//------------------------------// // Chapter 25: Did we just jump the shark? // Story: Fallout: Equestria - Memories // by TheBobulator //------------------------------// Chapter 25: Did we just jump the shark? “I did everything I could think of to change the future. But it didn't work.” Whether he liked it or not, Middy was coming with me. Hauling him back to the supply closet that Violet was playing in was a challenge in of itself, but I wasn’t going to take no for an answer. Like most movement-impaired ponies, he didn’t try to scamper away while I dragged him along behind me. He hadn’t even thanked me for making a splint for his leg! I finally made it back to my favorite unicorn and propped my brand new friend up against the wall by the door. While doing so, I noticed the little placard barely hanging onto the wall that read “013 Records Room”. If dirt-themed universities were anything like higher education complexes in cloudland, that meant we were in the basement. Oh yeah, and we needed to find Riverbed again. Hopefully she was okay. As I pondered, Gale appeared next to Middy and examined his leg. “Riverbed’s a grown mare,” she replied. “I’m sure she can handle herself.” “She’s in it for the money. Is she even going to bother waiting for us? I already paid her, too.” A cardboard box skidded out of the room past me. It was quickly followed by a second, a third, then a fourth. Violet trotted out, a sort of amused grin on her face. She was still nose-deep in her book, and several others hovered nearby while open to specific pages. She hadn’t taken notice of me yet. “Hey, Vi-vi! Can we keep him?” I called out cheerfully to the unicorn. The only reply I got back was a tug on my wing, then a much stronger tug that dislodged a feather. “Ow!” I flinched back. “What is your problem?! How do you go through these so quickly?” The stolen feather floated by in Violet’s magic and into her robes. “Follow me. I found a citable source for my research, and I need you to make sure he’s not rabid.” “What about Middy?” I wasn’t going to let him just roam around on his own, seeing as he was now indebted to me forever. He didn’t even look anywhere close to being grateful that I’d saved him. Currently, he was scowling at me. “C’mon, butt slave, don’t give me that look,” I groaned. Middy’s horn sparked once or twice, and he winced. “Stop calling me that.” “Do we give him the bondage treatment or what?” I eyed him up and considered what I had to tie him up with. “I don’t care. As long as one of you wants to tag along, it doesn’t matter.” Violet began to trot down the hall, boxes sliding along behind her like a line of ducklings and the books similar to a descending mob of angry bloatflies. Fixing Middy with a suspicious glare, I asked, “What are your thoughts on nylon rope? Out of ten.” There was an off chance that I had some form of binding material somewhere, but I was going to be courteous since Gale seemed to like him. “Ten being the most irritating?” Wasn’t that a given? “Yeah, of course.” “Eight point six seven,” Middy instantly replied. I narrowed my eyes at him. “And you know that because…?” “Uh.” With an answer like that, I didn’t want to hear any more. “Well, stay close or I’ll have to chop your other legs off,” I remarked nonchalantly. No rope meant no bondage, so I pushed Middy onto his hooves and followed after Violet. Down and down we went, down dark stairwells, down deserted halls, until we reached a steel-reinforced door with big sliding bolts locking it shut. A wall-mounted terminal was attached to its right, along with a small card reader. The three of us stopped and silently stared at the door. Violet began to flip through her book for something. Middy trotted to the door and kicked it once. “Looks like it’s locked. Now what?” A dumb idea came to mind. “Open pistachio!” I declared at the door, obviously with no result. When I turned my head to glance at Violet, I caught the disapproving glare coming from Middy. “What? I read it in a book. Vi-vi, back me up here.” “It’s ‘open sesame’, Frosty,” Violet sighed. She apparently found what she was looking for in her book and approached to terminal to activate it. A little shiny thing fluttered out of her book and magically affixed to my nose. “Gold star for trying.” Peeling the thing away with a talon, I shouldn’t have been as surprised as I was. It was indeed a small shiny golden star that had been stuck to my nose. “I was close. It was some kind of nut, so I guessed.” Carefully, I took the sticker and affixed it next to the moon on Middy’s butt. Perfect. Just as the sticker adhered, Middy edged away and whirled on me. I did my best to withdraw my claw and pretend to innocently examine it. He seemingly didn’t notice, but he still told me, “Sesame is a type of seed. You should know that because you’re half bird.” I gasped and theatrically clutched my heart. “Ouch. And everypony thinks I’m the racist barn here. The nerve. My feelings are so hurt that I’m going to make me feel better by eating away my problems.” Still maintaining my dramatic tone, I announced, “Come to me, my unhealthy carrot-shaped chips.” Once again, Violet and her infinite wisdom knew better than I did. “Stable-Tec brand preserved foods actually retain up to ninety five percent of their nutrients, as per the industry standard. It may be surprising to you, but even after balefire radiation they shouldn’t lose much more than ten percent through the power of preservatives as well.” At least now I knew that meant binge-eating carrot chips was counterproductive. “What about my cherry snack cakes?” Several pages flipped and I got an answer quite promptly. “You’re getting about five thousand percent of your daily sugar intake and about four percent of your fruit group. And something like twelve percent of grains as well. Let’s not mention the preservatives actually in the cakes as well. Zero point one—rather, zero point zero six grams of asbestos, which is slightly amusing,” Violet smugly responded. That was more like it. “And that’s in one box?” Violet’s reply was delayed since she was busy mashing the buttons on the wall terminal. “One serving. There are six servings in a box. Have fun with those tumors.” “Oh.” So… assuming I ate about six a day, times four weeks, minus I’m not a snack cake… I attempted to do the math, but without knowing the finer points of advanced calculus I’d probably never know the answer. “I think I should be getting a number that isn’t very good.” WIth a tortured screech, the rusted bolts on the door ponderously cranked open. Middy and I stared at the dark hallway behind it, hesitant to take the first step. Violet solved that problem for us by nudging us out of the way and stepping forward with a faint beam of light streaming from her horn. It reminded me of an old song, which I began to hum the opening bars of until I got to the bit that I actually knew. Lowly, I began to sing, “—with your horn so bright, won’t you guide my sl—” The searing brightness of Violet’s face laser in my eyes forced me to stop singing, cover my eyes, and whine, “What? Riverbed’s missing, so somepony has to do it. And ow, seriously. Bright.” At least Violet had the common courtesy to mutter a half-assed “Sorry” before turning her focus back to the darkness in front of us. She continued to trot along, so I shoved Middy in after so I could take up the rear. Not only did it give me the opportunity to sprint the other way at the first sign of trouble, but it also kept Middy from sneaking away. Who was a clever pony? I was a clever pony. A second beam of light emerging out of a side hall ahead of us brought our little train to a standstill. The sound of a delightful little three-note tune preceded the appearance of a Stable-Tec robot. It was basically a little floating metal ball with six little extenders coming off of it. The three on the top looked like its “eyes”, and the three on the bottom had a myriad of weapons attached to them. Standard stuff, really. “HALT. PRESENT IDENTIFICATION. CLASS GRAY IDENTIFICATION IS REQUIRED FOR THIS ZONE.” Without missing a beat, Violet flashed a badge at the robot. Its middle eye-stalk-thing peered at it and seemed to be okay with it. “YOUR COOPERATION IS APPRECIATED. ENJOY THE REST OF YOUR DAY.” Satisfied, it hovered away past us. Somehow—actually, no, never mind. This was Violet. She had managed to find all the answers to life, the universe, and whatever “Class Gray” security clearance was. We eventually arrived in a cramped little room with a large window on one wall and a bank of defunct technological nonsense on the other. The other side of the window showed a dirty padded room, devoid of any other furnishings, save a toilet and cot. It only held one occupant, and hardly. An old, scraggly, balding thing sat in the middle of the room, complacently humming to itself. It didn’t look like it could see properly anymore because of its clouded eyes, but I couldn’t help but think it was staring at us. As if it couldn’t get any worse, it decided to open its dumb wrinkly striped face. “Greetings. I am the all-seeing mystical Hachu.” The combined odor of musty books and rotting flesh forced a sneeze out of me. “Gesundheit,” Middy distractedly muttered. He seemed more fixated on the wispiest thing sitting in the room next to us. I scooped up part of his tail and wiped my nose on it. “You’re excused.” Maybe I was allergic to zebras. Or maybe stupidity. The tail flew out of my grasp before I could finish wiping. “Ew! Keep your boogers to yourself.” Its stripey ears perked up and it looked around. “Nobody sneezes at the mighty Hachu! Show yourself so you may receive your punishment.” Violet ignored us and instead pressed a button on the console behind us. She cleared her throat and spoke, “Okay, Hachi. Your cooperation has been greatly appreciated and your continued assistance has been recorded for your exoneration. We need a few more things from you.” “What am I, a used map peddler? Hachu, Hachu. If you can’t remember that, write it down again!” The horrid, slightly shedding old zebra gurgled in laughter. “I’ve been in here so long that I’ve already obtained inner peace and have nearly transcended mortal bounds.” “Indulge us. I have a few personal questions for you regarding talismans.” The zebra shook its head. “The four of you have no patience. Younglings.” Four? Either the number was too high, or not high enough. “You mean three,” Violet corrected. The scraggly thing in the padded box chuckled. “A mind as large as an ocean, but with the depth of a puddle. If only you knew the the wonders of an open mind, little pony. Friends work in, heh, mysterious ways.” …WAIT. Was he counting Ice Storm? Ice coalesced beside me and made a disapproving face at the zebra, who almost seemed to be leering back at him. Giving my piggybacking ghostly thing a nudge, I shot him a confused look that that usually preceded an explanation. While Violet began asking him various questions, cold began to nip at the nape of my neck. “Seriously, buck shamans.” Changing to a more mocking tone, Ice muttered, “Ooh, let’s meddle with the affairs of the unliving because it’s fun and shit.” His voice shifted back into a more serious tone. “Okay, this is going to be a little weird and a little uncomfortable.” That was all the warning I got when he jumped into my body. Something in my gut seized and I tried not to double over in pain. It almost felt like my blood had suddenly been replaced with freezing water. I bit back a grimace as my armor suddenly felt a size too small as it began to pinch in places it hadn’t a moment ago. In an instant, the twisting feeling passed and I felt the need to shiver and cough. Moving my leg to cover my mouth was nearly impossible because of how tight my armor was feeling. The other two ponies gave me a weird look, more so by Violet. “Frosty, that didn’t sound too good. And you’re looking a lot more pale than you usually do,” she whispered, her hoof over the microphone. “Do you think you want to step outside?” “And leave you with this clown?” I coughed and wheezed. “As if.” Casting a disappointed glare at Middy, Violet scoffed and casually remarked, “He has magic burnout and he hasn't even noticed I planted a burning hex on him yet.” “What?” Middy frantically began to pat himself down. “It’s triggered by movement, you know,” Violet added. Middy immediately stopped any sort of movement and even ceased breathing. “Ah, peace and quiet at last.” I tried my best, but I inevitably ended up launching into another series of wracking coughs. The dumb look forming on Violet’s face told it all and I hastily gasped, “S-sorry. I’ll be r-right outside.” One of my lungs tried to escape my chest, which made me choke out, “Holyshit. Ow.” Once out of the room and with the door shut, all my discomfort abruptly vanished in a literal puff of smoke—one which congealed back into Ice Storm. The cough vanished, as did the tightness in my armor. For once, even Ice looked a bit disheveled. His trenchcoat was crumpled and his fedora looked like it had been flattened by an ice sheet. “What happened to you?” While Ice muttered to himself and tried to straighten his coat, I changed my mind and instead demanded, “Actually, no. What happened to me?” Ice defensively raised his hooves as I fixed him with the angriest glare I could scrounge up. “Okay, there was not a lot of space in there. My bad, I forgot armor doesn’t really work that way.” There was no way in all of Tartarus that I was going to let him poof away without another word. “Explain yourself. In as few words as possible,” I insisted, slamming my claw into the wall next to him when he tried to take a step back. “Now.” Ice hesitated, then rolled his eyes and settled himself. “There are three states a phantom like myself can take. Haunt, Possess, and Manifest. The first is simple and self-explanatory—sit in something. Specifically something, and not someone. Possession is what I’m doing to you—hanging out with a living thing. Manifest is a weird one. It draws on local ether to form and meld a solid shape, with varying results to the target being inhabited.” “So you…” I slowly started to put the puzzle pieces together. “Manifested in me?” Ice opened his mouth, tapped his chin, then replied, “With you. And yes, I needed to do that because shamans are dumb. Just don’t worry about it.” “Then I’ll worry about it,” Gale insisted. Ice glared at Gale. “…That’s not fair. Fine, it’s because I don’t want to get exorcised or some garbage like that, okay? Do you want to be a frog? I don’t want to be a frog.” As weird as it had been, I couldn’t argue with that logic. “Uh… so does that by going in me mean you gave me ghost cooties? Ghost STDs? Ghost STD cooties?” Nothing could cure cooties. By association, ghostly cooties were even worse. Gale appeared beside me and demanded, “Hang on, hang on, hang on, more importantly you didn’t have any permission at all to do that to us.” Once she mentioned it, that did sound like a very reasonable train of thought. A strange stallion that I only vaguely knew had forced himself into me without precedence? Yup, sounded exactly like something that went onto an allegation. “Um.” The look on Ice’s face quickly switched from thoughtful to suspiciously blank. “We are both consenting adults. Everything is fine.” The side of Ice’s trenchcoat abruptly bulged and Toasty gleefully popped out of it. “Did somepony suggest rape?” The three of us glared at her. “Wow, tough crowd. Go buck yourselves.” She tucked herself back into the coat and vanished. Ice even lifted his coat and thoughtfully hummed to himself at the nothing in it. The door behind me burst open and I found myself face-to-face with Middy’s head. “Your friend says you’d better take a look at this.” I exchanged a confused glance with Gale. Fixing me with the same serious emotionless stare, Ice stated, “Do not look at it. Everything is fine.” For a second, Gale regarded him. “Drama queen,” she scoffed. “Let’s go see what Midnight needs, hm?” “What Violet needs,” I reminded her, turning back around and putting my hoof on the door. Strangely enough, Ice didn’t budge and opted out to sort out his outfit. Gale snorted. “What could she possibly need?” ~~~~~ Mister claw met mister face for their long-awaited reunion. “I can’t believe she opened up the security feeds for the entire building with a paper clip,” I groaned. In the time that I had been outside, Violet had reactivated the defunct equipment against the wall. The multitude of screens showed various locations in the rest of the complex, but the other two were both affixed on the one showing a very frantic Riverbed. “I’m more impressed that your friend is trying to break down a locked security door with a broken chair.” Middy leaned forward at the screen and squinted at it. “Why does she think that wood beats metal?” It looked a lot like Riverbed was yelling at the door as well, but without an audio feed we would probably never know what it was. I was a lot more concerned with whether she’d actually go nuts without us. The next problem was, of course, whether she’d simply leave since I had been forcibly teleported away. After a momentary silence, I cautiously muttered, “So… is that it?” I had been expecting something on a more catastrophic level. Violet gave me one of her patented “are you a moron?” faces. “Well, one of us needs to go find Riverbed and bring her back here. Since you’re the one with the combat experience, I was hoping it would be you. That, and I’m working on something far more interesting.” She nodded at the zebra in the room behind us. “Don’t think for a second that I’m not going to take advantage of somepony with a seriously powerful placation hex on them.” I didn’t know what most of that meant, so I decided to ignore it and groan instead. “Fine, I’ll go find Riverbed.” I began to take a step away, then I paused. “Uh, will you be okay with Middy?” I didn’t want to find out what happened if Violet died and the collar got confused. Once again, Violet began to show that look and I realized how stupid my question was. “Okay, you’ll be fine. But can you spring this dumb collar at least? It’ll make finding Riverbed a lot easier if I don’t have a range restriction.” “Do you promise to be safe?” “Yes.” I eagerly nodded. A simple promise was nothing compared to what I would actually do just to be rid of this dumb collar in the first place. Leveling an eye at me, Violet flatly stated, “I don’t believe you. Take Midnight with you.” “But he’s dumb! And his name is dumb! And he looks dumb!” I incessantly whined, much to Middy’s discontent. Middy raised his hoof and objected, “Do I even get a say in—” “No,” I snapped. Simultaneously, Violet also replied, “Of course not.” “So… what about the collar?” I hopefully asked. “It would cause less trouble for you.” Sighing, Violet raised her book and flipped back and forth through it. In the event that she was actually going to get it off of me, I stood around and hopefully waited for it to happen. She eyed me again, then at something in her book. Her horn glowed brilliantly, then I felt the strap around my neck loosen and drop off. I was free! Seizing my newfound freedom by its metaphorical balls, I seized Middy and pulled him behind me by the convenient carry-handle on the back of his vest. “Come along, butt slave. We’re going on a rescue mission!” I cheerily sang, hovering down the hallway. If Middy had actually been walking as opposed to whining on the ground, I could have even saved the trouble of having to fly by making him carry me along. “Be back in time for dinner. Don’t get in trouble. Play nice.” Hearing Violet say that without a single drop of sarcasm in her voice was a bit surreal. “Okay, mom,” I snarked back. ~~~~~ Ten minutes later, I realized I didn’t really know where I was really going. There weren’t any maps on any walls and all of the doors to the left and right of the hall looked exactly the same as the other. Most of the numbers and labels were either missing or unreadable, so I had been ambling along with Middy in front of me. Having him around was pretty useful—he’d step on bear traps before I did. How was it possible that a building had a basement that couldn’t be accessed from the first floor? Some of these bits of debris on the floor were even starting to look familiar. “If I had some explosives we could have made our own stairwell,” I grumbled. Middy’s butt asked, “Wouldn’t that blow up the building as well?” He had his eyes affixed on the ground more rather than our surroundings, probably because of bear trap reasons. On the topic, his limp looked like it was getting worse. However, the splint that I had tied onto his leg looked like it was still holding up so I chalked it up to him being a massive wuss and let him clear the way with his face. “Well, just enough to blow up a small hole.” We continued to trot, until I passed Toasty plastered to a door and lazily gnawing the handle. I stopped and asked her, thoroughly confused, “What the buck are you doing?” Middy stopped and turned around to face me. “What?” Ignoring him, I offhoofedly snapped, “Shut up, butt slave. I wasn’t talking to you.” What was Toasty doing? “You passed this door twice already. It’s a stairwell,” Toasty mumbled around a mouthful of stainless steel. “And I’m bored.” I doubtfully glanced at the door in question. “I don’t believe you.” Toasty let go of the handle and flopped onto her back. “After you, dumbass.” I couldn’t help but notice that she was trying to be cute—she had her forelegs tucked under her chin and her hindlegs up in the air, wings splayed, almost showing off her stomach. Of course, that made me cautiously ask, “What are you even doing?” “Stormy told me I wasn’t bucking likable, so I’m working on it,” Toasty growled. Why would Ice Storm even— “Wait, wait, wait. Why would you even need to be likable, anyway? I do all the talking. Or Gale.” A part of my mind pointed at how quiet Middy was being, but I was still bothered by Toasty trying to be appealing. The same part of my mind told me to just shut up and see if Toasty was actually right or whether she just wanted attention. “It really wouldn’t hurt to check,” Gale admitted. I rolled my eyes and reluctantly agreed. A cursory examination of the door revealed it wasn’t trapped, so I took a step toward it and shoved it open. The back of my neck suddenly tickled for a moment, and I definitely heard something whiff through the air. Somewhere, metal clattered on metal. Interesting. Paranoia dictated that check it out, so I backed up and glanced down the flickering hallway. “Huh. Must have been my imagination.” I was about to trot into the room when I noticed Middy face-first on the floor with one of his larger bladed objects clutched in his mouth. Heh. “I like your enthusiasm, but your approach needs work,” I chuckled. The only reply I got was a very frustrated whine. Shrugging it off, I stepped over the stallion on the floor and peered into the room beyond. It wasn’t very big, considering it was mostly taken up by stairs. “Don’t. Say. Anything,” I slowly growled, anticipating Toasty’s shit-eating grin. “Oh, don’t mind me. It’s not like I’m staring or anything,” Toasty smugly responded. I got the feeling she was trying to be funny, but I didn’t get it. Very slowly, I cocked my head at her. The look on her face melted away when she realized I hadn’t understood it. It only took an additional three seconds for realization to sink in. “Shit, that sounded great before I said it.” “Yeah…” I stared up the stairwell and I could barely see the outline of a door at the top. “And that door better work.” Wings flapped and shifted as Toasty tried to right herself. “Stare. Stair. C’mon, it was going to be good. Thinking is hard.” She groaned in defeat. “I think you need to step it up,” I quipped. Toasty seized the back of my head and yanked me back. “Did you just—” “No need to escalate?” That hopeful addition made Toasty let go of me. She stared nearly crossed-eyed at the floor, intensely concentrating. “Uh… we’re taking steps in the right direction? We’re going to sell all of our… income stairs?” I looked blankly at Toasty for a moment, then faceclawed. “That was horrible. Like, the worst pun I’ve ever heard. Did we just jump the shark?” “What?” “It’s an expression.” We glared at each other, waiting for the other to make a move. Moments passed, then Toasty sighed in defeat, “Don’t forget mister meatsack.” In all the excitement, I’d nearly forgotten about him. Looking behind me, I found that Middy was still dejectedly whining into the floor. “Come on, butt slave. I’ve got a friend to find.” I tried to coax him up to his hooves, but I decided that dragging him along was just easier than waiting for him to catch up. Once again, I seized him by his carry handle and began to cumbersomely fly up the stairs. Something kept thumpity-thump-thumping on the stairs, but I wasn’t willing to put in any more effort into lifting Middy. “Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Okay, I’ll walk! Ow!” Middy abruptly cried and began to struggle. With that, I did what he asked and let go of him. “What is wrong with you?” he whimpered, rolling on the stairs and clutching his head. “A lot of things.” I patiently hovered at the top of the stairs by the door and crossed my forelegs. “C’mon, double time. There’s less than twenty steps here so you’d better not be tired already.” “Well, somepony dragged my head up ten of them.” “I wonder whose fault that is.” “Gee, I wonder.” I cocked my head at the door. “Just open it and tell me if it’s safe.” “Why are you doing this to me?” There was a simple answer for that question. “Because I don’t want to be the one stepping in a bear trap. I’m already one leg short as it is,” I impatiently snapped back. “Through the door.” Middy stopped short of the door and huffed, “Why should I do that?” He was glaring at me with a good deal of defiance, so I was going to put a stop to that. I drew my laser rifle and pointed it at him. “You make a compelling argument,” Middy admitted. At gunpoint, he nudged open the door and peeked out of it. When nothing happened, he shrugged and took a few steps out into the hall. “It’s safe. See? Sheesh.” Click. This was irony at its best. “It’s okay, I think you just stepped on a mine. Not really my problem, so thanks for solving that for me.” It took a bit of crafty positioning and flight, but I managed to squeeze through the doorway and around Middy without touching him. “Just don’t move. Don’t breathe.” Mines were tricky—some were pressure sensitive, some were timed, weight was a popular one, and some were counter-intuitive. Since it hadn’t blown up yet, I decided to take a look at it. I gently landed in front of Middy and leaned down to the ground. “Tell me it’s just a spider,” he whimpered. To my uneducated eye, it looked like an ordinary, low-tech antipersonnel mine. “It’s an exploding spider, if that really does make you feel better.” Now that I knew I was safe, provided that Middy didn’t go anywhere. I stood back up and stretched out my wings as Middy continued to hyperventilate. “What do we do?” “Well, you stay there and do your best statue impression.” Which one of these hallways could Riverbed be down, anyway? All three basically either ended in darkness or a turn, so any of the three were fair choices. A quick game of eeny meeny miney moe told me that I’d take the right path and make a loop around the building if it was possible. “I’ll be back. Don’t go anywhere.” “Oh, ha ha. Very funny.” Middy began to sarcastically chuckle, which slowly turned to panic when I actually began to trot away. “Wait, come back! I don’t know how to disarm a mine!” Wow, it was pretty dark in here. “You’ll be fine,” I shouted back. Now that I could focus on the problem at hoof, finding Riverbed would be that much easier. Unfortunately, I really didn’t know where to start and I could barely see as it was. It would also have helped greatly if Middy wasn’t screaming like he was standing on a landmine. “Is the mine even live?” Gale pondered out loud. Hearing her voice behind me made me jump a little bit since I hadn’t been expecting it. I shot an annoyed look at her before responding, “Buck if I know. I was under the impression that all mines were live and pushing the big button on the top just makes it turn off. Even if that one doesn’t have a button probably doesn’t mean it’s safe to throw.” Gale shrugged, then lifted a hoof to her chin in thought. “Hold on, isn’t your radio tuned into Riverbed’s frequency?” That was a good question. “...Is it?” I wondered, slowly maneuvering around to face her. “It should be. Why don’t we try radioing her?” Avoiding the question, I countered with, “Wouldn’t she have tried that first?” “What if your radio is out of batteries?” “Of course it has batteries,” I confidently scoffed. Rational thought caught up a minute later and I added, “Wait, this thing runs on batteries?” Gale blankly stared at me. “What else would it run on? Here, let me see it.” She reached over my shoulder and plucked the little radio off its mount. I didn’t even question whether she knew what she was doing since I wouldn’t know the first thing to do anyway. “I’m sure it’s just out of power.” The throat mic and the earbloom were still connected to it, which were in turn still connected to me when she yanked it to examine. “Ow! Watch the wires.” “Sorry.” Gale scooted a bit closer so that the wires weren’t strangling me anymore. “I was under the impression it ran on whatever this PipBuck runs on.” To prove my point, I cranked up the backlight and flashed it at Gale. “I haven’t had to recharge this thing yet.” The whole point of the motion was ruined since Gale simply did not care about it. She was having a much harder time trying to figure out how to open the battery case. “Point…” Gale mumbled. “Oh. Ha, I found the problem.” “Hm?” I peered at the radio in her hoof at where she was holding it. Apparently the answer was as simple as plugging the earbloom back in. “There we go. Problem solved.” Gale tapped the “call” button on the side and chimed, “Hello, testing. Testing.” A burst of static blew out my eardrum. “Who the buck is on my freq? Hey, this channel is restricted!” Since I couldn’t resist being a smartass, I snarked, “Is this Future Burger? I’d like a number three combo.” There was a frustrated sigh from the other end of the radio. “Shit, guy. I, like, didn’t recognize your voice for a second there.” Riverbed’s relief quickly turned into frantic blabbering before I could respond with anything else. “Guy, where are you? I saw you buckin’ explode right in front of me! Are you stuck in a painting? Do I need to come rescue you? Are you in a well?” At least somepony cared. “Nah, I’m fine. Hey, so I’m lost and stuff and Violet told me to come find you. Where are you?” “If I knew I’d tell you, guy,” Riverbed brightly replied. “I think I’m in some sort of, like, hazardous material storage closet. Wow, now that I say that out loud I should probably just go buck on off out of here.” “Why are you in a… whatever?” “I thought it was a security room or something. Guy, I built a pry bar out of some nails and a table leg. Too angry about it to care now, guy.” Great. Both of us were hopelessly lost. I trotted around myself in a circle and debated my options. Either I could stay where I was and have Riverbed find me, or vice versa. “Oh, I know! How about a rousing game of Water Polo, guy?” Riverbed suggested. A what? “I’m not really sure what you mean by that.” “Did you, like, never play Water Polo? Guy, like, how?” I shared a confused look with Gale, who shrugged back at me. “I don’t know. Probably not part of approved training exercises, probably,” I answered. Gale nudged me and whispered, “There was an extra ‘probably’ in there.” “Doubly unsure,” I snapped. Maybe there was a map somewhere to look at? “Here’s how it works, guy—I say ‘water’ and you go ‘polo’. Easy peasy, guy.” “Okay, but… what’s the purpose?” I began to trot down the hall. There had to be a map around here somewhere! What sort of building wouldn’t have a convenient map taped to a wall? “It’s something like listening for everypony else’s voice and finding them, guy. Water!” “Polo?” I paused in mid-step and thought about it. “Riverbed, we’re doing this over the radio. How is this going to help us find each other?” Silence. “I just might not know how this game works.” In the distance, I heard a frustrated scream and something hard hitting something probably wall-shaped several times. “Ow. Okay, uh, how about if—” For once, my brain caught up to what was going on. “Hold on, was that you?” “Did it sound something like this?” The same frustrated scream rang out, followed by more hammering. Oh. Problem solved. I had a good idea of where that had come from, assuming I could follow this hallway that far. “Okay, uh, I think I know where you are. I’ll try to come and find you.” I tried to continue in the direction that I’d heard Riverbed as best I could. “Just follow the soothing sounds of my voice!” Riverbed sharply screeched somewhere ahead and to the right of me in the distance. It took much longer than I’d expected to find her because of how this building was basically a maze. I had finally found her frantically pacing back and forth right outside the metal door that I had seen on the monitor. A peek inside confirmed that there were, in fact, bottles upon bottles full of toxic-looking contents. “Guy! You’re alive!” Riverbed flung herself at me, hysterically bawling. Caught off guard, I hastily sidestepped and watched her face-plant. I was more curious about the dangerous and potentially hazardous chemicals in the closet behind her. Were any of these still useful? More to the point, were any of these worth anything? As I examined the bottles, I started to notice a trend of large groupings of consonants and not a lot of actual words in them. The first bottle I picked up seemed harmless enough—a small brown stoppered bottle, its label unreadable and its contents seemingly clear. On the reverse side, there was a printed label that simply read XXX. In smaller font, there was a word that I wasn’t even going to begin how to pronounce. “Ah yes, the finest in liquid pornography,” I dryly observed. “What the butts is all this stuff, anyway?” “Guy! Didn’t you miss me? Weren’t you worried about me?” Riverbed dramatically cried from the floor. “I could have died!” There were a myriad of responses I could have picked, but I decided on, “You were going to be fine.” I was more interested in how much of this stuff I could take with me without rusting or exploding. A much more dejected Riverbed plodded in behind me. “I was worried, guy,” she quietly added. Hearing that coming from her was strange, but I was a lot more confused about the contents of all these bottles. “What’s silver hexa-whatever?” I asked aloud, squinting at another bottle. Riverbed peeked at it over my shoulder. “Is it worth anything?” I stared at it. “I don’t really know. Do we know anypony really smart?” That reminded me that I was here for a reason. “On that topic, I’m supposed to grab you so we can regroup with Violet.” “Like, let’s go then.” Riverbed chirped. We’d taken two steps before Riverbed decided to enlighten me with this little tidbit: “Oh, watch your step. I planted some old-school mines around the place.” Like the one Middy was standing on? “Why?” I asked, stopping to face her. “I was scared, okay? Shit, you blew up. Wasn’t going to get out of here without some free shit while I was at it, okay?” Riverbed spewed at me. “Guy.” “And I don’t really blame you. Let’s just get back to Violet and Middy.” Unheard, I muttered to myself, “Touchy.” “Middy?” Riverbed looked confused for some reason. Oh right, she hadn’t been around for that. Wow, I was quickly losing track of who was with me at all times. “I made a new friend. He’s standing on one of your mines.” Which also reminded me that Middy was probably getting tired from standing on a live land mine. “Wait, are your mines live?” Sounding slightly hurt, Riverbed instead whimpered, “You replaced me?” Was he a replacement? Hard to tell, seeing as all he did was complain. “I’m paying you to follow me around. He doesn’t really have much of a choice. Don’t sweat it. You can yell at him for a bit if it’ll make you feel better—he answers to ‘butt slave’. Let’s just go find him and get him off that land mine.” ~~~~~ “Guy, I don’t know whether I even want to disarm the mine anymore.” “Oh my goddesses what is wrong with you,” an exhausted Middy groaned. Even though that hadn’t been directed at me, I was still tempted to answer it anyway. “A lot of things.” A strange feeling of déjà vu prodded my mind and I thoughtfully added, “Haven’t we had this conversation? Wait, shit, did I already use that response on you?” Any further thought was wrecked by Riverbed. “Frosty, you can’t just like, let random ponies join you! Heck, you shouldn’t be allowed to force ponies to join you! I don’t like this guy, guy.” “But he owes me for saving him.” “I don’t care! He’s a liability and he’s useless. Am I just not enough for you?” “So what do you want me to do about it? I mean, we could go find the bear trap and put him back in it.” “Or we could let him go home?” Middy suggested. “By Luna, Middy—shut up!” I angrily snapped. Too bad that wasn’t enough to get Riverbed to shut up too.“Yeah, and what kind of name is ‘Middy’, anyway?” “It’s short for Midnight. I think it’s dumb so I’m calling him Middy,” I admitted. Both of us stared at the stallion in question, who seemed to be on the verge of falling over. “Eh, I think we can both agree on that,” Riverbed conceded. Sidling up to Riverbed, I whispered, “Look, I only picked up Middy because we can use him as a meat shield. He means nothing to me, I swear!” Out of desperation, I pointed at the unicorn. “I mean, look! I’m using him to clear mines.” Middy’s ears perked up at the mention of his name. “What was that?” Just because Middy seemed like he really wanted to be part of the conversation, I sidled up to him as well and repeated, “I mean, I was using him to clear mines.” “You’re an asshole,” Middy belatedly observed. Feigning hurt, I gestured at myself and said, “But I’m also a lot of other things. Tail. Sexy flank. Crazy. Three legs. You know, all the normal stuff.” “Fine. Fine! He can stay, but you owe me big, guy,” Riverbed finally decided. “For what?” Riverbed shuffled to Middy and carefully dropped to the ground. With a surprising amount of finesse for an earth pony, she produced a small pin-like object out of her mane and stabbed it into the side of the mine in one fluid movement. “This.” She slowly rose to her hooves and stepped back to a reasonably safe distance. “There. Assuming I’m not a moron, I should have made the mine safe.” To his credit, Middy didn’t stop pretending to be a statue yet. In fact, it seemed like he actually stiffened up again. “A-are you sure?” Hesitation gave his voice a little tremble, which a specific Gale-shaped part of me seemed to find cute. Riverbed nodded and took a cautionary step back, so I followed suit just in case. Middy took a deep breath to collect himself, then dove off of the mine with a terrified shriek. Nothing happened, besides Middy floundering on the ground in delight. “I’m alive! I’m alive! Praise Celestia!” Rolling her eyes, Riverbed grumbled, “Yeah, yeah. Let’s go, Solitaire. You can praise all you want later, but for now we need to regroup, guy.” A smile slowly crept onto her face and she added, “We can, like, get you some orange juice later.” That dumb grin could only mean one thing. “Shit, I know I’m missing something funny,” I groaned. “I don’t like missing out on funny.” Riverbed smirked at me. “I bet you don’t even praise the sun, guy.” ~~~~~ The hallway outside the weird zebra room was covered in messy chalk diagrams and sheafs of paper with similar ink markings. There was a small pouch of something lying on its side beside a small collection of strange-looking tools on top of Violet’s book in the middle of the hall. An eviscerated sewing kit was right beside it for some reason as well. Several candles had been set up around little circle-looking thingies drawn on the floor. Who else but Violet to be sitting in the middle of it, smudged in chalk dust and also looking slightly singed. “You three took your time. Quick, I need Middy the unicorn over here,” Violet demanded. Without further ado and not bothering with my own questions, I basically chucked butt slave at her. Hold on, was that a grin on her face? For once, Violet actually looked happy. Ecstatic, even. There was a new light in her eyes and a big, dumb, Frosty-sized smile on her face. I felt a nudge at my side and I looked over, which nearly put my face into Riverbed’s. The two of us jumped back slightly and awkwardly pretended that it didn’t happen. An embarrassed cough later, Riverbed whispered, “Do you know what’s going on, guy?” It looked a lot like Middy really wanted to stop hearing things. His ears were plastered to his head and he was desperately trying to gallop away, but Violet was holding him in place with her magic. “Not. Entirely. Sure.” Bits of magic dust periodically sparked off of his horn as Violet excitedly rambled off more stuff at him, periodically pointing at things on the walls and floor. Since I didn’t understand any of what she was saying, I mentally tuned her out. Riverbed mumbled something about being tired and wandered off somewhere. I was content to watch the two unicorns have a lengthy one-sided conversation about magic stuff. Not because I was interested in the subject, but because it was vastly more interesting to watch Violet unstoppably gush at somepony that wasn’t me. Heck, I was still trying to get over the fact that Violet—Violet—had other emotions. She seemed to have a different personality entirely, in fact. Something gently brushed at my mane, and I somehow knew it was Gale. “Maybe we’re not alone?” she hopefully suggested. “Eh… as fun as that would be, I don’t think so,” I admitted. “My gut tells me it’s something along the lines of learning. Or indigestion.” While I was looking around, partly out of boredom and partly because I wasn’t sure if it was even safe for us to be here, I found where Riverbed had gone. She’d fallen asleep on the floor, her back to the wall and cuddling one of Violet’s boxes of papers and drooling all over the one her head was resting on. It was also nice to know I wasn’t the only one that had a plumbing problem in my mouth. “Aww. Look, she tuckered herself out.” Gale endearingly chuckled. “I’m going to draw on her face.” If I found a marker in all the random stuff I was carrying around in my gear, of course. Gale whapped the back of my head with her wing. “No, you’re not.” “Frosty. Frosty! I need your help,” Violet bossily demanded. “Get over here!” Before I could find out what was going on, I was being dragged over in Violet’s magical aura. On the way across the floor, I slid past Middy clutching his head and suffering what seemed to be the world’s biggest migraine. He would probably be okay. I was actually worried more for my own health and well-being instead. I finally skidded to a stop in front of a sort of hexagon-looking chalk and grease pile of squiggles on the floor, surrounding a weird twine-bone-scrap-thing. To the best of my ability, it looked a lot like a carved-up animal bone (whatever the weird long one with the smaller one attached to it was) with what seemed to be the innards of a lightbulb and components from a microspark pack tied into the space between the bones. It was also slightly smoking, which was greatly alarming. Even after putting in the effort to bodily drag me over, Violet wasn’t paying attention to me. “So… on a scale of one to ten, how dead will this make me?” I asked, skeptically watching her redrawing some of the design on the floor. Violet paused to look at me and, after taking a moment to think, she responded, “If you consider ten to be catastrophic dismemberment, I’d say something around a two.” She finished putting the final touches on a particularly complex squiggle and proudly tossed the chalk over her shoulder. Wiping her brow, she added, “Even if your new friend isn’t strong enough to charge the spell, I’m sure you should have just enough to get it lit.” Uh… “But he’s a unicorn.” “So?” “Isn’t he better at magic?” Violet giggled, snorted, then choked on her sense of humor. “Ha! No, he’s burned out. I just knew it would be funny to see him try.” Violet was seriously starting to creep me out. “What makes you think I can do this?” “Oh, I’ve already provided the bas—” A hopeful glint suddenly appeared in Violet’s eyes. “Ooh, do you want to know how it works? It took a lot of research and interrogation, but I managed to make the sigil charm compatible with non-zebras. Such a thing is unprecedented in the magical community! Imagine th—” Since there was no stopping Violet, I sighed and prepared to meet my doom. “Okay, fine. But explain it to me like I’m five.” To be fair, Violet did use simple words and helpful pictures while she was excitedly trying to enlighten me on her discovery. Unfortunately for her, I simply didn’t care enough to pay attention. I was practicing my dead fish look while Gale looked on with fascination. Through the power of osmosis, I was forced to learn that zebras used a different type of magic for all their dumb zebra garbage and how Violet had made a connection for conventional pony magic. Halfway through an explanation about the history of magic, I’d finally had enough. “I don’t understand anything you’re saying because I just don’t caaaare,” I whined. “I expected as much.” Violet gave me a tired roll of her eyes. “Honestly, I don’t know why I try with you. Do you at least remember channeling?” “What?” An exasperated sigh came from Violet. “The thingy we did with the circley thing.” Oh, I remembered that. “Yeah! Duh.” “Okay, put one hoof here—” Violet grabbed my hoof and pushed it to one corner of the scribbles. “And the other hoof—” She grabbed my claw and paused. “Oh. I wonder if—well, we’ll follow through with the steps.” “Are you sure? Did you say the thing didn’t work when we played with the circle test last time?” I asked, cocking my head. “Or does it not matter?” “It shouldn’t. This modified spell is more of a matter of input rather than feedback.” Violet levitated a handful of papers to her and showed me one of them. “I altered the formula for the spell to contain as little feedback as possible. It’s a safe way to deal with foreign magic, in my opinion. All you need to do is pump your magic into it.” Seeing my blank expression, she sighed, “Think of it as me bringing a cake and you putting the cherry on top.” “I… don’t have a lot of magic. You know,” I spread my wings a bit and wiggled them. “Pegasus.” “No, no, no, that’s fine. That’s why I have that spell circle over there for me. You’re going to do the conjuring, but I’ll provide the initial charge.” “What’s the point?” “Proof of concept,” Violet innocently replied. At this point, I could have cared less if it turned me into a turnip. “Alright, let’s get this over with.” In an instant, Violet was standing a bit farther away inside a spell circle thing. “Okay, I’ll get the process started. Once I’m done, I’ll give you the ready signal so that you can finish it off.” Her horn began to glow and the lines below her began to shift to a more hazel shine. I closed my eyes and focused on my hoof, keeping in mind what Violet had told me the last time. Flowing, or some shit like that. I hadn’t been expecting a hurricane to blow through my focus. The sudden shock made me want to pull away, but I was rooted to the spot. Panic began to set in and desperately tried to escape, but I felt like I was being sucked in. This was all happening too fast! A weary ache began to develop inside me somewhere. I just… needed… a little… I stopped struggling entirely and allowed myself to be embraced by the darkness. X~~~X “Our partnership is in this squad is strictly platonic. I-it’s not sexual or anything.” “Even though we spend every waking hour together?” The purple stallion smiled at the other, all the while drawing closer to his partner with bated breath. “Sometimes… when we’re on duty… I can’t stop staring at you.” The couple locked eyes, and absentmindedly leaned more towards each other, hot breath radiating from each other’s open mouths. “I see you in the locker room taking a shower after our long, hard shift and—” “I just want you to know that… if anything happens to you… I love you, man.” The two stallions were barely a hair apart, their lips idly brushed against each other’s. “Yeah. Sometimes I touch you wh—I mean, I love you too.” Before the stallion could close the gap to get the kiss he wanted, his partner’s words registered in mind and he abruptly pulled away. “Wait, hold on. What?” Gentle orchestral music suddenly began to play. “Hey, Tangie? I just noticed something,” Sparkle Cola thought aloud. Since my immersion was already being ruined, maybe it was time to stop for now. “What?” I demanded, putting down my novel and rolling over on the bed to properly address Sparkle. I immediately regretted it because I got a good eyeful of Sparkle with her leg in the air, idly scratching at her unfortunate affliction of balefire crotch. “Wasn’t Frosty a squeaker?” she wondered. Out of discomfort and respect, I flipped myself back over to stare at the wall. I’d been doing my best to tune out the dull thumping and muted gasps of pleasure coming from the room next to us, but the sudden image of Frosty making those sounds while I— I violently shook my head to clear out those thoughts as all the blood in my body rushed to my face. No! Naughty, naughty Tangerine! “S-so what?” I stammered. Out of all the Steel Ranger bunkers in the Wasteland, we wandered into the one without soundproofing. “It’s just one of those things that shouldn’t change with a pony, you know?” But Frosty being Frosty, consistency didn’t seem to be a relevant factor for her. “Her other personalities could be different. Maybe it’s Angry?” Angry Frosty had left an impression on me the last time we met, and my throat twinged at the thought. “Nah. I bet it’s Smarty. Smart mares are moaners; everypony knows that.” “Where did you even pull that statistic?” “Well, you.” Sparkle’s voice dropped lower to a more teasing tone. “Are those the sounds you make when you think about Frosty?” I seized my pillow and slammed it over my head. “S-stop it!” “I’m Frosty. I’m irresistable. I’m daring!” It still bothered me that Sparkle could make an uncanny mimicry of Frosty’s voice, but what bothered me more was what usually came with the voice. Since there was no avoiding it, I rolled back over to end up nose-to-nose with an adorable little version of my little neurotic fixation. “I’m Frosty bucking Winds and I’m the only straight mare in the Enclave.” The little model of Frosty gave me chills every time I saw it. Her pose, her dumb grin, the way her talons were curled into a fist. It was almost uncanny how much work Sparkle put into making these as realistic as possible. It even smelled like Frosty. And mint, but that was Sparkle’s itch cream. I groaned into my pillow and rolled back to face the wall. “Sparkle, I’m going to sleep.” As I attempted to tune out the sounds of true love, Sparkle groaned, “But who will suffer with me now? It itches! And it’s noisy!” After a minute, I heard sheets shuffle and a mat being punched. The muted noise of music stopping meant that she had given up and decided to hit the hay as well. ~~~~~ Sleep didn’t come easy. I drifted in and out of consciousness as I usually did, but right before I felt myself float off to sleep, clinking and shuffling noises roused me right out of it. As I pulled myself up to a sitting position, I mentally prepared some angry remarks for waking me up. The first things that came to mind were “What the buck are you doing”, followed by “Sparkle, stop eating the itch cream.” My eyes finally adjusted to the darkness. There was a vaguely pony-shaped blob crouched next to the pile of saddlebags, searching for something. The rumbling of an idling engine also meant that Sparkle was still asleep, so I groggily mumbled, “Who’s that?” The blob stiffened, then a pair of wings popped out of it. What was Frosty doing in here? As my sleep-addled mind caught up to what was going on, I realized that something was seriously wrong. She was wearing dark clothing, tight-fit and subtly armored underneath, her favorite hat nowhere to be seen. Several bulging saddlebags filled to the brim with folded power armor and weapons were stacked right by the door. And she had her hooves on Sparkle’s suit of armor as well. Suddenly, I wasn’t so sleepy anymore. “Frosty? What are you doing?” I quietly asked, fully alert. Did I have to wake Sparkle? “Did I wake you up?” Frosty asked, her eyes full of concern. In a way, yes. But my voice caught in my throat because of how those deep emerald eyes stared at me. Transfixed. Yeah, that was the word I was looking for. Quick, Tangerine! Say something! “I—eah—n—” I managed to stammer. “I’m just here to talk. Not too loudly, or we’ll wake princess snugglebutt over there.” Frosty quietly chuckled. “W-what are you up to?” Great recovery! Frosty chuckled. “Not much. I was planning on having a chat with my best friend, but maybe I’m in the mood for a…” She licked her lips and eyed me up. “…snack.” What was with that look? “Oh, is that it? The Rangers here might not be the nicest bunch, but they managed to scrounge up a fully-stocked pantry. You could probably sneak a snack cake or two.” “No. I was thinking more like, mmm… Tangerines.” She flashed a predatory grin at me. My eyes widened and I sat up straighter as I finally comprehended what was going on. Wait, what was going on? Frosty wasn’t… was she pranking me? She must be. This couldn’t really be happening. Frosty dropped the things she was carrying and slunk to my cot, plopping herself down on it. She seemed to briefly lose her confidence for a moment, but she pulled herself together and stared calmly into my eyes. “I know this is all kind of sudden, but… listen, Tangerine. I know I’ve teased you a lot of liking me, and I’ve probably annoyed you enough with my antics that I really shouldn’t even hope that you’ll give me a chance… but I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately.” It was happening. I could already feel a machine gun starting to hammer away in my chest. This was the moment I had fantasized about, but now that it was happening I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know what to do. Frosty, on the other hoof, didn’t have the same problem. She made herself comfortable and leaned on my shoulder, which only got me flustered even more. “I do like Rumcake. At least, I thought I did. I’ve been trying to fool myself into thinking everything was fine and normal, but I don’t think things can go back to the way they were. Rumcake put a collar on me, and he attacked me for something I didn’t even do, yeah, but… the problem is he doesn’t really understand me, and he doesn’t accept me for who I am. Like with the collar—he didn’t like the way I was, so he tried to force me to be something I’m not. I’m just a toy to him.” She took a deep breath. “But you… I know you get annoyed with me a lot, but it’s not the same. You do understand me, and all you’ve ever done is try to help me. That… thanks for putting up with me for so long.” Was this really happening? Was this just a dream? I jabbed my hoof into my other leg to be sure. It wasn’t, and my heart raced faster. Frosty looked up at me, eyes wide and hopeful. “And… I’m thinking maybe we”—she gently poked my chest—“can maybe be a thing?” The dream was real. “So, uh…” Frosty reached around to my other shoulder and pulled us closer together. “What do you say?” “I… I…” Deep breaths, Tangerine! “…I like the sound of that,” I eventually agreed, leaning into her hug. “I mean, I wasn’t ever really expecting anything like this, but I’ve always thought you were—” I suddenly felt a weight settle itself on my horn, and I realized too late that there was something wrong. The cold hard edge of a knife touched my throat and my eyes shot open wide. Gone was Frosty’s loving stare, those shining eyes. Instead, there was a dark sneer on her face. My first impulse was to scream, until the blade pressed harder. I tried to use my magic to push it away, but something was blocking it completely. “Tangie, Tangie, Tangie. Always such a romantic. I mean, really. Why would Frosty even consider going out with you?” There was something wrong with Frosty’s voice—it was hers, but it didn’t sound like her, and not in the Frosty’s-losing-it way. “You’re pathetic. ‘Oh, Frosty! How can you be so flippant yet so desirable?’ Pfft, please.” I nearly choked. That had been my voice coming out of her! The beginnings of a shout were cut short by the knife at my throat cutting into me. I needed to get help! I needed to wake Sparkle! Frosty frowned and thoughtfully stared at the door. I was too frightened to make any noise, but I took the opportunity to slowly reach to the edge of the bed in the hopes that knocking something over would wake Sparkle. “You know what? This works. I wasn’t originally planning on it, but this works for me. In fact, think of it as—” A hoof slammed down onto my reaching leg and the knife cut deeper. “—the cherry on top.” This definitely wasn’t Frosty. My throat was starting to burn and I was desperately trying to come up with a way out, even as I felt the blood trickle down my neck. Maybe if I— “As much as I’d like to stay and monologue, I really have to go. Revenge is so much sweeter with friends, after all.” She chuckled. “Goodbye, Tangerine.” Before I even had time to think, “Frosty” slashed her hoof across my neck and immediately my throat flared up with unbearable pain. She sliced my throat! Holy buck, holy buck! I frantically clutched at my neck to try to stop the bleeding. No, this couldn’t be happening! “Frosty” leisurely climbed off of me and began to collect her stolen goods without a care in the world. The only sound that I managed to make was a choking gurgle. Couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t breathe! Why wouldn’t my magic work? The weight! I grasped and clutched at my head in desperation. My hoof brushed against something—a magic inhibitor! I needed to get it off, get if off! With a choking gasp, I realized I couldn’t hold out any longer without help. It was getting cold and I couldn’t breathe! With the rest of my strength, still holding my throat, I managed to slide off my cot and crawl to Sparkle’s. “H… h-help.” I managed to jab her with enough force to make her wake up on the first try, thank Celestia. “Mnhph. What?” Sparkle shifted and groaned. While she tried to untangle herself from the sheets, her hoof came down in the blood that I was pooling on her cot. “Eew. Did you spill on yourself again?” I didn’t have the strength left. They needed to know. “Frosty…” I gasped, feeling like red-hot spikes were being jammed into my throat. No more sound would come out of my mouth. Cold. Dark. This wasn't how it was supposed to happen. I didn’t want to die! “Tangie? Tangie, stay with me. Medic! We need a medic in here!” I was dimly aware of Sparkle cradling me in her hooves, but even that seemed far away. “Hold on, uh—shit, shit, shit!” With the last of my strength, I managed to choke out, “Find… Frosty…” It was right around here when I realized that I hadn’t managed to give them any context. And then there was nothing. ~~~~~ “SOMETIMES I REALLY HATE MY JOB.” Footnote: Level up! New Perk: Slave Driver – Companions are more “motivated” to follow you, whether they want to or not. Certain speech checks can be circumvented with a strength check. Perk Earned: Sleeper Agent – You’ve been unconscious so often that your body has adapted to work around it. Sleep Deprivation is decreased as if you had slept for an equal period of time. You also will always feel Well Rested upon regaining consciousness. Current Sub-perk: Confused – I’m sorry, I can’t hear you over the sound of how crazy I am. You gain no stat bonuses. Achievement Unlocked: Narcoleptics Anonymous – Earn the ‘Sleeper Agent’ perk without using a level perk.