“Twilight, you foal,” Princess Celestia groaned.
The look she was aiming at her student's notes should have caused them to burst into flame, but the Princess of the Sun couldn't afford that. Without them, there was no chance of rescuing Harmony Incarnate from their hubris.
Twilight was only a few decades old; she lacked the millennia of experience her teacher had, and as such her spell – had she really dubbed it 'The Hoof of Friendship'? – was a demonstration of just that.
The magic had reached out to whoever or whatever might live in the stars, but hadn't remembered to keep a hoof on the ground.
Someone or something had found Twilight's magic and pulled.
Twilight had been worried because she and her friends were getting too used to death.
However, Fluttershy was screaming. Not the sort of horror-movie scream you might expect, but worse: a seemingly unending, almost inaudible, high-pitched whine at the threshold of hearing as she stared at the human visible over a street-blocking pile of rubble.
The human – a stallion, it was becoming easier to tell – had been lashed by the wrists to a telegraph pole, with what part of Twilight's mind clinically noted looked like wire, glinting in the blood from where it had cut into his wrists as gravity pulled him down. Normally the... crucified, that same clinical part of her mind supplied the word... would have attempted to push himself up on his hind legs. Except whoever had crucified him had smashed them to a pulp. You could see bone gleaming in the clotted mess.
“Fuck.” Haversack Joe's voice was flat as ever, but there was a distinct anger in it this time. “That's Legion work.”
They'd known something was wrong when Rainbow Dash had seen the smoke from a bonfire that was still burning now, an hour after the sun had set. A perfect finish to a long, lousy slog from Primm to Nipton, not helped by not one, but two ambushes from ruffians Joe identified as “Vipers. Thought they'd all been knocked down by the NCR already. Bastards.”
A couple of times Pinkie had tried to start up a song, but the familiar tunes of life back home leered grotesquely against the barren landscape, and she'd fallen silent.
On the other hand, they had discovered honey mesquite, and everyone agreed with Applejack that taking a few seeds home would be a great idea indeed.
Then there was the crazy guy yelling about winning the lottery as he danced his way west. Last Rainbow saw of him, he'd waltzed right into the waiting claws of two gigantic scorpions.
But right now Fluttershy was screaming. Which meant she hadn't become used to death. Which meant that they were still themselves and there was nothing to worry about and they just had to make it to Novac and then they could escape...
Twilight looked down. A lottery ticket was under her hoof. Fluttershy was still screaming. Nearby, an intact building claimed to be the Nipton General Store.
“Let's go in there,” she suggested in a shaky voice, pointing her horn at the door, “We need to... uh... catch our breaths.”
Joe looked at the store. Only one entrance, so the good news was that any Legion fuckers trying to get in would be sitting ducks. The bad news was that in that situation they'd be trapped in there. He looked at the traumatised ponies.
Inside, the smell of smoke wasn't so bad, not compared to the smell of blood and soiling coming from the man slumped on a chair, legs shapeless. The noise of their entry roused him, and he lifted his head enough to glare at them. “Goddammit, I was nodding off until you barged in here!” he snarled, “and I don't hurt when I sleep...”
The ponies stared at the wreck of a man, but he was looking at Joe. “Wait – you're that courier. With the talkin' ponies.” His tone turned wheedling. “Hey. Know what Boxcars needs, Joe? Some fuckin' pain relief!”
Joe's lips twitched, but Applejack beat him to a reponse. “Wh – wha – what the bucking hay happened here?” she finally burst out, trying to keep her eyes on... Boxcars'... face.
“The fuckin' Legion happened!” Boxcars snapped back, “What's it fuckin' look like?”
“There was a guy we passed,” Rainbow Dash said slowly, “he was screaming something about a lottery...”
“Fuckin' Swanick. He took first place in the lottery, so they let him walk.”
“Right into a pair of scorpions,” Rainbow supplied.
“Serves the fucker right. Me? Second place winner of the Nipton Lottery,” Boxcars sing-songed bitterly. “They beat my fucking legs with hammers. Just like those poor fuckers out there.”
“They... they crucified... everypony?” Twilight felt like she was about to vomit. The thought of seeing mares and foals tortured like that left her mind teetering. Beside her Fluttershy and Pinkie let out identical moans.
“No no, the Legion's a pack of assholes but they're not total assholes,” Boxcars looked at the ponies. “Ah, what the fuck? Not like I've got anything better to do. See... the mayor here had a sweet deal goin'. He'd let the NCR in during the day to get their jollies, then we'd hit the town at night. Anyway, me and my crew had it worked out to kidnap some NCR troopers who come to town to get laid. They'd get all liquored up, and crash in the hotel here. Had it all worked out with that scumbag mayor. We were gonna ransom 'em off, keep their weapons for ourselves, a nice score.
“So we get in position and next thing we know, we're surrounded by those fuckin' Legion freaks. They dragged us and everybody else into the centre of town. And that asshole with a dog on his head, he starts talkin' about how we're bad people!”
“Called you Dissolute, right?” Joe asked rhetorically, then looked around. “Legion calls anyone who ain't one of them Dissolutes. Unless you're slaves like the women and kids probably are now.”
“Yeah,” Boxcars agreed, “He said we needed to be punished for what we did, not all of us, but some of us. And then he gives everyone a fucking lottery ticket.”
The ponies all sucked in a breath of horror. Pinkie's mane actually unrolled onto the floor with an audible thump.
“That's how people got punished,” Boxcars went on relentlessly and resentfully, “First up was the 'lucky losers.' They got decapitated – guess that's 'lucky' cuz it's pretty quick. Then came the crucifixions. Goddamn but those went on and on and on... Third-place runners-up got enslaved, I got the fuck beat out of my legs, and the winner you say,” he pointed at Rainbow Dash, “is now bug shit.”
“What 'bout the mayor?” Joe asked.
“Him?” Boxcars snickered. “When his ticket came up, they burned him alive on that pile of tires on the east side.”
“The Le-gion are mon-sters,” Pinkie sing-songed, causing the other ponies to stop staring at the crippled man and eye her in increasing alarm. Her eyes were looking at nothing as she gently rocked from side to side with a frightening rictus on her face, mane swaying.
“Now storytime with Uncle Boxcars is over,” the pain and resentment boiled back. “An' ol' Boxcars needs some fuckin' Med-X, or at least fuck off an' let me sleep!”
Joe just looked at the poor bastard. Wrong place, wrong time. He considered his options. Option one was giving him a little lead mercy pill, but that was noisy. And those Legion fuckers might still be around. And they had a Vex... vex... those goddamn standard bearers with them if Boxcars was right about the headgear. Those fuckers just had to waggle their banner and every Legion soldier around would go totally psycho.
Fluttershy broke the silence, moving toward the crippled man while... Joe blinked. He hadn't realised pegasus wingtips were able to tote objects. “Um... we have some Med-X,” she began timidly, “I'm sure we can spare some... if that's all right with you?”
Boxcars' eyes lit up. “All right? Hell, just need... uh... five! Yeah, five shots. My legs really hurt, you know? Five should so just fine!”
Joe felt his jaw tighten. Five shots of Med-X was lethal. Then again, being stuck in this building with no legs and no weapons, food, or anything else, who could blame him for wanting to wreck?
Fluttershy had managed to get the cap off the needle, and was somehow... it was like the syringe was glued to the inside of her hoof. “Need a vein? Right here, in the elbow,” Boxcars urged eagerly. Then he yelped. The needle was blunt.
“Weren't we supposed to take... uh...” Twilight looked up at Joe.
“Well, some of these supplies were for here, but don't think they need 'em any more,” he replied as Fluttershy prepared the second shot. How the Sam Hill could... “How'n hell can she work a syringe like that?”
Twilight blinked. “It's our frogs. Here.” She extended a forehoof and Joe, getting the drift, placed his hand on it. The hoof was shaped like a normal horse's, but the softer tissue – woah. He could feel parts of it pulling and pressing on his hand, like someone pushing against a heavy curtain or something. Must be the frog, he decided. Beyond them, Boxcars mumbled as Fluttershy injected dose three.
The sound of the hapless gang member falling to the floor startled almost everyone, including Fluttershy, who hovered briefly before inspecting the laboriously breathing man. “Oh,” she said, then fished out a fourth syringe.
“What're you doing?” Pink...amena... asked in that slightly deranged singsong.
“Being kind,” Fluttershy replied, dropping the spent needle and pulling out a fifth.
“You're killing him,” the normally bubbly pony accused.
Fluttershy ignored her and inserted the needle once more, pushing the plunger home. “Sometimes they come to me,” she said softly, muzzle almost touching Boxcar's face, “and I can't help them get better.”
Boxcars' breathing was slowing audibly. “All I can do is make them comfortable.”
When the man's breathing finally stopped the silence became louder.
Then Pinkie's tail started vibrating. The vibration spread to her hindquarters, then her forelegs, and to the surprise of everypony the mare was pretty much a pink blur.
“P-p-p-p-ink-k-k-k-ie S-s-s-s-en-n-s-s-s-se!” emerged from the convulsing pony.
“And it's big,” Rainbow observed.
“That's not good?” Joe cast a look at the door, expecting an entire platoon of Legion to storm in.
As quickly as her spasm, or 'pinky sense', or whatever the hell it was, came on, it ended. Except that somehow the pink pony'd extracted some sort of carnival cannon from God only knew where and was aiming it at the door while her friends scrambled out of the way.
Twilight looked at the door, at Pinkie's limp mane, at the crazed grin on her face, and then finally at the soldier who'd just kicked the door open. “I'd say –”
The cannon went off.