//------------------------------//
// Once Bitten, Twice Shy 
// Story: The Exterminator 
// by HackamoreHalter 
//------------------------------//

"I don't give two frozen horseapples what Command says! The minute we leave a pony behind is the minute we're no better than those bug bastards! Now we're going back in there and we're gonna get our colts back! Who's with me?!" -Last known words of General Solar Charger, Fall of Vanhoover

*****

"Macaroon?" Reese set one foreleg comfortingly on the mare's shoulder. She was a waif of a pony, small and delicate, with almond-shaped, brown eyes opened wide and unfocused. He could feel the chill from her skin through his pale grey and lovingly maintained uniform. She wore nothing, her tan coat exposed to the elements. "Is that what you said? Is that your name?"

She turned her head towards him slowly, replying only after a lengthy pause, as if she'd forgotten how to speak. "Yes. Macaroon is my name," she said flatly. It was a far cry from most of the other ponies he and his squad had been herding for the past hour. Screaming and weeping were the two most popular answers, though this mare's lack of response was possibly more worrying.

"Well, don't you worry, Macaroon. We're going to get you to safety." A few quick waves caught another soldier's attention, and the young recruit trotted over and threw a quick salute. "Private, get this mare to the bunker and make sure she's seen to. She's in shock and I wouldn't be surprised if she was half frozen to death."

"Wait," she cut in before the younger stallion could lead her away. "Please. My daughter. She's still in there. You have to find her. Please."

"Don't worry, miss," Reese said and gave her his best reassuring smile, with as much confidence as he could summon. "We'll find her."

The smile lasted for as long as it took the mare to join the column of other bedraggled, pitiable-looking ponies hiding in the shadow of the collapsed husk of a former skyscraper. The skies above the downtown wasteland were almost clear for once, offering a clear view of the snow-filled streets, though billowing trails of smoke from deeper within the city were already threatening to mask the starlight once more. From this distance, Reese could just barely make out the orange flames lapping at the resin walls of green ichor and shit-colored biomass that formed the honeycomb structure of the hive. It had been a hard-earned victory; the snow lead up to the hive had been stained red as well as green, and more than a few of the new mounds in the street had recently been ponies under his command. A sharp whistle rallied the survivors around him.

"Listen up!" Reese took his place at the head of his gathered forces, a paltry fifteen ragtag ponies in scavenged gear and lacking anything other than fighting spirit. "You did good out there, but it's not over yet." He tossed his head back, indicating the column of freed captives, whimpering and shivering in the wind. "Third squad, you need to get these ponies back to base safe and sound. I don't think I need to tell anypony how stressful it is being kept as a live lunch." A few affirmative grunts passed through the soldiers, especially those with their own scars of former captivity. "You know the drill. Hide your tracks, don't get spotted. This is our fourth hive hit, so we're bound to have earned a little bug infamy." That drew a few cocky grins and one muffled cheer. "Now, it seems like we missed one of the bugs' snacks, so First and Second squads are with me."

"We're going back, sir?" A pegasus wearing a helmet two sizes too large asked.

"That's right, Duffo. There's a filly out there and we're gonna find her. You got something to say?" Reese waited as Duffo shifted from side to side, glancing at his fellow soldiers and then to his hooves. "Speak your mind, private. I don't bite for questions so long as nothing's shooting at us."

"Well, it's just that... you know she's gonna be dead already, right, sir?"

An uncomfortable silence fell. Reese spared a glance back at the former prisoner ponies. They could hardly be called civilians, since all ponies were prey for the bugs and therefore automatically part of the resistance by dint of their continued breathing, but they were far from warriors. At last he spoke again, addressing the newest charges under his protection as much as the soldiers under his command. "Could be. Or she could be fighting for her life right now. Against the cold, against the hunger, against the bugs--the only way any of us are gonna keep on living is if we fight for it. And if that's the case, if she's got the guts to hold on with everything she's got, I'm damn well gonna give her the opportunity. She deserves a chance, Private. Same as us." There were no cheers for this speech, somber as it was, but neither were there any additional ponies stepping up to question his orders. "We're wasting time. Third squad, get a move on. First and Second, fan out. Watch for stragglers or anything with more than four legs that's still twitching."

Reese's soldiers moved out like a well-oiled machine, slipping from cover to cover with fluid grace as they made their way through long since burnt-out shops and barricaded offices with paperwork scattered across the dusty carpets as if the building had been frozen in time. Closer and closer, they approached the flaming hive with an ever rising caution. Twice, Reese heard the sharp crack of a pegasi's lightning followed swiftly by a curt 'all clear' from the scouts. Unicorns worked in tandem to shift piles of concrete and rebar debris to open new paths. The acrid stench of burning resin wafted through the air as they neared the remains of the hive and Reese found himself on edge, tensions rising as his imagination wrought thousands of skittering legs in the murky darkness outside the reach of the starlight. His left forehoof came to rest on the cool steel barrel of his personal party cannon. Coincidentally strapped to his own cannon--the section of the leg from knee to fetlock--the thin tube spewed death without need for complicated magic. Simply pointing it towards the murky darkness of the abandoned commercial district was enough to calm his mind. Reese's eyes narrowed as he surveyed the silent streets, catching a hint of movement within the gloom that was most certainly not the work of an overactive mind.

"Luxi," he hissed over his shoulder, neither blinking nor turning away. There was a soft crunch of snow as a pony made her way to his side. "Give me a searchlight." There was a ruby glow in the corner of his eye as the mare cast her spell, conjuring up a focused beam of light that cut through the darkness like a knife. She let it pan slowly across the wastes, revealing a forest of grey pillars that was the foundation of a multi-floor parking garage. Sagging wrecks of decayed wagons still sat faithfully in their assigned lots, save for the far corner where a failed buttress had brought the second story crashing down upon the first. Twisted girders and pony-sized slabs of fallen concrete formed a bird's nest of rubble, and a flash of reflected light glared out at Reese from a crevasse within the mound as the unicorn's beam passed over it. "There. Gather up the others, Private."

"Aye, Sarge." Luxi let her spell fade and cantered away. Alone, Reese walked inside the parking garage with slow, deliberate strides. Snow gave way to cement floors the further he traveled away from the open sky, and his hoofsteps echoed impossibly loud. No more than five feet from the pile of rubble, a trembling voice paused him in mid-step.

"...are you a monster?"

"No, ma'am." Reese sat back on his haunches, pointing away from the filly's hiding spot while keeping it just within his peripheral vision. "My name is Reese. What's yours?"

After a prolonged silence, either the filly's loneliness or curiosity won out and she spoke once more. "Kora. Are you sure you're not a monster?"

"Pretty sure. I fight the monsters."

"You can't fight them," the filly shot back. "Nobody can fight them."

"That's what I used to think, too." Reese sighed heavily. "I used to run and hide and hope the monsters wouldn't find me. That they'd go away."

"They never go away." Reese could barely make out her voice over the gusts of wind outside, so silent and sorrowful the girl was.

"No," agreed Reese, his voice hardening. "Not unless we make them. We thought nobody could fight the monsters, but we were wrong. One pony stood up against them. When we were scared and hiding, he fought the monsters and saved us. He taught us they could be beaten. He taught us how to fight and how to win. He taught us that we didn't have to be scared anymore."

"He saved you?" Kora poked her olive green head out from under her concrete fortress, looking up at Reese with doey eyes. He held a hoof to his heart and nodded solemnly.

"Yes, ma'am, he did. May my tail freeze off if I'm lying."

"Then..." She crawled out into the open, covered in rags and dirt and filth. She shook like a leaf and a slight breeze might well have bowled her over, but there was a sharpness in her eyes that looked foreign when compared to her tear-stained cheeks. "Do you think he could save me?"

"Kora," Reese said as he removed his coat and draped it over her shoulders like a blanket, "I truly believe Don Cantare will save us all." He lifted the cocooned filly up to rest between his shoulderblades. "Now let's get out of here. Your mom is waiting."

"But mommy's gone." Kora sniffled into his neck, her reply muffled by the coat and her own held-back tears. "The monster took her away."

"...What did you say?" Reese wished that the ice that had just gripped his heart had anything to do with the chill of stepping back outside into the wind. Whatever the filly's response was, it was lost over the shout and galloping hoofsteps of his inbound soldiers.

"Sarge! We got trouble!" Luxi called and she slid to a stop, another armored earth pony at her heels. "You're gonna need to see this."

"Take her." Reese lifted the filly onto the back of his fellow soldier before dashing after Luxi. She led him less than a block away, through the smashed glass double-doors of a once-fine hotel and down a corridor decorated with a slick trail of frozen blood. There, inside one of the rooms, lay the body of a familiar tan mare. Her neck was bent at an unnatural angle, the bones snapped like twigs, and her almond eyes were bloodshot and bulging. Reese swallowed hard, turning to Luxi with a face as pale as the snow. "...We need to get back. Get everybody back to base. Now!"

Never before had he run so far or so fast. The landscape blurred in his eyes as Reese and his squads fled as if demons were nipping at their heels. Hiding their tracks no longer mattered, nor did slinking from cover to cover like a thief in the night. They galloped down endless streets like a stampede, barreling past empty checkpoints and deserted guardposts. Tucked away into a street corner, an unassuming arch marked the stairway leading down into the Sixth and Pinecone subway station. Reese leapt down the steps and into the all-consuming darkness of the underground, charging unerringly forward until he collided with a heavy steel door; a recent construction in the long-abandoned railways. He threw himself against the door, pushing against some unseen obstruction to knock it open, and stumbled dazedly into the harsh orange-tinted glow of refurbished electric lights.

His first step landed his hoof in a puddle. His second nearly tripped him on a pile of bodies, their limbs outstretched to the door and gaping wounds in their backs. Blood coated the gate where the ponies had uselessly beaten against the steel with their bare hooves for freedom. It soaked the tiles where they had fallen in huddled masses of friends and families. It caked the fur of the abomination before him, a vision of death rendered in the form of a pony. Some defiant soldier had struck a lucky blow, leaving the right half of the would-be mare's face a sodden mess of waxy flesh. Skin hung in tatters off an exoskeleton of midnight black, exposing an empty socket burning with blue flame.

Reese opened his mouth to shout out an order, but he couldn't draw the breath. A curious numbness overtook his mind and the sergeant fell to his knees. He dimly looked downward, wondering why his legs were no longer following orders, the traitorous limbs, but he couldn't see past the spear of ice embedded in his chest. Somepony was screaming in his ears, but their words were blurring together until he could only hear the howling of the wind. Fire, lightning, and ice flew past him as the elements waged war against each other, but Reese couldn't bring himself to care. He was tired. So tired. His eyelids were heavy, and his vision--that had somehow turned vertical--was darkening to a welcoming black. All he could see was a single blue light from a flame that danced in his mind. As he watched, the fire grew into a maleficent eye, great and terrible, and the darkness was no longer a welcoming embrace but a void that chilled his very soul. He cried out in terror, unable to escape the fire's gaze, with nowhere to run as the fire spread into a conflagration that overtook him, consuming the pony until he was nothing but ash and a fading scream.