//------------------------------// // It's Another Day // Story: The Light Despondent // by Doctor Fluffy //------------------------------// Chapter 13: It’s Another Day Editors/Co-Authors Jed R (Special thanks for more things than I can count. Like damn son) TB3 Redskin122004 VoxAdam “Finally looked outside today Aware of all these things astray Counted down, 5, 3, 2… Walked outside anyway It’s still there, never goes away Just changes form with the thoughts I say I’m trying to wallow in the hope of what can be Not what’s been taken away The Death Set, It’s Another Day” Interviewer (I): “Hello? Is this… damned telepresence projector…” Thaddeus Crowe (TC): “Can hear you just fine. So, how’d the plan in Asia go? I: “Munro and I spent close to a fortune making supersoldiers. We tested runic enhancement on them, gave them our best equipment… and It didn’t work. It did not work. Worse still, I’ve pissed off the Equestrian Resistance. God knows if I’ll ever be able to get them to agree to anything like this again.” TC: “Warned you. You can’t trust Armacham.” I: “ In my defense, they were the only ones that could make custom-fabricated clone soldiers. I didn’t want to risk anyone important for this.” Sum Runner (SR): “I ran the numbers on those projects. We figured it’d be a better idea to feed people than make expendable clones.” TC: “Then again, that maaaaaaaaaayyyyy not have been an unbiased study.” SR: “No, it was. I checked.” TC: “You mean to tell me that nobody here fudged the results due to their hatred of Armacham?” SR: “Yessir.” TC: “I am simultaneously disturbed and proud. So: I’m presuming you have some request for more totem-prole data?” I: “How’d you guess?” TC: “Call it a hunch.” SR: “Alternatively, call it ‘you’ve-been-over-the-moon-thanks-to-the-new-researcher’. Ae’s been brilliant, by the way. We could have the Fujin Missile, rune ammo, alicorn-killer weaponry, that MG2023 concept that Ernst’s been working on by Barrierfall thanks to aer.” Aegis was staring at the PER woman that was holding him at gunpoint with a small pistol that somehow looked big in her hands. Amber Maple and Rivet hid behind him. “Come on,” he said. “We’re harmless, ain’t we?” The woman didn’t respond. Aegis noticed something strange poking out of her backpack. Something crystalline... “N-no,” the woman stammered. A natural-born pegasus pony that he thought he recognized from a wanted poster stood by, smirking at him. ‘You sonovabitch, Aegis thought, as another ragged-looking human with untreated wounds held an old plastic water bottle full of the Ponification Potion in his hand. “Looky here,” the man said, trying to be a picture-perfect bandit and coming close to the image. “Got ourselves a few runaways. Think we’ll be rewarded with-” “Go. To. Tartarus,” Aegis said, deliberating on each syllable. “Traitor,” a natural-born PER earth pony said, that smirk still on his face, but there was something underneath… Something just ready to crumble… “And what’s this?” said PER man in rough, ragged, stitched clothing. An old guitar case sat on his back. “John Heald. I’ll get a good job in the Empire for this.” “No you won’t,” Fiddlesticks said. “Carl Barnes.” “You two know e-each oth-ther?” Johnny C asked. “I used to play with him during the… ugh… benefit concerts,” Fiddlesticks said, shuddering and spitting. “So. Here you are. You prick. Thanks for keeping those HLF off my flank back in Portland. Reeeeally helped when Patrick Saunders was tapping his baseball bat against the wall behind me.” “H-h-he said he was s-s-sorry, by the way,” Johnny C added, voice trembling. He was almost certainly not built for this. Barnes jerked as if shot. Which, within the space of 87 seconds, he would be. What? It’s not like that’s a spoiler or anything. He looked sullen. “And even if you d-do,” Johnny C said, standing up, stuttering a little in fear. “It’ll b-be pointless. You’re supposed to make us r-reb-born, huh?” “I’ll never understand why you guys reject salvation,” the natural-born pegasus said, that smirk on his face. “Maybe it’s cause people don’t like being turned into little mindless zombie-dolls?!” Fiddlesticks yelled. “I would’ve thought your boyfriend there,” Barnes smirked, “Had a fetish for that.” Nny’s mouth opened. Closed again. His eyebrows narrowed. “I’m g-going to smash your balls into a bloody paste for that.” “And what, leave the apes like they are?” the pegasus asked. “They can’t be allowed to fight. They have to be ruled. For their own s-” “How do you bastards even get human recruits?” Yael sighed. “Why?” the pegasus asked. “Because of you, Lieutenant Ze’ev.” “Hail Flurry’s right,” Barnes spat. “It’s your fault, Ze’ev. I ponified my sister so she could get a better life, back when the portals were open. She screamed, pleaded to be stuck in her diseased, paralyzed body, but-” “You ponified Jenny?!” Fiddlesticks yelled. “Ya evil, soulless motherfucker!” “Oh, what’s it matter? She was happy at the end. Unlike me! But we’re stuck here! Stuck on a dying world, while you murderers get fat on rations and we get tablescraps! After I ponified her, she disappeared into the PER in America. God only knows what happened to her!” “Amen, Barnes. Everyone, get all the ponies!” the skeletal woman yelled. “They’ll be fine. Get the foals first, they’re-” “No,” Aegis said, rearing up, matter of-factly. He hadn’t been sitting - just taking up residence behind his son and daughter in the pews. Sixstring, trembling, was standing back to back with him, looking like a small colt in comparison to his cousin. Somehow, the trembling made it less likely he would move. “I’m proud of you, cuz,” Aegis said. Sixstring was a wanderer, and he’d seen far worse than this before. Didn’t mean he could handle it well. Sixstring nodded. “D-don’t mention it.” “And you think you’re gonna stop me, Fallen?” a PER woman asked. “No,” Aegis said. “I know you’re not going to get past me. I know your type don’t hurt ponies. Do you think this shit scares me? I’ve been through a hundred times worse.” “Besides,” Sixstring said. “There’s things I know that I’m not letting you find out.” ”He was so brave,” Yael says over videochat, and you nod. Mr. Aegis has a great, stony countenance, an impassive face, and you would not want to be on the wrong end of his great bulk. Though Mr. Aegis looks a bit… confused as she says that. “Oweh,” Kraber says, smiling. “There’s no better stallion to have your back than my china right here.” “...is that cause he has white fur, or…” Babs Seed asks. “Nah. It just means friend,” Aegis explains. “Same as when John… Constantine or whatever brits you know say it. Not Nny.” “Why do you have to be like this?” Hail Flurry asked. “Being outside the Empire while not engaged in pro-Empire activities is considered treason. If we take you in, the visit to the mind healers won’t be very long. And, Fiddlesticks Apple? Apple family members like your cousin-” Yael and Aegis each winced a little at the raw hatred written on Fiddlesticks’ face. “Don’t. Talk. Bout. Us. Apples,” Fiddlesticks said, trying and miserably failing to restrain the vitriol in her voice, “Like. Ya. Know us. Cousin Abby didn’ just burn her bridges, she airstriked them. And ya ain’t takin’ me to one of them brain butchers. There’s nothing waitin’ for me with open forelegs back home.” “And there’s no p-portal b-back-” Johnny C added. “Yet,” Hail Flurry smirked, earning himself a lot of glares from every other PER in the synagogue. They took that way too personally, Aegis thought. "I’d thought it was weird, Yael says. "Normally portal station are a dime a dozen. What made it this personal? "Honestly. I’d thought that most of em just wanted to go home, Heliotrope says. She turns to look at Kraber. "Why ya lookin at me? Kraber asks. "I wasn’t even in there. I was kinda busy struggling with my inner demons from another universe.” “Uhhh….” Scootaloo says. “Just go with it,” Aegis says. “And figured, well… shoot the kontgesigs. “So it’s all kinda p-pointless. I’m still n-not getting w-what ponifying m-me ac-complishes,” Johnny C said, hand on his Colt Cascavel revolver, a top-break LeMat chambered for magnum rounds, and copied by Taurus down in Brazil. He thumbed back the hammer, and the smaller secondary hammer that would let it discharge a twenty-gauge spray of buckshot from the center barrel around which the cylinder revolved. It was still holstered. “You lift that a hair’s breadth,” the pegasus evidently named Hail Flurry said, “And I will ponify you right where you stand. Johnny-boy, see, it’s not about whether you die in a ditch or live back home. Not that that’ll matter in the next few weeks. We need a workforce, Nny-” “Shut… up,” Barnes hissed. “Sweet Celestia, you’re going to ruin everything!” “Don’t. Call. Him. That,” Fiddlesticks said. “Only m-my friends get to d-do that,” Johnny C said. “And I don’t think I see this relationsh-ship going anywhere. C-cause, y-y’know… I’ve b-been hurt.” “When you’re a newfoal,” Barnes said, “it won’t matter. All my friends that go pony say it’s the most wonderful experience to ascend, become a superior being. We can hurt you all you want, and you’ll be happy with it. Besides, you’ll be in good company. We’ll make sure your whole family’s there to help. Your mother, your father, your cousins like the jew-bitch over there. And you’ll do whatever we want.” ““ You motherfucker,” Nny said. “I WILL SKIN YOU ALIVE AND FEED YOU YOUR OWN, ROTTING TE-” “For that,” the pegasus said, “Fairbairn gets first pick. And he remembers what your friend did to his face.” “Hey,” Nny said, “It’s not my fault his nose was delicious.” Yael gave her cousin a disturbed glance, then made a light chuckle. “What the buck’s so funny?” asked a skeletal woman with a vial of potion in one hand, an old rifle with wood furniture that seemed to be held together through electrical tape slung over her back. Aegis and Yael recognized her then and there - Tia McCreary. Who was, by sheer coincidence, the sister of a PER man that Johnny C had crushed between the wheels of a large steam locomotive. If it helped, the man had been a total dick. The blood had taken way too long to wash out, and had caused more than a little trouble with dogs belonging to various security officers. “Three things. First, you think this is my fault, for one, Tia McCreary,” Yael said. “‘Why did you make me kill you,’” she mimed. “That is how you sound. Second, you threatened our family. You told me yourself you know damn well what my cousin did to the last person who tried that. And third.” she flashed a glance at Johnny C, who was moving slightly, aligning himself between Barnes and one other PER man. “Have you seen my Heliotrope?” “What?” asked the skeletal woman, evidently named Tia. “She’s been right next to you the whole time, of course we’ve seen-” Heliotrope winked, and suddenly vanished. “Grab her!” Tia screamed, and a PER man raced to where Heliotrope had been sitting, Lyra-style, hands outstretched… Only for them to flap harmlessly against the wooden pew. “PONIFY HER!” the skeletal woman screamed. “We need what’s in her head!” A bearded man in ragged clothing uncorked his own vial, and poured it down on Yael’s arm… Only for it to merely drip about an inch off her skin, and with a smell like an oilslick, evaporate. The PER man stared down, uncomprehending, at Yael’s arm… Then the Jericho 941 aimed straight at his genitals, held in Yael’s right hand. “Shield, bitch.” From where she was aiming, she could see Aegis’ foals moving behind him, saw him stand unflinching, like a stone wall, or a curiously horse-shaped altar that someone had placed in front of one of the synagogue doors. She admired that. “Even I don’t know where she is,” Yael said. “She probably disappeared as soon as you Chel'at ha'min ha'enoshi burst in.” “And Snowshoes specifically tuned that so it winks before it disappears,” Nny added. “ She. Could. Be. Anywhere.” “Actually, I was pretty terrified," Aegis says. “Well,” Yael says, “That… puts a bit of a damper on that moment. You inspired me, right then and there.” “And me, too,” Heliotrope says. “...Really?” Aegis asks. “Well that’s… huh. Wow. That’s nice to hear. Thanks.” “It was a great, fatherly thing to do,” Kraber says solemnly. Mr. Aegis looks down at his son and daughter, Rivet and Amber Maple, and smiles. They are already smiling at him. “Th-” Amber Maple starts. “Don’t thank me, Amber,” Aegis says. “It’s just what a father should do. And I’d do...” “We’re here,” Rivet said, trotting over and trying (in vain) to hug his enormous father. “We know what you’d do.” “He’s right,” Kraber says. “I did something like this once to PER - Eish! No, this was before the war. It’s not as bad as you think. But… Ja. It’s just like Aegis said. Still, though. Points for also doing it in front of PER.” “You never like being held up by those ass-clowns,” you say. “Dancing Day!” Scootaloo gasps. “What?” you say. “Kraber says ‘fok’ like most of us use commas!” Kraber shrugs. “Blame my upbringing.” “That… explains a whole lot, considering your dad,” Aegis adds. “Your dad is awesome,” Heliotrope adds. “Seriously, getting to learn from an actual 32 battalion man about insurgency tactics where he…” “This explains soooo much,” Verity sighs. “Maybe that’s why you’re so fucking psy-” “FOK JOU, VERITY!” Kraber yells all of a sudden. Then, almost apologetically, but not quite there: “...Fokkin love my dad.” “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” you say. “Time out. What’s with Kraber’s dad, anyway? Why are we suddenly talking about him?” “His dad was 32 battalion,” Aegis explains. “He’s working for the PHL to train operatives. Some of which are Heliotrope.” In response to this, Heliotrope waves cheerfully. “Taught me everything I know about handling a gun, and kwaai soldiering,” Kraber explains. “Same with my brothers and sister. We’d hike through the mountain with weights, practice shooting on the beach, he’d make sure we stayed in shape…” “That sounds abusive,” Rivet says, Verity nodding, surprised to agree. “He’d also take us out for surfing and milkshakes afterwards, so there’s that,” Kraber points out. “...And like that, my opinion changes,” Vinyl says, licking her lips hungrily. “Were they good?” Rivet asks. “Fokkin lekker. Oh, right, my upbringing! Anyway, dad’s even more foulmouthed than me,” Kraber says, earning a jaw-drop from Vinyl. “Daaaaaaaaaaaamn,” Vinyl breathes. “He really is,” Aegis adds. Within the instant that Yael flicked her gaze over to Aegis, the world suddenly exploded into gore. Three sets of genitals were also destroyed, but this was more incidental than anything. The first was that there was a PER man standing near the entrance whispering to a trembling child. “It’ll be fine, it’s ju - My BALLS!” he screamed, falling to the ground, a knife through his groin as he fell to the floor. Excellent. Heliotrope had… Yael paused, the world slowing down around her. Wait. Heliotrope didn’t do that. Who had - A nanosecond later, something invisible lacerated him with a latticework of long, bloody cuts. For a second, the blood covered a vaguely pony-shaped patch of air, then abruptly dripped down to the carpet. The PER looked over at their comrade, seeing a bearded man - Kraber, but Francis to everyone in the synagogue - pull the knife out of the shredded PER man’s balls, and that was all the distraction Johnny C needed. What Nny did there, Kraber will say, a little over four months later, was not drawing a gun. There wasn’t even a blur and then shooting. It was just that one infinitesimal fraction of a second, Nny had his hand on the pistol grip, the revolver still holstered. The next, the Colt Cascavel was simply out of the holster as if it had always been there, as if the world had skipped a few frames of animation of Nny whipping out the revolver. All of a sudden the gun made a loud, double-echoing report. Everything in the vicinity of Barnes’ groin and bellybutton was suddenly a large, bloody hole, and he flew back about two feet. His head bounced awkwardly off a pew. The PER man behind Barnes howled as the Pow’rball round from the revolver’s main barrel punched into his stomach. He screamed dropping forward, clutching his guts, trying to hold in the remains. He reached for a potion vial, only for Fiddlesticks to ram one foreleg into his stomach, the vial - still uncorked, thank god - dropping to the floor. “That’s for Jenny,” Fiddlesticks hissed as he fell to the floor. Meanwhile, Barnes, lying on the floor, clutching the bleeding ruins of his crotch, would have howled in pain, tried to pull himself up, and pulled out another potion vial, uncorked it, and dropped it on Johnny C…. ...if not for the fact that Nny twisted, pirouetting like a ballerina, and positioning himself behind him, one large arm - his triceps were huge! - enclosing Barnes’ throat like a vise as he picked up Barnes. Cracks issued from what was left of his body. Nny fired that shotgun-sized revolver again, its report deafening, and a PER member’s skull was splattered against a wall. Everything above his lower jaw had simply vanished. “Never. Threaten. My. Family,” Johnny C said, voice devoid of inflection, stutter gone. As if to punctuate that, Yael fired her Jericho 941 into groin of the man holding her at potionpoint. In the space of that moment, Kraber had rushed forward with an ugly smile on his face, an unstoppable, wiry juggernaut, stamping down on the downed man’s neck with one HLF-made boot. Another PER, this one a woman, collapsed, her head exploding, as Kraber fired the revolver again, blood and brains spraying everywhere. A teal pegasus newfoal, their painted-on cutie mark painfully obvious, found a .500 magnum round chopping right through their barrel, blue smoke wafting from the hole. Fokkin lekker! “God DAMN I love killing you bastards!” Kraber yelled, a huge smile on his face as he fired off another shot, de-jawing a PER man. “No matter what, I always feel like I’m doing a PUBLIC FOKKIN’ SERVICE!” “What the hell?!” screamed one PER man, his mind sadly about 3 seconds behind the madness. A death sentence in these conditions, which was abruptly enforced as Aegis reared up and brought both hooves down on him, shattering his collarbones. Aegis didn’t even wince at his screams, no matter how much it had to hurt. He had no sympathy for PER – bastards always tried to steal the foals. And he’d seen them do so much worse that you’d have to get really creative to make him feel an ounce of sympathy. “Come on, you’re going to be safe,” whispered another PER man, holding Aegis’ foals close to his chest. “Your dad might be Fallen, but–” Johnny C shot the man. The pow’rball magnum round simply obliterated his skull. Johnny C’s expression remained unchanged right up until Heliotrope flickered back into visibility and sliced through the PER man about to potion him. “Quick! Potion them, we have to save–” The PER mare that had said that found one of Aegis’s massive hooves in her face, crushing much of her jaw. In the space of that moment, Fiddlesticks had grabbed her violin case and, rearing up, hoof TK gripping it firmly, drove it down onto a PER man, who simply collapsed to the ground. “NOTHING LIKE A LITTLE SENSELESS VIOLINS, HUH?!” Kraber laughed, earning a nod of acknowledgment from Fiddlesticks as he fired his revolver again, the round pulping the PER earth pony’s stomach. Yael stood up, Galil readied. Within the space of a second, two of the PER standing ten feet away simply fell apart, a purplish-pink pegasus pony flickering into existence, wings unfurled, revealing that they were lined with blades. I could get to like these people, Kraber thought happy. Dammit, they had style! He whipped his revolver to the side, and exploded a PER pegasus’ skull with a .50. “Please!” whimpered a third PER man, as he forced a vial down a child’s throat. “The Barrier’s unstoppable! This is the only thing we can do!” Yael fired her rifle into the man’s skull, splattering his brains all over the poor kid. She whispered something that might have been “I’m sorry,” and shot the kid. All around, PER fell. Putting it lightly, they’d fucked with the wrong people. People halfway through ponification found their warped limbs shot off, and those past the point of no return were dead. “He was someone’s kid!” one of the few remaining PER yelled. “How could-” Kraber held his .45 and .50 out and emptied both into the man, a round for each kneecap. The PER man collapsed onto one, then fell on his face as the other kneecap, utterly destroyed by the .500S&W, simply collapsed. “THIS IS FOR MY FAMILY, JOU FOKKIN’ PIGFUCKERS!” Kraber cackled, and kicked the man in the face with his steel-toed boot. A PER unicorn tried to throw a vial at Kraber, yelling incoherently. He just shrugged, twisting around, shooting the stallion in the throat with his revolver. The stallion’s head jumped off the neck by about a foot, blood spraying out in all directions. It was utter madness, and Kraber continued with it as he strode over to the downed PER man and kicked him in the face again, shattering his nose. And… in the space of a couple seconds, it was over. The whole stupid bloody mess. “You bastards!” yelled Tia, the skeletal PER woman in front of the altar, the one that seemed to be the leader. “Bimma,” Kraber corrects. “That’s what it was.” Right. But she’d been holding a young child. “D-don’t,” she said, potion vial against her arm, shaking. “Wh-who are you? The thin man?” Kraber stared her down, and she flinched. “My name is Strang,” he said. “I am the man your bitch-goddess will have nightmares about for the next few centuries of her miserable life.” She flinched again. The girl in her arms screamed. (“I don’t know if I’ve ever felt sympathetic for PER.... I don’t know if I ever will,” Aegis says, “But she looked pretty similar to you, Kraber. That same hollow-eyed, shaky look on her.” “The fun was feeling… a bit…” Kraber cocks his head a little. “It was dropping out of there, a bit. Blood, a little girl crying, children dead… it was...”) The pews were splintered. There were potion-amputees and dead PER lining the floor. Which would have brought a smile to Kraber’s face, except… A bawling girl with tan-ish skin and black hair in a skeletal woman’s chokehold. A man with curly salt-and-pepper hair that looked like granite or marble screaming in what sounded like Hebrew to Kraber. “Let my granddaughter go! Let my fucking granddaughter go, you world-ending whore-bitch!” Except it was not anywhere near that polite. Ja. Some essential part of Kraber had switched off, or possibly back on, and old, paternal emotions were swirling within him. This fokkin’ loskind teef, Kraber thought. She thinks she can take a fokkin’ child? Look at this fokkin kontgesig! She’s gonna fokkin die or rot in a cell! “We just wanted to help,” the woman said, trembling. “We… come on, look at us! We don’t have anyone left, the HLF killed us in Vermont and Portland! There’s no food, there’s no hope! And...” she stared down at Johnny C, who’d drawn his Leshiy up to bear, pointed right up at her. “You killed my brother Joseph,” she breathed. “John Heald, you sonovabitch! He would’ve been so happy, but you ran him over!” “Actually,” Fiddlesticks said, “He threw him between the wheels of a moving steam locomotive. It’s an important distinction.” “Still think that’s kw… cool,” Kraber said. “Thhhhhaanks?” Johnny C asked, visibly uncomfortable with this praise. “I worked hard at it.” “Is that a hint of mercy in your voice?” Tia sneered. “Trust me, it’s not. He was a total dick,” Fiddlesticks replied. “Oh, definitely,” Johnny C said. “Nny?” Heliotrope asked. “I love you and Fiddlesticks, but shut up.” Nny looked over at her like he was about to argue, for a second anyway, then simply clammed up. As did Fiddlesticks, with a light nudge of one of Nny’s boots to her foreleg. “The way it looks here,” Yael said, “You. Have. No. Options, McCreary. I’ve faced down PER suiciders with potion-bombs sewn into their skin that had more leverage than you.” “How do you know I’m not one?” Tia asked. “Call it woman’s intuition,” Yael said. “If you get out now, there are police already on the scene, probably. And I have Heliotrope.” “She turns invisible and I make us all go pony!” Tia screamed, pulling out what looked like a wood-paneled remote. “We’ve got Shieldwall potion-bombs, and I can detonate enough of them that they’ll have to burn down this house of fucking lies to clean out the potion!” “I have a decoy module!” Heliotrope yelled. “You think that bucking scares me?! How do you know I’m not already gone?!” “Well then, do you think it scares this girl?!” Tia screamed. “Maybe I’ll just press the button anytime, huh?!” she was shaking. She’s gonna crack, Kraber thought, with detached, clinical precision. Watching her potion hand shake. “You’re bluffing,” Yael said, arching one elegant dark-brown eyebrow, her lime-green eyes stabbing into Tia like daggers. “If you had those bombs, you would’ve used them a long time ago. Or, if you have them and didn’t use them, you’ve got something to hide.” “Why won’t you…” Tia asked. “Why…” “Because unlike you, I was trained for this,” Yael said. “If you ever had an object in mind, you lost whatever it was here.” “W-we needed ponypower,” Tia said. “So,” Yael said. “You admit it. Trying to get newfoal labor for some covert op? I’m betting Portland played merry hell with your organization.” “I’m guessing Fiddlesticks knocked your potionshaper out,” Heliotrope said, pointing at a gray unicorn that looked like it had a cracked horn. “So, either way, this isn’t going to end well for you.” “She d-did,” Tia confirmed. “The yellow bitch did.” Fiddlesticks stared up at Tia, her inky blue mane and tail wafting in a light breeze from an open window. This was completely at odds with the raw hatred in her eyes, and even Kraber felt a little unnverved from that. I don’t even know if I’ve ever seen a pony that fokkin woedend for a human,’ he thought. The old, granite-bearded man standing nearby held out a glock with a slide that had once been silver. “Either way, it’s over,” Yael said. “You. Have. Lost. Now put the potion down, McCreary. The PHL will treat you well if you surrender. You’re making it harder than this needs to be.” “Even if I helped a murderer like you,” Tia said, holding the detonator out towards Yael in shaking hands as if it was a gun. The little girl in her arms screamed. “None of what you did matters. Do you know what’s coming? Even before Barrierfall?” “You gave up, ya fokkin radgie cunt!” Kraber said, his voice like a whipcrack. And he was not sure if it was mostly directed at himself. “YES! I gave up!” Tia howled. “I mean, what are we supposed to do?! The Barrier’s unstoppable! Everyone’s going crazy, and they…” he shook again, the open vial in his hand shaking. “Look at us. We’ll never go back! Look at you, Ze’ev! Israel’s gone, my home’s gone, and this’ll all be gone a year from now! This is all I can do anymore!” The synagogue was silent. “The crazy Edinburgher’s right,” Yael said. “You gave up. So, you could’ve just taken the potion, and been done with it. Why now? Why force it on all of us?” “Cos’ we’re stubborn is why,” Tia said. “Cos’ all we can do…” the vial shook a little more… “Is just…” The vial trembled. “Hope Celestia will be merciful, Reitman smuggles her writings out of prison, you know. She says they won’t hate us. That humans are the most creative, adaptive creatures in the multiverse, able to survive our universe, and - even after transformation - stand tall as vital contributors that rejuvenate an entirely different univer-” “She did not say thaaat,” you interrupt. Vinyl, Kraber, Verity, and Aegis all look at you. “...She did,” Vinyl sighs. “ No, really, she did,” Aegis adds, pulling up a link on his computer. “I wish I was kidding.” “...Wow,” Heliotrope says. “That is a whole new level of sad. Almost wish you went after her.” “That would not have ended well,” Kraber says. “I’m going to have to agree with him here,” Yael says. “Actually,” Heliotrope says, “I have to ask: That…. that big show you made of telling Reitman ‘thank you’. Was that… was that acting?” Kraber looks over at Heliotrope. He looks pale and bedraggled. Almost sickly. “I hope so. Mostly.” The PER woman’s arm dropped the entire vial on the girl’s left arm, and Kraber saw red. Everyone was staring at him as he whipped out the handcannon. Yael’s mouth was open, Heliotrope was flying towards him at a speed a crawling baby could outdo. And Kraber fired. “Fokkin poesneus, THAT MAKES NO FOKKIN SENSE AFTER THE KAK SHE’S PULLED!” Kraber yelled as the .50 impacted the girl’s left arm, punching through and into the PER woman’s. ‘Oh God, please, not another ponification on my conscience! Don’t let her be a zombie!’ He looked down at her for a nanosecond, saw her arm ponified halfway to the elbow, lying on the rail, and looked on in relief for a brief nanosecond. Saw Tia staring at the stump of her wrist, not comprehending, and- BANG The old man’s Glock fired, one 9mm round punching through her shoulder. She spasmed, the detonator dropping to the floor. Kraber nodded, approving, and cannoned across the room and drove a right hook into Tia’s throat. Tia choked, gasping, but not before whipping out a knife coated in potion. “Nice try, slugga,” Kraber whispered, ducking to one side, and punching her in the gut, lifting her up just on the strength of his fist. The PER woman gasped, trying to reach for another corked vial of potion…. 'No. Escape will not be so easy.' Only for Kraber to grab it, drop it on the floor, and headbutt the woman, and grab both shoulders. Thrusting her shoulders down, Kraber drew one knee up into her throat! She gasped, and Kraber threw a right haymaker into the side of her head, knocking her to one side. Kraber followed up with a left hook, then a right uppercut under the jaw. He hadn’t bliksemed anyone like this since Sylvia! ...Why did that make him feel like more of a kontgesig than he had for about the past 72 hours? ‘Good. Make her suffer. Make her feel pain. She deserves it. She is your enemy.’ “Not so fun when we don’t want to be bloody zombies horses, is it?!” he yelled, and drove a boot up into her face. There was a crack. “You people are all the SAME!” Kraber threw out a wild right uppercut, then a left hook to the stomach. “You think you're so fokking smart! You are just like all the other PER I’ve killed!” Punch “Oh yeah, with all of our wonderful vials of potion and a hormonal fokking bitchwhore of a goddess protecting us compared to these pathetic fokkin humans, there's no way anyone can fokkin stop us!” Whipping an arm out to the side, smashing it against the side of her skull. “We are invincible and fokking unbeatable! We are SO FOKKING STRONG with all of our men and our fokking potion that turns everyone into stupid little pop-up targets!" A kick in the knee, more like a slightly angled stomp leaving the PER woman stumbling, clutching her leg. There was a crack, and she slumped down on that leg. “Hahaha! You are my absolute favorite people to kill! You are so beautifully amazed when you die!” “Francis, what the hell are you doing?!” Aegis yelled. Then Kraber drew back, like he was playing football, and drove his boot up into her face once more. There was another crack, and a spray of blood and other assorted fluids. 'Thats right. Vengeance. Justice. Death. You understand. You always understood.' “Especially when I squish! Your brains! BETWEEN MY FINGERS! LIKE I’M MAKING FOKKING SAUSAGE!”!” Kraber roared, both hands on the woman’s face, thumbs inching into her eye sockets. “What the hell is he doing?!” Heliotrope yelled. “Someone get him off her, he’s gone crazy!” Yael yelled from somewhere far-off. “I approve,” the old man said in hebrew. 'Those who betray their own kind to the whim of a Tyrant deserve nothing but the worst pain we can inflict.' He was gonna grab that fokkin varknaaier’s skull and smack it against the floor of the synagogue, smiling the whole fokkin’ time as he gouged out her eyes with his thu– And then, then Kraber heard the girl whose arm he’d amputated with his pistol. She was crying. Nobody behind him looked very happy - they were afraid. Of what he was doing. Of him. Yael and Nny had weapons pointed at him. Sixstring was cowering, barely poking his head out from behind a pew. For a second, he heard Sylvia, then Caduceus accusing him of enjoying it. Which he was, but wasn’t there something more important to do? ‘What the fok am I doing? Didn’t I… didn’t I want to help people?’ What are you doing?! ‘Something you wouldn’t understand. Now fok off. I have work to do.’ No. He wasn’t going to enjoy it now. If she could move after that beating, he’d be surprised. So, that said, he turned towards the little girl with the missing arm. “Sorry you had to see that,” Kraber said, trying to remain quiet as he walked over to her. “And sorry she’s still conscious. I guess I need to work on my right hook.” The old man rushed to Kraber’s side. “Are you… doctor?” the man with the granite-colored beard asked, his accent thick as cement. Kraber shrugged. Tia pulled out another vial, screaming and weeping. “Don’t,” Heliotrope said, decloaking next to Tia, hoof on her one remaining arm. There was a wry, malicious grin on her face that was practically begging Tia to do something other than stay still, because Heliotrope would probably really enjoy it if she did. “And, uh, that. Here. I’m a doctor,” Kraber said sheepishly, pulling off his T-shirt and wrapping it around her arm stump. “Or at least, the closest we have. It’s going to be fine, little girl. Don’t worry. Just... ” Kraber holstered his pistols. “Just keep calm.” “You’re going to be fine, the old man said. “I promise, Liora. “Anything I can do to help?” Fiddlesticks asked, before looking at his stomach. “Not bad at all…” “At moment…” the old man said. “Yellow pony. Can you help Liora?” “Any way I can,” Fiddlesticks said. “Good enough,” the old man said. “Here’s a bit of maple candy,” Kraber said, holding out a box he’d nicked from around Aegis’ house. “Just… just nibble on this. You’re going to be fine.” “What… what’s that?” the girl asked. Fok. She’d gone into shock. “Sweet, sugary medicine,” Kraber said softly. “Try it, it’s delicious!” He held it out. “Just keep it all in your mouth. You’ll be fine.” Hesitantly, she put it in her mouth, and smiled. “You’re going to need to relax,” Kraber said, applying pressure to the wound with both hands, trying to ignore the wet blood welling up between his fingers. “Fok.” He wrapped his t-shirt ever tighter around her stump. “Just stay still,” he said, slowly wrapping the shirt around the stump. “Relax, think happy things, like, I don’t know, a wolf pup with the hiccups. Or tiny red wolf pups nibbling on… stuff.” "You were thinking about that time you fed PER to red wolves, weren’t you, Yael says. "It was just the one time!” Kraber protests. "But yes. Yes I was.” "Gross…” Yael sighs. "I was helping the environment! Those wolves are critically endangered! ...And the puppies were adorable.” "I am so glad I didn’t think of that,” you say. "I didn’t… I didn’t ruin that mental image for you, did I? That one time?” Kraber asks. "It’s just, I mean, a soothing thing, I think…. I don’t want to ruin it.” "No, it helped,” you say. "I didn’t see the video.” "Oh thank you Lord,” Kraber sighs, slumping a little. "I’ve done horrible things, but I’ll be damned if I fokkin’ ruin that for a filly.” "And this is an improvement how?” Verity asks. "Well, it’s something,” Aegis admits. “Just… just keep calm,” he said, speaking to her like he used to speak to Anka. “I need someone to keep her warm!” “On it,” Fiddlesticks said. “Just lean against me, kid.” “You’re soft,” the girl murmured. “Is there a hospital we can get her to? Anywhere?!” Kraber asked, trying not to yell. Above all, a doctor had to stay calm and detached. They couldn’t let the blood get to him. And he, he was a professional there, wasn’t he? From today onwards, he was going to be better. He was gonna be a correct ou or just kill himself. ...Okay, fok that. Fok that defeatist kak. He wasn’t going to fail, he was going to fokking try every hour, every second of his life here. It was right about then that a motley assortment of men and women with guns burst into the room. “We heard they were coming!” yelled one man with a battered old FAL. “Alright, we-” At the first glimpse of Aegis, he shouldered the FAL. “You’re not doing anything,” Yael said, as if merely stating the sky was blue, turning toward the motley assortment of people, shouldering her Galil. Kraber looked over the ragtag group of men and women that had come in, all holding ancient slapgat weapons that looked to have been pieced together from scrapheaps, or were wrapped in tape or cloth. HLF, then. Wait, fok. HLF! They… Oh. Fok. Fok fok fok fok. He looked them over, trying to recognize a few faces. Nothing he’d recognize from wanted posters, but he could see a horse skull with a crown dangling on the side emblazoned on the jackets of a few. Aaron O’Donnell’s Sons of Macha. He thought he recognized a few of Lovikov’s- “Menschabwehrfration?” Yael asked, standing up to her full height. Which was an inch or two over most of the HLF standing in the synagogue. “What’re you doing here?” “We were told the PER were here,” one woman said. “We came to-” You could join them… ‘Or I could have sex with a loaded gun.’ ‘Well, you know what they say. Happiness is a warm gun…’ Victory suggested, suddenly bursting into off-key singing. Hou hou fokkin bek, jou fokkin loskind, Kraber thought. “It’s awright,” Kraber said. “Thaire’s nae more PER tae kill. Yuir joab’s bin done awready.” “But… but we were told…” one HLF man said indignantly, looking at the PER corpses and half-formed newfoals spread over the red carpet of the synagogue floor. Grotesqueries, or casket-closers, they were called. For good reason. “You were told what?” Yael asked, Galil ready. “Go on. You’ve got my attention.” The HLF didn’t lower their rifles. “Whatever you’re thinking about,” Heliotrope said, “Do us all a favor and don’t. You know what we’d do.” “I can’t believe any of you,” one HLF woman said. “Working with the enemy…” “Hey,” Heliotrope said, “You think I like newfoals more than any one of you? Cause Aegis and I think they’re terrifying.” “Why?” asked an HLF woman, barely out of her teens. “Mercedes,” an HLF man practically hissed. “They’re just more geldos, what could they possibly-“ “‘Scuse me,” Kraber said. “Bit dae ya ken that purplish-pink pony up there? Heliotrope? Ya ken what she can dae, right?” “I hate ‘em cause Celestia thinks they’re better ’n me,” Aegis said. “The ideal citizen is an unquestioning zombie that used to be someone with family, dreams… and apparently, the person they used to be doesn’t matter.” “The bitch is turning you all intae tin soldiers,” Kraber suggested. “Exactly,” Aegis agreed. “Huh?” asked the woman, evidently named Mercedes. “Eh, before your time,” Yael said, not unkindly. “It’d take too long to explain the reference, and I think my friends need to explain this right now.” ‘“No time for references? Oh, that is kak! That’s kinda what we do here…’ Victory muttered. ‘For once, I agree with you,’ Kraber thought. “You bitch, Ze’ev,” one HLF man hissed. “You killed so many of my friends last week! Do you even feel any regre-” “Actually, yes,” Yael said. The HLF man’s jaw dropped. “Me, though, I hate them because it’s worse than murder,” Heliotrope said. “Don’t even know if there’s anything left of who they used to be. And they… they’re just not people anymore. They’re not even sentient, and if you believe I agree with Equestria-” “The home you should go back to-” “Fuck oooooofffffff~” Fiddlesticks sang. “That turning people into… those… things is a service, well, you’re a moron.” “Emergency services should be coming soon,” Johnny C said, pocketing his cell phone. “Thanks for keeping her safe, Mr. Strang.” “Call me Francis,” Kraber said, making sure for what felt like the umpteenth time that the bleeding had stopped. His old, ratty t-shirt seemed to have done the work, but you could never be sure. Nny was staring at the bare chest under Kraber’s olive-green jacket - the hair, the scars, prominent collarbones. “Impressive scars,” Nny said, nodding. “They look familiar, though…” “Why the hell would you work with a pony to do that?!” another HLF man yelled. “...Cause she asked nicely?” Kraber asked, raising an eyebrow. It was right about then that the police showed up, along with a few paramedics. Most of them looked on with disgust at Sixstring, Fiddlesticks, Aegis, his family, and Heliotrope, the only six ponies in there that weren’t PER, dead, or both. “...You alright?” Aegis asked, forelegs around his foals, hugging them so tightly that you’d think he might crush them. “We’ve seen worse,” Amber Maple said, voice trembling. “It’s true, I had!” Amber Maple protests. “I wouldn’t think that makes it easier, though,” Aegis says, hugging his daughter. Amber sniffles. “It… it doesn’t.” “No,” Rivet said, looking downcast. “It really doesn’t.” “Feel sorry for you then, if you’re stuck with ponies and horsefuckers as friends,” one paramedic sighed, as they lifted her onto a stretcher. An old, spidery man with a wispy mustache followed her stretcher to the hospital. “And I feel sorry for you,” Yael said, “for being such a sonovabitch.” “Excuse me?” the paramedic asked. “Without the ponies in here like Heliotrope and Aegis,” Yael said, “we’d all be newfoals. Now. Kindly shut your mouth.” “Who do you think you are?” “She’s Yael Ze’ev,” Heliotrope said. “Thoughts?” They all shut up. “... Bastards,” Johnny C sighed, collapsing against a pew. “They got blood on this dress, it’ll take way too long to wash off, I’ll have to change clothes.” “Nah, keep it,” Fiddlesticks said. “It’s, ah… it’s still a good look.” She was shaking from the suddenness of the violence. “Who was that man, anyway?” Heliotrope asked. As the HLF men filtered out, she heard something weird from one: “Could have sworn the Hotline-” “Angel,” someone insisted. “Saying it’s a hotline is-” “The Hotline told us they’d be here…” “That’s her granddaddy,” Rivet explained. “Oh,” Kraber said. “Are her parents…” “We don’t ask,” Aegis explained. “You know… all these PER probably have bounties on them. ‘Specially her. Tia McCreary. Over a hundred confirmed ponifications to her name. Sister of that PER guy Johnny C crushed-” “Chopped apart,” Fiddlesticks corrected. “It was reeeeally bloody.” “-chopped apart with a steam locomotive last January,” Aegis corrected himself. “I still like the sound of that,” Kraber said, contemplating how bloody that might get. “Wait, a hundred? Huh. So that’s why you didn’t shoot me.” “Look, you have to understand,” Fiddlesticks said, “You were scaring the piss out of me.” “What the he… ck was that, anyway?” Rivet asked. “You were brutal! It was kinda awesome, but…” Except he’d been saying that in a tone that implied that as he was making this statement, he was saying it as if he was steadily finding it less and less awesome. “Mostly awful,” Rivet admitted, looking down. ‘Dear Kate, I’m something you’d hate, can you forgive me for this…’, Kraber thought. “Not the death doctor, with the hungry scalpel, here’s my prog- Victory started. NO! FOK THAT! NONE OF THAT! SHAME ON YOU! Kraber thought. NOT THE TIME! TIME AND PLACE! KONTGESIG! “But ponies have spontaneous musical numbers all the time! And that one’s perfect for you! The audience is probably already pissed off enough that Pinkie Pie’s in one of the character tags but barely appears…” ‘I have no idea what that means,’ Kraber sighed inwardly. “Are you sure, you... “ Amber Maple couldn’t finish. She was hiding behind her father. "....It’s not like it was hard,” Amber Maple points out. "Even Vinyl could do that.” "Really?”” Vinyl asks. "Let me try.” "Seriously, Vinyl?” Aegis sighs. "For your daughter? Please? Amber Maple asks. "Pleeeeease?” And so Vinyl does, as Aegis just stands, looking very undignified and irritated that he has to do this. Vinyl slinks, almost catlike, like a pegasus operative like Heliotrope, low to the ground. Her hooves still clip-clip-clop against the ground. But when Aegis sees the gleeful look on his daughter’s face, the irritation just melts away, and it’s replaced with an almost beatific smile. Kraber tries to stifle a chuckle. “C’mon, we can still hear you, Vinyl?” “Sssssh,” Vinyl says, managing the goofiest tone she possibly can, “I’m being sneaky!” And, when Vinyl is completely behind Aegis, invisible but for a few spikes of electric-blue mane and fail, you and Kraber just burst into thunderous guffaws. “I… don’t know if I pointed this out to everyone,” Kraber said, trying to slot into his Francis persona. “But before the war, in Edinburgh… I had a family. A son, a daughter, a lovely wife. I’d actually trusted the PER, back then… my wee bairns were sickly.” Technically true. They had been sickly, a bit, and autistic. ‘Oh, fok off. What’re vaccines going to do? Give them autism?’ Kraber had said to a particularly annoying parent. “They were ponified,” Amber Maple said. “That’s what he said last night.” “I thought… I thought that newfoals would be anyone but my children, or that they’d be the same people,” Kraber said. “I was wrong. I didn’t want to believe Equestria would do somehing so fokkin’ awful. But… I lost my whole family, including a cousin. He was one of the more stable ones, but he just… he just collapsed. He must’ve gotten a bad strain, cause he just.... he...” Kraber sighed. “I don’t want to talk about it.” “I guess that explains a lot,” Sixstring said. “But… you’re not doing anything like that to me or my-” “No,” Kraber said, surprised at his own solemnity. “Never again.” “Good,” Aegis said. “There’s plenty of people out there who went for revenge. Don’t want you to end up like Kraber.” Oh, the irony, Kraber said, sighing, trying to keep a solemn face. Which he hoped nobody could see for what it really was: An attempt to keep himself from cracking up. “There’s nothing wrong with revenge,” Yael said. “The real danger is revenge that’s misdirected.” “Words to live by,” Kraber said, thinking on that. “Well, that was a bit unnerving,” Yael agreed. “So… any of you gonna collect the bounty soon? I’m not technically allowed to collect it.” “Well, I think a lot of these people need it more than me,” Kraber said. “It’ll go to anyone in the area that needs it. Anyone else in agreement?” Nobody could find it in themselves to argue with that. “That’s... very generous of you,” Yael said, taken a little aback. “I got fokkin’ tired of not helping anyone out,” Kraber said, smiling back at her. And that would be the start of a beautiful friendship. “And tired of what you said was misdirected revenge. Far as I can tell… nah. Fok the shit I was gonna say about owing people. It’s the right thing to do, obligation or not.” He shrugged. “Besides, I already stole most of the pistols the PER had.” He opened his coat, showing it filled with pistols, each shoved into a small slit. “Figured I’d sell them.” He paused, and looked over on one PER man’s back. “Huh. Ithaca 37. Taking this!” “Hey, my brand!” Johnny C said. And so, with all the blood being cleaned up, the little girl carted off to a hospital, and Kraber reloading his weapons, the service finished. The police had come, and everyone was trying – and failing – to cool down after the shootout. “Where’d you learn to fight like that?” Yael asked, as they walked into the other room for bagels… which, Johnny C assured them through the use of a PHL-Crowe potion detector, had not been poisoned. “Had a military dad that let me practice with his pistol, but mostly self-taught,” Kraber explained. “I had a lot ay time to practice since Edinburgh got evacuated.” Actually, Kraber’s father Paul, a defiantly ugly ex-32 Battalion man with an unforgettable face due to having weathered a kalashnikov creasing it and extending the widow’s peak, several knife wounds, and high cheekbones, had taught him to do so on the coast of Cape Town. They’d gone surfing, plenty of times, and his father had taken him to an indoor shooting range to practice with a 1911, and they’d eaten lunch at the nearest Nando’s. It’d been a good time. As it happened, “Fight so you never have to again,” had been an actual piece of advice to Kraber and his four siblings. “Wait, why were you outside?” Heliotrope asked. “Needed some fresh air,” Kraber said, reaching into his pocket for a speedloader for his revolver… and finding that he’d run out. “Ah, shite! I’m oot!" “I have a friend that can help with that,” Johnny C said. “His name’s Philip Hauser, he should be selling revolvers and other guns down near the art walk.” Kraber paused for a second, only for Heliotrope to take the words right out of his mouth. “Who the hell sells guns at an art exhibition?!” “Phil is a weird guy,” Johnny C said. “Besides, the shop was here first.” “Tell me about it,” Aegis sighed. “...What a mess,” Heliotrope sighed. “Might as well go down to the art walk afterwards, that was a nightmare.” “...Sorry,” Kraber said. “What? Nah, you were great! I wish I could make an entrance like that!” “But… bit you’re Heliotrope,” Kraber said, confused. Heliotrope was fairly well known to HLF as one of the most dangerous PHL ponies, capable of flying in near-complete silence, impossible to see till it was too late. “Aren’t you supposed tae be quiet?” “Can’t a mare enjoy being the Element of Surprise?” Heliotrope chuckled, rummaging through the bodies of one of the PER members. “You weren’t even invisible, and you still got ‘em!” “Oh, trust me, I’ve got more to learn from you than the other way around,” Kraber said. “Huh?” Heliotrope asked, pulling something out from one PER member’s backpack. “Ugh, I hate potion. Just being in the same room as it makes want to take a shower. For like, a year.” “What is it, Heliotrope?” Yael asked. “I recognize all this,” Heliotrope said. “It’s…” she looked confused. “These are some damn weird components.” “Ah huvnae idea what’s gaun oan,” Kraber said. “What’s going on?” Fiddlesticks asked. “They’re…” Heliotrope looked confused. “Back during the Crystal War, we didn’t have portal stations to get ponies into hostile territory. We made teleport matrixes. We’d drive the spikes into the ground, preferably hidden somewhere, and ponies would teleport in. I actually worked more on invisibility matrixes - as you can see here-“ she gestured with one hoof to the old brown flightsuit she wore, a battered, patched up and out-of-date model that looked nothing like what Kraber had come to associate with Wonderbolts, on the few occasions that he’d seen footage of them. Heliotrope’s suit, however, had been modified with spells that let her go invisible. “We switched over to portal stations toward the end of the war.” ”The Wonderbolts are a joke,” Scootaloo says dismissively, and you all look at her, disturbed. Scootaloo loves flight, after all, and from what you can tell, she idolized Rainbow Dash before the War. It is like watching Kraber decide he doesn’t like shrimp and grits, as if a piece of identity has been missing this whole time and you never noticed. “What?” Scootaloo asks. “I’ve been working with Spitfire. She’s trying to give me flight lessons…” and you can hear somepony that must’ve been an idealistic little filly in there, somewhere deep. Years ago, this would have been a dream come true to her. If not for the fact that her parents were Empire Loyalists and she left without them, if her hero hadn’t turned into a monster. If only. “…And that’s what she says.” “She say anything about Heliotrope?” Aegis asks. For all his… relationship… with Kraber, the one that lead them to share one large bed, he did like Heliotrope. “She says she wishes she’d scouted Heliotrope out,” Scootaloo says with a smile. “Really?” Heliotrope gasps. “Bitchin’!” “But what she said about the Wonderbolts is that they’ve gone for quantity over quality. Being a Wonderbolt used to be prestigious, but now? It’s a glorified air force.” “How the mighty have fallen,” Heliotrope says, and sighs. “I used to have this plushie of General Afterglow-” “A General Afterglow plushie!” Scootaloo gasps. “I tried to get one of those for years, and you just happen to have one?!” “Well, yeah,” Heliotrope says. “I’ve kept it sewn up for a long time.” “Amarezing…” Scootaloo breathes. “It really is!” Aegis adds. “Things are worth more than a vintage Smarty Pants-” “Guys…” Kraber sighs. “Can we get back to the story?” “Says the man that sleeps with a stuffed horse,” Vinyl says, a mischievous smile on her face. “It’s a good pillow!” Kraber protests. “He’s not lying, it really is,” Aegis adds. “That’s Verity, isn’t it?” Heliotrope interrupts. “Eeeyup,” Aegis says. “Okay, that’s hilarious,” Heliotrope says, starting to la- “Don’t,” Kraber and Yael say at once, surprised to hear the other say so. Of course, Aegis added that in too. “It was funny,” Kraber admits. “You son of a-” Verity starts. “...In some fokkin’ horrible kafkaesque way,” Kraber finishes. “That’s not kafkaesque!” Verity protests. “Verity, in the past few days I’ve seen you get the most cruelly ironic punishment I’ve ever seen, get stuck among people you hate…” Kraber says, counting on his fingers. “And overall have worse luck than Nny at an airport.” “Which is really saying something,” Aegis says. “Nny once got his flight delayed by three weeks.” “But he took a vacation after that,” Heliotrope says, confused. “So is that good luck or…” “Guys,” Aegis sighs. “We’re-” “Getting off topic,” Kraber says. Everyone turns towards Kraber, shocked. “Yes, out of character, I fokkin’ well know,” Kraber sighs. “The point is, Verity, you suffered so many horrible things here that it got funny-” Verity groans. “Then it got sad. Then,” he says, pondering, “I thought it was funny again, but nah, it was fokkin’ flou and I was being a kontgesig the whole way through. And I’m sorry for that, Verity. That, that’s definitely kafkaesque,” Kraber finishes. “But I saw her get disowned over videochat. I know what the HLF does to its ponified members-” “Oh God,” says Elena Shapiro, that HLF woman who’d barely talked since Kraber got beaten up by Verity. She looks sick, and Babs trots up to her chair and holds her. You can tell, then and there, that she has a long story buried deep in there that she doesn’t want to remember. “...Yeah,” Kraber says. “Verity and I are going to fokkin piss each other off, no matter what. But if her hating me is the worst it gets, then so be it.” “It's not like I can do much else,” Verity mutters. “Just hope that they don’t get some anomalous newfoal,” Kraber says. And you know what he means - it’s quite often that the potion screws up. Given that quantity is what the war machine runs on, something’s bound to go wrong with the ponification process. Kraber’s seen it before. “But I know what a teleport matrix looks like. They’re unreliable, and need a hell of a lot more precision to work. Everyone liked being able to do this, but portal stations were just so much easier” She pulled out a wooden rod with lightly glowing carvings, an assortment of gems, (valuable to the PHL - there was a fat finder’s fee for thaumic components taken from PER or Equestrian units) and what looked like a compass. When she opened it, she could see an assortment of gears, some less then a millimeter in diameter, gently whirring. “It’s weird, though,” Heliotrope said, looking through a dead pony’s saddlebag. “It’s almost like… a modernized teleport matrix, but nobody makes these anymore. But I don’t get it. Why would they do this?” “It’s a good question,” Yael said. “By the way, Heliotrope, I’ve been thinking. Can you… can you shadow those HLF men a bit? I have some questions.” “Right,” Heliotrope said. “But don’t kill them or beat them up,” Yael added. “I just need you to listen in.” It had been an hour later. Things had almost… sort of… kind of settled back into normalcy. Kind of. Much as things could be said to ever be normal when they were all probably going to die within about four years, but it was the next best thing. Heliotrope It bothered Yael. Which meant, by extension, it bothered Heliotrope. How had the HLF managed to cotton onto a PER attack? And found out that Shieldwall was in the area? HLF, for all they hated the PER, were very poor information-gatherers. Usually. There were a few units out there, much as you could call them units, that could do information-gathering. And the HLF rarely managed to gain a PER informant. Never a plant. So what was going on? Heliotrope flew after the HLF truck, a big, bulky vehicle that looked like a repurposed coal truck. There’d been a roof installed over the back, and the hydraulics looked to have been replaced. Her invisibility flightsuit was active the whole way. Thank God these people actually obeyed the speed limit. It would’ve been almost trivial for Heliotrope to outpace the truck, but with all the twists and turns on the road, it would’ve been exhausting. Good thing she could fly, or this’d be really horrible. She was just barely at the truck… She reached in her saddlebags, just behind her SMGs, and pulled out a small listening device. It would have been easy, almost trivial, to have reached for a small bomb, put it near the axle, but… Something about that didn’t feel right, though. Firstly, that’d be going against orders. Secondly, these people had… at least they’d been trying at doing something good. The scenery blew past her as she rocketed towards the truck. It was quite beautiful, she reflected. Shame she couldn’t have gone here Pre-War. Shame that she wouldn’t have been friends with Yael or known her charming, oddball cousin without the War. Without Kraber having shot her, Yael visiting her in the hospital… Cyprus, 2019, Varosha, Famagusta It was not where Heliotrope had hoped to be. Fleeing the Barrier, and the madness in Turkey, a few kind Turkish humans (who would name a country after a bird?) had dragged her into a boat and she’d ended up in this city. It was… It was massive. The concrete buildings would tower over most that she’d seen in any city in Equestria. Well. Cities that weren’t pegasus cities, anyway. They were ugly, slab-sided, utilitarian… and built with no assistance from magic at all. None of it had been. And the bullet that hit her, fired by a bloodthirsty, smiling man with high cheekbones and a wild beard, had no magic behind it. Just engineering. She knew the man was Viktor Kraber. She knew he’d shot up virtually anything pony-made in the past few months. And she knew, from the X-rays, that she’d almost been killed. The bullet had hit her in the leg, punched through her cutie mark, and gone out her flank. Which had left her in a cast, one leg in traction, as she lay on her back in the field hospital in what looked like an abandoned human city. Probably because, well, it was. The local human government, the one with the name that sounded like a silly bird, had exiled every one of its residents almost 50 years ago, and never let them back. The Empire’s soldiers, the Royal Guard, and newfoal conscripts, would say it was a reason humanity should’ve been exterminated for doing it. The screaming human child who’d lost his arm to potion, his sheets covered in blood, presumably disagreed. As did the tall, mournful-looking, brownish-skinned human mare - woman with the green eyes and thick black hair. The place was on the verge of collapse, and unsafe in the extreme. Which, again, it probably was. But with the Barrier on the move, chaos in Turkey and Europe, and people like Kraber running around, people couldn’t be choosy. Though Heliotrope wished she could have chosen to be anywhere but here. The room was crumbling, and full of wounded refugees. “Ow ow ow bucking ow,” Heliotrope groaned. “I can’t even move with this thing!” “If you don’t,” said the tall, thin, brownish-haired, black-haired human woman that’d been walking through the improvised field hospital. “It’ll never quite heal right.” She lifted her leg and pointed it outwards, toe pointed like a dancer. She pulled up one leg of her pants, and Heliotrope saw a long scar, a little stretched, a little wobbly. It looked old, and was barely noticeable against her dark (by human standards) skin. “Fell down once during dance practice, she said. “Cut it open on a nail and broke my leg. Tried to go and dance after three weeks, too.” “I’m guessing that didn’t work out,” Heliotrope said. “Nah,” the woman said. “Had to stay in there seven more. It should’ve been six, but dad was afraid I’d do something stupid.” “Parents, huh?” Heliotrope asked. “Are… are yours okay?” “I hope,” the woman said. “Yael Ze’ev. IDF Rabat - it’s something like a corporal,” she said, holding out one of her hands. Heliotrope just raised an eyebrow, staring up at her leg. And then, there had been a hilarious misunderstanding where Heliotrope had thought Yael had said she was a rabbit. But that wasn’t the point. “I’m military too,” Heliotrope said. “Used to be a skyliner engineer, but… let’s just say that Captain Cactus and I had a polite disagreement.” SLAP “WHY ARE YOU SUCH A-” ”And that’s when I started swearing,” Heliotrope finished. ”Is that a superhero or something?” Yael asked. “Nah, that’s my old captain,” Heliotrope said. “He got caught in a Crystal Empire weapon… apparently, there was just enough Crystal Pony in him to blunt it, and the doctors were…” Heliotrope sighed. “All you need to know, rabbit…” Yael just raised an eyebrow. Though this was more out of being mildly irritated than being oversensitive, because it was a bit of a low-hanging fruit. “I couldn’t help myself, okay? Sheesh,” Heliotrope sighed. “Corporal. Anyway, the Cap survived, except he had a few spikes sticking out of him. We all called him cactus. Real name was tumbleweed, though. I… really hope he retired.” “What makes you say that?” Yael asked. “I know what newfoals are like,” Heliotrope said. “They’re passive to the orders of a superior to a fault. That’s not going anywhere good. The Cap was a great leader, Corporal. I don’t want to see this war turning him into a monster either.” “Fair,” Yael said. “So… how’d you get here?” “Why’re you asking?” Heliotrope asked. “I…” Yael said, shaking. “Some HLF beat up my sister. I don’t know if she’s going to be okay. I just… I needed to be… I needed to be…” she took a breath. “I just needed to find somewhere quiet. I was going to walk through here, but you got me curious. Being a pony and all.” “Wait,” Heliotrope said. “HLF beat up your sister? One of those bastards shot me, too! It was Viktor Kraber, I think-” “I actually liked what he was going for at first,” Yael. “But… him. People like him have killed too many innocents. The bastards have no sense of collateral damage!” Oh, the irony... “Somebody has to go after people like that,” Heliotrope said, surprised by her conviction. “Is it… are there governments that’ll turn us away? Join the HLF?” “Not mine,” Yael said, and Heliotrope believed, really believed that Yael had known that like up was up and down was down.. “That’s not what my country was founded for.” “Then I’m enlisting with you,” Heliotrope said, surprised at her own conviction. “I’m not much of an engineer. But I can rig things up. You’re probably going to want somepony that knows magic, and I can be your mare.” “You’re going against your country?” Yael asked, surprised. “They’re not mine if this is what they do,” Heliotrope had said. “Yes - humans have done awful things. But so have we. And two wrongs do not make a right. And… I’ve seen so many ponies judging humans, as if none of our nation’s principles apply to you. As if you’re just… I don’t know, less than the beasts of the Everfree. I think that’s shit. I am going to help people here, HLF be bu… damned.” “Well, you’ve got one supporter,” Yael said, a smile on her face. “I’ll make sure you can enlist soon as possible.” “For your sister,” Heliotrope said, holding out a hand. “For every pony that just wants out of the empire,” Yael said. “Friends?” And Heliotrope had smiled as well. “Friends,” she agreed. Heliotrope remembered every moment of that day. For that, she’d become Yael’s best friend. For that, Heliotrope would do anything - cause Yael had made the effort to understand. Cause Yael had found that she liked ponies, set aside her worst impulses, and planned to do her best. For what Yael had done to help refugees, especially the ones that had been trapped in basements all over Nipville, for the humanitarian efforts, for sticking to the PHL no matter what, Yael was worth a hundred, no, a thousand Krabers. On top of that, the place had been embezzling PHL tech, and making its various refugees pay ‘protection’ taxes thanks to an HLF slumlord. Why did everyone forget that they’d taken a lot of prisoners from there, anyway? The Reavers had been pissed about that one. Still. Heliotrope couldn’t help but feel a twinge of regret over the collateral. They’re not even doing anything, she thought. Plus, I saw kids with them. So: No. Yael would understand. She’d probably be more pissed if Heliotrope blew it up. She placed a bug on the truck, and listened in on the conversation inside. “Did that scotsman in there look familiar, or was it just me?” one Russian-accented man asked. “Must be you,” another one said. Heliotrope couldn’t place the accent. “I didn’t see anything odd bout him.” “Fucking Ze’ev and Heliotrope were there!” somene else was saying. Their voice was literally painful to listen to, a tortured, eye-wateringly cacophonous voice. “We should’ve killed ‘em.” “Do you want to die, Ides?” the Russian man snapped. “We’ll never cut out the Reavers or kill off the Empire if we do that.” Heliotrope’s eyes went wide. ‘Ides’ - could it be… Richard Ides? Everyone had said his voice sounded terrible. In an intercepted communication, Kraber had once said that Ides’ voice reminded him of a cat being violently molested against a chalkb- Your mother glares up at Heliotrope. “Well, I did say it,” Kraber points out. “Blame my upbringing.” “Is that bastard still around?” Vinyl asks. “He nearly got my co…” Kraber looks over you, almost embarrassed, and you try not to remember that day. As Kraber punched out all a man’s blood. Oh Faust, there was so much blood, so much bucking blood everywhere, it was dripping from the ceiling into your mane, it was getting everywhere, oh, oh God, that was just twisted, you felt sick just remembering it, sweet mother of faust, why, that was, oh, oh lordy… “...I don’t want to talk about it,” Mommy says bluntly. Vinyl winces. “Oh. Right. Dancing Day… I’m really sorry you had to see that.” “I didn’t see most of it,” you point out. “You did tell me to keep my eyes closed…” “You saw way too much,” Kraber says. “So, Ides is dead,” Verity says. “Not much of a loss. Kraber, did you really eat his-” “Not the time!” Heliotrope interrupts. She looks over to True Quill. “If you’re writing this down, I want that stricken from the record.” “Doable,” True Quill says. “And my mind,” Heliotrope adds. “That’s… a bit less doable,” True Quill says. “And it violates constitutional amendments against mind magic.” “Aw, what?” Heliotrope sighs. “I dont mind,” Kraber says. “I actually smaak living with it. Or… the idea of it. Ja - I’m a fok-up, and every day I wonder why Yael didn’t shoot me.” “Cause you convinced me,” Yael says. “Right,” Kraber says. “Ja. I’m a kontgesig. But I’m learning.” “Fair enough,” Aegis says. “I’d… rather remember my mistakes and try again than forget them and make the same ones. So, Viktor… good on you for trying. I can respect that.” Anyway. Ides. All around sonovabitch. A long list of confirmed kills in Portland and Continental Europe, a history of hoarding supplies taken from PHL outposts, copycat killings meant to emulate Kraber’s ‘work’, torture, firing on prisoners, a history of sexual deviancy… Though there wasn’t any proof to the last one. But Heliotrope had heard stories. Awful ones, at that. The ponies at Nipville - the town they’d taken a flamethrower tank to - had awful stories about him. They’d been searching for him for days! And he was here! In country that was rumored to have Kraber, Shieldwall, Fairbairn, even Reavers… and that weird transmission. “Well, at least let me do something worthwhile,” Ides said. “Whatever it was-” “The Hotline,” an Irishman explained. “Let’s call it that.” “All because crazy old Hatch said her pet little zombie said something,” one woman said. “You realize how little sense that makes?” “You realize how few advantages we have?” the Irishman spat back. “Even the Reavers have laser weaponry. We have pipe guns. The PHL have… I don’t even fucking know, man. We’re going to use this.” “I don’t even know where it came from,” a young woman said. “Well, word is that it came from God to Lovikov,” said one man. Heliotrope snorted. “I believe it,” Ides said. “And you believe that Kraber’s still faithful to the HLF?” ‘Jones’ asked. “Ides - you’d believe anything.” “Well, I do,” Ides protested. “Then where is he?” ‘Jones’ asked. “On a secret mission, obviously,” Ides said. “So secret that Lovikov’s ranting and fuming whenever we so much as mention his name?” ‘Jones’ asked. “Well, maybe it’s part of his cover!” Ides protested. Did Kraber even feel regret for what he did? Heliotrope wondered. That he has bastards like this idolizing him? “Yes,” you say. Kraber looks at you. Shrugs a little. Looks like he’s thinking. “Yeah, you phrased that better than I would,” Kraber finally says. “Wait, with the….” Heliotrope says, and looks over at Kraber. “Oh.” “We’ll get to that later,” Kraber says. “Is… is someone up there?” Ides asked, in that awful voice. And that, Heliotrope thought, spreading her wings and falling backwards off the truck, letting the wind catch her, is my signal to go. Letting the thermals and thaums lift her, she soared above the treeline, heading back towards Bethlehem.