Fancy that. Human.
The word seems almost alien to me now. I had a lot of memories of before I became a pony, but not very many when I had actually felt completely and totally human. Not even those few hours I had spent in dimension 33 with Twilight and we had both become Homosapien, and got back to Equestria to find we had been gone for a grand total of six months.
What bothered me was how that diamond dog that had been with Big Macintosh knew what my human name was. The only ones who knew were the Elements of Harmony (and Spike, of course) and I had only ever heard about the diamond dogs from what Spike had told me. Weren’t they all grey and brown and hairy, not unlike actual dogs, only obsessed with gems? That thing back there had looked more like a demonic lizard – it could probably be put down to the Combine, but still, weird.
This airboat looked almost like it was meant for a human. So did almost everything in Equestria. In fact, come to think of it, practically this entire world was amazingly human. I mean, how the smeg to we open doors?
No.
This wasn’t me anymore. Haydon Baxter was gone, Haydon Baxter was DEAD. I’m HEX now. HEX, godsdammit! Could you imagine me lifting a sword with hooves? I know, I know, unicorn magic, but swords are useless in Equestria.
Got to put this out of my mind, for the love of smeg! Think about... think about... think about...
Twilight Sparkle.
She rose like an iceberg out of mist through the fog and mess of my mind. Her twinkling eyes, her gorgeous mane, her jaw-dropping smile, her endless and undying optimism, her... perfection. That’s it. She’s perfect, in every possible way. Any naysayers can bite my furry terracotta arse. I wonder if Princess Celestia ever found out about what happened at the mountain.
Yeah, there’s a point. What happened to the princesses? The sun had visibly moved since I had first arrived in City 17, so presumably they were still operating, but where?
I was so deep in thought I barely noticed the CPs shooting at me, and when I finally came out of my stupor it was to find that a small crate had just impaled itself on my horn.
“Hey down there! Supplies! Look out below!”
‘Bit late to say that,’ I thought as I pulled the box off my head and showered myself with ammunition. I think I forgot to mention that in the sewers of City 17 I’d picked up an SMG, and thankfully there were some bullets for it, as well as a couple of HEV batteries and a tube of nanites. I reloaded the SMG, charged my suit and put the nanites away for later, because I was bound to need them.
I noticed that there was a ramp in front of me, but the vital and essentially “ramp” part of it was raised off the ground and it was balancing like a seesaw, teetering tentatively on the crease which split it evenly into two halves. I climbed out of the airboat and saw that it was being supported by its other end, which was hanging over water and had a basket on its underside which had a presumably empty barrel in it. It was that barrel that was stopping the entire ramp from sliding into the deep pool of water it was hanging over.
There were more barrels drifting aimlessly around in the water, and another standing at the mouth of a pipe which I pulled into the pool with my magic, considering myself lucky it was empty and therefore reasonably light. It wasn’t easy work, pulling the barrels under the water and depositing them in the basket, but I managed it, and soon after I revved up the airboat and cannoned over the ramp like a pegasus.
Looking around I guessed that once upon a time this river may have been considerably higher. There were water marks right at the top of the banks on either side, and surely it was no coincidence that there were these irregularly placed sandbanks all over the river.
Hey, Equestria? Take back your trains and your horse drawn carriages and your horse drawn horse drawn carriages, this is the way to travel! I couldn’t remember the last time I’d experienced speed like this – was this how Rainbow Dash felt all the time? No wonder she preferred her head in the clouds to her feet on the ground, this was awesome!
Alright, she probably doesn’t have that annoying buzz and the vibrating seat, but I completely understand why it’s so appealing.
Oh, smegory. CPs, and they’d closed a floodgate that was my only way forward. And now they were shooting at me. I jumped out of the airboat and took out all the police I could see, glad to make use of the SMG. Then I proceeded to enter the building which would lead me to the floodgate controls.
On the wall next to me was a monitor, not unlike the ones I had seen dotted around City 17. It was showing the concerned and worried face of the Great, Powerful and Vomit-inducing Trixie (Did you like that? Just made it up).
“We now have direct confirmation of a disruptor in our midst,” she declared, “one who has acquired an almost messianic reputation in the minds of certain citizens. His figure is synonymous with the darkest urges of instinct, ignorance, and decay. Some of the worst excesses of the GLaDOS incident have been laid directly at his feet. And yet unsophisticated minds continue to imbue him with romantic power, giving him such labels as the One Free Stallion, or the Cleanser of the Hex. Let me remind all citizens of the dangers of magical thinking. We have scarcely begun to climb from the dark pit of the evolution of our species. Let us not slide backward into oblivion, just as we have finally begun to see the light. If you see this so called Free Stallion, report him. Civic deeds do not go unrewarded and likewise complicity with his cause will not go unpunished. Be wise. Be safe. Be aware.”
I don’t know how long I stood there, staring at the now blank screen.
The One Free Stallion. Cleanser of the Hex.
Who was it that started this? All of a sudden I was a hero. But then, I didn’t blame the citizens for needing hope. I knew full well what the Combine liked to do with their worlds and the people who lived there.
How many CP ponies had I put down since I arrived in this godforsaken hellhole? I couldn’t recall.
I wouldn’t put it past Twilight to have started this up. If there was one thing she knew it was how to accidentally get noticed. But what if it was deliberate and somepony had told Trixie about my presence?
Mind you, a pony that cuts through CPs like a light sabre through a Jedi’s wrist is never going to stay invisible for long. Gods, I was like a pegasus who hadn’t noticed they had wings, or a serial arsonist who didn’t notice that they left a trail of ash in their wake wherever they went (These ‘obvious’ jokes doing anything for you?).
I felt a bit numb, really. I was...
I was in trouble. I heard the crackling of a CP walkie-talkie, but thankfully they hadn’t noticed me. Maybe if I kept quiet enough...
Or not. Nothing for it. I poured all my energy into levitating the SMG and fired it all the CP faces I could see. I was rather counting on the fact that they would rather shoot at me than my gun – can you actually do that? Can you destroy a gun by shooting at it?
I digress. Anyway, what I hadn’t been counting on was the flood of ponyhacks which suddenly started to whir their way towards me.
I crouched in a corner with my crowbar held in my teeth, and when they came in for the kill I smashed them against the wall. It was a lot easier than trying to jump around and having them slicing at me from behind. I was about to move on when something caught my eye, and I gave a fallen ponyhack a closer inspection.
What the smeg was that round, brightly coloured thing with the wires sticking into it?
Was that-was that a parasprite? Were the ponyhacks actually mutilated parasprites? That was horrible beyond comprehension. Even Rainbow Dash, who wasn’t on very good terms with the little things, would have to agree that this was nothing short of NASTY.
I didn’t have time to dwell on this. How long before my display here got noticed? I headed through the nearest door into an open area to find OH SMEG THERE’S ANOTHER MOUNTED GUN OVER THERE AND IT’S GOT A CP AT IT AND HE’S SHOOTING AT ME!! QUICK GET BEHIND THAT OUT OF PLACE SHIPPING CONTAINER HE’S GONNA SMEGGING KILL ME!!!
Okay, so let me work this out. There was a CP at the other end of the yard, it had a mounted gun and would turn me to Swiss cheese if I put so much as a tail hair in his sights. What I really needed was something small and lightweight, easy to throw even with suppressed telekinesis, but with enough explosive power to kill a lightly armoured pony that may or may not be cybernetically enhanced. If only I had something like these grenades I’d been carrying. Oh wait, I was carrying grenades! What are the odds of that?
See, I’d discovered that my HEV suit had only one gun holster, on my right foreleg, and it stored other weapons as data until I needed them. Don’t ask me how, it just did. Except for my crowbar. I had to carry it in my teeth, which wasn’t very pleasant – ever since I swallowed Dad’s keys when I was three I’ve never liked the taste of metal, and not just because the things took four smegging days to come back out again.
Whatever. I pulled the pin out of a grenade with my teeth (ow!) and telekinetically tossed it over the shipping container and heard it land on what sounded like the edge of a mounted gun barrel, bounce off and clatter on a floor of concrete, but I waited until I heard the explosion to check and see if the coast was clear.
Hadn’t that guy even noticed that grenade? It was like he hadn’t even bothered to move! These CPs might have some pretty tough weaponry, but they weren’t exactly about to discover the meaning of life or the theory of relativity.
I galloped past the dead CP and the somehow undamaged mounted gun, opened the door behind it and promptly closed it again when the CPs inside started to shoot at me, but some quick action with the SMG soon took care of them, and anyway there were only, like, three. Honestly, did these guys even bother? The armour wasn’t even very strong. No wonder Lightning was blending in so easily, these guys were dumb.
Smeg! Not only had they closed the floodgate, they’d also busted up the controls! Still, no worries. What the CPs hadn’t counted on, amongst other things, was the fact that there was a crane with some very heavy looking steel girders hanging off it. All it would take was a single grenade in the explosives very wisely stacked underneath it and the girders would go CRASHING through the floodgate.
Sorta like that. Job done!
It wasn’t too hard to fight my way back to the airboat. Sure, there was a load more CPs headed my way, but hey: I had a smegging mounted machine gun this time, mate. I kicked flank! Okay, okay, easy on the exaggerating.
A little way down the river I found that the Combine were still firing those shells of theirs and one of them struck the base of a huge chimney, which collapsed, almost in slow motion, across my path. Hell, it almost fell on top of me! I noticed that one of the pieces was curved like a ramp, and I sped towards it and caught some epic air time before hitting the water again.
Rollin’ on the river. I could see what the attraction was – I was cruising like never before – but I guessed that Tina Turner had never tried to perform that number whilst being shot at by something that looked like a Black Hawk. I’ve being very relaxed while writing this: it’s my faith in my orchestra of singing light globes that’s keeping me from going completely insane just remembering this stuff (they’re all different sizes, so they buzz at different tones and I can make music with them. Pretty neat, huh?).
I could hear the bullets thudding into the water behind and beside me. Several of them PINGED off the metal framework of the airboat, but a few more minutes and I wouldn’t be so lucky.
Oh, thank Celestia; there was a tunnel up ahead! I sped into it and heard the chopper’s bullets thud uselessly against the concrete above.
Whoa, that was a close one! I almost crashed into that gate!
“Hey! You’re Hex, aren’t you?” somepony shouted.
“I was the last time I checked,” I said.
The speaker was a pink earth pony mare with a purple and white mane and a tiara for a cutie mark. By the looks of things, she and her friend – an all over grey earth pony with a fancy-looking spoon on her flank – must have been rather posh once. I could tell by the way their manes were styled and the fact that they both held their noses rather high in the air, as if the ground were offensive to them. Or it may just have been the... what was it Big Macintosh had called it again? Demon dog? Damn, that sounded way more badass than diamond dogs. Where I come from, it’s just an album by some weird singer guy who looks like a girl.
“Well,” said the grey one, “I wouldn’t believe it if I like, couldn’t see it with my own eyes. Hex himself! This is, like, such an honour!”
“And you got here, like, just in time,” said the pink one. “We gotta, like, tear this place up and pull out before the Combine gets here. Come in here and I’ll show you what we’re up against.”
I was glad of a chance to get out of the airboat which was starting to feel like it might be my doom, and followed the mare into a shack-like structure. As I passed the demon dog it bowed and said “Greetings to the Baxter.”
Okay, how did it know my real name?
There was nothing inside the shack, saving for an illuminated map pinned to one wall. I could tell it was a map of the city, and there were several places circled in what looked like red pen. At least, it wasn’t blood. Sometimes I hate having an overactive imagination.
“Here, take a look at this,” said the mare, pointing at the map. “New TARDIS is here, past the dam and nestled in an old warehouse. But getting there with that hunter chopper on flank is gonna be, like, next to impossible. Good news is the demon dog should be working his magic on your airboat. In fact, he should be, like, finishing up about now.”
I did my best to ignore the fact that she was the type of pony who was guilty of excessive use of the word “like” and headed back out into the tunnel, where a demon dog was holding a glowing green paw over the airboat.
The vehicle now sported a machine gun, and it looked like I would be able to drive and fire at the same time. Sweet!
“That gun came off the same, like, type of chopper you’ll be facing,” said the grey mare. “It’s always good to like, have a little irony.”
“The Baxter will accept this weapon, or suffer greatly on the road ahead,” said the demon dog once it had finished. Okay, this was officially beyond weird and moving right on down to Freaky Town...
“Thanks, ladies,” I said as I climbed into the airboat.
The mares said “Farewell, Hex” and “Give ‘em hell!” respectively, while the demon dog shouted “For freedom!” and with that I zoomed out and into the canals again.
Right. Now I was beginning to question whether or not this whole thing was a massive, extremely vivid and real sounding/looking hallucination. For one thing, how the smeg did the demon dogs know my name? And what the smeg made them look like that? What had happened to the remaining Elements of Harmony? Where were the Princesses?
As soon as I got to the Doctor’s lab, me and Twilight were going to have a little talk about all of this.
Twilight...
I wondered what kind of relationship she had with the Doctor. And how did they all meet, anyway? He obviously knew everypony: Rarity, Applejack, and Twilight, and I’m guessing he knew the others as well; did he rescue them or did they just run into him or what? Man, I had so many smegging questions! Would I even be able to keep my mouth shut once I got to New TARDIS? Dammit, there’s another one!
What was that?
Oh yeah, the chopper.
I pressed my hoof on the accelerator and fired the gun like crazy into the chopper’s underside. Its wings exploded into flame and the vehicle ignited on its underside, but it steadfastly refused to fall, so I just sped on. Into a pipe large enough to house an elephant with room to spare for a house, and soon enough I reached a huge open area, a massive expanse of crystal clear water, studded with the occasional barrel of explosives. There was a dam over to the right – presumably the one that pink mare had been talking about – and a floodgate with a wheel next to it to the left. I guessed I would have to open it to get to the controls for the dam, which were bound to be either in or around that red barn-like structure on the hill.
Next to the barn was a helipad, and a second hunter chopper was just taking off as I saw it.
This wasn’t going to be easy.
It opened fire on me and I only just moved out of the way in time. Rather than shooting at the chopper straight away I destroyed the explosives floating in the water. I didn’t want to accidentally drive into them and blow myself up now, did I?
Then I opened fire and scored a direct hit on the chopper’s left wing. Bullseye!
The chopper promptly responded by bombing me with these weird black metal ball things with a red light that would blink for a few seconds and then it would go BANG! I managed to avoid most of them, but drove over one and temporarily deafened myself for a few seconds. When the ringing finally stopped I checked my PFM and found I had minor hearing damage (you don’t smegging say) and thankfully not much else, apart from the new ear piercing and bullet burn on my neck next to the small nick which had been carved by the ponyhack.
I fired again at the chopper and managed to ignite its other wing. I was halfway through considering that I might be getting pretty good at this when the smegging thing started bombing me again and I was forced to zigzag crazily around the water and once or twice I swear I came close to capsizing.
My thought process at that moment?
Left! No, right! Left! Left again! Now right! My other right! SMEG IT!
Getting a little tired of this!
Once that particular attack was over and the chopper went back to just shooting at me, I put several dozen bullets into its underside and the thing damn near exploded. If I could just get a few more shots I might be able to take it down.
Oh smeg. AIR RAID!
Three years of fighting and training could not have prepared me for the bombardment of bombs which sprayed across the whole area. I shot at a couple for an opening when I was surrounded and sped the smeg out of there before I got blown to pieces.
That’s it. Those Combine bitches were TOAST!
I didn’t even look where I was shooting anymore. I closed my eyes and fired in the direction of the chopper’s propeller noise, my own rage-fuelled screams filling my ears to the brim.
I only stopped shooting when I ran out of bullets and heard an explosion which sounded incredibly like a bunch of Combine bastards and their fancy shmancy helicopter thingy crashing into its landing pad, and when I finally opened my eyes, that was exactly what I saw.
YES! Oh yeah! Stick that up your flankhole and chew on it!
Okay, I’m getting a little bit off track here.
Turning the wheel and opening the floodgate was by far the easiest thing I’d done in the past couple of hours. I mean, it was just turning a wheel, wasn’t it? I still had to use the airboat to get up the hill to the barn, but that was just a walk in the park. Apart from when I got into the barn to find it was occupied by the Combine.
Let me tell you something about the .357 Magnum. It is by far one of the best guns I have ever had the privilege of using. I’d picked it up earlier when – I can’t really remember when, but I know that a single shot in the right place is enough to take out even the toughest of soldiers. That right spot is usually somewhere between the left eye and the right eye.
Once the barn was devoid of all life except me, I recharged my HEV suit from a handy charging unit on the wall, restocked on ammunition and headed outside to see what I was up against now.
The dam was pretty big and solidly built – only a complete retard would try to destroy it. I noticed that it had smaller, corrugated iron openings running along it, and a bit of searching produced a set of controls. I pulled a lever and one of these iron thingies dropped out of the way, leaving a handy way through just after a pile of logs stacked in a fashion similar to a ramp.
Starting to feel like I might be living inside a video game (this was all starting to feel very familiar) I headed back to the airboat.
I had seen what was beyond that dam. There was the warehouse, which was presumably what everypony was calling New TARDIS, but the level of the water leading up to it was a long way down.
This was not going to be easy.
I climbed into the airboat, left enough room to build up a good speed, and slammed my hoof down on the accelerator.