“Out!” the gray, unicorn stallion commanded, giving Sunny a hard push with his rifle barrel.
“Ow,” the pegasus murmured, hurriedly trotting out of the wagon as fast as the hoofcuffs would allow.
Willow was looking the guard over, most likely pondering the many different ways she could incapacitate him.
The stallion whom Willow had gone rows with on the flight stepped out behind the captives and pointed an accusing hoof at Willow. “Get a muzzle on her; she likes to use her teeth.”
“Why isn’t she cuffed?” a guard asked, looking at the four sets of broken hoofcuffs the mare was wearing.
He laughed angrily. “She was! She was cuffed four times! She keeps biting through them and I can’t get her to stop.”
Sunny was beginning to lose interest in the conversation. He was instead looking around at the many, multi-storied buildings outside the fenceline of the REA landing field. Baltimare had been one of the many cities to take very kindly to industrialization. The city was massive. The plot was covered with many tall office buildings and semi-skyscrapers. These were only at the very heart of the city, but of course, that’s where they had landed. Something that struck Sunny as peculiar: he could see ponies! They were everywhere. He could see them in windows, or even on the street, with no weapons.
The gray unicorn who had been arguing with Willow heaved a great sigh. “Look,” he said in compromise, “You and I both know that I’m not allowed to hurt you, so threats will do no good. Please...” He paused and looked to the pony behind the mare, who mouthed him Willow’s name. “Willow,” he added. “They aren’t going to make you wear cuffs in confinement, but I need them on you before I can take you across the city. Can I take the broken pairs off you?”
Willow nodded willingly. “I understand.”
The blue stallion who had flown on the transport balked. “What!? How-what-w... How!?”
Willow smiled at him. “All You had to do was say please.”
He gave her the most terrible of glares. “I hate you.”
Willow reared up to pat the stallion on the back, but he jumped away. Instead, she turned to the gray unicorn who was removing her cuffs. “But you are not putting a muzzle on me.”
The gray pony raised an eyebrow, then turned to the blue stallion. “Is she infected?”
“No, it’s some other thing. But she isn't contagious.”
The guard nodded, then turned to Willow. “You don’t have to wear a muzzle.”
Candy struggled as a pink mare drug her from the wagon by a chain around her neck. “You can’t do this!” the striped mare yelled. “I didn’t do anything!”
Sunny tried to approach the two but a burly stallion blocked his way. Briefly, he thought of escape, but the chances were slim. It would be the three of them, chained, against six armed guards. Not to mention they were in an REA base; there were bound to be plenty more ponies waiting to come shoot them. Escape really wasn’t an option.
“What do we do with the traitor?” the mare pulling Candy asked with a grunt.
“They radioed ahead with commands. She’s to be executed for charges of treason and murder of her squad.” The gray stallion pointed towards the brick side of a building a ways in the distance. “Take her to the wall.”
“No—” Sunny started, but Willow was faster.
“I swear to you, if you hurt her...” Willow gave the stallion an intimidating stare. “It will be the end of you.”
He gave her a genuine look. “I’m sorry, but they’re orders. Besides, she killed her squad; nopony’s going to let her get away with that.” He motioned towards the mare dragging Candy, then an orange unicorn stallion. “Take care of it.”
Sunny lunged forward, but was immediately taken down by a burly mare and shackled around the neck. He glared up at the stallion in charge from the ground. “Does she look like a murderer to you.”
He turned and gave Sunny a sad look. “No, she doesn’t.”
The two ponies dragged the mare the rest of the way to the wall and hooked the chain to a ring, then attached another chain and hooked that one to a different ring. They pulled out the slack and left Candy with hardly any movement.
“I’m not going to say it again!” Willow bellowed. “If you don’t stop this right now, I will do something about it!”
The two ponies left Candy at the wall and the orange stallion took aim with a battle saddle from a distance away.
Willow took a deep breath. “I told you to leave her alone!” With a scream, she reared up and kicked the mare behind her right across the jaw. There was a pop and a crunch and the mare dropped like a sack of flour, releasing Willow’s chain. Willow dashed forward while the ponies scrambled to arms. Although the gray stallion stood beside her, he made no effort to stop her. She butted another mare out of the way and sprinted for the orange stallion readying to fire, who didn’t even seem to realize the commotion.
Shouts and yells sounded, and uniformed ponies began to pour out of a nearby building. The stallion to execute Candy took the bit in his mouth. Candy screamed and pulled desperately on the chains binding her. He tightened his grip on the bit, taking careful aim. That’s when Willow fastened her teeth in his mane and yanked his head back. His neck gave a meaty crunch as his muzzle faced the sky and the life left his eyes.
Willow didn’t even blink.
“Yeah!” Sunny jeered as the mare sprinted for the wall with a dozen ponies on her tail. “Go Willow!” A sharp knee to the belly shut him up.
Shots were fired as Willow dashed for the chained mare, but luckily none of them hit. “No no no!” Yelled the gray stallion. “Don’t shoot! They want her alive!” Reaching the wall, Willow grasped the chain in her teeth and braced herself against the wall. The ring tore loose in a little spray of shattered block.
“Thank you, Willow,” Candy gasped as the mare broke the other chain.
Willow gave her a hard shove. “Go!” Both jumped as a bullet whizzed by and struck the wall. “Don’t worry, I’ll be a good distraction.”
Candy’s eyes sparkled. “Thanks, Willow.” She turned and ran, chains jangling behind her. Willow charged the group of ponies pursuing her. They had since switched to melee weapons and shock batons. Drawing as much attention as possible, she charged directly into the group of ponies and drove her forehoof into the face of the first one she saw. Sunny watched as Candy disappeared around the edge of the building. Willow went down under the barrage of electrical shocks and batons. The ponies swarmed on top of her in a writhing mass, and when she finally emerged, she had been double hoof-shackled and a muzzle had been fitted over her head. Two burly stallions attached chains to either side of the metal ring around her neck and pulled it taught from either direction. Willow struggled for a moment more, then gave up.
A mare scampered up to the orange stallion and stooped down to examine him. “He’s dead!” she called, standing up again.
They gray stallion in charge glared daggers into Willow, and she glared them back, unable to speak. The lightest of smiles crossed his face and he gave the tiniest of nods. Willow blinked and stood up a little taller. In a second, the smile was gone. “That was a bad choice,” he growled as the two stallions led her to him. He lunged forward and slew his hoof across her face. The cut that adorned her brow from the last time that she had been struck reopened and a line of blood ran into her face. She held the glare as the blood mixed with the wetness of her left eye and spread out in a dark-pink cloud.
“Dude,” a stallion whispered to a the mare beside him. “That’s hardcore.”
The stallion looked away from Willow with disgust. “Take them to the laboratory. Once they’re there they aren’t our problem anymore. That chemical stuff is in their crate of belongings and I don't want to dig for it, take that over there too.”
Willow and Sunny were both led forward, away from the center of havoc. Sunny was escorted by a cyan mare with a lime-green mane. Willow was flanked by two stallions, one green one blue. Sunny found it slightly insulting that he was automatically discarded as a threat.
“And if the mare breaks away again!” the stallion yelled from behind, “Shoot her in the leg!”
Willow shook her head violently, spraying both Sunny and the two ponies escorting her with blood. One of them growled and kicked her in the belly. She stumbled, but managed to stay on her hooves.
Sunny wanted to desperately to help her, to beat the life out of the two stallions mistreating her and be the hero. And it angered him that he couldn’t. Willow had saved his life enough times now that he had lost count. Without Willow, nothing would be right—he wouldn’t be alive. She was the only pony he really seemed to know. Since the night they had met in Desert Sage, she had saved him enough times to literally own him; she had saved everypony in their little group. Her quick thinking in times of crisis proved a great asset.
She raised an eyebrow at him and Sunny realized he had been looking over at her as they walked. He blinked and gave her a small nod.
Mind beginning to wander, he thought back to the friends they had left back in Appleoosa, wondering if he would ever see them again. They were hundreds of miles apart. He didn’t know how far, but it was far. All he knew is that he wanted to see them now more than ever. He wished he had never left.
The climate here was completely different. Baltimare was surrounded by fields of luscious grass and green trees. Not to mention it was near one of the biggest bodies of water he had ever seen. At least there wasn’t a water shortage here. The city was much better enforced than Appleoosa. A fifteen-foot wall surrounded the whole of the city, guard ponies posted every fifty feet. Every one-hundred feet, there was an anti-personnel ground-to-air machinegun. Sunny listened, and was able to hear some of them firing. He had no idea how they managed to keep all the flying zombies out, but somehow they managed it.
This place was dangerous. He could feel it. The more ponies you have, the harder they are to keep track of. This place had thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands of ponies. It was a death trap waiting to happen.
Ponies watched from the sidewalks, or from windows as they were escorted through the streets, murmuring to each other or giving scared looks before backing away.
Willow walked with her eyes closed and head down as blood continued to run down her face and drip from her nose. The green pony escorting her looked over and gave the chain a spiteful jerk. She huffed, and jerked back, taking the pony by surprise and causing him to slip and fall on his side. A murmur of amusement emanated from the crowd.
The stallion picked himself and cast an evil look to his snickering companion. “Shut up.” He raised a hoof and brought it down hard on Willow’s head. It took all of Sunny’s willpower not to lunge at the green stallion and attempt to tear one of his limbs off.
“She’s a fun one,” the blue stallion on the right snickered.
“Oh, I’d love to find out.”
“Would you two idiots shut up!” Sunny’s escort snapped. “Now come on and lets get there. And I don’t want either of you talking about that shit in front of me.”
After about ten minutes with no real issues, the six reached a building that was a little wider than the rest, but not quite as tall. The name was posted in block painting above the door.
Bottle of Progress Laboratories
They entered the building to a well-polished lounge and cool air conditioning. An old mare looked over a pair of reading glasses at them from behind a polished-oak desk. Her eyes traveled to Willow, then to the drops of blood she was leaving on the clean floor.
“You heard we were coming?” Sunny’s escort asked.
The mare sighed. “Testing. Floor fifteen.” She motioned towards a waiting elevator across the lounge. The cyan mare escorting Sunny nodded and led them all over to the elevator. “Clean up in the lounge,” the mare said into an intercom as they passed her.
Upon entering the decorative box, Willow leaned forward and hit the button for the fifteenth floor with her nose. The green pony glared, and she glared back. He gave her a jerk, then smiled pleasantly.
“Mmmmmmf,” was her indignant reply. The doors closed with a ding and they began to ascend.
Sunny noticed the two stallions kept exchanging glances and mouthed words with one another. The green one nodded towards Willow. The blue one gave a flick of his ears.
At the fourteenth floor, the green one reached out and hit the stop button. The elevator slowed and the doors slid open. “What are you doing?” the cyan mare asked.
The blue one looked to her, then looked away. “We’re taking the stairs the rest of the way up.” Willow, who had been sitting quietly with her eyes closed, jumped and gave a muffled yell.
Sunny’s captor took a sharp intake of breath. “Y-you can’t do that.”
“Do what?” The green stallion stepped out of the elevator and tugged Willow in his direction. The white mare fought against them, but the two drug her easily across the polished surface.
Sunny lunged forward and wrapped his hooves around one of the chains. “You aren’t taking her!” The mare that was supposed to be in charge of him made no efforts to stop him, but she also made no efforts to help. He hid his face as the green pony poised a hoof over him. There was a sharp pain in his skull as the hoof crashed down on the top of his head. The next kick was in the belly, then the shoulder, then two more to the head. The next blow knocked out his senses and the world began to spin. He was picked up, hit a few more times, then thrown unceremoniously against the back wall of the elevator.
“Get back here!” he spat, trying to climb to his hooves. He caught Willow’s face of cold realization and horror through the final crack of the door. The elevator dinged and they began the slow ascent to the next floor. He turned to his captor, who had not moved. “What in Celestia’s name is wrong with you!?”
She shifted her stance. “I didn’t have anything to do with that.”
Sunny reared up and shoved his face an inch from hers. “Well why didn’t you stop it!?”
“I didn’t want to start anything.” She pushed him away.
Sunny was no longer trying to control the rage he had been holding onto. “After the way we were treated in the desert, I was hoping you REA bastards were good! You know, maybe only a few of you were corrupt and deserved to be shot, but no! I was wrong! You’re all a bunch of cowards and murderers! You’re monsters!”
She glared and matched his yelling voice. “You think I don’t know that!?” Averting her gaze to the floor, she sighed. “I know how screwed up things are. I just... I try and stay out of the way. Even if they won’t, I can still try and help ponies.”
It took every bit of self-control her had not to try and kill the mare. “Then why didn’t you help my friend!”
“I wanted to!” There was a cheerful ding as they elevator stopped at the fifteenth floor.
“We’re going back down,” he told her matter-of-factly. He reached for the button but she tugged him away.
“I’m sorry but we’re not. There’s severe penalties for attack on another officer.”
“And they aren’t going to get railed for what they’re doing!?”
“No!” she shouted, losing her temper. “No, they won't, because they’re close with the higher ups! If I even look at them wrong I could get myself a lifetime spent in a cage!”
Silently, Sunny allowed himself to be led down a narrow, white hall. Every nerve in his body screamed for him to attack this mare and steal her weapons, then go help Willow. If she didn’t come back. If they did what he thought they were doing...
The mare gave him a small nudge, steering him left, into a small room filled with rows of monitor banks. Two unicorns looked up at them from a small table. “Is he one of them?” asked the light-pink mare on the left. Sunny’s escort nodded.
“Well, where’s the other one?” the white stallion on the right asked. “Aren’t there supposed to be two?”
They cyan mare swallowed. “She’ll be here soon... They got held up.”
That was it. He couldn’t stop himself. In a flash he was on her. “They got held up!” he bellowed, spraying her face with saliva as he pinned her to the floor. In the back of his mind, he noted her sidearm was in reach, but she never went for it. “They could kill her!”
The pink mare bowed and trained her horn on him. There was a flash of green magic from her horn and he tried to duck. He wasn’t fast enough. The world turned upside down and twisted into a knot. Sunny flopped over on his side, gagging and choking, his mind spinning like a record.
Then as fast as the feelings had started they were gone, leaving him heaving on the floor, feeling like somepony had rearranged his insides.
The pink mare held out a helping hoof to the REA mare. “Disorientation spell,” she clarified, then turned to the stallion. “Grayhooves, take him to room number three; it’s the only one was have available so we’re going to have to put them both in the same one.”
Grayhooves gave her a skeptical look. “But when we mix test subjects—especially male and female—they tend to—”
“Yes, I know.” She waved him away. “If it comes to that issue we’ll have to deal with it later. There was also some drug or something they were talking about. We’ll have to check that out too; I doubt it’ll yield anything but we still have to check.”
Once again, Sunny allowed himself to be lead away down another hallway, now flanked by his original escort and Grayhooves. They passed doors and doors in the hall. Sunny assumed each one was a different confinement room. After a moment, Grayhooves stopped them in front of a door with a little three mounted on the wall beside it.
The cyan mare unlocked the ring from around his neck, then stooped down and began undoing the shackles. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, standing up again to look him in the eye. “I really am. But attacking them would have been treason; you know the penalty.” She nodded a farewell, then turned and left without another word.
Grayhooves herded him into the room rather rudely and gave him a forced smile. “Have a nice stay.” The door closed with a secure clunk, then gave a little hiss.
Examining his room, Sunny let out a little groan. This was the most boring room he had ever seen—more boring than the one at the hospital. The ten by twelve area consisted of nothing more than a bed against the far wall shoved into a corner. There was a small depression in the ground to the right where a drain had been fitted. Above the drain, a showerhead and one handle jutted from the wall. A toilet sat in one corner with a little retractable curtain by it. The floor was white, the walls were white, the ceiling was white. This was the most boring room ever. The ceiling didn't even have any tiles to count, just four fluorescent bulbs in a square. If there was any place to die of boredom, this would be it.
Making his way over to the bed, which was made with white polyester sheets, he flopped over on the soft-hard surface and buried his head in the glazed polyester pillow. He spotted the camera jutting from the ceiling across the room and looked away from it.
How could the REA do this? As a foal, he had sat through presentations in his school put on by the army. All the ponies were really nice and they all smiled, some even gave out candy. Even long after that, they had been a sort of idol to him; they were the ponies that kept Equestria safe. They were brave, and strong, and gallant, ready to lay down their lives to protect Equestria.
Wouldn’t that be nice.
Had they just stayed in Appleoosa, everything would have been fine. He would still be with Moon and Dusty, Snowglobe, even Brick, even if he didn’t talk much. There’d be Willow and Snowglobe’s fights over nothing. Moon would still be trying to jump on him every chance she got. Things would be normal.
Yet, here he was, locked in a room in a testing facility in a city hundreds upon hundreds of miles away. Baltimare was a long way from the desert.
Willow. They had taken her. They had taken her right in front of his eyes. The fear that had flashed in her eyes as she was dragged backwards away from the elevator.
He screamed into the pillow, pounding his hooves on the bed in frustration. Rolling over to face the ceiling, he took a semi-calming breath. He felt so helpless. There was nothing he could do but sit here and think of the worst but hope for the best.
For how long he lie there, he did not know. Without any means of telling time, time turned into an indistinguishable blur. Sunny was pondering the passing of an hour or so when the door made the tiniest of noises, breaking the deathly silence in the room. There was a hiss and the door opened. He sprang to his hooves excitedly as a familiar white mare was herded into the room to have the door slammed shut behind her.
“Willow!” he exclaimed happily, trotting up to her. She raised her head to look at him and the smile was wiped clean off his face.
Her right eye had been blackened and whites were bloodshot. Her nose had been bloodied, but had since dried to leave only stains around her nostrils. The ring around her neck had been removed to leave the area below sore and cut. She stood perfectly still, apart from her trembling hindlegs. Her ears were folded tight to her head, a look Sunny had never seen on her before. And large, blackening bruise marks adorned both flanks and her rump.
“I am going to kill everypony here,” she said in monotone, her voice brooding, dangerous.
Sunny struggled to find words. “Willow... are you—”
“No,” she answered. “I’m not okay.”
Looking back, Willow examined a purplish-red hoofprint on her rump. “Never... never had I imagined ponies could... would...”
Sunny averted his gaze to the floor. “I... I’m sorry.”
“I-it’s alright,” she stammered. “i-it’s not l-like it’s t-that b-b-big of a d-d-deal.” What composure she still held crumbled and she collapsed on the floor, a whimpering mess.
Sunny bolted to her side. “It’s going to be alright,” he said, gently placing a hoof on her back.
Willow let out a horrified gasp and jerked away. “Don’t touch me!”
Every preservative instinct in his body told him to back away, but he stayed rooted to the spot. “Willow, it’s okay. It’s me, Sunny.” He placed his forehooves on the ground in a peaceful gesture as she looked fearfully up at him. “I’m here.”
Willow pushed herself up and moved towards him a bit. “S-Sunny?” she whispered.
He met her unsettled gaze. “Yes.”
Sunny did his best not to flee as Willow sprang forward and wrapped him in a crushing hug. He closed his eyes, trying to think about anything but the fact that he was hugging another pony. Well, that a pony was hugging him. Willow sobbed into his flank, legs wrapped tightly around his neck. Tentatively, he reached up and draped his hoof around her back, the motion sending shudders up his spine. She was crying on him; he was going to lose it.
“It’s okay,” he lulled, nearly choking as she squeezed the breath out of him. “I’m here.” He moaned at a peculiar churning in his stomach. “Not trying to be rude, but could you wrap it up soon?”
She didn’t seem to hear.
He swallowed fearfully, feeling the sweat start to build on his brow. “Just... get it out.” he let out a gasping breath and tried to keep from hyperventilating. “Just... do it fast please.”
* * *
Willow lay awake, watching the gentle rise and fall of Sunny’s flanks from across the room. Even if the pegasus were awake, he wouldn’t be able to see her; the lights were off. She could tell by the way everything appeared dark-yellow in her vision.
Sunny was a good friend. He had comforted her, spoken kindly to her, been there for her. Tonight, he had pushed his space issues aside and offered to lay by her side. But she had declined, for his own sake; he had been relieved that she had not taken up the offer.
She hadn’t told him what had happened, but he knew. Unspoken words had passed between the two, and he knew.
She had never thought it possible. Something like that could have never happened to her... but it had. Thinking of the ordeal in her damaged state, her mind brought her back to a day of her childhood.
-ooOoo-
It was a dark afternoon. Dark clouds clotted the sky, but didn’t seem able to decide whether or not they wanted it to rain. This particular scene was an elementary schoolhouse. Young foals played on the rusty and beaten playground equipment, shrieking in joy while older, male students stood around in loitering groups, speaking of things they had heard from their parents or laughing at bathroom humor while the fillies made sour faces at them.
Nopony spared a glance for the crimson-maned white filly in the very corner of the playground, enthralled with a thick-backed book. Nopony ever paid that mare any attention. “She’s weird,” they would always say. Or, “She has a knife for her cutie mark. What’s that supposed to mean?”
But today was different. A group of the schoolyard’s biggest bullies were finding themselves bored out of their wits, and the quiet white filly minding her own business was a perfect entertainment piece.
Willow was pouring over a book devoted to teaching precision surgery that she had paid for herself. Her parents had absolutely forbidden her to study medicine, so she had bought her own book and studied it away from home every chance she got.
She was interrupted from the column on tactical incisions when a pink hoof stepped right on the book she had been looking down upon. Willow lifted her head to look right up into the smug face of Petunia, a filly she had learned to despise. Petunia was two grades ahead of Willow, and was almost always surrounded by her braindead followers.
“Hey freak,” the pink pony said venomously.
Willow sat up and glared at the older mare, who was nearly twice her size. (failing the third grade twice hadn’t helped that too much) “What do you want?” Willow asked broodingly, knowing they were here for only one purpose. The two ponies flanking Petunia—a filly and a colt—smiled stupidly down at her.
The schoolhouse bell rang in the distance and the playground began to empty, but Petunia and her two friends remained. “Oh, nothing.” Petunia grinned evilly. “What’cha readin’?” Before Willow could react, Petunia yanked the book out of her grasp and held it aloft for her friends.
“Hey!” Willow yelled indignantly, making a grab for the book. “Give it back!”
Petunia just laughed and shoved the smaller-than-average filly away with a single hoof, knocking her over. She skimmed the pages with amusement while her friends peered over her shoulders from either side. Slowly, a look of annoyance spread across her face. “What’s up with this stupid book?” she complained, slamming it shut. “There’s just weird pictures and a bunch of words in here. There’s not even a story. You’re just reading nonsense; no wonder you're so dumb!”
Willow sat up angrily, dusting her coat. “It’s not nonsense. It’s one of the most up-to-date books in that field you can get.”
Petunia smiled to her two friends, who nodded encouragingly. “Well,” she mused, turning back to Willow, “Maybe I’ll have to keep it and see what it is later.”
“Give it back!” Willow repeated, making another lunge only to be knocked back again.
“Make me,” Petunia hissed.
“Yeah!” her stallion friend mimicked. “Make her.”
Willow was angry now, and of course, she let it get the better of her. “Give it back you whore!” She didn’t actually know what the word meant, but she knew it was bad. Once, her father had used the word on her mother during one of their fights.
The smile disappeared from from Petunia’s face. “What did you say?” She flared her nostrils and backed Willow into the corner of the chainlink fence.
Willow hadn’t known what the word had meant, but Petunia sure had. “Um...” Willow’s rump his the fence.
Petunia moved uncomfortably close and her friends fanned out to the sides. “What do you say we teach this thing a lesson?” They chuckled their agreement and Petunia chose that moment to spring. Taken by surprise, Willow was tackled up against the fence. The burly pink mare managed to get in two blows to her muzzle before Willow was able to raise her hooves in defense, but they were pulled away a moment later by Petunia’s goons.
Willow could only cry out as all three of them bombarded every inch of her body with kicks and stomps.
“Call me a whore will you!?” Petunia screamed in angry bliss. “You’re the whore!”
-ooOoo-
She had been left that day, badly bruised and bloody, sprawled in the rain beside a sopping-wet and torn textbook.
But that had only been a beating. This, today, had been so much more than a beating. So much more. Her head was sore where she had been struck, where the gun barrel had been pressed. The skin stung where her mane had been pulled. The memory of the green one’s hooves squeezing her flanks, his hot breath on her neck.
Willow choked back a sob. She would make them pay. She would make them all pay. She would kill them all. Every single one of those REA bastards would die!
Grasping her head in her hooves, she let out an agonized scream.
“Willow?” came Sunny’s tired voice as he rolled over on the bed. She watched as he rolled to his haunches and looked blankly around, pupils swollen to the size of bits. “Willow?” he repeated. “Where are you?”
She sniffed. “I’m fine... Just... go back to sleep.”
The pegasus looked in the direction of her voice. “Willow... I know you aren’t okay. I... I couldn’t possibly know how hard this is for you. But if you need anything... If you need to talk, I’m here. Just no more hugs — you almost made me have a nervous breakdown.”
Willow wiped the tears from her face. “Thank you, Sunny.” She fought back another sob. “But I just need some time right now.”
Sunny nodded in her direction and curled up on the bed once more. “Just let me know.”
For how long Willow watched the pegasus as he slept, she did not know. Here, he was her only comfort, her only friend. In this place, he was the only pony she could trust, and...
It wasn’t just trust she felt.
* * *
Moon poked the cut apple around her plate with no real interest in eating it. She had no real appetite, despite her previously growling stomach. With a sigh, she pulled her attention away from the booth table and looked out the window. Rocky landscape slid by at what Dusty had told her was a smooth thirty-five miles per hour. The early morning sun shone over a distant ridge, directly through the window of the train carriage, lighting the car with a glowing orange-yellow light and illuminating every spec of dust as they flittered around carelessly.
In the booth across from Moon, a father and his foal slept, despite the constant chugga-chug of the engine. All around, the car was filled with sounds of sleep. But as Moon sat quietly, she could pick out the sounds of stirring.
The night before last had been hard, and ponies were still recovering. Moon had no idea why she was the one that always had to make all the hard decisions. Last night, a frantic mare had run to her, saying that a pony was bitten. There were plenty of other ponies on board with guns. But no, she had to be the one to do it. She had had to stand there, gun aimed on a mare who trembled in the corner, trying to hide the bite mark on her foreleg from view. Of course someone had to do it, but she had never imagined that that someone would be her. There was nothing right, nothing justifying about shooting a defenseless pony. But what was she supposed to do, throw the bitten mare off the train?
“Moon,” a voice whispered quietly.
She turned to see Snowglobe picking her away across the car and around sleeping bodies. “What is it?” she whispered back.
The gray unicorn motioned to the sleeping ponies, then to the door between cars. Moon nodded and left her seat. Following Snowglobe to the front of the car, the two exited. Snowglobe closed the door behind them and spat out the strand of mane that the wind had whipped into her mouth. The platform they stood on was almost large enough for two ponies to stand comfortably.
“So, what is it?” Moon asked.
“I just got back from the boxcars with Jade.” Snowglobe started. “We were counting the supplies.”
Moon nodded. “Good.”
Snowglobe half-smiled. “Well, anyways, Jade seems to be our math expert. She says if everypony conserves on water, and nopony tries to bathe, there should be enough to last about five days.”
“That’s pretty good.”
Snowglobe rubbed her head. “Also, she says we need to eat most of the apples before we even touch the water, otherwise they’ll go bad in the heat. I also made sure our supplies are good—they’re in the second car.”
“So they’re good?”
A nod. “Yeah. The cases with the drug from the hospital are there, and we still have some canned food.” She smiled mischievously. “I don’t want to give those away unless we have to.”
Moon laughed. “I think we still have some canned pears.”
Snowglobe’s expression changed. “Is it like... wrong of us to keep food hidden away?”
Moon thought for a moment. After some mild speculation, she shook her head. “No, I don’t think so. It’s not like it’s food in the bulk; it’s just a few cans of sweet stuff, not enough to feed more than a few ponies.”
“Yeah... I guess so.” She perked. “So how are things going?”
Moon sighed. “Good, I guess... This is hard work. Now I know why Sage quit. I swear, if I didn’t draw the line somewhere I’d be foalsitting and kissing boo-boos better.”
Snowglobe cocked an eyebrow. “It's really that bad, huh?”
“You bet it is.” Moon scoffed. “Some of these ponies are real gun-toting roughbacks—they understand. But then there’s mothers with foals, or rich and prissy ponies that don’t seem to realize what’s going on. Appleoosa must have taken some of these ponies in from somewhere, because they certainly weren’t locals.
Snowglobe just smiled and gave her a hearty nudge. “That’s why we have you girl.”
Moon pushed her away with a smile to match. “Don’t you start.”
The gray mare flicked her tail towards the front of the train. “I was just going to talk to Dusty about how far we can take this engine. Want to tag along?”
“Sure.” Moon thought back to her two friends’ encounter the night before last and suddenly found herself much more comfortable in the presence of Snowglobe, knowing that she might not be on the unicorn’s mind anymore. It was as if that awkward itch in the back of her mind had been scratched and she no longer had to act subdued.
“Can you believe it?” Snowglobe asked suddenly, striking conversation as they made their way through the cars to the engine. “Dusty’s going to teach me how to operate the locomotive later.” She took a blissful pause. “All that power, right at the tips of my hooves.” The mare looked like she was going to start salivating.
Moon smiled. “Well it looks like you two share a common interest.”
Snowglobe flushed. “Yeah, that sounds about right.”
“Hey, Moon!” called a little green colt whom she did not know. He bounced excitedly up to her, levitating a cork gun aloft.
“Hey,” she greeted with a smile.
The young colt trotted along beside her as she crossed the car, pushing Snowglobe out of the way and forcing her to walk a little ways behind. “When I grow up I’m going to be just like you! I’ll have my own gun and everything!”
His praise set her heart aflutter. “Honestly, I’m not all that different from anypony here.”
His mouth fell agape as if she had just suggested they all jump off the train. “What are you talking about? The way you killed those zombies last night was awesome!” He raised his gun in a similar way to how she raised her own. “The way you saw that one zombie and, boom! Then you stood next to that big pony with the gun and you were all like, ‘kill em!’ And he was like—” The colt began mimicking machine gun noises. “It was totally awesome!”
“Well, thanks,” she exclaimed happily. “I was just doing what I had to.”
The colt fell back, half-turning away as they reached the end of the car. “I have to get back to my mom or she’ll, like, totally freak out. Bye!”
“Bye,” she returned with a parting wave.
“Got yourself a fan,” said Snowglobe as they left the second car behind and headed into the one just behind the tender. This car was a bit more classy than the others. It had individual sitting rooms instead of booths and a small hall down the right side.
Moon sighed in response. “I shouldn’t be an idol to anypony.”
Her friend just shook her head sadly. “You’re a better pony than you think, Moon.”
She laughed. “But that’s just the thing, I’m not. You know what I was thinking about when I first met Sunny?”
Snowglobe folded her ears. “I’m not sure if I should guess.”
Moon thumped her on the side. “See what I mean? That’s a terrible thing to want from a stallion like him. You know he’s still never kissed a mare?
But, then I fell in love with his innocence. At first it was sort of a challenge for me, and I think that’s why I stuck with it. Because I’d never really been denied by a stallion before.”
Snowglobe got that look about her. “Oh, so you got around.”
She flushed. “Not that much... But yes, I got around. I never really got myself a coltfriend. I just sort of... I never wanted one. The longest I ever stuck with a stallion was about a month.”
They both jumped as Copper burst through the door that Moon was about to open. Snowglobe and Moon reversed direction and made room for him as he stumbled drowsily into the car. “Oh, hi?” Greeted Snowglobe with a question.
Copper squinted at her and gave his golden-brown mane a shake, filling the air with coal dust. “Hey,” he returned. “I was just going to take a nap.” Throwing a glance to his coat. “And maybe find a way to clean myself off without water.”
Snowglobe’s ears perked. “Oh, here, let me.” Her horn glowed green and both ponies watched as she magically pulled the dust out of his coat and mane with a mini-cyclone. It spun around him a few more times, then whipped itself away out the window. Snowglobe performed this task a second time to get what she had missed and then tapped her hooves approvingly. “There, I think I got it all.”
Copper laughed and cracked a wide grin. “Almost as good as a bath. Thanks.” He reached back and scratched his neck. “I’m going to find a place to crash, Dusty’s been working me all night.”
Moon pushed him playfully out of the way and he slapped a wing across her muzzle in retaliation. “Then go to sleep,” she hissed, giving him another push. “You look like you need it.” She looked to snowglobe as Copper left them. “Where’d you learn that trick?”
She shrugged. “One of my brothers taught it to me.” She pushed open the door and ushered Moon through, then followed. “So would you do Copper?” she asked semi-seriously.
Moon gave Snowglobe dry look, then thought about it. “Yes,” she said with a little blush.
“How about Dusty?”
Moon knew what the mare was trying to get at. Of course her answer was yes, but she wasn’t going to say it now that the two were together. “Look,” she said with minor annoyance. “I’m really easy, okay. As long as they aren’t mean or an idiot or complete imbeciles... or too small, my answer is probably going to be yes.” She glared as Snowglobe snorted in laughter. “But it’s still on my terms, not thiers.”
Snowglobe patted her on the head. “Okay then, Moon.”
Dusty sat relaxedly in the hotseat, head tipped back and eyes half closed. Moon jumped down from the tender with a clatter—unlike Snowglobe, who hadn't made a sound—and Dusty looked up to see them. He greeted the two with the tip of an imaginary hat. “Nice to see you could stop by.”
Moon flicked her ears at him. “There are some things to discus.”
“Whoa then, straight to business.” He sat up straight. “Alright, what’s the word?”
Moon thought for a moment. “Well, you know that we need to get to Baltimare.”
He gave her a level look. “Then we’re lookin’ at a few days travel time. To get there, we’d have to go through Dodge junction. We’d also have to go through Canterlot, which I don’t recommend, you know, considerin’ it’s ground zero an’ all. We’ve got enough water in the boiler to get us to Canterlot and enough coal to get us a bit further, but we’re going to have to stop and resupply somewhere if we’re going to make it all the way to Baltimare. We should be able to stop in Dodge and get everythin’ we need though, then we’ll be able to shoot right through Canterlot without even stoppin’.” He shrugged. “Had it all thought out before you asked.”
Snowglobe raised a hoof like a filly in class. “Question. Can we climb the Canterlot hill in this thing without splitting the tracks?”
Dusty nodded. “Believe it or not, these engines used to run that line.”
“So how far is Dodge?” asked Moon, cutting across Snowglobe.
The pegasus sauntered to the window and pointed to a jumble of shapes far in the distance. “Ten minutes or so.”
Moon rubbed her hooves together eagerly. “Great.” The smile slowly left her face when her eyesight drifted to a mass of flying shapes in the air ahead. “What’s that?”
Dusty followed her pointing hoof, squinting for a better view. “Ah,m not so sure... If they’re movin’ then it can’t be anythin’ good.” He turned back to them. “Best to have a hot boiler ready for this.” The pegasus went for the shovel propped against the edge of the cabin, but before he could get to work, Snowglobe levitated a solid stream of coal from the tender to the firebox. Dusty blinked, then cracked a smile. “Well, alright then.”
Moon looked over them. “You two look like you’re preparing for battle.”
Snowglobe rolled her eyes. “Honestly Moon. We haven’t seen something flying yet that hasn’t tried to kill us. There’s a pretty good chance that those flying things—they’re going to try and kill us.”
Moon slumped. “Good point.” There was already tension building in her belly. Just the night before last, she had nearly died... like, three times. many of the other ponies hadn't been so lucky. So far, since Appleoosa, she had been dealing with one big, never-ending hardship.
She prayed to Celestia—wherever she was—for just one break. “Please,” she whispered, “Just once. Please.”
There was a heavy thud on the steel roof above and Moon’s hopes of a peaceful resolution went down the metaphorical drain. Snowglobe squealed and shoved herself into the far corner behind Dusty. “What was that!?”
Moon readied her shotgun and checked the load. “What do you think? Something here to kill us.” A metallic screech caused her to look up in time to see a pair of yellow talons tear through the steel like it were tissue paper. With a gasp, she tilted the shotgun and loosed two buckshots into the roof, leaving a dozen or so irregular holes. The talons withdrew and click-clacked along the length of the cabin, towards the back of the locomotive.
Dusty was shaking his head in blatant disbelief. “That there is a pile of buffalo shit! Did you see those claws!?” A deafening screech sounded from above and Moon nearly dropped her weapon. The skin under he coat crawled and the hairs along her spine prickled in forewarning. She stumbled frantically backwards as a brown shape dropped from the open roof at the back to hoofplate.
The creature was half-lion, half-eagle. It’s once-golden beak was now chipped and stained with blood, and very little of its plumage remained. It stalked towards the three frozen ponies, front claws—sharp as razors—clicking ominously on the steel below, muscles rippling under its matted coat.
Overcoming her shock and fear, Moon fired, drilling it in the shoulder. It jumped to the side as its shoulder turned into a mess of meat and bone and let out another terrifying screech. The griffon took a slash at the wall with its good foreleg and left four, ragged tears in the steel, allowing the sunlight to shine through.
Dusty drew Valediction and tried to fight off the jitters as the griffon turned its sickly yellow gaze on him. He fired, and the griffon stumbled again as a bullet ripped through its chest, then its wing. Another shot sheared off half of its beak. Still, it lurched forward on three legs, bleeding from multiple wounds and dragging a leg attached by no more than tendon and sinew.
Snowglobe had manage to curl herself so far into the corner that she resembled a purple and gray beechball. Dusty took stance in front of her, eyes flashing dangerously. Moon shook her head clear. She had locked up, again. It was a only a griffon, and here she was freezing up like a mouse under a snake’s eye. She jacked a new shell into the chamber and made sure to aim appropriately. One slug was all it took to paint the wall with its head.
Moon mentally hit herself. She had frozen up. She had frozen up with a gun trained right on the thing.
Dusty spluttered incoherent sentences behind her. “That was a damned griffon!” he managed to yell. “What’s a griffon doin’ in Equestria!?”
Snowglobe uncurled herself from the corner and looked fearfully at the body. “There’s always been griffons in Equestria; you just don’t see them too often because they like to stay secluded. There were a few towns that were mostly griffon.” She crossed the cab and hung her head out the glassless window, the pulled it back in fearfully. “Guys,” she near-squeaked. “There’s more than one.”
In a second, Moon was at her side, peering out the side of the locomotive. “No!” she screamed at nothing. “No! No, they can’t!” But they could. There was a whole swarm of them. And on top of all that, there were plenty of pegasi in the flock too.
Dusty finished loading Valediction and slapped the cylinder closed. “Well they are.”
A group of fliers broke from the massive cloud of infected ahead and swooped down toward the cars, showing incredible coordination.
Moon gasped. A cold determination set in her heart. There was no way she was going to let this happen. “Watch the engine!” she shouted to Dusty and Snowglobe before dashing off, heading for the cars. She scaled the coal tender, stumbled, almost fell, and continued on. Springing off the back of the coal tender, she clattered to the steel carriage deck, hooves churning, and burst into the car.
“Everypony arm yourselves!” she bellowed. “Griffons! We have griffons!” Almost immediately, a carriage door slid open with a bang and several ponies filled the small hall, weapons ready. one door opened and a mare peeked out before it slammed shut again.
A shotgun-toting pink unicorn lolloped up to Moon, putting on her best soldiers voice. “What’s happening?”
Moon pushed past her without slowing, forcing the mare to chase behind her. “Griffons, lots of them! We need to try to keep them off the train!”
Moon reared back as the window ahead of her blew inwards in an explosion of glass and fur. A male griffon smashed into the wall and landed shakily on its paws. It spread it wings, completely obscuring the small hall. Hardly missing a beat, it screeched and surged towards her, flapping its tattered wings madly and knocking lanterns on the walls off of their hooks. The pink mare behind Moon fired, but her shots only peppered the beast. Moon’s two buckshot rounds fared better, blasting out its middle and left eye. It stumbled backwards, screeching before stumbling, bouncing off the wall, and busting out a new window to fall to the ground sweeping by below.
“Mama!” a terrified voice yelled from behind.
The pink mare spun on a dime and glared at the little orange unicorn filly who had called from the middle of the hall. “Get back in the room!” she hollered, anger and fear in her voice. “Mommy has to protect the train. I’ll be back, don’t worry!”
“But mama—”
“Now! I need you to stay safe for me!”
Terrified, the little filly scampered backwards and back into one of the rooms, sliding the door shut behind her.
Moon addressed the pink mare, pointing to her shotgun. “Are you using birdshots in that thing?” The mare gave Moon a shameful nod.
With a nicker, Moon levitated a box of buckshot rounds from her bag and tossed it to the mare, who caught it. “Use those.” She started for the door to the next car. “You’re in charge of this car!” she hollered back. Not waiting for a response, she burst through the door and hopped the couplings to the next carriage.
The second car—basically a big metal and wood shell filled with rows of seats—was in absolute chaos. Screaming ponies fled over seats and through the center aisle. In the center of the car, two griffons savaged a green stallion. He howled in agony as the razor-sharp beak dug into his foreleg. The two griffons pulled separate ways and the limb tore free with a pop and a squelch. With a cry of rage, a yellow mare flew at the one still shredding the green stallion, a kitchen knife clenched in her jaws. She landed on the griffons back and buried the knife deep in its neck. With a hiss, the griffon threw its head back and clamped down on her throat. The mare's eyes went wide and her mouth opened in a silent wail.
Moon could only watch as the attacking griffon burst out through one of the windows, taking the yellow mare with it by the neck. A young stallion shot the other dead before it could flee as well. These new foes were terrifying — dangerous. They thought. They fled. They had enough of their brain to know the difference between life and death, and that made them very dangerous.
A shocked silence filled the car and Moon took advantage. “Find a way to block the windows!” she yelled over the wind. “We need to keep them out of the cars!”
Trying not to look at the destruction, Moon continued to move through the car. Her hoof slipped on something and she looked down. The green stallion lay there, bleeding out. His eyes were still open, but he was no longer seeing. he was breathing, but barely. Moon looked away and aimed the shotgun. Splinters of wood and blood flew as her shot hit its mark. They all looked at her, mixed expressions of sadness and fear. “Get to work.” She commanded flatly, loading a new shell.
It had been just like yesterday. It had to be done.
There had to be a better way to defend. She was no good inside like this. A sudden, helpful but dangerous thought struck her and she made headway for the end of the car. Once on the plate between cars two and three, she stopped to examine the situation. As the locomotive rounded a lazy corner towards the small town of Dodge, she was able to get a good view of the right side of the train.
More windows had been shattered along the length of the cars. Pegasi and griffons swooped in from both sides in a relentless bombardment. One would be shot out of the air and another two seemed to appear and take its place. A griffon dropped down on the roof of the third car and tore a whole panel right off the roof.
With a sudden swell of courage, Moon scaled the ladder to the roof of the third car. She stood up top, wind and gravitational pull from the corner threatening to tear her from the slick aluminum. A swooping pegasus tried to make a snack of her but she fired the shotgun and shredded its left wing. It fell short and thudded against the side of the car. Another griffon tried to climb through the hole made by the first but there was a gunshot from inside and it fell back to roll off of the roof and drop to the ground below.
Moon threw herself herself around in a circle, eyes wide, ready to shoot anything that dared look at her. To her surprise, the situation seemed to be containing itself. The fliers were falling back and the ones who still stuck around were quickly being dealt with.
A sudden deceleration caused Moon to stumble and use her shotgun as support to keep from falling. Her eyes widened frantically. The train was slowing down!
“Why are you slowing down?” Snowglobe asked the pegasus urgently. Dusty pointed frantically out the window at the tracks ahead. Snowglobe followed his hoof to a siding filled with a row of old boxcars. “I don’t see anything!” she called over the squeal of the brakes.
Dusty yanked a handle hanging from the ceiling by a chain and then cut off steam with operation of large lever above the seat. “The main line is switched into a sidin’!” The heavy chug of the engine ceased and the hiss of the boiler took over.
Snowglobe balked. “Well why are we switched into a siding?”
He gave her a wry look. “Ah don’t know, but we’ve gotta throw that switch before we hit the points!”
The engine was at galop-speed when Dusty cut the brakes. Snowglobe stepped up to the edge of the hoofplate, mentally readying herself for what she was about to do. She could see the switch ahead. It wasn’t too far.
“Whoa!” Dusty called, fastening his teeth in her tail and pulling her back. “Ain’t no way ah’m lettin’ you go out there.” He stepped up to the edge himself and looked back at her. “The second ah throw that switch, you give it full steam.”
She nodded fearfully and Dusty flared his wings, ready to jump. “Dusty,” she called suddenly, causing him to tense and look back. “Don’t die, please. I kissed my very first stallion two nights ago and I don’t want it to be the last time.
Dusty grinned and his face went a slight shade of red. “If ah come back you gotta give me more’n just a kiss.” He laughed at her face and then he was off, beating his wings frantically to overtake the train. Snowglobe hung anxiously from the window, watching as he overtook the engine and made for the switch, which was still a ways off but rapidly nearing.
Dusty let out a cry of distress as a horde of zombies surged out from around the boxcars in the siding ahead. Snowglobe ground her teeth as Dusty put on an extra burst of speed, dropping to the ground to dodge a griffon while continuing to beat his wings to speed his gallop. He reached the switch right as the zombies did. Not even bothering to draw his weapon, he charged right through the horde and threw all his weight on the lever. There was a grating sound from the tracks ahead as the points switched back to the main line. The whole lever snapped off under Dusty’s momentum and the pegasus went sprawling in the dirt. Then they were on him.
Snowglobe cried out, and readied herself to run to his aid, but miraculously, the pegasus emerged using the switch handle as a weapon. He swung the rusty switch handle like a bat, bouncing it off the zombie’s head then beating off three more. Dusty dropped the handle and ran, dodging as the creatures snapped at him. One made a lunge and he didn't quite dodge fast enough. His head was jerked around as the zombie got a hold on him. Dusty yanked, and managed to pull free. He stumbled away and crossed to the trackside, flapping his wings to keep himself upright.
Snowglobe could tell from here something wasn’t right. Dusty didn’t bother to try to make it to the cab. He beat his wings and brought himself a little ways into the air, then dropped like a sack of flour onto the platform in front of the boiler. Snowglobe could see half of him from here. He tried to stand from where he lay, a little back and above the front buffers, but fell back to his belly and rolled to the side, out of sight.
“Dusty!” Snowglobe yelled into the wind, seeing nothing but his tail. Without even having to think about it, she decided to go to his aid. First, though, she had to get the engine under steam. Turning to the interior cabin, she gave it a quick look-over before working the overhead lever above the hotseat, setting it to the furthest point.
The engine’s deep chug once again sounded and the cars behind clunked as their couplings were drawn taut by the accelerating engine. Behind, Snowglobe could hear the battle raging on, screams of pain and fear and hate mixed with the never ending staccato of gunfire.
Snowglobe turned back, ready to come to Dusty’s aid, and came face to face with a snarling, green pegasus.
The zombie glared at her in mid jump, mouth agape and eyes popping. A mere second and it would be biting at her throat. She ran her option’s analyzing every thought. Her pistol was on her leg, but she wouldn't be able to draw in time.
Snowglobe dived off to the side, magically working the lever for the firebox doors. The zombie didn’t even know what was coming. It hit the ground on all four hooves and slid across the hoofplate. Its front hooves collided with the steel lip and its body fell half into the fiery furnace. Snowglobe hissed and pushed it the rest of the way in with her magic then slammed the steel cover shut. There was a screech to match one of a griffon and the smell of burning flesh filled the cabin.
Not giving herself time to think about what she had just done, Snowglobe bolted to the rear of the cabin. She had to get to Dusty. He was hurt, and badly by the looks of it. She silently prayed to Celestia, asking to not have her fears confirmed.
Problematically, he was also on the very front of the locomotive.
Swallowing down her fear, she eased herself out of the window and managed to get her hind hooves on the lip a little below halfway up the boiler. Slowly, she worked herself along the edge, careful not to touch the steaming hot pipes along the length of the boiler but also keeping close enough to them so as she didn’t fall back. She dared not look down at the ground racing past below, or the churning driving rods directly beneath her. She found herself cursing the length of the engine at the halfway point. “Eighty Celestia damned feet,” she grunted. it had always been long, but now, climbing across it under speed with the constant threat of death six feet below, it seemed a whole lot longer.
After what seemed like forever, she passed the smokebox and dropped down to the small standing platform at the very front of the engine.
Dusty lay on his side in a small pool of blood, eyes half-open. Rushing to his side, Snowglobe placed a hoof on his flank. “Dusty!” she called over the roar of the blastpipe. There was no response. “Dusty!” she yelled again, shoving him.
The pegasus moaned and lifted his head. “You hit tha’ throttle?” he asked drowsily.
“Yes.” Snowglobe offered a hoof and helped him to a sitting position.
Dusty rubbed his head and gave it a violent shake. Snowglobe winced and closed her eyes as blood splattered her. The left side of Dusty’s head and neck were matted with blood. The worst part was that most of the pegasus’ left ear was completely gone, only a few tattered shreds remaining around the edges of raw, pink skin.
“Dusty, your ear!” she cried.
He swayed on his hooves and looked curiously at her. “What about it?”
Snowglobe dug in her saddlebag for something to stop the bleeding and emerged a moment late with the only thing she could find—a grease rag. It would have to do for now. “Snowglobe?” Dusty asked worriedly, looking at the dirty rag with contempt. “What... what about my ear?”
She flinched. “Well... It’s... it’s gone.”
Dusty blinked. “Excuse me?” He made a reach for his head but Snowglobe batted his hoof away. She pressed the rag against his head and drew a sharp gasp from the pegasus.
“Your ear is gone.” Despite the pegasus’ protests, she wrapped his head tight in the rag to stop the bleeding.
Dusty froze stiff and his eyes unfocused. “Ah got bit...” His jaw trembled slightly.
Snowglobe shook her head. “No.”
Dusty’s head flopped to his chest. “Ah’m dead.”
Grasping both sides of his head in her forehooves, she lifted it to look into his eyes. “No, you aren’t dead. You didn’t get bitten—you got your ear torn off.” He gave her a confused look. “Don’t you see? The virus never got in your blood. I saw; it grabbed you and you pulled away. There was never enough time for it to to spread to your body before the ear was pulled off.”
The pegasus thought for a moment, placing a hoof on the good side of his head. Suddenly, his eyes lit up and he collapsed to the floor with a gasp. “Thank... Celestia.”
Snowglobe leaned down and gave him a nuzzle on the cheek. “You scared the daylights out of me. I told you not to die and yet you still almost do it anyways.”
He grinned, eyes still closed. “So what do ah get for not dyin’ but almost dyin’?”
She rolled her eyes and flicked him with her tail. “We’ll see.”
Dusty sat up and cocked his head. “Is it just me, or are we goin’ really fast?”
Snowglobe, who had been wondering if a healing potion would regrow an ear, perked up. Her mane whipped her face and the track ties ahead were beginning to turn into nothing but one big blur. Thick, black smoke poured from the stack and the engine’s four pistons pounded. “I think so,” she replied.
Dusty flared his wings. “Well there’s a long righthoof corner comin’ out of Dodge junction and ah’d rather not hit it goin’ sixty.”
“Will we turn over?”
“Good chance we might if we’re goin’ fast enough.”
Snowglobe looked back at the small lip she had used to shimmy up here. She gulped. It suddenly seemed a lot harder to get back. Dusty looked back at her. “Ah can fly back to the engine, but ah can’t take you, not while we’re movin’ this fast.”
She gave him a shove. “Well then go. I can get back later.”
He gave her a nod, then was off. She didn’t watch him return to the cab, not sure if her strained nerves could handle it. Instead, she looked out ahead of the engine. The small town of Dodge was drawing close now. The water tower they would have been used to fill the tanks loomed ahead to the left of the tracks. And at its base, was a pair of griffons, slashing at the support beams.
* * *
“Are you feeling any cold sensations?” asked the pink mare. She sat behind a small control panel in the examination room, her lavender mane tired back and out of the way of her respirator.
“No,” Sunny said boredly with a fair hint of irritation, glaring at the white tiles in the ceiling. The sensors attached his legs and temples itched like mad and all he wanted to do was rip them off. He had given heavy protest at the point which they had begun to shave the spots on his coat for the sensors, but faced with another disorientation spell from the stern-faced pink mare, he had complied.
She made an exaggerated gesture at making a check on her clipboard and looked back up at him. “Do you have any trouble focusing?”
“No.”
“Have you noticed any alterations in your eyesight?”
“No.”
“Is there—”
“Look,” he interrupted, sitting up to glare at her. “Nothing about me has changed and my answer isn’t going to magically change to yes if you ask enough questions. I feel fine. And I know you know I’m not lying because you're reading the lie-detector right now.”
She gave him a look. “Well, I’m picking up abnormalities in your mood.”
He gave her a look worthy of Willow. “Yeah. Do you want to know why my mood is ‘abnormal’? It’s because I’m pissed. I try to help you ponies and you turn me into some sort of damned labrat and rape my friend. If I don’t have perfect justification to be incredibly pissed-off, then please tell me what’s allowed to piss me off! Because I have no fucking clue!” He threw his hooves up in the air with exasperation.
The mare let out a long sigh that hissed through her respirator and slumped in her seat. “Look, I’m sorry, but I’ve already told you; I don’t work with them. I work for Bottle of Progress, which has been seized by the army for their own reasons. I do what they tell me to do. I have no control over what the army—or their operatives—do or how they behave. They just hoofed you two over to us and asked us to do some scientific digging.”
Sunny just shook his head. “At least tell me that the drug we brought you is useful.”
She blew air. “Nothing yet.” He banged his head repeatedly on the wall behind him and she shot him a look, her horn glowing slightly. “Stop it.”
“You better hope she doesn’t get out you know,” he warned. “She cries, all the time. She says she’ll kill you all.”
The mare was unphased. “I’m sorry, but that isn’t my problem.” The intercom in the room beeped loudly and she rolled her eyes, crossing to the small box to depress the button. “Yes?”
“Patient twenty-six went feral; the treatment made it worse. I don’t feel safe keeping this thing alive in a cell. Get over here and run the scans so we can flame it before something happens.”
She groaned. “Damnit.” Hitting the button. “Okay, give me five minutes.” She flicked a little switch on the intercom “Someone escort number twenty-three back to his cell. I have work to do.” She turned and gave Sunny a stern look. “You stay here.”
Sunny glared her out the door. He wasn’t cuffed or restrained, and may have been able to try and sneak out, but the chances were slim. Besides, even if he could, he couldn’t leave without Willow. She wouldn’t cope without him, not in the state she was in.
No matter how hard he tried, he could not bring himself to grasp the idea that he wasn’t constantly under the threat of death. He had spent the last few weeks of his life killing zombies and trying not to die. Now he was some sort of a test subject in the fortified city of Baltimare. After his brief period of time with no laws, no restrictions, no rules of society to uphold, this was completely abnormal. The scary thing was, he would actually prefer trying not to get eaten by zombies with his friends then sitting here as a test subject.
The door opened and a pony dressed in a gray environment suit entered. “let’s go,” a female voice said firmly, muffled and distorted slightly by the respirator built into the suit.
Begrudgedly, Sunny and trotted over to the suited pony. The faceplate was reflective, and he could see nothing but himself in the glass. “You know I’m not contagious,” he said with a motion to the suit.
The pony ignored him. She stepped aside and ushered him out into the boredly-white hallway. He walked purposefully slow, taking his time and enjoying fully the hiss of annoyance from the mare behind him. He was in no hurry and had absolutely nowhere to go; why not waste her time?
After a moment, the mare moved up and fell in stride beside him. “Hey,” she said quietly, looking straight ahead. “I’m going to tell you something, but you can't react or respond or they’ll know something's up; there are cameras everywhere.”
He flicked his ears in acknowledgement and continued to look straight ahead.
The mare breathed, causing the respirator to hiss. “I’m trying to find a way to get you out of here.” He gave her a blink and a semi-raised eyebrow. She stopped in front of his door and punched in the code. “In!” she commanded harshly, giving him a hard shove.
Sunny allowed himself to be herded back into his room. Willow wasn’t here; she was probably still with Grayhooves for testing. He looked back at the suited pony who stood watching him. “Who are you?” he asked quietly.
She swung the door halfway closed, creating a blind spot to the cameras. She undid the clasps on either side of the headpiece and lifted it up halfway with a forehoof. A white face looked back at him, her red and white striped mane hanging in front of one of her blue eyes. “Be ready for when I come back.”
* * *
“Help defend from the roof!” Moon bellowed, spittle spraying from her bruised muzzle. Her breath came in bursts and her hooves thundered on the aluminum roof of the carriage as she raced towards the back of the car.
The engine had slowed substantially, and in a flurry of wings and hooves, things had hit the fan. There were four flying zombies for every way you could turn and hordes of them running alongside the cars, jumping onto the hoofplates of the cars or trying to climb through the shattered windows and torn walls. If a pony were to fall, they wouldn’t even hit the ground; they’d just fall into a screaming crowd of zombies like a rockstar doing a stage jump.
One thing Moon had learned the hard way about griffons: they didn’t just bite — they clawed. Only after they had slaughtered their prey did they attempt to feast. Moon prayed with all her might that the creatures’ talons didn’t pass the virus. Many ponies—including her—had been raked by the razor claws; the still-bleeding gashes in her back were a painful reminder.
The comforting sound of the engine suddenly filled the air and Moon breathed a sigh of relief. The car below her jolted, signifying that they were once again picking up speed. Soon they would be moving at speed again. She didn’t know how much more of this they all could handle.
On the first car, the pink mare whom Moon had previously met held strong. The left side of her face sported a deep gash and blood layered thick on her coat and mane. She blew one griffon in two different directions, then turned on a pegasus running from behind and smashed it across the muzzle with the butt of the weapon. She used the brief cease of attack to jam as many new shells into the weapon as she could. A griffon landed at the front of her car and tore up a roof panel. With a bellow of rage, the mare charged and both her and the griffon dropped into the car in a flurry of wings and hooves.
Moon sidestepped a diving pegasus and it crashed into the roof with a skull-cracking thunk and went limp. “Brick!” she screamed, loosing off two rounds at a pony clinging to the side of the car. “I could really use your help!”
She used the last shell in her weapon to blast another griffon. Levitating out four more, she began to reload, but was struck hard in the side and sent sprawling to the roof, stunned, shells scattered about. She tried to scramble to her hooves, but a blue pegasus pounced her, pinning her on her back. It lunged at her, jaws wide, but she held up the shotgun in defense and it got a mouthful of gun barrel. Looking over, she levitated one of the shells she had dropped right before it rolled off the roof and jacked it into the chamber.
“Not going to happen.” The pegasus’ head exploded in a crimson shower, coating her with chunks of bone and brain and whatever else. Moon coughed and rolled to her hooves, trying to reload her weapon.
A brown hoof presented itself to her and she nearly shot it off. She looked up to see Brick standing above her, his face the usual monotone. He wore the monstrous chaingun, sporting it almost proudly. “Thanks,” Moon gasped as he pulled her to her hooves.
From the rear of the train, a pony screamed. Moon watched from the third car as the green mare standing on the roof of the fourth was gored by a griffon’s claws. As she watched, dozens of pegasi and griffons swooped down to land the car.
There was a sinking in her stomach as she turned to Brick. “Ready?” He nodded and took the firing bit in his mouth. Zombies charged at them from the top of the fourth car, some running, some flying, some trying to do both. Brick trained the weapon and blinked once.
“You shoot them and I’ll keep them off your rump.” Moon finished loading her weapon and ejected the old shell with a work of the slide. Brick blinked in response, then freed Discord. The gun on his back roared to life like an angry lion, forcing Brick to steady his stance or have his aim thrown off. The garden hose of deadly tracer rounds swept the pegasi as they were leaping to the next car and turned them to mulch.
Moon squinted at the ammo box on the side of the weapon. Tracers, those were new. A unicorn pulled itself onto the roof to her left and she jumped. Trying to save ammo, she smashed it with the butt of the shotgun and knocked it back. A griffon screeched and dropped towards Brick from above and Moon trained her sights. It’s eyes gleamed in anticipation right before the buckshot blew them out. It cried out in anger and fell off course, missing the car completely and hitting the ground with a meaty crunch.
Brick cut his constant stream of fire and began shooting in bursts, aiming for individual zombies now. After a moment, nothing remained on the roof of the fourth car but hunks of what used to be zombies. Brick turned, and began strafing zombies circling the car, using the tracers as guidance.
Moon’s ears perked at a splintering sound from behind her. She spun to face the engine, shotgun aloft and ready to shoot anything that wanted to try and look at her funny. She was hit with a wall of panic and adrenaline, her mind working on all pistons. Around her, the world seemed to slow to a crawl.
Brick stood just behind her, face frozen in grimace of concentration. Beside him, two griffons were scaling up the side of the car. Ahead the engine was streaming through the two of Dodge. Zombies filled almost every foot of the street, all watching with dumb interest as the locomotive savaged the ones standing on the tracks. But her eyes were drawn to one thing above all others — the water tower to the left of the tracks. The support beams on the side of the tracks were broken, and the massive wooden barrel was falling diagonally towards the tracks, against the direction of the engine. Both the engine and the first car had already cleared the tower, but she hadn’t.
Moon couldn’t bring herself to move. She stood in frozen shock as the world continued to move at a soundless crawl. The scaffold holding the water tank began to snap and shatter as the second car nicked it as it slid by. The barrel atop snapped free from the frame and began to fall toward her, water pouring from the broken pipe in the bottom.
She snapped back to reality and was once again bombarded by screeches and gunfire. A shadow fell over the two ponies on the roof of the third car and Brick ceased fire to look up fearfully.
The tank hit right before where they stood and the entire roof crumpled like a tin can under its weight. Moon felt herself falling, and lost all means of her surroundings as water drenched her coat and filled her ears and eyes. Something hard struck her head, blurring her vision. She tried to take a breath but choked on water. Her body smashed against something, only to be whipped away to be smashed against something else. With what very sense remained, she registered the sound of one of her ribs cracking.
Her focus came to and she scrambled to her hooves. Looking around, she discovered she was now inside the train car. Water flowed around her hooves like a river and chunks of ceiling rained down around her. She looked up in time to see the heavy barrel of the water tower teetering on the roof directly above her. It tipped, dumping hundreds more gallons of water on her. Once again, she lost al coordination as she was thrown around like a sock in a washing machine. She found the floor and hugged it, dragging herself along it. Her head hit the wall and she rolled over onto her back.
She had crawled to the back of the car and was now clinging for dear life, trying not to be swept through the hole in the wall by the river of water running through the car. The roof above her groaned and several support beams snapped, casing its weight to sag. Moon tried to climb to her hooves, but the water pulled her hooves out from under her and she landed painfully on her back, looking up as more beams snapped. The wood paneling crunched and snapped from the walls as they bowed inward and the roof dropped a foot with a splintering crunch.
She gave up, going limp as wood began to rain on her. “Damnit.”
The main support beam snapped.
* * *
The mare stopped to listen. She was sure she had heard something. One of the pipes along the length of the steel hallway hissed as a release valve tripped. The sound had been nothing. She ruffled her cyan coat and smoothed her lime-green mane nervously. It was no turning back now.
Hoofsteps sounded ahead and she ducked left into a small maintenance wing of the hall. Quickly, she magically unscrewed the bulb from the light housing so as the only light was the faint baby blue from her horn. She dropped the bulb and hunkered down, waiting. A pony clad in REA barding trotted by casually, whistling a cheery tune.
When she was sure he was gone, she crept out and continued on down the way she had been going. Those two always came here. All she had had to do was follow them on her shift. They were still here — a couple of lazy slackers. Her eyes drifted to the REA issue pistol holstered to her leg, and then to the bowie knife in the sheathe on her flank. Which one to use?
She stopped outside a crooked-hung door and took a deep breath. She levitated out the pistol and screwed on the silencer she had stolen from the armory. Now convinced completely in her mind that this was the right thing to do, she reached out and pushed open the door. It creaked loudly on the hinges and she winced. Slowly, she stepped inside and shut the door behind her.
Two stallions sat on either end of a table in the middle of the worn breakroom, a couch on either side. A half-empty bottle of whiskey sat upon the ashtray-burnt table, right next to a deck of cards. The green and blue stallions were in the middle of a fairly-heated argument with each other over their hooves of cards.
The blue one looked up from his cards and gave her a dirty look. “What the fuck do you want? Can’t you see we’re—” His left eye blew out as her pistol whispered its response and his count of seventeen fluttered to the tabletop. The single brass casing from the gun tinkled on the concrete floor in the silence.
The green stallion cried out as blood splashed across his face. Dropping his cards, he held his hooves up in defense at his attacker. “What was that for?” he asked fearfully.
“Remember me?” the mare asked with venom.
The stallion squinted at her, his eyes widening in realization. “I-I didn’t do a-anything to you. What do you want?”
“It’s what you did to her.”
“What do you care!?” he shot back angrily.
Wrong answer. She took a step towards him, aiming the silent killer. “P-Please,” he stammered. “Don’t kill me, I ne—” The slide on the weapon worked and his skull crunched as the bullet struck him directly in the forehead.
She holstered the weapon and looked around, to the blue stallion and the spreading pool of blood, then to the green stallion poised awkwardly on the couch. Her eyes drifted upwards and picked out the security camera mounted on the roof.
How had she missed that? No matter, it was too late now. “My name in Mint,” she said to the camera. “Thirteen zero two one one, four three two... And I’ve just done Equestria a favor.”
She crossed to the couch and pushed the green stallion to the floor. They would be here soon. She had never planned on there being a camera. That had been a little bit of a screw up on her part. With a sigh, she grabbed for the bottle of whiskey and poured herself a glass.
“Cheers,” she muttered duly, downing the glass and pouring herself another. “Tomorrow you’ll be dead.”