//------------------------------// // Chapter Seventeen // Story: Clipped Wings // by Desrium //------------------------------// Chapter Seventeen Blazing hearts are admirable. A beating heart is preferable. A pony who relies solely on their fighting spirit will become one prematurely. A raider with a sniper rifle, Falcon was wary of the possibility earlier, but his emotional turmoil had made him forget about it. Naturally, he was reminded by the cracking retort of a gun just moments after he had turned a street corner in the remains of Hope. He was back behind the building at the end of the block, standing on his rear legs, back bracing against the wall when the bullet embedded itself in the sidewalk. A cloud of dust was ejected from the ground, a fairly large pockmark denoting the point of impact. Falcon Wing looked to Alana. “Yeah, we’re not going that way,” he said. The mare nodded very quickly, her violet mane dancing on her head and neck. They backtracked to an alley and from there, navigated a maze of corridors and passages, weaving through the alleyways in a roundabout fashion. After some time of this, the red colt and caramel mare had managed to approach the building where the sniper had made their nest. Standing just outside the ground floor, there was no way for the pony to know the duo had slipped into their blind spot. “I could use that gun,” Alana whispered to Falcon Wing. Why was she whispering? Falcon had no idea, but appreciated her attempt to be stealthy. Too bad they were standing in plain sight. Falcon Wing was quick to correct this however, beckoning her into the dimness of the structure they stood outside of. Once in the protective embrace of shadow, Falcon whispered “Didn’t take you for a marksmare, Alana.” “You never took a look at my cutie mark, Falcon? You would have known if you did,” she replied. This was very true. “Right, sorry. So much has happened; I haven’t been able to spare your flanks a look. What is it?” Alana looked taken aback…was she blushing? It was difficult to tell in the low light but Falcon Wing could see red in the caramel pony’s cheeks. Was it something he said? “Something wrong?” he asked, looking somewhat concerned. “Oh...um…no. Just -- actually, never mind” Alana stammered. She turned her side towards the red colt. From what he could see, her cutie mark was a splotch of yellow vaguely in the shape of a maple leaf, its jagged edges facing towards her front. It took him a few seconds to understand. “Muzzle flash,” he said when the realization hit him. “Bingo” she replied, smirking. She then raised a brow and added “Well, I showed you mine, show me yours? Never got to see it on the account of that coat …in addition to…past events.” “There’s nothing to see. Still a blank flank,” Falcon Wing said, feeling a tiny twinge of embarrassment and reflexively prepared himself for mocking. There wasn’t any though. “Quite the late bloomer you are then, mister hero” she said in good humor. Falcon smiled that small smile of his. The two snuck their way up a darkened stairway where small cracks and breaks in the walls allowed small rays of gray light into the rectangular spiral of metal. The building may have been a manufacturing facility; passing open doors on various floors they saw various levels of what might have been a crevasse of concrete and steel with catwalks sprawling overhead. As a pegasus pony, Falcon Wing appreciated the aesthetic but still recognized the huge danger it presented both past and present. Top floor. “Stay here while I go take a look ahead and make sure it’s all clear,” Falcon Wing whispered. “And why must you go on ahead while I hide by the stairs?” Alana asked. “Because I’m light on my hooves, and if things look grim behind that door I’ll be back to call this whole thing off,” Falcon Wing replied. “we’re already planning to take on grossly unfair odds by fighting slavers. No need to add fighting off an entire group of raiders to the list of unrealistic goals” “Okay then, mister optimistic!” the caramel mare said and then grinned. The wingless pegasus had seen this mare at her saddest not too long ago and now here she was joking and grinning. She had a lot riding on freeing the ponies of her compound and she was trying to keep in good spirits. If they failed, Falcon Wing feared she would never smile again. Falcon Wing turned, opened the door to the stairway just a crack and looked around into the hallway beyond. The corridor’s walls were colored in blue paint that now chipped. Old papers stuck to various bulletin boards, some littering the dirty yellow tiles that made up the floor. There were a few benches, some still standing with their backs to the walls as they should be, others having been tossed about and now lay wherever they had landed. Someone hadn’t been a happy pony. Falcon slipped through the door silently and closed it behind him. Four raiders excluding the one at their window cannon. Four raiders down and unconscious, caught by surprise and put in sleeper holds, strangling –- both literally and figuratively -- any call for help that would alert them all to his presence otherwise. After each take down however, images of Klaxon crushing their throats with a devastating buck and Alana shooting them in the head flashed in his mind. He wasn’t a killer and he didn’t want to be one… but these were ponies that had no problems with wearing the remains of the dead and torturing the living. Was it a Wasteland requisite then to be a judge, jury and executioner? Was this a conundrum the Stable Dweller dealt with when clearing out the Arbu cannibals? Falcon made his way back to the door, about to put his hoof on the handle when the thought occurred to him: Alana had the gun he had come to call the peashooter, to counteract the irony of the Wasteland. However, if he just opened the door there was a distinct possibility he’d get shot by the very gun he named and gave to the mare he saved because she might think he was a raider. “Would that be…double irony then? And since when did I start turning into Steiner?” he thought. He reared up and looked into the cracked and dust coated window pane near the top of the blue door. “Alana, it’s me. Don’t shoot,” he said as loudly as he could afford and then cautiously opened the door. Alana had the Peashooter in her mouth, Falcon’s nose almost bumping the tip of the barrel when he dropped onto all fours. “Bvangh” she said through the gun’s grip, Falcon Wing able to see the corners of her mouth lifted into a smile while his heart skipped a beat. Alana put the gun back in her barding’s holster, allowing Falcon Wing time to shake his surprise off. “Well that was suitably horrifying. Please do not do that again,” the red colt said.