other newfoal interrupted. “It will be you.” Kraber could swear he heard the newfoal right next to him, to the point that his eyes darted around, not sure where the voice was coming from. Maybe the PHL would get him for this raid. Maybe they wouldn’t. But… moments like this… there was only so long the authorities could justify ignoring the HLF. And he’d have to be bosbefok, fokking crazy, to believe he’d get out of this with no consequences. … If he lived, assuming the PHL or Lovikov didn’t kill him, what then? Who would even miss him? Nothing, not even those fokking annoying hallucinations, had an answer. That mare had to have done something to me, Kraber thought. And suddenly, things made sense. It was like a weight lifted off his shoulders, and he found himself nodding. ‘Ja! That makes perfect sense.’ It made perfect sense. Why had he been feeling guilty about hurting ponies THAT TOOK FOKKIN’ EVERYTHING FROM HIM, or wanted to ignore what’d become his entire purpose in life now that fatherhood had been taken from him? Fokkin’ easy! That mare in the truck had fokked up his brain. That’s… fucking stupid, said the newfoal with Kate’s voice. Not-kate. ‘But it makes sense,’ Kraber thought. ‘Why would this all be happening to me now? Why would I be seeing things? Why would I feel crippled like this? Because I was MADE to feel this way! This isn’t me thinking it, it’s that fokkin’ gluestick! Everything was clear to him. ‘You can’t know that,’ the not-Kate newfoal said. But you can’t either! Kraber thought, smiling. You’re just a figment of my imagination! ‘I can’t convince you, can I? the not-Kate said. ‘Nooit.’ ‘Fine then. I’ll leave,’ the not-Kate said. ‘Just remember to ask yourself. What would I do?’ Almost predictably, Kraber didn’t respond. Instead, he proudly strode over to the radio room, doubts forgotten. All was silent, save for the sounds of Lovikov and various other ‘brothers and sisters of the liberation’ roughing-up the civilians in one of the radio rooms. There were no screams, not at this stage.  He could hear the sounds of fists striking flesh, and dry sounds that... Were those made by people? What few ponies were left on the rig didn't have long to live. Kraber stepped into the radio room and surveyed the scene. “What kept you?” Lovikov asked, in what Kraber hoped was a joke. He didn’t answer. “Well, Verity, your informant did us well again,” Flamel said. “Not sure I trust her, but she certainly got the job done.” “Verity has an informant?” Kraber asked, surprised. “None of your concern,” Verity said, a dangerous edge in her voice. “You… sons of bitches…” one woman hissed through her remaining teeth, only to contract in shock when Lovikov shot an earth pony who had been laid out beside her. “Now,” the Ukrainian asked levelly. “Can I broadcast from this station?” “You… You killed Shortwave,” the woman whimpered. “He… he was my f–” “Ah, get off it,” Kraber said dismissively. “Ponies aren’t your friends. I just did you a favor.” “Favor?!” the woman yelled. “FAVOR?! You bastard, he had foals! He smuggled them out of Equestria, just to–” “Kraber?” Lovikov asked. “Persuade her.” Without a doubt in his mind, Kraber punched that poor woman in the face, knocking her to the ground and leaving her clutching the bloody hole in her face that had been her mouth, wheezing and whimpering in the agony beyond mere screams. Ja, that was some fine-ass fokking protection. “Now…” Lovikov said, pointing down at the woman as if the finger he had to her face was a gun. “Can. I. Broadcast from here?” “YES!” she gasped. “We were on the air when you attacked! We still are!” “Good,” Lovikov said, and pointed his pistol to her head- “Hey! Stop that!” Verity yelled. “We still need some hostages! Not that you and that crazy bastard left many to work with…” “Fine,” Lovikov sighed, sounding like nothing so much as a petulant child. “Hakim, can you rig up a livestream for us?” “Sure can,” Hakim said. “Just… I just need a computer… maybe a phone...” He rummaged around the room, finally pulling out a laptop computer. Shoving him none-too-gently aside, Verity changed places with him, holding her sidearm to the poor woman’s trembling head, as Lovikov stepped up to the console and started to speak. “I’m sure all of you brainwashed sheep listening into tonight’s scheduled propaganda have wondered who we are,” Lovikov said smoothly. “Well. We’re not your salvation – that’s a shitty excuse. You’ve had enough salvation. No, we’re your LIBERATION!” He paused for effect before continuing. “If you heard our attack ‘live’, then know this. We have waited as you welcomed in those invaders, those fucking gluesticks. The ponies, the zebras, the like. We are the Human Liberation Front. You’ve now heard with your own ears what we are capable of. And unlike you–” “...is it really for the best if we’re guilting them?” Mariesa wondered, earning herself a stern look from Verity. “-we have not forgotten what Equestria has done! We have not forgotten our families and friends being ponified, our homes destroyed! Unlike some of you...” Lovikov continued, disgusted. “You have seen what ponies have brought to this world – they cannot be trusted! It is the end of the world, and madness to trust those that have brought so much suffering! A wise man,” Lovikov said, “Would trust in humanity. Which is why we, the HLF, have taken over the Sorghum oil platform, just off the coast of Maine. We have hostages - the people of the boats surrounding us, the survivors on this rig, portland itself. And we have enough guns to kill them all if you horsefuckers do not acquiesce to our demands.” Lovikov paused. “You might be wondering,” he said, “If we’re going to hit Portland, the hostages, or the boats first. Well, you’ll find out if we don’t get what we want.” Lovikov practically snarled out that last line. Pride swelled in Kraber. His doubts were gone, his cohorts had captured the rig. Things were going to be fine. December 2022 Dancing Day “Spoiler alert,” Kraber says, “It was not going to be fine.”