The light hurt my eyes. They never tell you that about going to a hospital, that all the lighting is liable to give you a headache. Yet here I was, laying on my back with bandages wrapped around me and forced to stare straight at an overhead light. Torture, I tell you.
I had woken up a few minutes before. Waking up in a hospital was at least preferable to other places I had woken up to, but still wasn’t that great. My wings were splayed out under me and the tips were immobilized for some reason. They felt funny, like they had been dipped in concrete. The rest of me was done up like a mummy in one way or another, and I felt kind of like I had been put in a grave, but they decided to pull me out at the last second.
The sun shone through the window outside, so I guess it was daytime again. That meant I had been in the hospital for at least a night. Or maybe two, who knew? I could barely recall the night before . . . I could remember the Assassin and Starshine, and going with Scout, but then . . . nothing.
There was a knock on the door, and I looked up. Or, well, looked over as best as I could in my current situation. A nurse walked in wearing a green frock that came down to her hips and a frilly little cap of the same color that made her look like a clown. She approached my bedside, saw I was awake, and smiled.
“Oh good, you’re up,” she said. “You gave us quite a scare there for a while. We had to patch you up very nicely. Though it looks like you’ll be making a full recovery.”
“Patch me up?” I asked. “But . . . it wasn’t me that got hit. It was Scout. Where is she? Is she okay?”
The nurse smiled and walked to my bedside. “You were hit by a bullet that lodged itself in your thigh,” she said. “You may have gone into shock, and not felt it. You lost a lot of blood, though, and we had to do an emergency transfusion.”
Shot . . . shit, really? I had been broken, beaten, battered, stabbed, and now shot. When I thought about it, I noticed that I couldn’t feel my right leg, and that it was the most wrapped in bandages. Part of me wanted to shake or be sick, like the momentum from being shot had finally carried over from that night.
“Scout . . .” I mumbled. “Is she okay?”
“Your friend pulled through,” the nurse told me with a wide grin. “In no small part thanks to you, of course. How did you do those stitches on her and on yourself anyway?”
“Stitches?” I asked.
She nodded. “They were crude, but we found your needle and bits of your jacket next to you, and the crude stitches in your thigh and your friend’s stomach.” She looked at me a little funny. “If you don’t remember, that’s common. Ponies are capable of all sorts of things when they’re in shock.”
“Yeah, I guess so,” I mumbled, my mind already somewhere. I felt like I was floating, and not just because of the medicine flowing into me through an IV in my leg. The memories of that night flashed through my mind like little snippets on a movie reel, but I couldn’t put them all together.
“. . . and you’ve been approved for bed rest at home,” the nurse was saying while I was away in my mind.
“Wait, I am?” I asked, looking down at myself. “Just the day after I get all this?”
The nurse shook her head and picked up my chart. “That would be true, dear, except you’ve been here for three days.” She made a mark on the clipboard and scurried out of the room with a promise of “bringing in the ponies who are signing you out.”
I felt like I was going a little crazy, but biting my lip only made it hurt, not woke me up. I settled back in my bed and waited for whoever was picking me up. I wondered who would be checking me out, if it would be Starshine to bring me back in shame to the Assassin and Shuya. Or maybe it was Amethyst, and I was going to take a trip to her funhouse.
The drugs kept me in a stupor, so I couldn’t focus and kept drifting in and out of lucidity until the door finally opened some time later. I watched to see which side of the little conflict would claim me first. But, instead of either, a familiar purple unicorn stepped through the door.
Her amber eyes locked on mine immediately. I noticed her usual headband was gone, and her mane fell free all around her head. It looked pretty on her, but I knew she wouldn’t have appreciated my saying so.
She closed the door behind her, then ran to my bedside. In one fluid motion, she pulled herself up to my level and planted a soft kiss on my lips before backing away again. Okay, so maybe she would have liked the compliment.
“Uh . . .” I stammered.
She shook her head and gave a dry laugh. “You stupid idiot . . . how many times are you going to worry me and everypony else? Me and Sterling get a call at Celestia knows when in the morning that you’re dying, and we have to come here and wait while they try to keep you from dying, and then you fall into a coma!”
“I’m sorry,” I mumbled.
“Sorry. Right.” She sighed, and laid a hoof over mine. “I told you getting involved in this Amethyst thing wouldn’t turn out well. And Scout got involved too . . . what have you two been doing?”
I tried to smile, but the edges of my mouth hurt. “I’ll tell you later. Are we taking Scout with us?”
“I already signed her out. They’re getting a wheelchair for her, then they’ll get one for you.”
As if on cue, the door opened again to let in a nurse and a doctor in a white coat with a wheelchair in front of him. He droned on to Grapevine about medicines for me and cautions and a dozen other things I would probably ignore within a few days.
All I paid attention to was the nurse who pulled the needle out of me. It hurt like a damn bee sting, and I winced. I had been afraid of needles of a long time, and watching one come out wasn’t better than watching one go in. But at least it was over in a little bit, and before I knew it I was in a wheelchair and being wheeled out of the hospital.
Scout showed up beside me, with a different nurse pushing her. Her eyes were fluttering, and she had massive bandages all around her midsection. She noticed me, though, and I think she smiled at me. Was it weird that I felt close to her all of a sudden? We were both in our silver chariots being whisked away, though we were on no parade.
The sun was pleasant enough outside, and it wasn’t too bad in the thin hospital gown they’d left me in. I felt more naked with it on than off for some reason. Grapevine, at least I think it was her, had assured me that she had my clothes with her, so I was alright in that department.
We were wheeled over to Sterling’s red convertible, but my coltfriend wasn’t in there. My heart sank a little when I saw it was empty, but I suppose I understood. He probably had enough to worry about with me in a coma, and I felt kinda bad for him since I kept running off and almost getting killed.
A couple of nurses had to help me into the car, what with my thigh being encased in bandages and all. They banged my hoof something good getting me in, but managed to keep me from bleeding all over the place. I got to lay across the backseat while Scout was helped into the passenger side and Grapevine climbed in on the driver’s side.
The doctors wished us both goodbye just as the car started up and drowned out all noise with its engine. I smiled when I saw Scout poke her head up at the sound. Her little sporty car had been cool and all, but my Sterling’s car was the original, and the best.
Grapevine roared away from the hospital and into the downtown traffic. I guess it occurred to me that we were pretty lucky to have been shot where we were, and ended up in the downtown hospital with all the fancy doctors and magical machines. Any other hospital in town and I might have died. I scratched at the bandages around my thigh.
We drove fast down the big roads leading across Fillydelphia to the western neighborhoods. The breeze felt nice running through my mane, even though I had to rest my sore eyes every few minutes. I noticed that there were so fewer carriages on the road than when I had first come to the city, even if it had only been months. Time moved fast, I guess.
West Fillydelphia loomed in front of us, and then we were suddenly passing through it, whooshing by little shops and awnings colored pink and blue and green. We parked in front of Joya’s house and there was a whole big deal of getting a cart out to wheel in Scout, then me. The cart was rickety and wooden, and it gave me a rough feeling on my back when I was wheeled inside.
Finally, after a lot of grunting and moving Scout and I were sat on a couch Joya had moved out to the middle of the floor. The energetic donkey stood with us now, smiling up and down at us and gushing about we were “hospital buddies” or something. It was really nice, in a way, to have her back after that long day and the time in the hospital.
The stallion I really wanted to see, though, was conspicuously absent. I could feel him being gone like somepony sucking all the air out of the room, and suddenly I couldn’t draw a breath. I wanted Sterling there, needed him in a way that I wouldn’t have understood until I found him. That stupid, floppy smile of his and that ridiculous mane that he refused to ever straighten or cut.
“Minty?” Grapevine asked. “Are you okay? Is it the medicine?”
“Is Sterling here?” I asked. “I mean, I know I gave you all a big scare and just . . . I’m sorry.”
“It’s alright, dear,” Joya said, “but Sterling won’t be here for a while. He and Ivory went on a trip while you were in the hospital. Ivory was afraid Sterling would hurt himself, so he got him out of the city.”
My heart sunk. It wasn’t that I didn’t care about his own mental health and all that, but I wished so bad he could be home at last. Just for a little while, even. Though I guess him being really sad about me being in the hospital just showed how much he cared. It was cute, in a grim sort of way.
Scout sat silent on the couch beside me. She peered out from her mane that fell down over her face. She was scooted pretty close to me, which was kind of a nice reassurance when everypony else was staring at us like we were in a zoo or something.
Grapevine was chatting with Joya about the medicine we had been given and the doses when the bell above the front door dinged. I turned, which hurt, and saw Starshine walk through the door with a slightly guilty look on her face. Then, following her, came Marshmallow with bags around her middle.
Scout jerked a little from Marshmallow’s appearance, and I pressed a hoof against her leg. It was a silent gesture from me that, hopefully, would keep her down. She might think Marshmallow a villain, but I wasn’t about to. She’d never been anything but nice to me, and I wasn’t about to think she was aligned with Amethyst while knowing whatever terrible things were done under her company.
Marshmallow certainly seemed happy to see me, and even Scout as well, though I don’t think she knew her. She rushed over and fawned over the both of us, talking about how we were “brave” and all like we were two veterans back from war, fresh from the front. I mean, we technically were, but not the usual kind of war. One fought for information about the future of a city. Point is, I wouldn’t see a damn medal.
“I just can’t help but feel terrible,” Marshmallow was saying. “Here I am, mayor of Fillydelphia, and my own friend gets shot on my streets. Near my building, too!”
“It was just an accident,” I said, not completely lying. “Sure, it was a bad one, but it’s not like it’s your fault.”
I thought I felt Scout glare at me for that last remark, but I kept it. I would believe her until she proved me wrong. She proved unlikely to do that, however, when she lifted the cover of the bag on her back to show a variety of sweets and ingredients.
“I thought I would come over here and bake you both something,” she said. “It’s my way of showing that a mayor is not too high and mighty to not serve her ponies.”
She smiled and scurried off with Joya to the kitchen. Scout and Grapevine watched her go, then we all let out a collective sigh. That is, until Starshine walked around the couch and plopped down next to Grapevine.
“Pretty bad accident,” she said.
“Yeah, it was just terrible,” I said. “Scout and I wish we hadn’t even been driving down there, right Scout?”
She nodded. “Yeah.”
“Bad accident.” Starshine sighed and scooted closer to Grapevine. “I would have hated to see anything happen to the both of you. I’m sure Shuya would have been sad as well, Scout.”
“How is he?” Scout asked, for once showing even a hint of interest in the conversation.
“He’s well, last time I saw him,” Starshine said. “He can’t come over here right now, though. Business, you know. He wants to see you as soon as he can.”
I tried to smile. “Just us girls, then.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.” Grapevine smirked, and I thought back to the kiss in the hospital. Was she? No, no, she was being a tease again, messing with me like she so loved to do. I was sure of it. Mostly.
“Then again,” Grapevine said, “the doctor said a lot of bed rest for the both of you. You two probably shouldn’t even be on this couch.” She got up and smiled. “You two can rest in the big upstairs bedroom. The bed’s big enough for two, and there’s a radio up there, too. Me and Starshine can also get you both books if you want them.”
“Me and her are going to . . . share . . . a bed?” Scout asked.
“Oh, thanks,” I muttered.
“It’s just temporary,” Grapevine said, “unless you’ve got a better place to go. The doctor said you didn’t list any other place of residence, so you’re stuck here unless you tell us where to take you.”
Scout looked away. “Here is fine, I guess.”
“Great!”
Grapevine walked over and sat down on the couch next to me. “I don’t even imagine how hard it would be to get the two of you up those stairs,” she said, pointing to the wooden staircase against the far wall. “So just hold on and we’ll be up there in a moment.”
Scout grabbed onto me tighter than I had expected, and I closed my eyes. When I opened them, we were sitting on me and Sterling’s bed in a cloud of dissipating magic. Scout was coughing and waving at the air in front of her, then held onto her stomach.
“You alright?” Grapevine asked.
She nodded. “That magic might have just affected me a little bit.”
“Well, you two should probably take your medicine anyway.” A pained expression crossed Grapevine’s face. “I’ll try to remember to not use the magic as much.”
She hopped off the bed and promised to be back with the medicine as well as pillows, books, and switch on the radio. I had to admit, I was feeling more and more like the Princess. If it wasn’t for almost dying, I would have been glad for being shot.
I sat next to Scout, and she fell silent again. She still kept close to me, though, and didn’t make any effort to move away. I suppose she was scared, and I could understand why. She had been shot, and then abandoned by the revolutionaries. Now, we were the only ponies to take her in. I fought the urge to give her a hug.
Instead, I settled for rubbing her shoulder with one of my wings. They, luckily, had escaped undamaged for the most part.
“It’s gonna be okay, you know,” I said.
“What does it matter?” she muttered. “Shuya’s left me here, and all the rest of them, too. I asked my nurse if anypony had been in to see me in the past few days, and she said nopony had.”
“I’m sure it’s something else,” I said.
“Yeah, well, I wouldn’t trust that too much,” she said. “Recharge and Volt are dead, and me and you nearly joined them. As it is, it’s going to be weeks before we’ve recovered. I guess we’re just casualties of the revolution now.”
Okay, I couldn’t stop myself then. Despite the pain welling in my thigh, I reached over and hugged her around the neck. She didn’t pull away, though she did mutter about, “What is with you ponies and hugging?”
We both held together until we heard the door opening. We thought it would be Grapevine back with the medicine, but instead it was none other than Starshine, with a guilty look all over her face. I wanted to tell her to go away right then, that I didn’t need her at the moment, but knew that she had something to say and wasn’t going to stop until she had said it.
She closed the door behind her and walked over to our bedside. It was still weird looking at her without any wings, but then again I guess all of us in the room were damaged in some way or the other. At least I hadn’t lost my leg, I thought.
“So how are you two feeling?” she asked, pacing around the bed.
“Just peachy,” Scout said. “I feel like a million bits.”
“Well thanks, Miss Sarcasm,” Starshine said. “Minty?”
I rolled my eyes. “Just get to what you were going to say already, Starshine. We all know why you’re here.”
“Well excuse me for trying to remind you both about the reason you landed in that hospital.” Starshine huffed and sat back on her haunches. “Or did you two decide to abandon this whole thing, including the ponies who gave you the bullet wounds?”
“Yeah, I decided alright,” Scout said. “I’m done with this whole thing. I watched two of our own get killed, and then I and Minty got shot too. I can barely move without my stomach feeling like it’s on fire, so I’m done. Shuya can come and get me and we can move to Los Celestias or Manehattan or anywhere that’s not here.”
Starshine glared at her. “Shuya isn’t going to just abandon this whole thing.”
“Then he can find himself another marefriend. I quit.”
Starshine growled and turned to me. “Come on, Minty, this whole thing proves we’re right. You’re the one who took down Pullmare, for crying out loud! Can’t you at least try again?”
“Can’t.” I nodded toward my leg. “Try walking on this thing. I’ve had enough brushes with death, Starshine. I think I’m going to ask to be put in editorials at the newspaper. Effective immediately.”
I hadn’t actually thought about it, yet, but it just kind of seemed like the best thing to do at the moment. Adventuring and all, that wasn’t a long-lasting game, and I didn’t want to get more caught up in it than I already was. The stupid idea to follow along with the Assassin seemed so idiotic now . . . the scar on my chest was just window decoration compared to what I got now.
Starshine shook her head. “I can’t believe you two. You get hurt and you just give up and quit.” She pointed to her back. “I got hurt too, you know! I had my wings snapped off by a fucking airship! And yet here I am, still trying to do good by this city. You two nearly died, so did I. Get over it.”
“You got hurt in an accident,” I said. “We both chose to do something stupid for it, and paid for it. Isn’t that right, Scout?”
I looked over, but she had already passed out. She was breath softly with her head back on her pillow. She looked peaceful while she slept, like a flower closed for the night.
“Well, you get the point,” I said.
“I didn’t think you would be like this, Minty, not you,” Starshine said. “Shuya and the rest are spooked and hiding out, but I came here so I could get you and take you back, to prove this hadn’t gotten to you. Now . . . I don’t know what to do.”
Starshine looked down. “I don’t know the point, why I try, when everyone else just gives up. Like you gave up on those flying lessons, huh? Yeah, real glad you came to visit me every so often, Minty. I thought we were friends.”
“We are,” I said.
She laughed softly. “Yeah, right. You spend so much time with Grapevine and that colt of yours that me, Ivory, Marshmallow . . . we’ve just been by the wayside, huh? I quit the Weather Corps for you, and you’ve ignored me.”
I wanted to reach out to her. To touch her, to hold her tight, to tell her I was sorry . . . but it was like there was a world between us. “Starshine . . .”
“Save it.” She got up. “Look, we’re going to be pretty locked down, but if you want to come back and help . . . you know where to find us. I’ll tell Shuya about Scout.” She walked to the door and looked at me one last time before leaving.
I let her go without a word. It served me right, really. I didn’t have much to tell her, and didn’t want to think much myself. I just wanted to collapse back on the bed and scream. I wanted to thrash around and rip off my bandages and just not be hurt anymore. I didn’t want my scars to exist.
Instead, the medicine kicked in hard like a buck to the gut, and I settled back in the bed. I pulled the covers up around me and snuggled in the bed, a sigh escaping my lips. Scout was close, and I considered cuddling up next to her. For warmth, of course. Still not a lesbian. That’s me, Minty the straight mare. Oh, wait, here I am, and I am snuggling up with her. Great, Minty.
She was warm.
I don’t know to what outer realms my mind drifted, or to what far off seas my consciousness swam, but I was out for what could have been minutes or days, depending. Was I floating? Was I existing? Does a bell toll if no pony is still around to ring it?
Faces and names and voices rang through my head while I drifted in sleep, but nothing that was concrete for more than a second. When I drifted back to the shore of consciousness, however, one shape did begin to glow. It wasn’t a familiar one, but not one unknown either. She had a violet coat, but her mane was a light blue shade and ran long down her neck and back. She was . . . smiling at me?
“Wake up and smell the ashes, Miss Flower,” she said.
My eyes snapped open. “A-Amethyst,” I said.
“Oh my, I’m so glad you haven’t forgotten my name,” she said. “It would just be a tragedy if you had.”
“What do you want?” I shifted in my seat and tried to sit up. “We don’t have anything for you, Amethyst.”
She sneered and paced next to me on the floor. “Is a pony not as valuable as the sweat of her brow?” she said. “If you can work for me, or at least not against me, you are quite valuable, Miss Flower.”
“So you know.”
“Of course I do. Do you think me a fool? You and your friend here left a bloody trail of evidence from my office to that delightful little car of yours. It wasn’t hard to figure out where you stood.”
My eyes narrowed, and I felt a pang in my leg. “So, what, did you come up here to smother us, just wanting to do it yourself?”
“Oh, don’t be so dramatic,” Amethyst said. “I just came up here to make sure you two didn’t leave, and maybe to gloat a little.” She smiled. “I admit, it’s a weakness of mine.”
“What, gloat that you caught two bedridden mares?” I said, holding up my hooves. “Whoops, you got me.”
She laughed. “Don’t play dumb, Minty. A certain police officer managed to escape those revolutionaries and told us all about where they’re located and all sorts of fun little details. He seemed particularly disappointed in you and Starshine.”
Red Rover. Shit.
“So what?” I said. “They’ll be gone before you even get there, and you’ll just have to start over. Big whoop.”
Amethyst smiled. “Then we’ll see, won’t we? I just thought I might test you a little, see if you wanted them to survive or not. Not that it matters, really. I’ve got a dozen stallions waiting by the front door to this disgusting little house who will strike you down if you try to come out.”
She reached over and rubbed my leg, and I struggled to move away from her. “You and Scout are about to the be the only revolutionaries left,” she said. “Once we’re done with the ponies up in the Heights, then you and I will have some fun, Minty.”
Marshmallow stuck her head in the doorway, and Amethyst immediately pulled away and rubbed a hoof over my mane. “Now, you get plenty of rest,” she said. “My company is going to make sure you don’t pay for a thing, we’ll take care of everything.”
She moved toward Marshmallow, who smiled at her and left with her. I watched them go, then lay back. The ponies in the Heights were trapped and holed up, waiting for us, and Amethyst was going to come right to them. I felt so useless now, so helpless. Ponies were going to die because I could do nothing.
I stared down at my leg and tried to will it to heal itself, but it sat still and did nothing. I could feel a dull ache, and knew that trying to put weight on it would just make it worse. I was stuck for every meaning of the word, and it sucked.
Then, I started to gather an idea. An old idea, one I had resisted for so long, but now seemed like my only choice. The idea that I did have something to make me stronger, to make me heal, and I had it in the room. Chemiker’s potion, the one I had kept hidden for months now since his death. The one only Sterling knew about.
I looked across the room to my dresser, a wooden behemoth pushed against the far wall. It seemed so far now, like a lifetime of a journey, but I had to try. I pulled the covers away from me, and settled two hooves on the floor. I put a third down, and held my damaged leg out away from me. It hurt real bad, but I had no other choice.
That is, until I was racked with pain after two steps and remembered the feathery appendages called wings I had on my back. I thought that I could really stand to use them more. They were probably the least damaged out of all my body, and I was able to flap up into the air and toward the dresser, even if it still hurt to get there.
My hooves scrambled over the wooden surface of the dresser until I found the knobs and pulled out the top drawer. I searched through socks and shirts until my hooves finally hit a glass vial with a cork stopper. I pulled it out, and stared when I saw only maybe a fifth was left in it. I tried to think of who could have taken it, but I really didn’t have any time to worry about it. There was way more at stake.
With a deep breath, I took out the stopper and held the vial over my mouth, letting the purple liquid flow into my mouth. It tasted real bitter, like I was licking a rusty pole, and made my face scrunched up a little bit. Then, it hit my stomach and I had to double over. The pain that whipped through me was worse than what I had felt so far back from the hospital, but it subsided after a moment.
It was replaced by heat, that I felt around my leg and over the rest of me. It felt like somepony was cooking my right leg, and I ripped the bandages off as quick as I could. There, beneath them, was a wound that was still pink and sensitive, but healed. Weeks of healing time compressed to a few seconds. I felt like I could see a little better, too, and that I was . . . bigger. I didn’t know how to explain it.
I took a cautious step forward, and found that I could walk alright. It still hurt, but it was enough to keep me from crying and screaming. I looked over at Scout, who was still asleep, then walked to my room’s window. It looked out away from the front door, so hopefully nopony would be watching it.
I threw open the window panes and let a fresh breeze blow in, washing over me and baptizing my new body in warmth. “I’ll be back for you,” I told Scout, then spread my wings and hopped out of the window. After a brief fall, I was flapping up and away from the house, away from Amethyst and toward the Heights that lay far beyond.
That was my path, and I soared off to it. I just tried to ignore that weird feeling in my head. It was probably nothing.
* * *
The Heights, for the first time in what must have been decades, saw fire. Flames raged and ate at the old factory district, casting the entire dirty street in a sickly orange glow. Police steam cars and vans were stopped all along the road, and police ponies swarmed around them. They carried guns, weapons that sputtered and cracked to send lead down toward a single factory building.
I wasn’t stupid enough to pass over them, and instead kept near the clouds of smoke all around the area to conceal myself. I dove toward the roof of the factory and landed it on it in a tumble of feathers and hooves. The building shook from gunfire and I fought the urge to cry and scream just from the idea that I could get shot again. Silly me, I know, but it was so scary that I barely kept going on.
The door off the roof was mostly concealed by smoke, so I had to barge through and bash the door down with one shoulder. I probably should have thought it through more, as there was liable to be fire on the other side, but thankfully for me there wasn’t. The air inside the building was cool by comparison, but still filled with shouts and gunfire.
I scrambled down to the offices on the ground and burst through a door onto the main floor, only to be met by the gun barrels of ten or so ponies. They scared me, and I felt myself shaking looking down so many faces of death. When they saw who I was, though, they lowered and turned back to the single entrance to the factory from the police’s end. A small pile of dead bodies was already stacked around the door. Not all were police.
“Minty!” Shuya yelled, and ran over to me. He had blood streaked all over him, and bandages that had once been white were wrapped around one hoof. “I knew you’d come!”
“Yeah, you keep pulling me back in,” I muttered. I looked around at the destruction. “I came here to warn all of you about the police coming, but, well, I guess that’s not needed.”
Shuya smiled a sad smile, and nodded his head gravely to me. “You did the best you could. What could help the revolution now is not an escape, but what you can do for us. For me.” He waved to the fighters as the door on the other end started to bang open. “Run! Meet up in The Burb when you can, or escape into the hinterlands! Let no one know of your identity!”
They looked at their leader like he was speaking Manedarin, but ran off anyway. They took their guns with them, and looked at the far door before escaping out the back. That left me with Shuya alone, who was laughing and coughing up blood.
“No, no, don’t worry,” he said. “Just cut my tongue up something good. I think I need to learn my lesson about this whole thing, yes?”
There was a crash, and part of the roof fell in. We both yelled, and hurried toward the back door. It was starting to get unbearably hot inside the warehouse, and the door the police were breaking through was starting to cave in. We burst through the back door and into the air outside, which was cool but choked with smoke.
Shuya was bent over, holding on to his crude bandages and muttering under his breath. I saw there was was new blood on him, and he laughed morosely. “This is just a heck of a way to end things, isn’t it?” he said. “Our whole idea, gone up in flames. I don’t blame you, though. Amethyst was always going to find us at some point.”
“Scout wants you to stop all this,” I blurted out, figuring it was as good a time as any. “She wants you to stop with this whole revolution and come with her and get out of this damned city. She just wants you.”
Shuya looked stricken. “She does? She just wants to let go of the whole thing, just like that?”
“Me and her nearly died,” I said. “We both want to let go. Look, just go to her and get your head out of your flankhole and be with her.”
“Yes but . . .” He paused, then sighed. “Alright, I’ll talk to her, but I still need your help, Minty. The whole city does.”
“What is this whole thing about?” I asked.
“You see, a lot of it has to do with Marshmallow. We think that she is, maybe, well . . .”
We were standing in an overgrown alley behind the warehouse, concealed from the carnage by overgrown plants and a corner facing the front of the building. We were relatively secure. That was, until a couple police ponies bolted around the corner.
I raised my hooves and Shuya started to, but they weren’t interested in that. The pistols in their hooves barked and Shuya’s head and stomach exploded into waves of blood and tissue that splashed everywhere, yet somehow not me.
I screamed, and screamed, and screamed. A life snuffed out before my very eyes, like it didn’t even fucking matter. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck shit cunt fuck. He was dead, he was dead, ohCelestiahe’sdeadIwasjuststandinghereandhe’sdead!
I think I reached out for him, but I’m not sure. All I know was that Shuya was dead and the pigs raised their guns at me. Their gazes were hard and mouths curved into wicked smiles like they were doing their jobs and loving every minute of it.
The muzzle flashes I expected didn’t come, though. I closed my eyes and waited for them, but none came. Then, before I opened my eyes, I was picked up in a tight gaze and carried over hedges and fences. I realized I was clinging to my unknown hero and crying. I don’t know if I was crying for myself for seeing Shuya dying, or for Shuya, dead with Scout back in West Fillydelphia asleep and waiting for his return. My heart wanted to break and throw the thousand pieces away so I didn’t have to look at them again, but I wasn’t so lucky.
My savior stopped after some time and gently placed me on the ground. I was laying on soft grass, with my eyes tightly shut. I didn’t think I wanted to open them, but I did anyway. I knew who I was going to find, but it was still a surprise.
The Assassin looked down at me through his mask, his hoof rubbing through my mane. “Cry now, little one,” he said. “There is little time for tears in your world, and they matter far more than anything else in this town.”
I shook on the ground, my tail flicking and swishing against the ground. The Assassin stood over me, watching me with a solemn quiet that somehow was able to keep me calm, to keep me from doing something to myself. I cried and shook for who the fuck cares how long, just a long, long time that only seemed to end when I was out of tears.
“When you get back,” the Assassin said, “you may want to keep the pill bottle away from Scout. Her life is precious, and her taking it over the loss of another only lessens this world more.”
“Why were you too late?” I whispered. “Why couldn’t you save him?”
He took a long time to answer. “I’m not perfect.”
There was another minute of silence, but then he turn to go. Before he did, though, he turned back and swept me up in what was unmistakable for a hug. He squeezed me gently, then let go and ran off, disappearing behind a nearby fence. I could have gone after him, with Chemiker’s formula I could have done a lot of things, but I didn’t.
I just climbed to my hooves and took off into the air, over the smoldering ruins of hopes and dreams that had once lie in the bed of revolution. I tried not to look back when I left, but I would be lying to say I didn’t.
* * *
I got back around the time the sun had started to set. Like it was mocking me, the sky was never a more beautiful shade of pink and orange and purple than at that moment. Its warm fading winds hugged me and eagerly pushed me on through the sky, my feathers rustling in the breeze. I landed just outside my room’s window, and stepped inside without a sound.
The first thing I did was wrap my bandages around my leg, which was beginning to hurt more and more. I guess it was the potion wearing off more and more, or maybe it was guilt that I should feel some sort of pain instead of coming out of a battle unscathed like it hadn’t even happened.
Once I had done that, I stumbled over to the pill bottles on the end table next to the bed. Somepony had placed my jacket from that night on it, and the pill bottles were next to them. I decided to hide them both in my jacket until I could find a better place. When I reached in one of my pockets, however, I felt something soft touch my hoof.
I pulled it out, not sure what to expect, and when I did I felt my stomach harden. In my hoof was a clump of hair, bright and clearly rainbow-colored. It was the kind of hair I had only ever seen on Rainbow Remedy, and clearly were no other. I remembered the nurse talking to me about stitches, and it all started to come back.
“Minty?”
I turned, and saw Grapevine standing in the doorway, silhouetted against the hall light. “What are you doing out of bed?” she asked.
“Wanted to see when I could take my medicine again,” I said, and it was true. The pounding in my leg had only grown until it had reached almost to the height of before taking to the potion, and I winced in pain.
“You can in another hour,” Grapevine said, walking to me. “You need to rest until then, but after we can have the radio on and all of us downstairs can come visit you two. How’s that?”
I nodded. “That would be great.”
She helped me climb back into bed next to Scout, but when she turned to go I stopped her. “Wait,” I said. “Sterling isn’t back yet, and well . . . could you be in here with us? I’d feel more . . . safe.”
Grapevine smiled a bit, then nodded. “Of course.”
I squeezed next to Scout, and Grapevine next to me, with my fragile form in the middle. I hugged Scout’s softly-snoring body tight and felt her do the same for me, but presumably for different reasons. I didn’t care right then, though. Sterling had left me, and if Grapevine wanted to show some affection, then I would let her.
I don’t know when I started to let go of myself, but I think it was just as I closed my eyes. I let go of the Minty from just a few days earlier, that I had held on to in vain. That was the me that no longer functioned in Fillydelphia, and never had. A new me, the me in a loving embrace of two mares, was what occupied my body now.
I was home.