“Darn it! Darn it! Darn it!” Tweak shrieked; Tweak flailed. He scampered across a battered bridge as manabullets exploded across the brickwork behind him. “Who told you idiots you could shoot back?!”
Enforcers shouted to one another as they took aim at his crystalline hide. The already smokey air filled with a haze of manadust as he dove desperately behind a rock partition, fumbling for his manarifle.
Imre shot around the corner of stone where she hid and fired two blasts with the silver pistol. Upon the third trigger squeeze, nothing happened. With a sweatstained face, she shrieked, “Tweak, I'm out!”
“So am I, darlin'!” Tweak grumbled across the gun fight. “No need to announce it to the world!”
“We have to get out of here!” Imre exclaimed. “Friggin' find Rainbow Dash, grab her, and go!”
“Go where?!” Tweak hissed as two close shots landed close to his shiny ears. He ducked even lower, pressing the empty rifle to his chest and growling. “Arrrrggghghhhh! Yet another day dipping into that stupid Ledomaritan nonsense crap contrived Council bullcrap... frick... farts balls stuff!”
Imre flashed him a crooked glance. “Huh?!”
“Just tired of stupid ponies doing stupid things!” Tweak hollered, ready to wield the rifle like a club. “Ya hear that?! One of y'all clop on over here so I can hit ya where the Spark split ya!”
“Tweak, please...” Imre gestured towards him, flinching as another blast landed between them. “We both know that fighting isn't my thing, but listen to me! I need you to stick around! We'll get nowhere if we lose our heads like this!”
“Well, what do you expect to happen?!” Tweak roared at her while manabullets whizzed by. “Fate ain't gonna drop an angel of vengeance into our laps!” Just then, a blue blur streaked by, depositing a lavender shadow like a velvet payload.
“Ooof!” Eagle Eye grunted, reeling dizzily on his haunches.
“Gah!” Tweak flew back, blinking at the unicorn suddenly straddling his shiny belly. “Uhmm...” His facial muscles twitched. “Can I help you, lady?”
“Look!” Imre shouted, pointing overhead. Both stallions looked to see Rainbow Dash descending on the party of Ledomaritan soldiers like a righteous lightning bolt of color. In a flurry of limbs and metal armor, several of them were launched out, screaming until they splashed into the murky depths of the sewer below. Those who weren't dead or beaten senselessly stood up and galloped away, firing potshots at the heavily armored pegasus in their cowardly flight.
“You'd better run!” Rainbow Dash seethed, dodging half the blasts and deflecting the other half with her battered metal plates. “I'll give you a head start before knocking your sorry skulls in, you yellow-bellied wastes of... of...” She blinked, glanced behind her at the group of allies, and sighed. “Shoot. Who am I kidding?” With a flick of a grown tail, she turned around and galloped back to the group. “Sorry I was gone for so long. I had an emergency case of Shell shock. Literally.”
“Was that the fella y'all were talkin' about left and right?” Tweak asked. “Prime Enforcer Shell?”
“I'm afraid so,” Rainbow Dash said, her head hung.
“You totally cleaned his clock, though, right?” Tweak asked.
“Uhm... I... m-might have?” Rainbow Dash smiled nervously.
“Huh?!” Tweak thrashed from underneath Eagle Eye. “Then why the friggin' heck were you gone for so long, vomit stain?!”
“Uhm... eh heh...” Eagle Eye blushed.
“Oh, I'm sorry, Miss...” Tweak grabbed the unicorn's dainty hoof in his and gently helped him up before standing himself. “Eheh... I wasn't tryin' to prolong nothing. I'll have you know I'm a happily married stallion.”
Eagle Eye nodded and spoke clearly, “I'm quite sure. Thanks for helping me up, Mister—”
“Whoah!” Tweak flinched away from him. “Yeah! Yeah! Sure am h-happily married! To a mare! Married to a mare!” He coughed and wheezed. “Rainbow, would ya mind introducing us to your friend here?”
“Tweak... Eagle Eye. Eagle Eye... Tweak. Imre—” She turned to look at her companion and froze.
Imre sat in a slump, shuddering, covering her face with a pair of shaky hooves.
“Imre?” Rainbow Dash blinked. She shook off the last few droplets of sewer water and trotted over. “What's happening, girl? Talk to me...”
“Sorry to interrupt this here reunion and all, but... uhm...” Tweak pointed towards the far end of the aqueduct's bridge. “I'm gonna go and... uh... collect bullets... over there... as I think about my wife... whom I'm happily in love with...” He trotted briskly away. “Who happens to be a mare.”
Eagle Eye shuddered, trying in futility to straighten his mane. “I see you've made some... high-strung friends since we split up, Rainbow Dash.” He blinked, then glanced aside. “Rainbow Dash?”
The pegasus was kneeling besides Imre, trying to move her hooves apart from covering her face. “Hey. Hey, look at me.”
Imre shuddered, eventually opening her moist eyes, reflecting Rainbow's smiling muzzle.
“You've been through a lot of tough crud, Imre,” Rainbow said as gently as she could manage with the adrenaline still flowing through her. “But that doesn't mean you're invincible, y'know?”
“I know, it's just that... that...” She gazed with a sickly expression at the pistol in her grasp. Her hooves began to shake again.
“Look, Imre, I'm sorry...” Rainbow Dash scooted closer to the pony, placing a hoof on her shoulders. “I dragged you into this, just like I dragged Eagle Eye here into this...”
“Uhhh...” Eagle Eye nervously smiled and waved. “Hi there.”
Imre's lips quivered as she nevertheless managed a polite, “H-hello.”
“And...” Rainbow Dash seethed, hung her head, and muttered, “Just like I dragged Bellesmith and Pilate into all of this...”
Imre glanced curiously at Rainbow.
“I... I-I dunno what it is about me that drags the ugliness out of the world. It seems like everywhere I go, there are bad things happening, and some way or another I end up butting heads with them.” Rainbow Dash shrugged. “I can't pretend to be a beacon of harmony or whatcrap. Quite the opposite: I'm full of so much chaos that it hurts. But...” She looked up, her jaws clenched tight. “That doesn't change the fact that bad stuff is bad stuff, and you just... c-can't avoid all of the horrible things in this world forever, whether you're flying around it or staying in place. One way or another, you gotta face what this continent has in store.”
Imre gulped and said, “You mean I gotta face up to my sins.”
Rainbow Dash winced. “Look, I didn't say that—”
“You didn't have to,” Imre said, hugging the gun to her chest suddenly. “I'm not as weak as you think I am, Rainbow. I've... I-I've taken lives before. This isn't about that...”
Rainbow Dash's brow furrowed. “Then what is this about?”
“It's... it's about...” Imre glanced dully down at the murky waves below. She let loose a heavy sigh. “Forget it. You wouldn't understand.”
“Like heck I wouldn't!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed. She shook Imre's shoulder. “You're my friend, and I care about your well-being!”
Imre's eyes narrowed. “You've barely known me for a few days. How could you say that?”
Rainbow blinked. She shrugged, then smiled with a flighty chuckle. “Because I can...”
Imre stared back. After a few breaths, her lips curved ever so slightly. “I think I finally see it.”
“See what?”
“What Roarke sees...”
Rainbow Dash's face scrunched up. “Huh?”
“Never mind...” Imre stood up on wobbly legs. “We've wasted enough time here. You brought me along for a reason. If Pilate is injured, then it's up to me to make sure he gets better.” She slid the pistol back along her right hoof and stood tall. “I promise you, Rainbow, that I won't lose my nerves like that again.”
“Good,” Tweak said, marching back. “Cuz crud is rattled enough as it is.” He stood and looked squarely at the group. “I've got us a bunch of ammo for the run. Shall we, ladies...” He turned and nodded at Eagle Eye. “...and you?”
Eagle Eye gave him a lasting glare before turning towards the rest. “Before I came here, I overhead Captain Filta of the Steel Wing talking about how Pilate was expected to be in Blue Nova.” He tilted his head up to stare into Rainbow's face with bright, violet eyes. “Is it true that you've tracked him down?!”
“And how!” Rainbow Dash smirked devilishly. “There should be a corridor adjacent to these sewers somewhere. Once we enter the place, he shouldn't be that far off.”
“And then we'll go rescue Belle, right?”
“Huh?” Tweak gave him a double-take.
Eagle Eye gulped and said, “B-Belle. She's around here too.”
Rainbow Dash gasped. “In Blue Nova?!”
“Well... erm... m-maybe not in this city, per se... but somewhere west of here. I heard the enforcers on the Steel Wing talking about that too. Shell had taken an expedition to track down Pilate, and they were gonna use him somehow to reel in you... th-then Belle...”
Rainbow Dash was breathing heavily, pacing about in a tight circle. “How on earth could she have gotten away from capture...?!” She gave Eagle Eye a sharp squint. “That's what you overheard, right?”
Eagle Eye shrugged. “Why else would they be looking for her?”
“This is uncanny,” Imre thought aloud. “She might not even be in Pale Shelf whatsoever!”
“One thing before the other, folks,” Tweak said, waving his rifle around. “Let's go find ourselves a zebra and work on the rest as it comes. Sound good?”
“Yup. Totally.” Rainbow Dash ignited her thrusters and levitated across the sewer chamber. “I'll go scout out the area first! Follow me at a distance! I don't want us repeating any more crud like what just happened!”
“Right. Let's get a move on!” Tweak motioned at the other two. “Hop to it, maggots! That means you, feather flanks!”
“Ungh...” Eagle Eye shook his head dizzily, nevertheless galloping alongside Tweak. “Why am I feeling so groggy whenever I get close to you?”
“Yeah, that'll happen...”
Imre lingered at the rear of the group. She paused, gave the battle-scarred scene one last look, then sighed. Tightening the grip of the pistol's hoof-brace around her forelimb, she swiftly trotted after the rest, taking up the party's rear.