//------------------------------//
// 15: The Sinking City 
// Story: Light Despondent Remixed 
// by Doctor Fluffy 
//------------------------------//


	Light Despondent Remixed


Chapter 15: The Sinking City


Heliotrope
August 12, 2022

“He really fucked up my face, didn’t he?” Summers asked, looking over at a mirror. The two of them sat watching the TV in the Hilton Garden Inn’s common room, Quiette Shy lying on an ottoman, levitating a book up to her face.

‘Defiance standoff continues’, the news ticker read. ‘Menschabwehrfraktion maintains silence in the wake of the battle of Portland…’

It’d been two days since they’d destroyed Kraber’s boat – the owner had not been happy – and they’d gotten back to the city. Gardner had been raring to take the fight to Defiance as soon as Yael got there. But the fact was, it was late in the day, and no doctor worth their salt would’ve discharged Gardner, Summers, and Smoky the day that a homicidal maniac had put them at risk of concussions.

As such, the last two days had been a sort of departmental limbo. The three of them had required MRI scans, and even with preferential treatment given to PHL, it was going to take awhile.

“Ehhhh…” Heliotrope said, raising one forehoof.

The right side of Summers’ face had been cross-hatched with lines and blotches in red, purple, and brown. A red welt jostled his eye for real estate on his face.

The damage was only skin deep, though, and with a regimen of antibiotics, zebra-made salves,  it was now just a mass of pink, half-healed scars. 

While the PHL could flash-heal people like Quiette Shy apparently had to Kraber (Heliotrope still couldn’t believe it. This was Kraber, after all) according to PHL medical researchers, there were side effects. Pockets of air in bones, incomplete healing, damage to muscles…

General consensus was that you just had to let the body run its course. 

“It could be worse,” Heliotrope said finally. “Are you okay?”

“I think the biggest wound is my pride,” Summers said, with a wry smile.




Dancing Day
“And his balls,” Aegis adds.

“Not this time, anyway,” Yael says.

“Really? I mean I thought I kicked him pretty hard there and ohhh….” Kraber says, a look of understanding dawning on his face. “That’s what you meant.”




 “Letting the HLF have that much independence was the biggest mistake the US ever made. Yeah. The leadership didn’t want to rock the boat. But because of that, we have a bunch of other countries setting up colonies in the US that get pretty tight-fisted come tax season.”

“You think they’re colonies?” Heliotrope asked.

“Ever seen Lovikov’s record?” Summers asked. “A man like Helmetag gets replaced by someone who took the vehicle entrance to the Russian army.”

This might’ve sounded like nonsense, but there was a kind of sense to it. According to records the PHL had accumulated, Lovikov hadn’t started as Russian army. Born in Ukraine in the 1980s, he’d been directionless after the fall of the Soviet Union, eventually joining with a biker gang, oddly enough.

Except this biker gang had Putin’s ear, fighting alongside Russian forces, and carrying out vigilante executions during the Purple Winter. They’d clearly had a lot of anti-West sentiment running through them even before the War.

Somehow, he’d ended up in the Menschabwehrfraktion, serving under a German by the name of Gregor Helmetag. It was speculated that he was in charge of procuring ex-Soviet hardware for them. He’d ended up in a very high place on the Menschabwehrfraktion’s ruling council. Then, as the various European and African HLF groups were settling into America, PER had attacked one of the temporary settlements meant for refugees. Helmetag, Lovikov, and several others such as Gage McCorliss had been left with no choice but to lead from the front.

And according to most records, Helmetag had been nearly ponified. Lovikov had killed his former commanding officer himself.

There was something Heliotrope had never liked about that story. Something that seemed very convenient for Lovikov, didn’t it?

“We really haven’t gone after them yet,” Heliotrope marveled.

“I know, right?” Summers asked. “What’s stopping us?”

“Massive Civilian Casualties, For One Thing,” Quiette Shy said, looking up from her book. “There’s Kids There. Families.”

“No,” Summers said, “Not for long.”

Quiette Shy’s head snapped towards Summers, accusatory. “And What Does That Mean.”

“When they fight us again, those won’t be innocent bystanders,” Summers said.

“When?” Quiette Shy asked. “What Do You Mean, When.”

“This won’t solve anything,” Summers said. “There’s the Ship. And there’s all the HLF that’ve been waiting for the chance to do this. They’ll throw kids at us if they have to. I’ve seen it.”

“You’ve seen it?” Heliotrope asked. 

“Was fighting in the Middle East for most of my life,” Summers said. “I saw… things there, Sergeant Heliotrope. People threw children with Kalashnikovs at us.”

He sighed. 

Heliotrope actively tried not to think too much about the many, many wars this world had been engaged in before, and even as the CERN portal manifested. Those had been greatly emphasized by propagandists who sought to reinforce the idea that every human struggled with their social inhibitions on a daily basis, liable to regress into savagery at the slightest push.

And Heliotrope didn’t respect that. There were good humans, like Yael, or Oscar, Summers, Gardner, the PHL. And yes, humanity might have had their monsters who were willing to kill children, but....

… What did that make her? Or Equestria? The Battle of the Crystal Citadel or the Changeling Purges hadn’t been solved by throwing pies like the Bearers of Harmony would have wanted a long time ago. They – she – had done terrible things in Equestria’s service. And there were plenty of Equestrians still doing terrible things to humanity, often claiming retribution for things they hadn’t even known about even a decade ago. In this case, two wrongs absolutely didn’t make a right.

There was a right way to be an Equestrian, and a right way to be human… And as far as Heliotrope was concerned, no amount of Pan-Equine ideology could change that her people hadn’t been doing it right for some time now…

“People ask why the Colonel acts the way he does,” Summers said. “Good HLF, bad… that doesn’t matter. We’ve made a situation where we willingly broke ourselves. And now, instead of showing them who really holds power, we’ve let them think they can get away with anything. There have to be consequences.”





Dancing Day
December 2022

“And just where does he get off,” Aegis says, a look of clear disgust on his face, “Talking about government power and authority like a bureaucrat from the Palace that had a mnemosurgeon fill him up to the ears with politics?”

“Is that a thing that happens?” Rivet asks, and he looks genuinely sick to Dancing Day, the fur around his cheeks sweaty and lank. “Would mom have…”

“Don’t think about it, son,” Aegis says.

“He was practically joined at the hip with Gardner,” Heliotrope says.

“It’s the best explanation I’ve gotten at this point,” Yael says. “I could never quite figure out who was ordering who here.”

“So… was it him or Gardner pushing to execute me?” Kraber asks. 

“Honestly, I think they were two of a kind,” Yael says. “Gardner might have wanted to shoot first and ask questions  later. But I can’t imagine Summers would’ve stopped him.”

“Here’s what I think happened to you,” Heliotrope says. “I think Gardner was talking about how he wanted it, and Summers…”

She holds a hoof under her chin.

“I don’t know what he did,” Heliotrope says. “He sure as Tartarus didn’t stop him.”

She sounds very bitter.

“Are you alright?” Dancing Day asks.

“No,” Heliotrope says bluntly.





Heliotrope

It was then that Gardner walked into the room. Against all odds, his jaw hadn’t been broken – merely very, very bruised. The odds were good, though, that another hit there would probably break it.

Gardner had taken a lot of punishment, after all.

“Planning room, everyone,” Gardner said. “We’re breaking the stalemate.” 

The next few minutes were a blur – everyone filtered out of their rooms, from their hidey-holes, from whatever they were doing, all of them ending up around a long wooden table at the conference room.

A PHL-made crystal projector sat on the table, lightly glowing.

“Now. I’ve been cleared for duty, but I’m not allowed to take any hits to the jaw for awhile,” Gardner said.

“Then How Are You Here, Colonel?” Quiette Shy asked. “Normally, That Would–”

“Because I have a duty to make things right,” Gardner interrupted. “Lovikov has committed crimes that outshadow anything  committed by anarchists during the Purple Winter. And in part because of me, he’s escaped.”

“There was a lot you couldn’t have foreseen,” Yael said. “The Ship, for one thing.”

“And I could’ve gotten to him before it destroyed the Samson,” Gardner said. “This is my, no, our chance to make things right.”

He paused. 

“Are we going to be attacking Defiance, sir?” Summers asked. 

“No,” Gardner said. “The goal is to grab their leaders, and force their hands. We’re going to break the blockade, and force them to let all our forces in.”

“Sounds like what they did,” Yael said.

“It is,” Gardner admitted, sounding disgusted at the comparison. “But… Commandant Cherry, or that adjudant she’ll be sending as her representative, Allie Way…”





Dancing Day

“Who?” Dancing Day asks.

“My cousin?” Vinyl asks. “She’s PHL middle-management, loves bowling…?”

Nobody seems to recognize her.





“And Northwoods, and Raleigh… they all made it clear. Civilian casualties would be unacceptable. And I’m inclined to agree.”

“But, excuse me, sir,” Summers asked, staring at the projection. “These routes… they’re all marked on foot. Why aren’t we using helicopters to get there?”

“Anti-air that they definitely don’t have,” Gardner answered sardonically. “And too much risk... That the government definitely doesn’t have the evidence to confiscate. What we’re going to do is surround them. And if they don’t negotiate, well…”

Something that was not a smile crossed Gardner’s face.

“Let it be said that I tried. Now, here’s the plan. First Lieutenant Ze’ev? Your guys’ insertion to the Sorghum worked swimmingly, so the four of you will be the lynchpin of all of this. You’ll be instrumental in preventing any casualties and maintaining our leverage.”





Dancing Day

“So there was a time when Gardner didn’t decide to solve problems by holding someone’s piel to the braai,” Kraber says bitterly. “What a novel fokking concept.”

“There was a time when he could do good,” Heliotrope says. “But–”

“When?” Aegis asks, bluntly. “Did you see it?”

It’s hard to say whether or not Aegis simply doesn’t grasp the implications of what he’s said or is intentionally rubbing salt in the wound, but Heliotrope shoots him a dirty look.

 “You jerk,” she says, flatly.

Aegis’ face falls. “I’m sorry,” he says, the situation coming up. “I.... I didn’t…”

He can’t quite articulate what he “didn’t.”

“That wasn’t right,” he says finally. “I just… it’s hard not to be bitter about all that happened.”

Then, after a second, as Heliotrope is about to say somethi-

“I’m sorry,” he finally says. “That was wrong of me.”

“That’s not what hurts,” Heliotrope says. “I… just feel like I should’ve done more.”

“Look,” Kraber says. “We’ve all done things we regret.”

“I thought you didn’t have regrets,” Soarin’ said.

“No, I said I didn’t regret enough. Normally, people feel bad after throwing kontgesigs down the stairs,” Kraber says. “Long story. Anyway. Heliotrope. Never feel guilty for what someone else did. Some people… will never want to change. And that’s not on you.”

“Isn’t your wife a lot of the reason you didn’t hurt more people?” Amber Maple asks.

“She… was a good influence,” Kraber says. “But in the end, I didn’t do anything I didn’t want to do. That’s on me, and I’ll have to live with it. But Lovikov would’ve been a monster with or without me. Same for Gardner.”

He pauses.

“Does this make sense?” he asks.

“Honestly,” Aegis says, “maybe it’s a bit hypocritical–” Kraber shoots him a look. “–but sometimes, a hypocrite is only a man in the process of changing.”





Heliotrope wondered about that. After all, these were people that survived by arming everyone, kids included. And Summers did have a point. Those kids would stop being civilians pretty soon. They’d been raised by people who were active during the Bad Old Days, when any Equestrian on hand was fair game to be shot.

People like Kraber.

“I will not,” Gardner continued, “fail humanity once more. We are bringing Lovikov in. And yes, people, I do mean humanity. If those idiots hiding in the woods decide they can attack ponies, take the fight to us instead of our common enemy, we can’t give the fight with Equestria our all. Imagine. The prospect of fighting a war on two fronts, even during Barrierfall.”

“You think they’d really go that far?” Smoky asked nervously.

“First Lieutenant Ze’ev,” Gardner said. “Sergeant Heliotrope. You fought against HLF and other human fighters during the Europe Evacuation, didn’t you?”

Heliotrope nodded.

“I did too,” Gardner said. “It was a nightmare. I’m sure you both can agree.”

Yael and Heliotrope looked at each other.

“Nightmare does not even begin to describe it,” Yael said.

“It was a toss-up whether or not some of our allies would shoot me,” Heliotrope added. “Yeah, I know about Spader and that Charter of his, but… there were too many humans who just saw all of us as targets.”

“Kraber, for example,” Yael said, voicing Heliotrope’s thoughts.

“And we just let him stay in Defiance,” Heliotrope added, fuming.

“Do either of you think we could be headed for that kind of chaos again?” Gardner asked.

Yael drew in a breath, but Heliotrope spoke first.

“Three days ago I wouldn’t have said they’d destroy a city or have the Ship,” Heliotrope said. “All bets are off, sir.”





Yael

And then there they were, fleet of APCs trundling down Route 125. Yael could see a tiny fraction of the view through one window – people moving away from them, parents holding their kids. There’d been a devastating attack on Portland, and a PHL detachment was heading down to bring justice.

This was going to be a joint operation, too. The National Guard, the ATF, and local police from the surrounding counties that Defiance bordered – technically, it was an unincorporated township– they would all be cooperating. The PHL and ATF would be providing the military might, and the police would be…

… Well, the PHL didn’t exactly make for good police.

There was also the fact that the PHL, rightly, didn’t trust the police around Berlin. You had to wonder about people who let armed militias stay so close.

‘I have to admit,’ Yael thought, ‘that won’t inspire confidence.’

“If they’re willing to blow up Portland,” ‘Bro’ said, “They’re willing to set up traps in the road. They’re willing to fucking kill us.”

“You’re Freaking Everyone Out,” Quiette Shy said.

“Whatever happens,” Yael said, “We’re surrounded by the best PHL armor in this thing. It-”


“It’s not important right now,” Bro said, head snapping back and forth. “And excuse me for being freaked out!”

“Bro? You okay?” Smoky asked, laying one foreleg on Bro’s shoulder. “Just… try to get it off your chest.”

Yael let a slight smile cross her face at that.

“It’s just…” Bro said. “Look, the people I grew up with talked about overthrowing the government all the time, once they got to drinking away their government checks–”

“Wait,” Heliotrope said, “What?”

“It’s an American thing,” Summers said.

“Look,” Bro said, “I joined up with the PHL mostly to pay for college.”

“Shit,” Lorne said, raising an eyebrow. “You too?”

“And there were plenty of people back there who always talked about maybe overthrowing the government, trying to treat the law like a magic spell they could find a way out of.”

“You seriously had that kind of person here?” Smoky asked.

“That’s Not How Magic Works,” Quiette Shy said.

“What about ritual magic?” Heliotrope asked.

“This isn’t important,” ‘Bro’ said. “Look, it’s just… I grew up with people who wanted to do something like this. And now, someone actually has. Who’s to say that it’s not going to end up more common now?”

“Nobody’s done that since the Bad Old Days,” Yael said, “We’re not going to be dealing with an outbreak of wanton HLF attacks.”

“I really hope so,” Summers said. “Look, I grew up somewhere like where Bro did. People like this don’t just… stop.”

Something about the words unsettled Yael.





Heliotrope

They disembarked not long after, coming to a stop near a building marked ‘Magalloway Plantation’. Heliotrope couldn’t tell just what the building had been, but she knew that was what the area was called.

Which kind of confused her.

‘What’s a plantation? Isn’t that like, a slave-run farm humans did, or… or like back home?’ Heliotrope wondered. But she had bigger questions.

Questions which centered on how the whole area was full of ATF and National Guard, and were those U.S border patrol? All of which were armed to the teeth. Lots of assault rifles, helicopters, apparently a tank. It felt for all the world like something from back during the Europe Evacuation. 

‘What a nightmare,’ Heliotrope thought, remembering those dark days.

Chaos everywhere. Cities vanishing every day. A bombing near-daily. Cities overrun with Newfoals.  Running into Ferals out in the wilderness. Military vehicles on every corner – and yes, fine, Heliotrope had been part of said military, but that didn’t stop her from feeling intimidated. Bandits and others stealing everything that wasn’t nailed down –- Heliotrope had witnessed more than a few caravans of trucks turned away at the ports carrying almost everything from small towns, short of the houses. If the rumors that the Barrier didn’t affect things the same way underwater were true, there were probably the relics of entire towns resting on the Atlantic seafloor.

And equine safety hadn’t been close to guaranteed back then. It tapered off come the Battle of Iceland, and there were plenty of towns out in the US where – thanks to careful social engineering, a constant stream of definitely-not-propaganda from the PHL, and earthponies in invaluable food production and farming roles – the average Equestrian could safely walk alone past sundown, provided there was curfew going on. But Heliotrope remembered a different time. A time where Heliotrope might as well have just deep-throated a hunting shotgun and saved everyone the time and effort if there wasn’t a PHL official in arms’ reach.

Case in point, Cyprus… They’d been sent there seemingly temporarily, and the HLF had attacked them. Heliotrope had been too afraid to use the Suit or use her training – nobody, Equestrian or human or whatever else, would be all too comfortable around a sapient equine with military training.

‘Faust, no. Anything but that. Never again.’ She looked over in the direction of Defiance. Then to the humans surrounding her. ‘And thank Faust I’m with good humans.’

At just that moment, a shortish human who looked like he’d barely scraped past the minimum height requirements walked out of a nearby bar, which Heliotrope guessed had been used as a command post. He called out, and waved to the two of them.

“Hey,” they said, walking towards her. “Heliotrope!”


‘Who are–’

“Was wondering when you’d show up here!” called out a yellow earthmare, trotting behind them.

‘Oh!’

Heliotrope caught a better look at them. A short human with dark brown hair, a round face, and stubble, standing just beside the yellow earthmare with a Stetson and an inky-blue mane.

It was Johnny C Heald, known to his friends as Nny, and Fiddlesticks. Apparently, they’d been heroes of the Alaska Incident. Details on what’d happened to them were very hush-hush, but Heliotrope knew the basics:



Shieldwall had been doing Something Bad in Alaska. Common wisdom perpetuated by bloggers who were definitely not PHL agents was that he’d been trying to stage an invasion from there.

He hadn’t been. Nny and Fiddlesticks had been barred from screenings of a movie about the Alaska Incident because of their clear irritation with “inaccuracies.”

Apparently, Nny had mangled someone between the pistons of a steam engine and survived an encounter with Shieldwall.

They’d managed to steal a valuable piece of Solar Empire equipment.


The rest was under wraps.

“Cousin Nny,” Yael said, walking up to him with a huge smile on her face. “It’s been too long!”


“Damn right it has!” Nny said, walking up to her, arms outstre-

“I’m wearing pounds and pounds of gear and I’m almost a foot taller than you,” Yael said. “You’re probably not going to be able to lift me up.”

“Let him have this, Yael,” Fiddlesticks said. “Just let him have this.”

Heliotrope cocked her head, looking over at the yellow earthmare.

“You two are weird,” Heliotrope sighed, just as Nny enveloped Yael in a bear hug.

Summers hovered in the background 





Yael

There were a lot of complicated emotions swirling through her head as Nny’s arms hooked around her. Gratitude at seeing him for the first time in months.

And also moderate confusion about her cousin’s strength level. He was short and fat, regardless of army training, but… like, was he lifting her up an inch? 

That was weird.

“You’re not allowed to do that with a superior officer,” Summers scowled, positioning himself between her and Nny. Under the man’s transparent faceplate, Yael could see him sizing up her cousin.

“He’s my cousin,” Yael said. “He can do what he wants here.”

Summers backed away, but Yael still saw his eyes on Nny. The two of them couldn’t have looked any more different. Summers had a foot or more on Nny, was heavyset, and built like a linebacker. Meanwhile, Nny was just short and broad. It was genuinely difficult to tell what was fat and what was muscle under all his fatigues.

Summers looked like he probably weighed more than Nny in terms of sheer muscle. Like he could just step close to Nny and crush hi–

‘Where did that thought come from?’





Dancing Day

“I don’t remember if that’s the hindsight talking,” Yael says, “But it is amazing how many red flags he threw up.”

“By the end, he was practically doing semaphore with them,” Aegis says.

“You know what they say,” Heliotrope said. “When you have rose-colored glasses, all the red flags just look like flags.”

“Did you think that or not, First, ah...?” Dancing Day asks, confused. 

“I don’t know,” Yael says. “Viktor, was Summers that much of–”

“A total kontgesig?” Kraber asks. “Truthfully, fok weet. I don’t know if the three of them really were that dickish, but… I know Summers actually did say that about my kids.”

“You seem a lot calmer,” Astral Nectar observes.

“Course I am,” Kraber says. “He got what he deserved, so I don’t need to spend any time in the… planning phase. Oh yes.”

“Hey, saying ‘Oh yes’ when you’re threatening someone is Nny’s thing,” Aegis says. 

Kraber smirks and nods.

“Oh,” Spitfire says, nodding. “Now I get it.”

“The shameful part, though,” Yael says, “Was what I thought next.”





Yael

“Really?” Smoky asked. “You don’t look anything alike.”

“My great-grandparents left Lithuania for Boston before World War One,” Nny said. “Yael’s great-grandfather didn’t.”

And as a result, he had left her grandfather with a series of horror stories that would wake Yael up in a cold sweat, she knew, until her dying day – Grandpa Darius had literally had to dig his way out of his own grave.

“So, what about the, uh…” Smoky said. “Color…”

“Oh, for Lyra’s boundless love of humanity!” Fiddlesticks sighed, “Her dad met an Ethiopian Jew. They fell in love. The end.”

‘Is autism communicable? Yael wondered.

Which was kind of a shitty thing to think, but it was the only explanation she had for how the two were so mutually odd. 

“Can we please not talk about that?” Heliotrope asked. “It’s the first time either of us have seen Nny in a while.”

“It’s been too long,” Fiddlesticks said, walking up to the two of them. “You’ve, ah… been...”

“Demoted,” Yael said bluntly.


“Yes,” Heliotrope said, “They demoted us. For…”

Yael shot her a Look.

“Cuz,” Nny said. “I know what happened.”

“You’re not… mad, or disgusted or anything?” Yael asked.

“Cuz,” Nny repeated, “They let Kraber and Lovikov stay an hour or two away from my house. They let multiple murderers–”

“Wait, do you mean various different murderers,” Smoky started, “Or people with multiple counts of murder?”

“Does it matter?” Nny asked. “I mean, I don’t think I’d feel any more safe if I was surrounded by a bunch of people that only killed one guy. We were at the point where they were about to hunt us both for sport. Or where I’d start doing it back, too!”

“I swear, saying disturbing things with a straight face is your superpower,” Heliotrope said.

“Christ,” Summers said. “And we let the HLF live near people with a slap on the wrist?!” 

He looked over to Yael.

“First Lieutenant, do you think if I’d been a serial killer over in Britain, then said I was HLF, I’d be okay?” he asked.

Yael’s gut instinct was ‘no,’ but…





Dancing Day

“Despite his bluntness,” Yael says, “Summers was like a rapier in some ways.”

“...never say ‘rapier’ in the same sentence as you mention that man, ever again,” Heliotrope says.

“Please tell me he never–” Vinyl starts.

“Holy shit, no!” Heliotrope breathes. “But… Just. Just don’t. It feels kinda gross, Yael.”

“Very well then,” Yael says. “But he was kind of like that because it was so easy for him to poke through chinks in your armor.”





Yael

… Was that really too different from what Viktor Kraber, what a lot of the Menschabwehrfraktion had done? There were a lot of people out there who had died because of them.

“Can’t argue with that,” she said cautiously.

“I mean, probably,” Heliotrope said, without a hint of uncertainty.

“It’s awful,” Fiddlesticks said. “There’s just this feeling that instead of calling in the bomb squad, they just shoved a stick of dynamite into our closets and hoped for the best.”

“Well then,” Summers said, holding out one hand, “Consider us the bomb squad.”

Nny high-fived the taller man.

‘Well, Nny seems to like him so far,’ Yael thought. ‘How bad could this get?’

And for a moment, things felt like they’d be okay.

… It was very much not going to be okay, not for a long time.





Heliotrope

But that wasn’t important.

They fanned out into the woods. PHL in camo, with ponies covered in a special fur-safe dye that’d help them blend in to the forest – or, in the case of Heliotrope and Chinook, the sky.

Heliotrope flew up, over the tree cover. Defiance was laid out before her, sprawling over the road and onto newly-cut farmland. Prefabs, mobile homes, tents, and cheap throwaway houses oozed out into the woods, with no particular plan, full of streets that went nowhere.

She had looked at the satellite map of Defiance before. Had studied pictures of it. And, from what she’d gathered, an infantry assault of it would be a nightmare. Wide, narrowing streets encouraged long sight-lines for anyone defending the place, irregular corners ensured any cover was dicey at best, and a network of tunnels all-but-confirmed by near-constant posts on internet forums ensured a quick escape route 

‘This had all been planned. Lovikov designed this,’ There was only one question that she didn’t have answers to. ‘How can someone with that intelligence do something so stupid?’

Word from captured prisoners had been that Aeron Grant ordered it. And that did go some way in answering the question. Grant possessed an inexplicable combination of traits. A good mind for tactics, and all the common sense that God gave a porkchop. As an example, back in Europe he’d been trying to save various refugees, and somehow managed to position himself behind the Spanish armed forces, saving himself, and his scant amount of rescued…

But deflecting the brunt of the attack onto the PHL and the European militaries, hurting many more people than he possibly could’ve saved.

And Portland, of course. If the rumors of his involvement were true, which they probably were, he was up to his old tricks.

Heliotrope looked down towards Defiance. 

The humans there looked…. Confused. Scared. There was an uncertainty to their movements. She peered down at the wall.

“The Northwest corner of the wall, just to the left of that weathervane with the chicken,” Heliotrope whispered over her comms. “There’s a blind spot in their guard schedule there.”





Yael

Yael swung a grappling hook, and climbed over the rough-hewn wooden walls. It was getting pretty dark, and it was very likely she wouldn’t be noticed.

Quiette Shy trotted nearby, affixing herself to the wall with some magic centered channeled through her hooves. Oscar was rappelling up nearby, and Yael struggled to keep pace with him.

As they crested the wall, Oscar looked towards a guard. He tapped a silenced pistol at his hip.

Yael shook her head.

‘No. A dead body will raise too many questions.’

Oscar was impassive, but the pistol didn’t clear the holster.

They slipped down to the ground, and slid into cover behind someone’s brown-painted woodshed.

“QS, get to Heliotrope’s position at the radio station any way you can,” Yael said. “Invisibility, teleportation, anything.”

Quiette Shy nodded.

“Oscar? You’re with me. We’re paying Lovikov a house call,” Yael said. 

The big man nodded. Lovikov’s personal quarters were a refurbished bus next to what residents of Defiance called The Big House, one of only a handful of buildings that couldn’t be moved, or packed up and rebuilt later.

It was the seat of Defiance’s council. Lovikov, some handpicked representatives, and a few that the town had voted into office. There were seven seats - Lovikov and Benning, someone named Dallas Genovese, Emily Bretton, Preacher Lewis Witting, Janna Orson, and Pierre DuPont.

Yael, Chinook, Summers, and Oscar were going to secure it all by their lonesome.

It sat towards the Northern corner of the shantytown. Not far from them. Heliotrope had picked out this gap specifically for that purpose.

The two of them inched along the side of a mobile home attached to what looked like an improvised workshop.

Yael watched a woman wearing bear fur, the remnants of pants that could’ve been slacks or chinos or khakis, and a T-shirt walking by. For whatever reason, she stopped in the middle of the street.

Oscar and Yael barely dared breathe.

Then, as soon as she started moving, Oscar blurred slightly and rushed across that street, making almost no noise. 

Yael would never truly understand how Oscar could be that fast. How he could cross meters in the span of a few seconds. How he could literally run circles around an entire room of PER and gun them all down before any of them could get a lock on him.

It was just sort of something she’d grown to accept.

Yael followed suit. Her spare Tavor held ready, keeping low to the ground to make herself a smaller target, she rushed across the street in Oscar’s footsteps.

“Hmmm?” the bear-skin-wearing woman asked. She tramped towards the two of them, unholstering an ancient bolt-action rifle. 

Oscar reached for his silenced pistol again.

And just as the woman rounded the corner, about to cry in alarm-

And in that moment, Yael unleashed perhaps the deadliest weapon in her arsenal. 

More powerful than the silenced Tavor at her back. She didn’t like the Tavor as much as the reassuring and powerful weight of a good 7.62 Galil. That, and the stock was ridiculously long, with its underbarrel Six12 shotgun. More powerful than her little Jericho 941. Or the combat knife she carried.

The Ben Ze’ev family’s famed right h–





Dancing Day

“Now, pay close attention to that punch,” Kraber says. 

“Really?” Heliotrope asks.

“...How?” Dancing Day asks, confused. “Yael just described it. There really wasn’t much to-–”

“Cos’ it's not the last time you're gonna see that punch in the story,” Aegis adds.

“You too?” Heliotrope asks. “Seriously?”





Yael

The right hook drove into the side of the woman’s skull, just in front of the ear. 

There was a sickly noise – though Yael probably hadn’t killed her – on impact as the woman crumpled to the ground, eyelids fluttering.

She lay in an ungainly heap.

Oscar looked at her and nodded. He needed no instruction, as he straightened her body out and pushed her under the trailer.

Yael felt the woman’s neck with two fingers. She was alive, but…

“Whatever. I’ll pay for the MRI scan.”

The two of them made their way to the house. Oscar stared through the window. He could see figures milling about, walking from room to room.





Dancing Day

“Did you really have to interrupt it to reference Invader Zim?” Yael asks.

“I knew you liked that Invader Zim movie, Dad!” Rivet crowed.

“It’s pretty good,” Aegis admits, “I mean, it’s kinda dark and I don’t like all the humor, and I feel like a lot of the randomness aged poorly.”

“You weren’t even on this planet when that show was on,” Heather says, “And you’re saying that?”

“I thought GIR was funny,” Dancing Day says.

“...Astral Nectar, you ever wonder if this world is just harmful to children in general?” Aegis asks.

“Can’t be much worse,” Mommy shrugs. “Least she’s not growing up on the totem-broadcasts like Tinder’s Trailblazers.”

By which Mommy means a show Dancing Day has only heard snippets of from other expat foals like Sundae Sprinkles – apparently, it’s some awful totem-broadcast puppet show that shows fictionalized Trailblazers rescuing cowardly or abducted ponies, but often failing to “save” ponies who work with the show’s fictionalized PHL by leaving them in explosions or letting them fall into vats of molten metal or something, all while falling in dramatically slow motion that was really just to save on animation costs, all while yelling “NOOOOOO!” with the slowed-down sound making them sound like mooing cows, and then a couple episodes later they’d come back as “MECHA-BUTTERCREAM,” who would then reveal a diabolical plot to set fire to the Sun all while telling the audience “They had. To go. INSIDE” and then there was a nightmare that Sundae Sprinkles had once had where everyone was screaming at the top of their lungs, and Mecha-Buttercream had turned to the camera and yelled “I AM IN HELL, HELP ME,” but then Rivet said he knew from Dusk Twinkle that it actually was an episode, and–

“Anyone who lets their foals absorb that crap,” Aegis says, and Dancing Day is surprised at the vitriol in his voice, “has already failed so hard as a parent, I almost wonder if abduction could only be an improvement.”

Apparently even Kraber is surprised. Because, after ten seconds, mug of something that could have been alcoholic, hot chocolate, coffee, or all three halfway to his mouth, he says;

“... Well, shit.”

Nobody is quite sure how to react to that.

“You never answered my question,” Yael says, looking at Kraber.

“Not really,” Kraber replies, “But… I just knew you were talking about blikseming someone and cold-cocking them in one hit, and–” A note of wistfulness or joy creeps into his voice. “I just got so excited about the end of this story.”

Yael looks to consider this. She looks over at Aegis, who then looks at Heliotrope. All of them then look at Kraber, who has his head cocked kind of like a confused African Wild Dog, an expression on his face that just screams ‘Yes. What are you going to do about it?’

“Understandable,” Yael says.





Heliotrope

All of a sudden, Heliotrope realized the symmetry of it all and had to laugh. The HLF had started this by livestreaming from the rig…

And then there she was. About to take over Defiance’s radio station.

She alighted on the roof of the station – a tin shack with an antenna that Heliotrope suspected had just been stolen outright from a place the Barrier had consumed.

“Where are you, QS?” Heliotrope asked.

“Right Behind You,” Quiette Shy said, drawing up next to Heliotrope. “Just Open The Door. I Shall Follow In The Shadows.”

Heliotrope reached up to the doorknob, feeling it turn underneath her forehoof. The two mares trotted through the hallways, Heliotrope invisible and Quiette Shy moving noiselessly.

What really struck Heliotrope as they moved through the hallways was how banal it all seemed. A cork board with a poster for Small Town Loud Fest in Lancaster, posts for GenReal and Second Sun, and even something for the Lost Children. Coming… fairly soon, in fact.

‘Huh.’

It seemed almost easy to forget that these people didn’t care about innocent lives. That they’d been complicit in bombing Portland. That they’d done some really fucked-up stuff in Germany, and the Middle East. That they openly didn’t consider ponies to be refugees as well, and there were a large number of murders they swore they had nothing to do with, usually aimed at ponies who happened to be within a few miles. That they’d been as destructive to ponies in Rangeley, Maine, a few days ago, as the PER themselves. Apparently, they’d shot prisoners.

‘What’s with all these PER attacks on rural areas, anyway?’ Heliotrope thought. ‘There’s no strategic goal to it. At least, none that I can see. And are they… trying to actually keep Newfoals? Huh. That’s a weird one. PER actually caring about the lives they convert.’

Heliotrope and Quiette Shy stood, invisible, not far from the recording booth. Heliotrope pressed one ear to the wall, listening intently.

“... DJ twenty-Gage,” the voice said, “Telling you once again that the actions of Leonid Lovikov enrage us.”

Heliotrope caught a glimpse of him through the door. He was a wheelchair-bound man with a leg replaced by a crude prosthetic that barely looked able to support his weight.

Is he recording? No. We would’ve been hearing this.

Heliotrope looked down slightly. 

No.

No, he was reading. A piece of printer paper was clasped firmly in his shaking hands, with crumpled up sheets lined in ink and pencil littering the floor like snow.

“He could’ve had anything there,” Gage continued, the paper shaking like leaves in a hurricane, “And he just went and shot up a city. If you’re out there, Lovikov– and I know full well you hear this–”

And Heliotrope had to wonder just what in Tartarus that meant.

“Innocent people died there. Men, women, and children died. There’s a lot of kids who aren’t going to be seeing their mothers and fathers today. And vice versa. I just want to know one thing, Leonid. Is this a fucking joke? At what point do you or Aeron Grant get to the punchline? Because this, I don’t know how this could be worth it. Someone explain it to me!” 

“Say The Word,” Quiette Shy whispered. “And We’re On It.”

Heliotrope wondered just what any of that could mean. What was this guy talking about? Were they… were they seriously trying to distance themselves?

There was so much that didn’t make sense.





Yael

The house had once been a farmhouse, and it was still used as such for the few nearby farms that served Defiance. According to what information they’d been able to glean, they used the dining room as the main meeting room, sitting around a long, rough-hewn dinner table.

Yael could hear a heated discussion.

“Idiot’s going to bring them down on us all!”

“Why did we let that jumped-up-biker into command?!”

“This was better under Helmetag!”

“Too bad Lovikov...”

“Helmetag was half-ponified and you know it!”

“Da Costa says he thinks someone’s in the woods. We’re going to have to send someone in just to make him feel better.”

“Farnowitz is reporting PHL movement, maybe we’ll–”

Yael didn’t know who either of those people were, and it wouldn’t be until much later that Da Costa was Kraber’s friend, a Portuguese man who liked to play cowboy and went and started a farm.



”Poor bastard,” Kraber says.



But regardless, Yael knew something that Defiance’s command didn’t know: That there actually were men and women in the woods.

‘I have to end it now.’

She heard the hum of the radio, then looked down a hallway. She saw two HLF in armor that looked nigh-indistinguishable from anything a real military would wear. One was wearing a British-designed hardsuit over a wetsuit, while the other one wore a badge of the Menschabwehrfraktion badge – the letters ‘MWF’ over a fist – next to a faded American flag.

“Heliotrope?” Yael spoke into comms. “Do your thing.”

She paused. They’d have seconds to get this right.

“Oscar? You think you’ve got the beanbags to do this?” 

She looked down towards Oscar’s waist. 

At which point, Oscar unholstered the Volmer shotgun he always carried, before racking the bolt and shoving a beanbag round into the breech.





Heliotrope

Quiette Shy’s horn glowed, and the door exploded.

“HEY!” Gage yelled. “What’s–”

Heliotrope shot through the door like a bullet. She folded her wings to the side, forced one shoulder forward, bending her neck out of the way. And slammed the full force of her barrel into Gage’s wheelchair. He fell onto his back, gasping, knocked out from the seat of the thing. 

“GAGE!” someone yelled.  “I’m–”

“Microphone!” Quiette Shy yelled, the automatic voicebox sounding strangely… organic. “NOW.”

The glass and the doorway suddenly took on a reddish tint, as Quiette Shy held the shield over the vulnerable entryways.

“The gluesticks got in!” the man on the other side of the glass yelled, unholstering a cheap, battle-scarred Glock, firing fruitlessly against the wall of force that QS had projected.

Heliotrope nodded, and flew up to the mike. She stood on radio equipment that Gage, or the human watching as he recorded, would likely consider priceless, and spoke. 

“Attention, assholes!” Heliotrope yelled. “This is the PHL!”





Yael

At the same time, Oscar took a deep breath, tensed himself, and blurred.

With all the kinetic energy and subtlety of an avalanche, moving at the speed of an Olympic runner, Oscar Mikkelsen rushed for the door, Yael struggling to keep pace.

Before either HLF guard could say anything, Oscar took a running leap and kicked the English guard in the face. He slammed into the door, which swung outward and bounced against the inner wall.

Yael followed. She rushed through the open door, Tavor at the ready. She swept her rifle across the room, looking over the Defiance council….

...With its two empty seats. 

“Attention, assholes!” the radio squawked, in Heliotrope’s distinctive Seaddle accent. “This is the PHL! We’ve captured your radio station, and your leaders!”

“Wha–” started one man with huge sideburns, wearing a ratty business suit. Yael vaguely recognized him as a French expat by the name of Pierre Dupont. He fumbled for a pistol, and–

The muzzle of Oscar’s HV penetrator rustled his hair.

“This,” Oscar said, holding the Penetrator ready, “Would be a bad idea.”

“We’ve secured their command room,” Yael said. “Await further instructions, Heliotrope.”

“Roger that,” Heliotrope said.

“Summers?” Yael asked. “Place the projector.”

“We don’t allow magic here,” one tall, bald white-bearded man said. He looked like he was wearing the garb of a preacher, but they were old. Ratty. This was definitely Witting.

“And we don’t allow hillbillies and traitors to shoot cities,” Summers said. “One of us is going to make an allowance here, and it isn’t me.”

He reached into his backpack, and placed a disk in the center of the table. It expanded ever so slightly, widening by the second…

Before projecting an image of one Colonel Sabine Northwoods standing atop the table.

“Where. Is. Leonid. Lovikov,” she asked, voice icy.

“What the hell is all this?!” asked the man at the head of the table. Yael recognized him as Arnold Soldano.

He was enormous, with a build that would’ve granted him great success in any contact sport. As a result, he barely seemed to fit in his chair, almost scraping the ceiling. PHL Intelligence was that he’d been best friends with Lovikov.

“You know what this is,” Yael said, one hand on the Six12’s trigger guard, the other over the Tavor’s. Not for the first time, she wished there was a way to hold it without being so close to shooting them. “Oscar?”

One of his hands reached for the button to activate his comms, all as he managed to keep aiming the Penetrator towards DuPont’s head with one hand. As a Penetrator was built on a scale typically reserved for autoshotguns, this was impressive.

“Heliotrope?” Oscar said, voice rumbling, “Ze’ev says to tell them what we want.”





Heliotrope

“We’ve secured their command room,” Yael said. “Await further instructions, Heliotrope.”

“They’re going to get you,” Gage rasped from the ground, “You bastards, you… you gluesticks…”

Heliotrope never really knew what to think of how mostly furless human faces displayed expressions, but there was something genuinely unnerving about the way the human’s face had twisted itself. It looked red and wrinkled, and for some reason all Heliotrope could think of was a bomb about to explode.

Something smelled wrong about him. Specifically, something about his leg, right above the prosthesis.

He smells like… an infection, Heliotrope thought. Then: Where did that come from? An infection?!

“Try It,” Quiette Shy said. “I Already Have A Shield On, And So Does Heliotrope.”

Holding back her revulsion, Heliotrope sniffed at his leg.

“Don’t you dare, gluestick, don’t you fucking dare, I swear to God–”

“You were half-potioned, weren’t you?” Heliotrope asked.

Gage just glowered at her. If looks could kill, Heliotrope would be dust on the floor.

“And I’ve had nightmares about it damn near every night,” Gage said. “I’ve suffered for this. I’ve been kept off the frontlines in this fucking chair because of you.”

“I’m…” Heliotrope said, thinking about just what might’ve happened. About the pain of losing a limb. Ever since Kraber shot her, she knew firsthoof just how much it hurt to be kept out of action, to feel weighed down by your own body.  She’d never wish that on anyone. 

This went double for potion amputees. Sometimes they were fine. Other times they came back… wrong. You could have someone who only lost a foot who might only be able to serve again after months and months of therapy, who seemed to have lost part of something imperceptible.

And the signs were everywhere on this guy. Unreasonable. Violent. Uninhibited. Heliotrope was even sure she saw flecks of foam at the corners of his mouth.

“Sorry,” Heliotrope said. “I’m sorry that happened to you.”

Gage just spat at her.

Well. Buck you too then, Heliotrope thought.

Suddenly, comparing him to an infection didn’t feel so bizarre.

There was pounding on the forcefield. “Open up, we–”

“Stand down!” someone yelled. “They have the town council at gunpoint, they could shoot up that whole room! This could turn into a bloodbath!”

“What?!”

“Heliotrope?” Oscar said, voice rumbling, “Ze’ev says to tell them what we want.”

“Where,” Heliotrope said into the microphone, “Is. Leonid. Lovikov.”

Gage laughed. “You know you’re not going to get out of this alive, right?” he cackled. “You don’t have it in you to start shooting us all one by o-–”





Yael

What Heliotrope said next would surprise Yael. It was pretty unsettling, to say the least.

“You know, that’s what we thought about the HLF,” Heliotrope thought. “That, well.. You didn’t like us, we didn’t like you. That was fine. But then…”  A pause. “Well. Then your leader decided to shell a city. Countless innocents dead. I saw a lot of parents walking around without children. I watched a man get thrown out a window and shatter his back. He died in a lot of pain.”

This was technically not untrue.

Good lord, Heliotrope, Yael thought.

The men and women of Defiance’s council stared at the radio like it was about to bite them.

“So,” Heliotrope said, “If that’s not off-limits… Well, ask yourself what that’s opened up for us.”

“... A bit more graphic than I was hoping for,” Northwoods said, “But overall, the point is clear. We want Lovikov. And we want him now.”

“What leverage do you have?” asked a council member. “There’s more of us than–”

“For starters,” Northwoods interrupted, “Colonel Gardner has surrounded the camp with PHL. Many of which, I’m guessing, are already over your wall.”

“That’s bull,” one councilwoman sneered. She picked up a walkie-talkie.

Then put it down immediately.

“Well,” she said. “Shit.”

A pause. 

“Alright,” Soldano said. “You’ve gotten us over a barrel. What do you want?”

“Soldan–” protested a youngish man in military fatigues that seemed indistinguishable as belonging to any military.  He had shaved the sides of his head to make a more-on-top haircut that ended in a ponytail, and walked the line between well-groomed and shattering any possible hygiene standards.

“No, Dallas,” Soldano said, “Emily’s right. The gl–”

Yael’s Tavor snapped towards him. She wasn’t going to do anything with it – if a gunfight started, God only knew what kind of madness awaited – but that was just the sort of thing friends did for one another.

“The pegasus,” Yael insisted.

“The pegasus that took our radio,” Soldano said, sounding very annoyed but also strained, “Is right. Lovikov bit off more than he could chew by bringing this down on us.”

“You keep talking like he’s not here,” Oscar said.

 “What I want to know is, where is he?!” Northwoods demanded. “Where is that son of a–”

“Simply put,” Soldano said, “We don’t know.”

The ground fell out under Yael. 

‘What.’





Lorne

They stood on the hill, assembling a mortar. The people of Defiance couldn’t see them on this side of the hill. It’d be trivial to fire the mortar off into them.

But something didn’t feel right.

The simple fact was that Lorne would’ve felt better alongside Yael. For whatever reason, he always felt like he was being isolated. Or isolating himself. Either-or.

He turned away from the mortar. And saw Gardner, sitting in a little command post near the hollow of a tree. On his left was Smoky, the bruises and stripped-away fur obvious at that angle. The two of them were discussing something with some of the higher-ups. Lorne recognized Cheerilee, Colonel Northwoods, and General Nathaniel Roberts.

Something big is going down, Lorne thought, feeling almost compelled to turn back almost as soon as he looked.

He didn’t like Summers or Gardner. Never had. And, the moment that Ze’ev, a black woman, had been moved to Gardner’s little dumping-ground for soldiers who neither the PHL or US military could use, Lorne knew he wanted to stay close by her.

Because there was something about Gardner and Summers that made Lorne want to be a country away from them. Something that made him feel like they would be nice and cordial, right until the moment you dug a KKK robe out of their closets. 

‘Smoky seems nice, but…’

He looked over to Smoky. His face was covered in bandages.

‘Shouldn’t he be in a hospital?’ Lorne thought. But, no. Apparently the three of them had insisted on coming here. Including Summers. Even though that last one looked like Kraber had fed his face into a belt sander. ‘Which raises questions about why… The Lieutenant never bought that. Sure, if he was willing to shoot us while we were chasing him with a helicopter, I get it, but…’

“Our troops are ready to attack,” Gardner said. “Hebert will be ready to fire at any time.”

Lorne nodded, heading for the weapon. It was PHL-modified, so there were always going to be some kinks… but overall, it looked easy enough to master.

“Stand down, Colonel Gardner,” Cheerilee said. “You agreed to not attack them.”

On some level, Lorne knew that was the plan all along. But…

Lorne looked over to Bro. Who just shrugged.

“Fuckin’ madness,” Bro said, in his unplaceable but definitely rural accent. “You can’t just… handle people with kid gloves like this! They think you could give them an inch…”

“They’ve already taken a mile,” Lorne finished. “Yeah. I know.”

“I know that,” Gardner said. “But. We’re ready nonetheless.”

On the other end, this must’ve looked like a perfectly normal affirmative.

But Lorne saw it.

It was an act of supreme will with which Gardner forced himself to obey. He’d really wanted to shoot Defiance that day. And Lorne…

Well, it wasn’t to say he wanted to kill the Menschabwehrfraktion, but he didn’t feel right about it.

“Haven’t you heard?” Eva asked, looking over from her nearby sniper’s nest. “Lovikov’s not there, and apparently he and Benning acted alone. Despite the fact that this is his camp.”

She swore under her breath in Icelandic. 

“Don’t buy that for a second,” Smoky said, looking over towards the three of them.

“If we fight,” Cheerilee said, “We’ll be declaring a civil war.”

“They,” Gardner said, “Have already declared civil war.”


“Lovikov has, anyway,” Cheerilee said. “There are HLF all over the country, Colonel Gardner. Like it or not, a lot of them have established what might as well be island-states within the US.”

This wasn’t always true, as there were a lot of HLF enclaves and settlements that paid their taxes and kept under the radar, but there were a few down south that made Lorne feel like he was walking into the movie Hostel. 

There were a few that he knew for a fact had taken in the more fringey antigovernment types. The kind that had racist sensibilities from the fifties – make that the eighteen-fifties –- who’d been at the Hoof-Tax Riots, refusing to pay taxes because of how many of said taxes were been poured to the PHL.

‘And Defiance,’ Lorne thought, ‘has all of these people and more. I saw way too many Confederate flags around here.’

In fact, if he looked through the mortar’s viewfinder, he could see one flying over a PHL-designed prefab. The irony that there was a PHL design here was not lost on him.

Gardner growled. “We allowed that much of a destabilizing influence into our country?”

“I don’t like it either,”  General Roberts said. “But it’s how this is. If we’re seen as aggravating one side of the Split, it could be a disaster. Times are only going to get worse from here, and we can’t afford civil war during the era that comes next.”

There was a pause. If anyone asked Lorne, he would have claimed this was always an untenable situation. There were just too many angry people, in too much space, who could slip into the cracks between bubbles of authority, just like that… or, Lorne knew, turn the authority to their side.

There was no way the police didn’t turn a blind eye to a lot of Defiance’s activities. How many people had been murdered around Menschabwehrfraktion territory, sometimes in blind daylight?

Too many.

“If I may?” Smoky asked.

“... Certainly, corporal Quartz,” Cheerilee said.

“It sounds like we’re going to have civil war no matter what,” Smoky said. “Lovikov’s willing to do this, the Reavers trying to frame us for that bombing in Bastion, plans to break Carter out...”

“Well, even so,” General Roberts said, “If there’s a chance that this isn’t the opening shot of another war, that Lovikov and Benning were on their own…”

Lorne could hear it in the General’s voice. He very clearly did not find it believable either.

“Well, I’d prefer to take it,” General Roberts said. “Colonel. I don’t like them any more than you. But there’s two things: Firstly, it should be the jobs of the police and national guard to do it.”

“The police are on the payroll of the HLF here, sir,” Gardner said. “I’m certain of it.”

“Then we will deal with that,” Cheerilee said. “But I remember what civil war felt like back in Equestria. It was a nightmare. If we are responsible for kickstarting that here, everybody loses. And nobody wins.”

“We saw people being blown up during Portland, Commander,” Gardner said. “The city was destroyed. Someone has to pay for this!”

“But I don’t want it to be the whole of Defiance, or even the whole of the HLF, Colonel,” Cheerilee said. “Unless there’s evidence that it’s the party line of the entire settlement, I can’t in good conscience authorize a strike on them.”

“Besides,” General Roberts said. “The PER are very clearly planning something over here.  Whatever it is, I don’t want us to be distracted while they do it.”

That had been the rumor for a long time. That the PER had something planned. They’d been unusually brazen in the US and other areas on the frontline of the Barrier, with surprisingly few “stragglers” left in their wake. Rumor was they’d even been taking the Ferals.

Officially, according to PHL and government-approved media, ‘Ferals’ were an urban legend. But, well…

‘You make people into animals, they start acting like animals,’ Lorne thought. ‘Also holy shit, is that racist?’

Then again, it wasn’t like the few Equestrians he knew – Smoky didn’t count, the two of them barely said a word to each other, and his closeness to Summers and Gardner unnerved him – were any more sympathetic towards Newfoals.

“The goal here,” Cheerilee said, “Is a show of force. They know we could destroy them.  And we know it too.”





Yael

“Shtuyot,” Yael said, putting in all the venom that people normally reserved for swearwords.

This story had to be nonsense.

“It’s exactly how it sounds. Bastard left us with the bag,” confirmed ‘Dallas,’ the blonde man in the uniform that looked more like a costume than anything. “It was a messy one, too.” ‘Dallas’ sighed. “Self-righteous, bloodthirsty, lying-”

“Dallas,” ‘Emily’ said. “Stop.”

“Emily’s right,” Soldano said. “He’s still-”

Yael was about to ask why, before DuPont went over her concerns more-or-less word-for-word:

“Still what?” DuPont asked. “Because it looks like he left the PHL a perfect excuse to kill all of us. Since they’re not doing that, I feel like I should be a lot more grateful to them in the immediate moment.”

“Christ,,” Emily said. “Mind deep-throating that boot a little longer, you two?”

“He’s not wrong, though,” said the only other woman on Defiance’s council - so, definitely Janna. “We are… kind of screwed right now.”

Dallas nodded. “They want to be reasonable, let’s… talk this out.”

“...Right,” Soldano said, after a pause. What should have been a single syllable came out so strangled it sounded almost like it was three.

‘...you win this round, Dallas. And DuPont.’ Yael silently thought. She didn’t say anything in their defense. No need to make it worse for both of them.

“I swear to God,” Soldano said. “It’s all true.”

Apparently, Lovikov had acted mostly alone. There’d been a hand-picked group he took on the boat with seemingly no rhyme or reason – younger kids, a relatively respected driver, only a few of his seeming favorites – and they’d had no records of any contact with Grant.


None of them had shown up yet. There were no calls to Defiance’s command, anyway. But it was all bullshit, of course. It had to be.

“Do you seriously expect me to believe,” Yael said, “Any word of that.”

Soldano was impassive. 

“You have to admit,” DuPont said, “It’d make a lot more sense than him coming back here.”

“Explain,” Oscar said, his voice flat.

“He very publicly attacked an entire city,” DuPont said. “If he went back here, you would kill us all.”

Yael nodded. That part, that one makes sense.

“I swear to God,” Soldano said, “You will not find him here.”

It was bullshit thought. It had to be. There was just one problem with that explanation: The conspicuous lack of Lovikov himself.

“Well then where in the fuck is he?!” Summers yelled.

“My best guess,” Soldano said, “Is with the ship that saved him.”

There was a pause.

“This is the part,” the youngish man in the nondescript fatigues added, “where you say ‘You mean that wasn’t y–’”

“I know damn well it wasn’t you,” Yael snapped. “You don’t have one of those ATC gunships. You don’t have anywhere you’d put it.”

The youngish man shook his head sadly, seeming almost disappointed.

“So,” Northwoods said, “You’re all absolutely certain that he’s not here?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Soldano said.

“Then you’ll allow us to check,” Northwoods said.

“What?!” Soldano protested. “No, no, no… you might–”

“If we don’t find Leonid, if it turns out that idiot is about to ruin everything by staying here, then that’s going to mean civil war,” Northwoods said. “It’s only consolidation of authority,”

Something about that sentence had the same effect on the crowded room as a pistol’s report. The HLF were silent for a few moments. Yael wondered if time had slowed down, if something was about to go wrong, and then–

“You raise a good point,” Soldano said, and something sounded a bit odd about his voice. “Very well then.”

‘And what,’ Yael wondered, ‘the hell was that about?’





Heliotrope

Gage’s phone rang. 

“... Yes?” he said, reaching for it slowly. Carefully. Heliotrope’s gun tracked his hand as it reached into the recesses of his wheelchair.

He pulled out an iPhone.

“That Had Better Not Be One Of Those Derringers That Look Like Phones.”.

“... That’s a thing?!” Heliotrope asked, shocked.

“Always thought those were kind of stupid,” said the guy on the other end of the glass. “What if cousin Gene mistook one for his iphone and shot off part of his ear?”

“Nobody could possibly be that stupid,” Heliotrope said.

“You don’t know my cousin,” said the guy on the other end of the glass. 

“Fuck you, Lewis!” Gage yelled. “You’re letting them walk all over us! If they didn’t–”

“Gage,” ‘Lewis’ said, “Stop threatening to bite their hooves off and think clearly for a second. If you shoot them, then you will die. If we are very lucky, then it will not kick off a massacre.”

‘... I kind of like him,’ Heliotrope thought.

Sure, Equestrians and their fellow Equusites were usually more durable than humans – there was a scientific explanation about altered laws of physics back on the homeworld – but the human was right. If Gage opened fire, everything would go crazy.

And then, as Gage answered–

“We’re what?!” he asked. “No, I…”

Presumably, it was the same message that Heliotrope and Yael were getting.

“According to them,” Yael said, “Lovikov and Rebecca Benning acted alone, and they’re nowhere to be found. The rest of Defiance was blameless. Apparently.”

The disdain and sarcasm in her voice could peel paint from the walls.

“That’s bullshit,” Heliotrope said. 

“It’s their story and they’re sticking with it,” Oscar said.

“Both of you,” Yael said. “Quiet down. Now, they’re–”

There was a knock on the door. 

“Open up!” someone said. “It’s Carl. We’re letting them…”





Yael

“Search the camp?!” yelled one of Defiance’s council members. “Soldano, this is ridiculous! They’ll see everything!”

“You would let them and their ungodly powers see every inch of the camp?!” the one in the priestly-looking robes asked.

“If I may?” Yael asked.

“If you may what?” Soldano asked, teeth gritted.

“Do you have another war crime you’re ready to do?” one woman asked. “Maybe round up our children and–”

Yael drew in a breath. “Shut. Up.”

The woman did.

“Here’s the thing. You know how believable your story is,” Yael said. “So do I. If it turns out Lovikov isn’t here, then fine. You were right. But you are not going to make us all leave just because he’s not in this room.”

“Or what?” asked another councilmember.  “Are you going to burn us all alive till you find a corpse that looks like him, and call it mission accomplished?”

“Depends,” Summers said, raising his M4. “Are you going to kill everyone in Berlin or Errol just for the sheer hell of it?”

“Both of you,” Northwoods said. “Shut up. Look. Nobody here wants a fight. You clearly don’t want the might of the PHL and National Guard on you. And we don’t want another war.”

Yael thought on that. Would she relish a fight with the HLF? Bringing back authority to the US, making sure that nothing like Portland would happen again, that she would never see anything like the atrocities perpetrated on ponies and most any human who affiliated with them during the Europe Evacuation.

She’d seen Defiance. She’d seen children’s toys in the houses. And she’d spent enough time in America to know that…

It wasn’t that she didn’t want to fight Lovikov. 

But…

The thought of burning down Defiance just like Nipville suddenly seemed a whole lot less palatable.

‘I’ve lost so much for burning down Nipville. Do I really want another one?’

“Just let us search for him,” Yael said. “Let us make sure he’s not here. If he’s not, then we just walk away.”

Northwoods looked to her, approvingly.

“Well said,” she said. “So. What’s it going to be?”



 Dancing Day

 December 2022

 “You could cut the tension with a butter knife,” Yael says. “I’m just going to say it. It was awful. Quiette Shy said…







Quiette Shy

The process of starting the search hit them like a whirlwind. One minute they were guarding Defiance… And seemingly within minutes, Lorne was walking in, rifle in one hand, a group of PHL at his back.

“They’re letting us search the camp,” Lorne said. “We’ve got a lot of ground to cover, you two.”

Searching Defiance would almost immediately remind Quiette Shy of evac duty.

Back during the Europe Evacuation, Quiette Shy had to visit countless small, insular communities not unlike this – rural places that were due to be ponified and then consumed by the Barrier. Evac duty had never been pleasant.

You could never tell how people would react. Even if they were the PHL, even if they were there to help, even if Ambassador Heartstrings had decided to personally lead the evac – which, on many occasions, she had – they were still more like a paramilitary than a humanitarian organization these days. They were coming into towns, forcing people out of their homes, forcing them to leave behind everything. People broke down during the evacuations. When they’d been in less developed parts of the Balkans or Middle East, there’d been times where people fired on them – some HLF, some not.

It made the overall effect quite similar to walking into a minefield.

As she walked through the camp with Lorne and Bro, she felt more and more like each hoof was coming closer and closer to the detonator.

Parents yanked their children away. People stared at them from between blinds. Men and women watched them, hands under their coats.





Heliotrope

The search took hours. 

They looked in every room. Every trailer. Every prefab. 

It was monotonous work. She’d never really have an easy time of recounting everything that she saw – Quiette Shy perfectly summed up just how the whole experience felt.

Heliotrope watched as a group of ATF agents dragged a man in handcuffs. Behind him, they were carrying out a huge rifle with the magazine on top of the receiver, instead of below, and a bore larger than a human thumb.

‘We really did this without firing a shot,’ Heliotrope marveled inwardly. ‘Guess the HLF weren’t that dumb.’ 

“You can’t do this!” someone yelled. “We need that for the-–”
 
“But you’re still in America,” one agent said. “We still have laws about destructive devices. Like that Lahti there.”

Heliotrope would, as long as she lived, never truly understand gun laws in this country. It had also mystify her just how many weapons the HLF had been allowed to keep – rocket launchers, grenade launchers, anti-tank rifles, among others.

There was a group of other ATF that were following Quiette Shy and Heliotrope. She hadn’t learned all their names yet – one was named Clement? – but they’d been helpful so far. 

They were walking into another house, one of only a few buildings that had been here long before Defiance was a fever-dream in the mind of Gregor Helmetag. Heliotrope could almost imagine it as a hunting cabin in an almost cartoon sort of nowhere.

Solar panels lined the roof, and a windmill turned lightly in the wind. It looked like - minus the small settlement that had subsumed it, ignoring the Barrier - this place could have survived on its own for years.

Heliotrope didn’t like it.

Actual permanent dwellings were rare in HLF settlements. If you had earned one that wasn’t, that made you, or the house, important.

Or both.

Except from what Heliotrope saw, there was a family there. A mother, a father, two children.

“Why do we have to work with Lyres, huh?” Da Costa asked. He was a big, bald, mustachioed man who looked like he was wearing a cowboy costume. He wore a coat with multicolored feathers woven in, and Heliotrope could only hope they hadn’t come from ponies.

Heliotrope knew him by reputation:

Joao Miguel ‘Jomi’ DaCosta. Apparently, a bastard to the core.

He stood in front of Heliotrope, a scowl affixed to his face. 

“Because,” Heliotrope said, “Either you work with us on this, or…”

“So you’re threatening us,” said one of the kids, a red-haired girl. They looked like they were barely into their teens – with humans, Heliotrope had a hard time telling these things – but they were dressed like HLF fighters through and through. They looked like they’d very much enjoy killing Heliotrope.

“We absolutely are,” one ATF agent said. “Keeping these weapons has been deemed an unacceptable risk after Portland.”

‘Lyra’s Grace,’ Heliotrope thought. ‘Did she ever get to be a child?’

She had to have been nine or ten, at most, during the Purple Winter.

“Or what?” the man asked.

Bro  stood tall, his rifle pointed at the ground, not quite in their direction but close. 

“After what Lovikov pulled,” Heliotrope said, “Be grateful Northwoods made sure we weren’t threatening you more. This is a slap on the wrist, and you know it.”

“We’re prepared to fight,” the redhead said.

“Jessie…” Da Costa’s wife warned.

“Are you though?” Bowie asked. Heliotrope looked at him, surprised. It was the most she’d heard from him in awhile. “Are you really willing to make enemies with the US government? Cos’, well, takes a special kind of man to look at the apocalypse and think ‘you know, I’m gonna fight a war on two fronts, and while I’m at it, I’m also gonna be responsible for the PHL not putting their one-hundred percent into stopping the Barrier or helping resettlement programs. God, it feels good to just care about me!’”

Dead silence all around. HLF all around were staring at him, aghast or angry.

“I had to fight in the Middle East, once,” Bowie said. “That was a war on two fronts. I can promise it was miserable for everyone. There were people we had to leave behind because they’d dug themselves a hole we couldn’t get them out of. You’d do well not to put yourself there.” 

Da Costa glowered. Heliotrope silently cheered for Bowie.

“Alright,” the man said. “You can search my house. As long as the gluesticks–”

He seemed to be smirking, knowing that he was saying it in plain view of Heliotrope.

“Don’t take anything.”

And the three of them walked into the house.

Yes, she was bitter. Humans could talk a big game about the HLF being human too, but the fact was, sometimes Heliotrope felt stuck between two groups that hated her equally. To Equestria, she was a deserter so high-profile that the Trailblazers had an order to kill her on sight.

Meanwhile, for too many humans, she was just a gluestick. Sometimes –- during her first days serving with Yael during the Europe Evacuation – she felt like the PER, the HLF, and even some IDF had been competing to see who killed her first. 

The smart one in the IDF took the punishment, and changed with the times. The ones too dumb to stop eating court-martials and penalties for shooting allied Equestrians either found themselves in prison or joining the Carter side of the Split.

After checking the bedrooms, she heard it.

“He might be hiding in a tunnel,” one child said, pointing to the basement.

“Tomas… You shouldn’t be telling them about that…” Da Costa warned.

“But Mister Lovikov did something bad,” ‘Tomas’ said. “If we hide things from them, won’t it be worse?”

‘There is something wrong,’ Heliotrope thought, ‘with this family.’

“Fine,” Da Costa sighed, and she and Quiette Shy followed Tomas towards the basement.

And here she was again. No, correction, the HLF had shot up a city, and Heliotrope knew full well they’d do it again. 

If they’d just fired on Defiance, it never would’ve happened.

‘Wait. Did I seriously just think that?’

Strangely, Heliotrope found that she didn’t mind the idea.

‘They’ll do it again,’ Heliotrope thought, as they checked a closet. ‘Lovikov took a lot of people with him, and they’re so going to bring in more. Lovikov didn’t exist in a vacuum. Best nip it in the bud.’

But… well. Orders were orders.

And if she fired now, well… that was unthinkable. She didn’t want to be responsible for the deaths of so many others.

‘I have to follow orders now. Otherwise I’m screwed.’

Tomas made a left turn, passing through a room full of bunk beds, and walking into another room that looked like a workshop of some kind. There was a wall full of tools hanging on hooks at one end, full of saws, screwdrivers, hammers… almost a hardware store’s worth.

“It’s right here,” Tomas said, reaching for an empty hook and turning it. He pulled on it and twisted it, revealing a doorway and a set of stairs leading down…

“Oh,” Quiette Shy said, making the light hissing noise that Heliotrope knew was a sigh. “How Cliche Can One Man Get.”

The two of them looked at the stairs. 

“Heliotrope, You Guard Me Until Bro Comes Down,” Quiette Shy said.

“Since when do you order me around?” Heliotrope asked, chuckling.

“You Really Want To Be In An Enclosed Space Where You Can Barely Fly?” Quiette Shy asked.

Heliotrope winced. “Oof. Point taken.” 

So, Heliotrope stood, her back to the mute white unicorn, watching Tomas trembling slightly. Watching his father come down the stairs.

“There’s Nothing Here,” Quiette Shy said.

“What?” Tomas asked. “You can’t have checked all of i-”

“It’s Just One Room,” Quiette Shy said. The three of them looked down, to find….

That the stairs had only gone down for about ten steps, not enough for one story. That there was a concrete room only a few meters wide at the bottom, almost completely bare and full of crates.

“I don’t understand,” Tomas said, looking over one wall, covered in ancient mildewed ‘70s-vintage posters. “It… it’s supposed to be here!”





Yael

The ATF agents were rummaging through the hole under the shipping container, dragging up what felt like enough arms to arm one of the smaller HLF settlements out in the Rockies.

All under the watchful if apoplectic gaze of a red-headed man with a prosthetic leg, spewing out sovereign citizen boilerplate. After ten minutes that felt like ten hours of this ranting, causing another Nipville was starting to seem a whole lot less unappealing.

“Something something, flag doesn’t have stars, something something, navy flag,” the guy was saying. Months from then, Yael wouldn’t remember or care what it was. It was like he was trying to recite a counterspell for the law.

‘The U.S,’ Yael thought, ‘really should’ve kept a better handle on this sort of thing. Even before the war.’

Back home – either in Israel, or in the Alaska Panhandle, which Yael actively attempted to avoid – the idea of being a sovereign citizen wouldn’t have been nearly this comfortable. Back home, they would have… Well, Yael wasn’t really sure about that. It wasn’t even a concept in either place. 

Especially because, back in Alaska with Dad, the usual response was, “Here’s the door. You sure you want to walk through it?” while the snow piled up against the walls.

“Oh, please,” Chinook sighed. “Just shut up.”

Yael looked up and slightly left at the pegasus, silently mouthing ‘thank you’.

“Excuse me?” the man asked. “The First Amendm–”

“I read up on it on the flight here,” Chinook said. “It doesn’t cover shooting people, and it doesn’t force us to listen to you. ”

“For the record,” said one agent, a blond man in a wholly incongruous bowler hat, “Be glad we’re not stepping on any more.”

“I am an independent citizen of–” the man started.

“Convenient, isn’t it?” Yael asked. “You’re not part of the US on April 15th either, I’m guessing.”

“You claim to be peaceful all you want,” one man sneered, “But then you blow up Kraber when he’s running away.”

Yael snapped towards him. “And you’re peaceful until you blow up a city.”

“That’s not the same thing!” he yelled.

There was only one problem with that. They hadn’t worked out a story on what happened to Kraber. As far as anyone knew, he was still at large, and had escaped with Lovikov. Nobody could have possibly known that  Kraber had been blown to pieces by an Obregon.

So how did they?

Yael didn’t know  how to feel about that. There was a lot of stuff that left her wondering just how to feel today. Kraber’s seeming death, the search, Defiance…

She sighed.

“Really?” Yael asked, hand at her hip. “Why is it not the same?”

“Because you answer to no one,” he said. “We fight for freedom. We’ve always fought for freedom, even when your corrupt governments sucked their-–”

“I’m Israeli,” Yael said. “We didn’t have a single Bureau in our country.”

The mention that she was Israeli turned him an interesting shade of purple or red. “Y…”

He reached for his hip, and–

“Do it,” Yael said. “Make another Nipville. I dare you.”

“You caused Nipville,” the man spat. 

“Right,” Yael said. “Because I didn’t see a town that was torturing ponies. Because I didn’t see a settlement that’d been taken over by armed lunatics who think the whole war centers around them. Because I didn’t see them–”

And this was a gamble. They hadn’t mentioned this in the story because… well, who would believe it?

“–draining their magic.”

“And so what if we did?” the man asked. There wasn’t a hint of surprise or denial. 

‘So he did know.’

“It’s almost like,” Yael said, “Everything’s my fault. Almost like you shouldn’t be blamed at all!”

For a moment, she really did want to shoot the man then and there. 

And suddenly, Yael imagined a future where she hadn’t seen her Heliotrope. A future with no Oscar or Quiette Shy, where the much-feared civil war had reached a boiling point. Yael lowered the Tavor. It wasn’t an act of supreme will or anything. The moment was gone, and suddenly she just felt tired.

Something she’d said struck a chord in her. 

Did she still want to fight Lovikov? To make sure nothing like Defiance happened again?

‘Sure. It’s their fault for doing it. But how I reacted? That’s my fault,’ Yael thought. ‘I always could’ve stopped it… I need to think on that…’





Heliotrope

“That’s Tomas for you,” Da Costa said, looming over his son. “Always. So. Imaginative.”

All around Heliotrope, the agents were peeling open the crates. From what Heliotrope could tell there were a few guns. A Kalashnikov, an M4, some shotguns, a Barrett. But… 

“That’s all aboveboard,” the wife said. “Even the Barrett.”

Heliotrope wanted to take it all. Wanted that Barrett to end up in an armory, or just taken as a trophy for Oscar.

But even so…

Well. 

‘We could cripple them and take it all,’ Heliotrope thought. ‘Command won’t let us. Also what is going on, Tomas?!’

“But the passage is there!” Tomas said. “You go there all the ti–”

“Tomas just loves having a secret room,” the dad said, a smile on his face. He reached for Tomas’s hand. “I mean, what kid wouldn’t, right?”

“But…” Tomas said, looking at a poster for some Burt Reynolds movie. “It’s supposed to be…”

Heliotrope walked up to the wall and tapped it. Something was bothering her about all this, but…

...When her forehoof tapped the concrete, it felt like a solid wall. Nothing hollow.

“Tomas’s always been like that, right?” Da Costa asked, squeezing his son’s hand. “Not like my Tara.”

He looked over to his daughter, who had climbed down the stairs and was now beaming with pride.

“Tara’s a good kid,” Da Costa said.





Dancing Day

“This... “ Dancing Day says, “Sounds really creepy.”

“How did you not notice this, Viktor?” Amber Maple asks.

Kraber just looks down at the floor. “Same way I didn’t notice how shitty it was all around me. I told myself it was how it was supposed to be.”

“What does that mean?” Spitfire asks, her eyes narrowing.

“It means…” Kraber says. “It means I didn’t see why Tomas wouldn’t want to fight. The world was being tough, and I thought we had to be tougher. From the oldest guy that could still hold a rifle, to preteens.”

He sighs.

“Did Da Costa ever... “ Rivet asks, and he flinches slightly. Backs away like a wounded dog.

“No,” Kraber says. “God, I hope not. Not like that.” He pauses. “Dacosta lost everything when he had to leave Portugal. His family and his ability to play cowboy were all he had left. I can’t blame him for wanting his kids to fight, but… I think he forgot they were kids. They stopped being family and started being underlings, and the shift was so slow I didn’t notice.”

Another pause.

“What a shitty fokking way to grow up,” Kraber finishes. “Defiance was good at making people into monsters and keeping them that way.”

“True that,” Heliotrope says. 



at the same time

“Uhhhh…” Aegis says. “Kids. Have I… am I like that?”

He looks at Amber and Rivet.

“You…. could’ve… done worse?” Rivet asks. 

“That’s the best any parent can hope for,” Aegis says, completely deadpan.

“Dad,” Amber sighs. “That’s an awful joke.”

“Sure, let’s go with that,” Aegis says. “Look. I know I’ve screwed up. I just hope to Faust I haven’t broken you.”

“You’ve done your best, dad,” Rivet sighs.






“Heliotrope,” Yael says. “Come on. We-”

“Still technically works, right?” Heliotrope asks, gesturing vaguely to herself.

Yael is silent. Nobody knows how to react to that.





Heliotrope

“Well,” Heliotrope said, “There’s… nothing else we can do, I guess.”

In truth, Heliotrope very much wished there was more she could do. Because something was bothering her deeply. This family. This basement.

It suddenly seemed very clear how little power they actually had here.

And the wall did seem to be pretty solid.

But it bothered her. How Da Costa had treated his son with such obvious contempt. How they lived in a town that saw nothing wrong with Portland. And how they’d clearly stocked up these weapons with the intent of killing ponies.

“Do you, ah…” one agent asked, “Have… permits for all this?”

“Certainly,” Da Costa said. “Everything’s aboveboard.”

There was a light smirk on his face as he said it.

‘He’s getting away with it,’ Heliotrope thought, ‘they’re getting away with it. Their leader blew up Portland. And suddenly, everyone’s swearing up and down they had nothing to do with it. How many people here Unmarked ponies back during the Purple Winter? And we’re just slapping them on the wrist They’re going to go on thinking this is okay. 

And this is going to happen again and again, because the HLF just have a magic shield that repels consequences.

  We tried to save Nipville– I told Yael to do that!– and we got punished. Not the people who took the town over in the first place.

I’m going to make all of you pay.





Yael
Four Hours Later

‘And to think,’  Yael thought, ‘Nny made all those jokes about the Quartering Act.’

They’d set up camp outside Defiance. Her shift was over, and apparently they were planning on being there for a day or two more. Just until the investigations were over. Until the PHL and the government were satisfied that they’d done enough. Arrests were being made, guns were being confiscated and taken to who-knew-where, and yet:

‘It doesn’t feel like we’ve done anything.’

It wasn’t much of a camp. A few tents, most of them leaning against the APCs.  And the thing that bothered Yael more than anything was the silence. She couldn’t hear anything from the nearby shantytown – no music, no idle chatter, no nothing – or from the PHL and other law enforcement around her.

It felt like Yael could’ve heard a pin drop at any point in the last couple hours. It’d felt quiet in the last half hour of the search before Cheerilee and Northwoods called it off, and it’d been quiet as they left.

The most noise Yael could remember came from one guy, who started yelling “Horsefuckers go home! We ain’t scared of you-”

Then there’d been a clunk, and silence.  And all the while, wide-eyed children stared at them. Men and women and others of all ages watched them, stonefaced. It looked like…

‘Like I put them through Barrierfall all over again.’

This had been Lovikov’s camp. And if that man was in charge, who knew what was going through their heads?

Yael thought on Nipville.

‘Do I really want to be responsible for that kind of pain again?’

There was a knock on the wall of Yael’s tent.

“Hello?” Heliotrope asked.

“Yeah, Heliotrope?” Yael asked.

“Gardner’s about to call a meeting down in the command post,” Heliotrope said.

 “He might be,” Yael said. “But then, why don’t I know about it?”

“Alright,” Heliotrope sighed. “It’s just… I just need to talk. About today.”

“You too?” Yael asked, getting off her sleeping bag.

“Yeah,” Heliotrope said, as Yael opened the door.  “It’s just…. Something’s bothering me. About today.”

“What?” Yael asked, crawling out the doorway.

“Yael,” Heliotrope said, as they passed another tent,, “I just… look. We’re going to be getting a meeting telling us this was a victory.”

“What makes you say that?” Yael asked.

“Nobody died today,” Heliotrope said, “It’s a moral victory, right?”

The sarcasm in her voice could’ve peeled the paint from the walls of most any house around here.

“They are lying to us. I don’t care what it looks like, this was Lovikov’s camp. They had to have known,” Heliotrope said, seething. “And we didn’t even give them a slap on the wrist. Somewhere, Lovikov is out there, laughing at us.”

“We should be avenging this city,” Heliotrope said, “Avenging all the refugees from my home that they’ve fucked, not giving them concessions. My old labor union back in Las Pegasus kept on talking more and more about coming to agreements, till he practically shoved Canterlot’s collective hooves so far up his plot they could use him as a hand puppet!”

It didn’t take long for Yael to realize what she was suggesting.

“Heliotrope,” Yael said, “We’re not going to let the HLF do that!”

“But the brass are having us just dance around the consequences!” Heliotrope protested. “I thought you’d…”

“I’m furious too,” Yael said. “But…”

She sighed. Opened the door to the stairwell.

“But?” Heliotrope asked, fluttering just next to Yael’s head.

“But I feel like I barely know where to direct it. Heliotrope, I’m as mad as you,” Yael said, realizing, all of a sudden, that it was absolutely true. “I want Lovikov to burn as much as you do. But I don’t know who else to turn all that anger on, and…” 

She sighed.

“And no matter what, we can’t go against orders to use it,” Yael said. “They were about as lenient on us as the HLF. I can’t let the four of us fall apart. Let QS moulder behind a desk, or have Oscar get repossessed. We’ve got to stick to orders, Heliotrope. I can’t have you changing my mind.”



“Let’s make sure they know they can’t pull this again,” she said. “What do you think about not taking prisoners here?”



Yael remembered herself saying that as if it was yesterday.

“Are you saying this is my fault?” Heliotrope asked.

“No,” Yael said, “I’m saying we’re both at fault for letting ourselves lose our way. I pulled the trigger, same as you.”

She was silent, as they approached the first floor.

“Also,” she said, “I seriously doubt this is just it. Lovikov’s still somewhere out there, after all.”

Heliotrope paused to consider this, hovering in midair. She placed one hoof under her chin. “Yeah. I guess that makes sense.”

“I think,” Yael said, uttering some words that would come to haunt her, “That the best place we can put all that anger is into getting Lovikov to justice. Regardless of condition.” 

She was surprised at the coldness in her voice.

“Then, we… work with each other. Keep Oscar and QS with us, like we always have?” Heliotrope suggested.

“Sounds about right,” Yael said.

“Us against the world,” Heliotrope said, tapping one hoof to Yael’s fist. They rounded a corner of another APC, only to find–

Quiette Shy, looking up at them confused, a walkie-talkie held in her TK next to her mouth. 

“I was just about to call you,” Quiette Shy said. “We’re required. In Gardner’s command post.”

“What do you know,” Heliotrope said. “Guess I was right. There is a meeting.”





Heliotrope

The “command post” was a much larger tent. Gardner had set up a table, and his PHL crystal-projector sat atop it.

Cheerilee and Northwoods might as well have been on another planet for how differently they viewed the raid.

“Well done. The goal here was to intimidate the HLF… and I think you succeeded,” Cheerilee said, her image flickering above the PHL-made projector they’d installed. “Our analysts are reporting a massive spike of fear in HLF circles.”

She paused.

“You’ve managed to intimidate them,” Northwoods added. “They know that we can do this at any time, and - if anyone else has the bright idea to destroy a town - they know that consequences do exist.”

Something about that bothered Heliotrope. She looked over to see Yael’s jaw clenched, her brow furrowed. 

‘Did Northwoods say that on purpose?’ Heliotrope wondered.

“The HLF know we can do this. And they’re already thinking about how we might not be so gentle next time,” Cheerilee finished. “It may not seem it, but this is definitely a step in the right direction.”

Heliotrope only barely restrained herself from blurting out her thoughts. ‘I don’t want a step. I want justice! We’re surrounded by wreckage, and the only guy we came close to capturing was too bloodthirsty to even consider surrenderi–’





Dancing Day

“Kraber, no,” Aegis says.

“It’s fine,” Kraber says, “It’s all fine. We’re friends now, right, Heliotrope?”

Kraber had mellowed out a bit. This was indisputable. But what with suffering from a case of resting bastard face and having an infamous temper, it was easy to forget.

“... Viktor?” Heliotrope asked, looking up at him, very unsettled.

“I, ah,” Kraber says, “Need some air. I have to walk out for a little bit.”

“I’m sorry,” Heliotrope says, almost pleading. “Just…”

“I know,” Kraber says. “I promise. I’m not going to do anything. I just… need to keep calm and think of strangling Gardner with some barbed wire.”

“But I–” Heliotrope started.

“I know you did,” Kraber says, “But it’s not right for me to be mad at you. I just need some air, is all. Just going to walk out, clear my head, and check Facebook or something.”





Heliotrope

Mostly Heliotrope just breathed through her nostrils a little too heavily.

If Cheerilee noticed the sign of disrespect, she didn’t show it. Thankfully, Gardner was there to voice those concerns of hers.

“Yes, maybe we scared a bunch of inbred hicks and gun hoarders,” Gardner said. “But there’s dangerous people in the HLF. You need only to look at Lovikov’s record in Chechnya and Ukraine to tell that. There’s criminals that no other faction would take. What happens when they become emboldened?”

“They won’t kickstart a civil war,” Northwoods said. “Nobody could be that stupid.”

“Since Helmetag’s death, the Menschabwehrfraktion has historically been popular with anti-government elements,” Yael volunteered. “Even neo-Nazis.”

Heliotrope knew from experience that Yael had been far less kind to the kind of far-right elements that had begun to fill the HLF in America. 

‘Go Yael,’ she thought, before winding up with a statement of her own.

“These aren’t humans who think rationally,” Heliotrope said. “Gardner is right, ma’am. If they’re scared or emboldened, they’re unpredictable. Violent. What happens if this doesn’t work?”

“Then we’ve bought ourselves time,” Cheerilee said. She looked displeased to see Heliotrope talking, but she said nothing.

“There’s only so much we can sell off for that,” Gardner said.

“I know,” Cheerilee said. “I recall a leader who talked about ‘peace in our time’.”

It wasn’t right to think of a commanding officer this way. But Heliotrope struggled not to blatantly roll her eyes. ‘She just doesn’t understand humans! Faust, this-…’

But what Cheerilee said next startled her.

“And I won’t fall into the same trap.”

What, Heliotrope thought.

“Using the IFFs built into your armor. And tracking them with a PHL satellite, PHL R&D was able to create a 3D map of Defiance.”

A blue-tinted wireframe image of Defiance replaced Cheerilee and Northwoods, hovering gently above the table. 

Heliotrope looked at the lightly floating model. Then searched out the house with the strange basement room, looking along the bottom of the model. 

The room was… strangely misshapen. It wasn’t a box, it looked more like a trapezoid. And it was opened on one end.

“What’s that?” she asked, pointing to it.

“Huh,” Northwoods said. “Must’ve been an error with the mapping software.”

Heliotrope wasn’t sure of that.

‘Tomas was sure there was something there,’ Heliotrope thought. ‘And that father? He might not have done anything in front of me, but he was sure as buck guilty of something.’

“You’re sure?” Heliotrope asked. “There was a child there who seemed pretty convinced there was a pa-–”

“You know how imaginative children can be,” Northwoods interrupted. “It’s been a difficult few years, hasn’t it?”

There was something in that phrasing that Heliotrope didn’t like. But there wasn’t much else to go on there.

“If you say so,” Heliotrope said.

“You mean…” Gardner said.

“You know what they say, Colonel,” Cheerilee said. “Hope for the best, and expect the worst.” She paused. “For now, your orders are to assist us in rooting out any PER on the East Coast. You’ve all seen renewed activity from them even before Portland.”

“Are you sure the HLF aren’t the… at least as big a problem?” Gardner asked. 

“Positive.”

“All due respect, ma’am,” Gardner said, “The HLF are a destabilizing influence on this country. And the PER, as far as I know, have never destroyed a city without Solar Empire help.”

“Lovikov’s actions,” Cheerilee said. “Were a fluke. And the HLF do not convert humans.”

The tone of her voice made it clear she did not expect argument.

“Shieldwall’s PER regiments, however, have been getting increasingly bold,” Cheerilee said. “Vanishing entire towns. And they haven’t been leaving many of those Newfoals stranded. Remember, there’s still that little matter of the anomalous Newfoal at the Maine Medical we must look into. Those regiments are building up the horsepower for something, and I want you to gather intel on them and stop it. By any means necessary. Is that clear, Colonel Gardner?”

“Yes ma’am,” Gardner said, nodding.

Her projection winked out, and then there they were, sitting in an empty room.

“GODDAMMIT!” Gardner yelled, pounding the table with both fists. There was an audible crack. “They fucked us…” he said, more simply. “We had them. Then and there. And they fucked us.”

“Well, we didn’t find Lovikov–” Yael started.

“That doesn’t matter,” Gardner snarled. “Does anyone in this room really believe that this little cock-up of his was divorced from the rest of the camp?! So now, we have a situation where a bunch of jumped up little militiamen in their rascal scooters look all fine and dandy next to us! It’s almost like the HLF shouldn’t be blamed for this at all!”

He sat, breathing heavily.

“And Kraber looks like he did nothing wrong!” Gardner finished.

“HE FUCKED UP MY FACE!” Summers yelled.

Everyone stared at him.

“What do we say about his role?” Yael asked. “Kraber, I mean.”

“Hmmmm?” Gardner asked.

“He assisted very heavily while repelling Reaper,” Yael said. “We need to-–”

“Downplay,” Gardner said. “As far as anyone should be concerned, the HLF are monsters who attacked an innocent city. We have no need to lionize them. They don’t want credit? Fine, we’re not giving them credit. And one more thing. I saw your footage of emptying Private Mikkelsen’s MP50 Obregon into Viktor Kraber’s boat, and it was an incredible amount of force to lay against one man. Some would almost call it reckless.”

“... Sir?” Yael asked.

“But,” Gardner said. “He’s HLF. Fuck ‘em.” He nodded. “Keep up the good work, both of you.” 

Heliotrope saluted with one foreleg, a satisfied smile on her face. After some uncertainty, a similar expression formed on Yael’s face.

‘What’s with her?’ Heliotrope wondered.

A pause. “You’re certain he’s dead?” Gardner asked.

“Positive,” Heliotrope said. “It was at practically at point-blank range, with…” she rubbed one foreleg on the underside of her jaw, deep in thought. “17. shells. The boat was vaporized when we hit it. He couldn’t have possibly survived. And even if he didn’t, he’d probably drown. I’m certain we won’t see him again.”

“So,” Smoky asked, “Where do you think we go from here, sir?”

Gardner sighed. “Honestly? I have no fucking idea.”

Heliotrope looked up at him, staring in confusion and horror.

“I just feel like we’re about to find another Portland, too late,” Gardner said. “The brass can talk a lot about preparing, but… they’re preparing too. We’ve been sending weapons to the Yarrow side of the Split, and I have no way to guarantee how many of them are actually on our side, if loonies like the Reavers can ever really be said to be on anyone’s side. What if the Ship bombards a city?”

“As if I didn’t have enough nightmares already,” Yael said.

Heliotrope nodded. The events in Portland had thrown everything into disarray. The HLF had someone with tech rivaling the PHL and a willingness to use them

“There’s one idea I have,” Heliotrope said.

“What’s that, Sergeant?” Gardner asked.

“If there’s anyone who could know where the Ship is,” Heliotrope says, “Or where the HLF got those magic Siphons in Nipville… It’s Romero.”

A slow, unpleasant smile crept across Gardner’s face.

“It’s high time,” he said slowly, “that we pay that pirate a visit.”