The magical land of Equestria was no more and its remains sprawled on hundreds of miles, giving to see only shades of grey, brown and pale yellow. There in the Wasteland, two ponies, two unicorns, walked along a wrecked road, alone with the creeping whistle of the wind. Under their hooves, the dirty and rubbish asphalt was cracked open on several locations, giving to see tufts of dust and sprouts of dried weed, long dead now.
The younger of the two ponies was a mare. She had magnificent turquoise eyes, contrasting with her navy blue fur. Her mane, shining in the dull light of the day, was mauve. Like her, the stallion she was following was scruffy. He had a dark grey coat scarred above his shoulders and hooves. His eyes were as grey as his fur and only clumps of a charcoal mane grew on the back of his head. Both were armed. The mare was wearing an old and rusty magnum in a holster above her stifle, next to her saddlebag. Her senior partner was carrying a heavy bolt-action rifle on his left side, balanced by a metal case on his right flank. The silence was omnipresent and the young mare was itching to break the ice.
“No but seriously Pathog, can you repeat it again…” she said. “Do we have to walk all the way to that place? What’s its name already?”
“For the billionth time Cog. It’s named Sweet Apple Acres,” Pathog retorted with his stern voice.
The poor stallion was losing his temper. His friend’s questioning seemed to stretch forever.
“It’s like one thousand and four hundred miles away from here!” Cog rebuked. “Do we have to do it… on bare hooves?”
“You know that’s our job. That’s what we have been assigned to do. Smile,” Pathog mocked. “We’ve already done half of the quarter of the one-tenth of the journey.”
Cog gave out a long and depressed sigh. She kicked a rock down the road to dampen her anger. The shingle pounced few times before crashing in the old and rusty embankment of the road. The bang that followed filled in the air.
“I didn’t sign for this,” Cog pouted.
“Hey! You know you didn’t have much choice,” Pathog berated. “You’d have been executed otherwise. Be happy that I interfered to save your bum from the organisation’s tribunal for the… things you did.”
Pathog gazed at his female counterpart with amused eyes. Somehow he saw Cog’s deeds as a kind of feat. On her own, the mare was devastated, she felt like she had stepped on a trap that would never release her.
“You didn’t have so much choices though,” Pathog kept telling. “You’re in the structure now. And there is nothing you can do about it. You can’t leave, and even if you tryn we will take care that you’re out…”
Pathog cleared his throat and showed off his most unsettling smile.
“Forever,” he boomed, mimicking the Ministry of Morale’s voice, and laughed. “Be happy that you got me as a tutor. Others wouldn’t have been that concerned about you. After all we’re the same.”
Cog grumbled and stared at the ground for a long time. Silence ensured, putting the conversation on edge. She let Pathog pass him and gave a look at the sky, deep in thought. On his side, Pathog was constantly checking that the heavy suitcase on his right side was hung tight, not risking to fall down. To do so, he always made sure it was perfectly balanced with his weapon. Both items were linked together with a complex system of straps. Yet, the leather was biting his skin.
They walked for hours. The canopy of a chain of mountains that had appeared earlier was now much closer. Like everything in the Wasteland, the mountains were nothing but crooked and grim dark shadows rising like unsteady pillories. As the day was going to an end, the two travelers had faced nothing but miles of dead lands. They were exhausted and wanted to take a break. But they knew they had to keep walking. They had to find a shelter for the night, to hide from the dangers that weaved in the dead of the night. After all the distance they had traveled, Cog and Pathog had started ascending the first saddle between the peaks. Clambering the destroyed road, they both breathed loudly, swearing they would stop at the pass to rest. And when they reached it, the sun behind the clouds was going to set, giving to them an orange and purple tint. The two unicorns struggled to catch their breath.
The distant crackle of a gunshot echoed. Pathog raised his head and scanned the Wasteland all around him. Yet, nothing seemed out of chart. From his position he could see all the plain he and Cog had crossed during the day. It was the same for the narrow path they would take the next one. He was slightly scared. He was sure the gunshot did not come from behind.
Cog snickered, capturing her partner’s attention.
“It’s cloudy today. What do you think the forecast will be tomorrow?” she bantered.
The stare Cog got back from her friend and mentor was a blend between disapproval and exasperation.
“Are you f’cking kidding me, right?” Pathog croaked. “Sometimes, I get real tired of your shit Cog. Can’t you just focus for a second? We may have incoming problems.”
He closed his eyes, trying to erase that stupid question Cog had just asked. He calmed himself.
“We may be surrounded by raiders but you keep asking dumbass and irrelevant questions.”
The mare answered with an ironic laugh.
“Oh dear. You belong to the organisation...”
“We,” he cut off.
“Yeah. We belong to one of the weirdest faction in the Wasteland,” she choked on her words with a nearly mechanical tone. “We act in secrecy to pull the strings of fate and change the future of Equestria for the better.”
She looked hard at Pathog, hoping he had took the hint. That there is more stupid things in the Wasteland than her jokes.
“No, but do you believe in that bullshit?” she ironized. “To recreate a better Equestria? Look around you.”
She swept the landscape with her hoof, showing the wreckages that populated the region.
“A flat, boring and dusty Wasteland from North to South, from West to East, where you are more likely to get killed by a raider than find paper to wipe your ass.”
The two unicorns head-butted, trying to overwhelm the other with crude strength. Their horns crossed.
“Oh shut up Cog! Can’t you at least get your mind into the mission?”
She did not listen and jolted on the side. Pathog lost his balance and bit the dust. He grumbled. Cog blocked him under her hooves, ensuring victory for herself.
“No seriously,” she sniggered. “Do you believe in all that brainwashing we go through? I’ll tell you, the organization is a sect. You hear me, a sect that just thinks a few can modify the future.”
Pathog’s eyes glowed. Slipping out of her partner’s hooflock, he bucked Cog in the throat. She fell on the ground, trying to catch her breath. She started crying. She tried to speak but Pathog caught her cheeks between his hooves. His eyes were extremely stern, glaring daggers at her.
“Down to business, please. If I went with you, it’s not out of the goodness of my heart. Do you understand?”
He ran his hoof through his mane, revealing a tiny plaque of metal riveted to his skull. He did the same with Cog. She had the same device implanted on her.
“Because of you, we got those explosive gifts from the council. Thank you for this, but I’d have been fine without,” he broke in. “So now, would you be so kind as to focus on the mission? That you don’t make our heads boom ‘cause of your stubbornness.”
Sobbing, still unable to breathe normally, Cog nodded.
“Who… who shall receive the package?” she asked hesitantly.
“The oracle said it was meant for a mare named ‘Little Pip’, resident of Stable Two. She should escape from there a month from now.”
“Ah, that oracle,” Cog was going to laugh, but the dead-shooting stare of her partner shut her up. “Well, what’s inside the box?”
As the night was enshrouding the Wasteland, Pathog decided to take a break at the col. It was free of taint and radiation.
“I don’t know, we are forbidden to open it before delivery.”
Cog sighed. Nopony messed with the organisation, especially its members. Tired, Pathog took the battle saddle off and unlocked the metal box fixed to it. He and Cog stared at it a long time. Then they laid it on the nearest rock. From her saddlebag, Cog took out a few travel rations and shared them with her peer. They were terribly hungry and thirsty.
A second gunshot boomed distantly and reverberated in the foothills.
“Do you think we’ll have to fight tomorrow?” Cog asked shyly.
“I guess so. It’s the fate of everypony in the Wasteland.”
“I hope this box is worth it. If I have to risk my life for an unknown mare, I expect her to at least save the world.”
Pathog sniggered.
“I thought like you during my first mission. Then you get more realistic, the one we help will save somepony, a village or a city. But the world…”
Pathog laughed.
They ate their rations, and utterly tired they let sleep take hold of them.
A loud crack pulled the two unicorns out of their slumber. The whistle of a bullet passing by followed instantly. Pathog and Cog’s eyes burst open.
“We’re under attack?!” Cog cried out.
A series of explosions boomed a hundred meters below the saddle. A firefight was ongoing and two groups were fighting each other to the death.
“We keep a low profile,” Pathog ordered. “Luckily, they’ll be all dead in an hour and we’ll just have to scavenge the rest.”
A torrent of shrapnel rained yards from them. A missile had gone wrong beneath and kept flying in the duo’s direction.
“It’s gonna be bad if they come to us,” Cog exclaimed.
“I know.”
The whistling of a second rocket moved closer and burst over Pathog and Cog’s heads, dazing and deafening them. The ground shook and, with blurred eyes, they both saw the rock where their box was standing trembled. Sliding on its side, the rock hurdled down with the case. It needed only a second to see Cog and Pathog leaping behind to retrieve the organisation’s item, their weapons in their mouths. However, they were not fast enough.
The fight opposed a group of travelers inside a makeshift camp. Three stallions, two mares and two young fillies, to a much more numerous gang of raiders. They were all Earth Ponies. Bullets flew in the air and already a mare and a stallion had bitten the dust, dying in their own blood. The only lights came from the shots and a small hearth at the center of the fight. It was loud.
Cog and Pathog stopped and held their breath as the massive chunk of rock bounced a last time and crashed onto the remaining mare among the travelers. She never saw the death coming. The box followed and landed next to one of the fillies. From their higher position and hidden by the darkness of the night, they saw the bandits slowly taking upon the group of travelers until only a last filly was left alive. The foal was splattered with the blood of her sister. She did not even cry. Her eyes were transfixing the box that had fallen at her side. She was fascinated by the box as much as she tried to escape the grim reality of her surroundings.
In the aftermath of the fall, the lock of the box had cracked open and the content was given to see. It was a memory orb, a single black memory orb. The two unicorn couriers breathed with ease in their hideout. Nopony beneath them was a unicorn, they could not use it.
Around the filly, the raiders started scavenging the encampment. To Pathog’s horror, the filly took the orb in her hooves, he and Cog feared she would break it. Ransacking the box with noise, the filly revealed her position. It needed only second before one of the raiders stood behind her.
“Look what we’ve got here? Some raw meat,” he purred.
The raider aimed at her with a small hoofgun, taking his time, savouring this easy kill. The filly turned her head and a gunshot boomed in the air. This swift movement saved the filly’s life. The high-caliber bullet flew past her and penetrated the orb. It burst out in a discharge of white electricity and bluish smoke, right onto the raider and filly’s face. She screamed.
“We’re so dead,” Pathog confirmed from his position.
“We’ve got to do something,” Cog asserted.
Even before her friend answered, Cog had taken aim at the raiders.
“Wait,” Pathog alerted. “We’re only two, we need the element of surprise. We could… just this time.”
“You said it was forbidden to us.”
“Well, I guess we can bypass some laws now. We’re already dead,” he deadpanned.
Cog’s face brightened with a large smile. She hid behind a rock and a burst of green flames enveloped her. As if her fur had been completely consumed by a magic fire, she revealed a skin made of dark blue chitin. Her eyes glowed turquoise. Her mauve mane was still waving on her head. Her hooves and horn were adorned with holes. And in her back had shaped two translucent wings. Pathog followed her example and metamorphosed. Together, they took off and flew over the camp furtively.
“Ah fuck!” the raider that had tried to shoot the filly screamed. “It’s fucking burning!”
His stooges laughed raucously until they saw their friend stumble and fall on the side, trembling. Sweat ran on his face. His features were damaged with the shards of glass coming from the memory orb. The raider was mumbling incoherently. The filly showed the same symptoms; her convulsions were even worse.
A series of bangs cracked in the air and a rain of fire bombarded the raiders. Their heads, limbs, sides and throats gave up under the barrage of bullets. Blood spilled on the Equestrian Wasteland’s soil, melting with the dust and slithering in the cracks.
Two empty boxes of cartridges fell from the darkness above. And the two black pony-shaped creatures descended to the slaughter. They gave the final blow to two raiders that were unfortunately still alive. Then, for a long moment, they stared at the little filly. She was jolting in her own blood. The exploded memory orb had damaged her skin, face and hooves. Cog kneeled next to her, a motherly smile cast on her face.
Pathog rummaged through the metal box. Empty, it had only contained the memory orb. His shoulders fell slightly as every remainders of hope vanished in his soul. The organisation would learn that they had lost the item, and it would be a matter of time before a bounty hunter came enough closer to them to detonate the devices they had been provided.
“We should give her misericorde,” Pathog proposed when he returned to the filly.
“Are you crazy? She may have seen what was inside the orb!” Cog countered.
“She is an Earth Pony!”
“Maybe, if there is the slightest hope, I… We have to grasp it.”
Pathog sighed and returned to the scavenging of the raiders strewn over the area.
“Do what you want Cog, we’re already dead. We’ll bring her to the next village, that she get some care. And then we disappear far, far away from Equestria!”
“I don’t know, maybe she has seen it,” Cog repeated, trying more to convince herself than her partner. “We may have not failed the mission yet.”
“Just…” Pathog massaged his forehead. “Just find a good pair of attires to hide ourself. I’ll follow.”
Most of the raiders’ stuff was rotten and impossible to repair. Yet, Pathog found an important amount of ammo and sparkle cola caps, with at least two weeks worth of rations. When he came back to Cog, she had changed into a dark red coated earth pony wearing a long brown trench coat. Her orange mane was hidden under a large hat. She had wrapped the filly in a nearly unstained linen and held in her hooves. Pathog eyed his partner for a moment.
“Fashion isn’t your hobby, is it?” he grinned.
In a burst of green flames, Pathog changed into an Earth Pony, displaying an orange fur and purple mane, wearing the same clothes than Cog.
“I hope we don’t make a mistake,” he spat.
Still exhausted as the night went short. They walked in the dark of the night with glowing eyes. Changelings could see through the dark of course. And at some point, the sleeping filly opened an eye. And what she saw was two ponies wearing the same war dressing, two ponies whose names and faces were undisclosed. They were her two mysterious strangers.