Chapter 6: Beggar in the Morning
Fallout Equestria: Begin Again
Chapter 6: Beggar in the Morning
“Sometimes the smallest roles in the Good Fight are the most important.”
|*| Bits and Pieces |*|
I watched my reflection, as it mirrored that of a warhorse. The scars across the toll booth's face closed over me like the notches of a tribal mask, as if I was expected to take on all of the window's wounds. I could have been a little glass lion, for my proud mane and pale scars, but was surprised to find that, even as I moved, some of the marks moved with me, and took on more cardinal colors. Still, this new image was to be a blessing, for Caliber's plan would see me clothed in the uniform of a disfigured kingdom.
Now I tightened fraying leather belts around my middle, but still felt naked without those high collars fluttering against my neck. It was strange to be wearing clothes that had been stripped from the dead, but I was only happy to have forced nakedness on a corpse left by some other killer: a corpse I didn’t know.
It wouldn’t be long before we walked through the Raider’s jungles, and, if I could pass for one of them, then we might come out from the company of death, and walk into Hell without its fingers like a bone necklace around our collars. Caliber would lead us right into the jaws of this new Equestrian monster, and I could only hope that we wouldn't tread on its tongue, and let it taste us. Okavango and Charon could ferry me past old, dormant technology and our insomniac ancestors, but Caliber didn't make time for the past, and would throw us over one of the country's freshest wounds, like salt.
“Are you done in there?” The mercenary’s voice sounded exhausted, though I had only kept her waiting for a few minutes, and I ignored it, if only to fold away my father’s vest, treating its scripture like the fringe of a flag, to be set down over a soldier's grave. Once everything was neatly packed away, I burst out of the toll booth with flourish, and slammed its door as if to play myself onto a stage.
Behold! I only just shut my voice in, knowing better than to say the word aloud. "What do you think?" I asked, skirting modesty. It had taken a little while, but from the sad collection that was Raider fashion, I'd picked out the best for the journey to come, letting myself be a puppet to my genteel mother.
No longer could I go about my business unclothed, and put so little work into my image. Not knowing that I would face bucks as distinguished as Damascus, and a world that might soon ask for my name in lights, shining over its doors. If Equestria wasn't built in a day, it certainly wasn't built by the naked.
"Oh my stars," Caliber said, playing a lightheaded debutante in some southern heat spell. She might have become frustrated in searching the toll, keeping her nose to the ground in pursuit of some paper trail to this deal between Rail and Raider. But, for now, she had a character to play. "That's the one." Okavango ooed, as if to agree. "Uh-huh, honey... you're making me as faint as a filly in the middle of Ju-ly."
She had pieced together a strange outfit for herself: a scrapyard of thick padding, worn in an almost indecent fashion, as a patchwork suit of armor built of everything from strips of mattress to baseball kneepads protected the few places that had not been left bare to skilled snipers and leering eyes.
"What else do you need to hear?" She asked, leaving the act in a shambles. "It really brings out your eyes - Makes you look fat? Impossible! - The Raider Badlands Collection really is some of their best work." I looked down, as if to pick up the pieces of that southern belle. "What does it matter? We're trying to be discreet: Now's not the time to be fussing over how many heads you'll turn."
That was hard to hear. A large part of this whole production had been put on in the hopes of impressing her. After all, she was one of the only ponies to whom I'd think to present myself, be it in arms or haute école: one of those few that I truly wanted to impress. "You look great." She surrendered, after a long and unsaddling silence. "After all: you're a Stable pony. You all look like you just stepped out of a billboard."
“You don’t think these shorts are too tight?” I peered worryingly back at my flanks. The tawny, cutoff rear to the outfit was especially strange, as it left me feeling more naked than nudity ever had.
“I wouldn’t worry about that, honey.” She glanced conspiratorially at Okavango. “After all, they… say…” As she crept through the sentence, our semisentient jukebox started blaring along behind her, with such flawless timing that I might’ve sworn that they planned this. You gotta Ac-cent-tchu-ate the Positive.
A sermon, coming from what had to be a preacher who was kicking up his robes, went bouncing off with the horns. Caliber shot me a devilish smile and tilted her head West, with her hooves becoming instruments as they tapped against the highway. And, if asked, I'd have let her dance me back to Hell.
To illustrate. My last remark. Luna in the moon. Discord in the park.
What did they do? Just when everything looked so dark?
“Come on, Lamplight. Let’s hit the road.”
*** *** ***
Even in her new uniform, Caliber had kept what was clearly some kind of radio strapped to her chest like a badge, and I had begun to wonder if Damascus could not come to speak through it, and steer us in another direction. "Caliber," I began, as we came deeper into the valley that, only the night before, had been flooded in thick and starless ink. "Couldn't we get our orders over the radio?"
The mercenary shook her head. "Not from down Damascus' way, we can't. There isn't much that can jump out over all of Cerberus’ hurdles." And, before I could think to ask, she nodded back to the cheery spritebot. "I still can't figure where Mister In-Between over there found the time to record those songs."
“Maybe Cerberus lets itself by.” Okavango Delta certainly hadn't had much trouble when ferrying me through the passages of glass and light that served as veins to Hell's subterranean heart.
“Yeah, maybe. I’d try and figure a way back to Damascus that makes use of your little keycard, but I’d rather walk into the Hell I know than the one that's hidden behind all those old locks. History's seen a lot worse than the Raiders… and I want to be in one piece for whatever comes next.”
“What do you think he has planned for us?” I said us because, by now, I’d decided that this was the way it was going to be. I couldn’t leave Caliber until I’d sold her a little more hope for the world, as to hear her doubting Equestria’s new dawn, was to hear someone calling my God little more than a windup toy, and watch them crossing out entire lines of scripture under a firm and faithless red pen.
"Sounds like the Slavers might not be wearing the first collar of the food chain anymore, but I figure Damascus already had his suspicions about that. Either way, he’ll need to pull out all the stops before he can get his plan rolling, and I’m sure we’ll get caught up doing most of the legwork.”
The streetlights cut out, as if falling into a tepid and dreamless sleep, so that they would be ready to take the place of a setting sun. “Who could the Slavers possibly be working for?” I didn’t know much about the pieces in play across what Caliber would call The Wasteland, but I was eager to learn about those that remained from the days before Equestria burst. “They control the northern rails, for Pete's sake!"
“If the world's still spinning: it's spinning on blood and money. All it would take to control the Coltilde is a carrot dangling from a stick, or a knife pressed up against its throat. Anypony with the money or the caps could take the Slaver's reins right out of their hooves.” She paused. “The only contenders I can think of would be more interested in wiping them out than controlling them, so… I guess I can't answer that.”
“That’s alright. I’m sure we’ll figure it out.” She smiled a little to hear me say that, and we fell back into the silence of trudging hooves and a crooning spritebot. Okavango only put on a show for special occasions, but his standards were clearly dropping with every mile marker, as even a passing bird or the echo of gunfire might inspire in him the need to sing a song, whose words had very little to do with anything.
As the electrical pylons returned, marching across the broken hills like soldiers and pilgrims all at once, I got some perspective on where we were. Acheron was not much farther along, and I could see its ragged radio tower standing proud against the West. I remember that the highway continued on even as the land sank, propped up by thick pillars that, for the most part, had endured the weight of hollow cars and the litter of a long and anemic offseason. The turnoff to Hell would steer us north soon enough, and I could almost feel the pulse of the kingdom, even through all its sickness and the bruises in the air.
“How was your first?” Caliber spoke up, as we came to choose between an empty Acheron and a crowded Hell. The valley seemed louder now, though there had been no music since we saw the Coltilde’s smoke rising out of distant spillways, and no words since those pylons crossing the valley.
“She was pretty.” I said, as if I had only just realized it. “Under all that animal…” Putting it into words wouldn’t help me but, for some reason, I felt as if I had to say something. “But her face… just burned away. Like paper. So many wasted years: So much work undone. She would have been master to the most finely tuned instrument in the world, but because of her madness… it had to be pulled apart.”
“That was her fault. Not yours.”
“I know,” I said, without breathing, as if I could only inhale in Hell. “I know.” Beyond the church and above the shattered outskirts, I could see corpses hanging, ripe and ready to be plucked; the only fruit that still grew in the Middle Passage. Now, I wanted noise, I wanted the winds that roared over the hills like a lion cub playing king and the ruins that creaked no louder than rocking chairs to rise and match the storm that had fallen over our country. “But I feel… different, knowing how easy it is to take a life.”
“Or lose one.” She added, saying what I couldn't bring myself to say. Killing the mare hadn’t left anything in me that was heavier than the fear of death, and now I couldn't help thinking about the light being boiled out of her eyes, and was left feeling hollow but for the weight of it, like a tumor crowding my heart.
“Do you think that’s what it was like with the bombs?” I asked, as she looked up to the sky, and saw that it still wore a mask. We hadn’t known what we were capable of, until it was done. We couldn't have understood how much power we had, though it was right there in front of us; proven on paper and in practice. We didn’t know how easy it had become to end the world, until it was already over.
“Maybe. Except what you did was right.” The mare seemed to draw into herself then, as if she was trying to decide what she might have done, if given the order to lead the war, and all its armies, over the edge.
We were coming to the cemetery now, as if carrying Death home on our shoulders after a long and exhausting night, and it was hard to think of anything else for his arm slumped around my neck. “Would you tell me about your first kill?” I asked, as we slowed to a stop before the fence, which rose out of the earth like a row of sharpened teeth from soiled and misshapen gums.
“I think I might have forgotten it.” Caliber's answer came out as if from under her breath and, if she hadn't stormed ahead, stepping over that field of long sown bodies - that might have blossomed under the cruel tending of the Raiders - I would have asked her to repeat herself. "Wait here."
She disappeared into the church, into The Light at the Edge of the World, which I slowly realized had gone quiet, as its colors faded, as if trampled under the chariot that was the sun.
*** *** ***
By the time Caliber came out of the church, the mist had been burnt away, leaving the storm naked in all the shades of its temper, as the sunlight tore its uniform to rags and sat on its back as if it were a throne.
"Keep my rifle ready." She tossed me some ammunition, without slowing down, and the cartons went into a frenzy between panels of magic, as if being fought over by an entire troupe of jugglers. "It isn't quiet. But better for the Raiders to hear a gunshot than one of their own bleating out a call to arms." She led me down the road, which would turn west to divide the blocks of cement that cradled Hell.
The staircases that broke up its southern face were guarded by shoddy barricades, whose grisly ornaments marked the territory, just as well as any flag or insignia. “If any of them come up to us alone; we drop 'em. You’re not passing for a raider with any look clearer than a squint, but if I have to talk our way out of something: just pretend you had your tongue cut out. The first thing that comes out of your mouth every time you speak might as well be: Boy, it sure is neat being a Stable pony.”
She went trotting on ahead before I could think of anything to say, but Okavango and I looked at each other as if to ask: What’s with her? I had to wonder how tense this morning might have been for Caliber as, to her, we were two fillies coming into a smoky study, to confess our pretty little sins to some stern and stone-faced father. And, to make it worse, she would have to play the part of his daughter, his princess, while I was no closer to the fallout than a tagalong friend from some neighboring kingdom.
We had nothing to show for our investigation at the toll, but for a claim to the deserted sword and scales of a lopsided lady justice, and an imaginary medal pinned to my chest. And for our shaking up of the hornet's nest, something had to give, even if it boiled down to a lecture or a slap on the hoof.
But, even though Damascus would wear a cross and a chevron on his shoulder before he would a bleeding heart, it wasn't ridiculous to think that he might even approve of what we had done. What worried me most, though, was that a pony like him should need to be so careful.
Rose colored water might have trickled into my Pipbuck, for how many hostile markers came up as the Raider's kingdom lorded over us. I pulled in a little closer to Caliber and Okavango, as if they could cushion me from the sound of rutting animals in the damp heart of a battlefield. "How many are there?"
“We don’t know.” My Pipbuck started to tick as we reached the end of that first stunted tower, where the roads joined together like streams into a dock between two piers. “Welcome to Castle Clusterfuck, kids. Damascus has mercs who can walk with the ferals - live with 'em over on the north side of town like it was some old world paradise - but if the dead can be tamed… Raiders can’t.”
She peeked around the edge of the block, scoping out the road that divided walking corpses from so many talking animals. I noticed a door built into the opposite wharf, but decided that, if I were to ask her about it, Caliber would only unveil whatever horror waited behind it, ready to swallow up naïve wanderers, bored locals and bound mercenaries. “Looks like we’re in the clear… I say we hug this southern wall until the next set of stairs, then we can head up to the nearest metro entrance.”
Of all the colors that had stood out against the night, the green that spoiled the valley's northern air had best survived the coming of day. I saw something moving, just over the lip that seemed to be keeping the sickness from spilling out into the asphalt docking bay. It shuffled by, as if on patrol, and gave no hint to the incredible speed that ferals seemed only to wield when hunting. "Okay," Caliber began. "Let's go!"
Wishing that I could float by as inoffensively as Okavango, or move with as much confidence as the mercenary, I scampered along as the middle part to our little caravan, following our leader as she wove around crooked streetlights, and skipped over litter that had trickled down from above.
We all jumped over a headless body, as if it were a hurdle, and I realized, for the plank that jutted out over us and the spatter of dark stains that reached out to north, that this pony had been sent to the undiscovered country in some ritualistic execution over the unmovable river that parted Hell.
We came to a notch in the naked foundation, and stopped before throwing ourselves into the final run of our dainty invasion. My Pipbuck chirped up, and advertised a Metro station just shy of the stairway’s peak. I wanted to show it off to Caliber, like a new watch, but she had clearly come this way before.
“You’d think Damascus might try to set up shop somewhere a little more practical.” She almost laughed, over shallow breaths. Adrenaline seemed to have improved her mood, and she smiled back at us as if to say Here we go, before pouncing on the stairs, and throwing us into absolute Raider territory.
The litter of the old world carpeted Hell's piers, as flyers of many lackluster colors and newspaper birds blotted out the concrete. But, while one side of the road rested under an irradiated fog, it was the other that wore the stench of death. Even as I clambered over the last few steps, I was hit by it, and retched, poking my head out over the first flight of stairs. I’d never smelt something so heavy and rank, and as Caliber helped me back along our way, I found the seeds from which this wall of stench had grown.
One of the alleys, carved out from between two square and somehow elephantine buildings, had been turned into a slaughterhouse. And yet, I almost wanted to thank the stars, for the meat strung up there took on shapes far stranger than any anatomy recorded in the pages of medical journals. "Those things have two heads." I muttered, more to myself than anyone else.
I had to wonder if the Raiders had grafted the extra parts on, in a childish attempt to design some kind of Supercow. More familiar shapes drifted over the opposite end of that hallway of meat, and got me moving again. I picked out more Raiders, loitering ahead, far along the edge of their little city, whose legs swung out over the road below, as if they were dipping their hooves in the cool waters of a canal.
"Damn it. There aren't enough of 'em up here." I nodded, as if she wasn't crazy to be complaining. "Means the tunnels will be clogged up with the bastards." I could make out the familiar shape of a Metro entrance, between her and the spread of Raiders. “There’s a door to some of the safer utility tunnels deeper in.” She waved a hoof at the concrete jungle. “D’you think we should go for it?”
"Utility tunnels?" I asked, though it wasn't like Hell had a lot safe places to spare. "Might as well."
"You're conviction is truly something to behold." She smirked. "Just keep close. If any of ‘em ask: I'll say we're looking to score some Jet. Try to look shivery, and... less like you." She inspected Okavango Delta next, trying to figure out a way to make him look more at home on the homefront.
"And you... Can’t you, y'know: blink? Raiders don't usually stumble across Cerberus tech, but I've seen some of 'em leashing up the standard issue spritebots. And that big blue eye of yours will be a problem." As smoothly as a Wonderbolt putting on her sunglasses, Okavango let a steel shutter slide over his heart. "Perfect. We can't have you looking too pretty." She scratched her chin, and turned all the scrutiny of her Raider makeover plan back onto me. "Speaking of: I think the robot just gave me a pretty good idea."
*** *** ***
“Sorry about the smell. I tried cleaning it out.” After seeing Hell sway from side to side, like a docked ship riding the tide, I found her though the narrow slit that was all I had left of the world, following nothing but the mercenary’s raspy voice and the scent of that hanging garden of meat, as both crept around the edges of the arclight helmet. “But one of these sickos must have blown the owner’s brains out from behind.”
“That’s alright!” I cried, having to raise my voice for how much the tilted steel muffled it. “I’ll get used to it!”
“Could’ve gone for a hockey mask, but it’d show off too much of your eyes.” I took that as a compliment. “And you do not wanna be inside one of those wastehound helmets.” I could tell that she was starting to move, and stumbled around in circles to find her. “Here, just muzzle into my tail.” She brushed up under the welder’s mask and blinded me in a flurry of red. “I think it might be a sign of submission with these guys.” I got over myself and obeyed, thinking that the grossness was worth having an anchor against this place. She tasted a little like cinnamon. But more like dust. “Now they’ll think you’re my bitch.”
As she began pulling me along, Okavango bumped up against my side, clamoring for attention like a beggar on his knees or a child on the tips of their hooves. “Huh. Don’t think he likes seeing you this way.” I let go of her tail, and let the spritebot guide me, as if he were no different to a shoal of fish gathered at the belly of a blind whale, steering it home. “Little bastard is smarter than I figured.”
I heard voices rising all around me, as we came into what felt like an open square. I tried to walk like a Raider might; attacking the ground with each step, and even going so far as to growl under my breath. Okavango swung around to my left side, after travelling under my belly, as if caught in orbit.
He had the sense to straighten out my arclight helmet, though I had realized that the accessory was nearly incompatible with unicorns. As far as plans went, this might have been one of the worst, were it not for the fact that – despite the mare walking as if following the scent of a gazelle through some savannah, and the robot drawing cursive blue lines around her body – we scarcely turned a head.
The Raiders only circled bonfires built from ruin, fired their crude weapons into the air as if their bullets were notes from an instrument, and watched senseless dogfights over Hell’s plentiful stores of meat.
Almost a quarter of the bodies I saw, were either mounting, or being mounted, though Kings hunched over other Kings just as often as they did their Queens, as if this greasy deck of cards was being shuffled by a fitful and irreverent dealer. These proud displays of sodomy were enough to send me back behind my shield, though it was good to know that, if nothing else, they couldn’t multiply by going that way.
“The Raiders tend to take the road less travelled,” Caliber whispered, as even a mare in blinds could not cross the square and shrug off their rutting. “Hey… check it out.”
I was afraid to look, but the mercenary pressed her tail against my cheek and, as she tilted my head up, I was almost knocked to my haunches for seeing what lorded over the city. Standing between two crude, concrete structures, was an enormous Celestial Cross. But it was nothing like the symbol sewn across the cover of a hymn books, or beautifully pieced together from matchsticks and scraps of metal from the lower floor. This was an insult, and even a godless mare, might feel her stomach churn at the sight of it.
The monument was a blackened, sagging thing, whose wings were flesh and whose body looked to have been nailed to a tower of pinewood and discolored metal like that of an insect in a display case. Its wings, though molded in the image of those that had carried Celestia over the world, those instruments that had been forged in the fires of the first day, wore feathers strung up at the neck, which were slowly being peeled of their ashy skin by the smoke and the winds that rolled through Hell.
This ugly Princess wore no crown and, from a distance, might have been mistaken for no less of a corpse than the bodies that were pressed together to color her silhouette. This bald alicorn, a skeleton to some crude religion, could not have risen for anything like love or devotion and, somehow, I knew that it was no tribute to Nightmare Moon, or even the ancillary sister that she had swallowed. This was Celestia, demonized, strung up and twisted like any of the animal carcasses in the alley.
I couldn’t move, and Caliber had to prod at my sides, leading me along as she might herd cattle around the fences of a stockyard, or some early and uncomplicated culture through the first church in the wild.
I couldn’t think of anything but the serpentine face of that God among monsters, that idol to the damned. And, as the mercenary guided me down a flight of stairs that sank into the concrete, I realized that the corpses lining Hell’s edge were not like those at the toll. There were faces here that had been marked in chalk runes and dark ink that mimicked wings or flooded over one another to color black and white suns, as if the Raiders were children, smearing their bodies in paint and letting the dust gather over old toys.
This city in the storm was filled with something darker than those pony peddlers and savages: for there were black crosses standing around their kingdom, and each held up another body, as if to let it blister under the veiled sun. The Faith had been so close, their scripture had skirted the edge of gospel, if only for all those rambling promises of sinners and sicknesses and circles… of demons.
“They blew out into the East, into the Great Plain,” Caliber began, as she pried open a tired old door, and guided me in the serene light of another utility tunnel. “So Damascus always calls ‘em what the Buffalo do-” From his port before this swarm, from that sanctuary of glass and light, he had named them.
“The Locusts.”
Soon, as the weight of the earth above us became immeasurable, the walls changed, and our hoofsteps rang for beating against the steel and the glass, which seemed to float over a pulsing cavity far below.
“Damascus says this kind of archi-tec-ture is a lot more common over in the Crystal Empire,” Caliber explained, as I peered down into the currents of silvery light, as if watching a river go by. “Told me that everything built like this was here before Equestria.” A little bit of wonder had almost fluttered into her voice. “Came from when we stole our blueprints from the Dragons, and learned how to use their metal.”
“That explains the size of it all.” The ceiling was so high that, by the time his light came to pool against it, Okavango might have become a star, bound to us as if by lasso. “I don’t see any crystals, though.”
“You’d have to go a lot further East for that.” I noticed that the door ahead had been torn down, as if the beast Cerberus had once hammered against it, until hinges of light surrendered to heavy and tireless paws. “The first tribes preferred this kind of metal alloy, see?” She dragged one hoof along the wall, following a raw vein. “There’s less of a flourish to it: It’s more honest.”
“I like silver.”
“You like everything.” It seemed Caliber had shaken off some of the morning’s tension, and now hurried on to meet Damascus with something like a spring in her step. It was strange to see peril, for all its commotion and adrenaline, swinging a pony up into such high spirits, but I was glad to see her happy.
We stepped over the once adamantine door, and entered an immensely tall room – a hallway standing on its head – whose middle was filled by a finely carved pillar, like a brittle violin in a glass case. It was surrounded, choked by a thousand stairs, and weighed down by blinking consoles and dreadlocks of wire. The room might have seemed calm, spacious and untouched, were it not for our leechlike machines.
The color of the light, which shone down as if from a waning sun, told me that we were getting close, that Damascus was only a staircase away. It was, however, a distressingly tall staircase, and I frowned up at it, wondering which sadist of an architect had been its designer. This kind of pilgrimage was usually reserved as a trial to the madly religious, or a routine to the clinically unfit.
“The door on the far wall has an elevator behind it.” Caliber said, though she didn’t make it sound like this was especially good news. “Behind it.” We both stared up at what would have to come next, and I noticed something then, as we stood in silence: the room was breathing. For every pulse of color, both magic and machine took another breath, to feed the blood of their beating hearts.
As if he had finally gotten tired of waiting for me to remember him, Okavango started towards the door, humming inharmoniously as he went. Of course: The Skeleton Key! I tried to slap my brow in surprise, but only succeeded in hurting myself, as hoof met steel and kicked off a panic between the slanted mask, its loosening strap, and my deranged mane.
“Don’t tell me he can get that open!” Caliber hurried after the spritebot, even as he woke up the door. “We’re gonna have to start looking for more of these things: Damascus would pass out caps by the shovelful for something to walk Cerberus through this rat’s maze.”
Okavango floated into the elevator, as if to say that we’d slowed him down enough: that he was too busy to have to deal with this nonsense. “Thank you,” I offered, as we came to stand at either side of him.
Under our hooves, the veins of light seemed to go on forever, and I could only hope that it was an illusion.
“Alright, operator: crank that dial to eleven, and get us floating.” Caliber poked at one of his antennae, making the spritebot do his best impression of a grumble. “Top Floor: Kings, Contracts and Keys to Super-Dungeons.” The room lit up, as Okavango lowered himself before a screen in the wall.
The Installation took a deep breath, and we began to rise, with that pattern of lights racing away beneath us, like the headlights of an unbottled traffic jam. When it was over, we were turned loose into a wide, broken ring, which, according to my Pipbuck, went on to tighten around Damascus’ chamber, like a collar.
“That… made things a lot easier.” Caliber sounded stunned, as if she couldn’t believe that Hell might be so suddenly tamed. “Does Damascus know about him?” She lowered her voice, and jabbed a hoof at Okavango conspiratorially, as if she could be talking about anyone else.
As if to give her an answer, the security officer blustered out a few would-be expletives, and then drifted off into the gloom. “I’m guessing he doesn’t want to be an elevator boy for the rest of his life.” I tried to wave, but Okavango Delta was already gone. “Looks like it’ll just be you and me.”
“Not quite, Lamplight: I need you to let me go in alone,” She said, flatly. “At least for now.” I nearly reared onto my hind legs, as What’s and Why’s filled my mouth like so many red and yellow cherries. “Damascus needs a report, not a confession. You won’t tell him everything straight: you’ll dip your hooves into it all, and tilt the scales. I need him to do this right, to decide if I went too far out of margins of my contract.”
I wanted to argue, but I couldn’t quite bring myself to do it. This really meant something to her, and though I didn’t understand it, I held my tongue. She needed an arbiter, some authority far greater than I, to push her over the edge, or tuck her back into her contract, as if it were a paper blanket.
The mercenary was gone before I’d even thought to force her into a hug and, more than anything, I felt like I’d been slapped across the face, and left in the middle of a ballroom, with my partner storming off over some overambitious hoof or a whispering of sweet and sour nothings.
Okavango had decided to fly laps to and from each of the ring’s broken ends, and passed me by without so much as a song, more like an officer on patrol, than a janitor dancing around his mop. He became the pendulum of a grandfather clock, and had done no more than three laps, by the time the wait was over.
As my eyes traced the lines of light that crossed the walls like narrow canals, I felt her hoof on my back, and shivered, as if my body was trying to shake it off. “The Coltilde sent out a search party.” She explained, smiling in the glow even as it floated by like a blue and bucolic lantern. “And there I was expecting them to start tearing into Cerberus’ neck as soon as the dust settled.”
“If Damascus is as good a liar as I think he is, the Slavers will put their bloody little noses down so far off the trail, that they’ll be sniffing red circles around the West.” She almost seemed giddy, caught up in the shock of having so many things go her way. “Luna’s bones, Gracie… we’re going to be alright.”
It wasn’t adrenaline that was making the mercenary seem so warm now, but the weight that had just been lifted, freeing her from all the burdens that I’d led her to bear. “Of course we are.” I couldn’t help laughing a little, as if she was a filly on my knee. “We’re the heroes, remember?”
“Good work at the toll. Even the Goddesses could not wash the salt from this earth’s wounds, and prepare it for harvest. And so we must take a sword to it, and carve fields from the ashes.” I watched the Coltilde breathing behind him, as great continents of smoke drifted apart over a serene and honey-colored ocean, making it look as if Damascus had imprisoned a dragon behind that pane of scriptured glass. “You and I serve our masters by another name, but our methods may not be so different after all.”
“We will be taking action – whether or not there is any worth behind the words of the one you found dying.” If that Slaver had been telling the truth, then there might be another, standing on the shore, watching as our fleets churned up the surf, and filled the water with shipwreck. “If the Coltilde has a master, it will make itself known in time. And we must be ready.”
“Where do we start?”
“I once believed that, in serving them, I would walk under the cover of a thousand shields and pillars, all keeping the world from folding over me like it had over so many others. But I was wrong.” He began. “Legends of the Steel Rangers, of the Buffalo tribes and the untouched north, made me blind. But each of them proved to be nothing more than tricks of the light, left behind by the old world.”
Like dead satellites, pretending to be stars. “You need to reach out to those illusions, and light them as if striking flint against a sword. It would be so easy for those old armies to wipe the slate, to come down from the skies or march across the earth and leave our country clean... and I believe that there are still some, tucked into the ranks of the dormant powers that dot Equestria, that might beat the dust from their banners, and lift them with the dawn. We only need to call them out.”
“How can these ponies just ignore the Railway? Why wouldn’t they fight?” I demanded, as if all those idle soldiers were on their knees before me, asking to be judged.
“They aren’t under the threat of annihilation: we are. And they would not face the wasteland, but ignore it, and find a means to their blindness in some ancient codex or mistranslated law. They would see everything around them die out, before stepping out of their bomb shelters, drifting away from their tribes, to reclaim an empty, lonely world. They are slow to care, and this is the greatest obstacle we face.”
“The Steel Rangers will be the last, as there is a chapter to their order hidden somewhere inside New Calvary, and on arriving there, you will already have the banner to a small army on your back.” I almost felt light-headed, as I could hardly believe that this buck, who might have watched the world being mounted by the Fallout, had steered me onto his road. “But first, information will give you course.” He paused, and the light caught his crystalline eyes. “And that, is where the DJ comes in.”
“DJ Pon3?” I couldn’t help jumping at the name, as Caliber let it roll off her tongue. “GNR’s signal cuts off a few clicks east of here, boss. Calvary must be buried pretty deep in that same dead zone.”
“That’s why you’re going West. The GNR broadcast makes use of a broken chain of relays that was once known as the MASEBS system. The nearest functioning tower leaves our Middle Passage at the very edge of absolute static, though it can still be seen from the mouth of the valley.” Seen, but barely heard. “You might be able to use it to make contact with the DJ, and then we will have our eyes into the storm.”
“Why me?” I asked, after cycling through a dozen other questions. To show any sign of doubt was a risk, but Damascus did not seem capable of being unsure of anything. He had to have a reason.
“You are a symbol, a flag in the earth and a gunshot at the start of a race. And your arrival has tipped the scales – not like the weight of a single coin, but the impact of a comet. I could never make anything of the damned, of all those that the Stable spat at this place: could never set them on the right path, but you… your destiny is being shaped by an authority far greater than mine. And we can do nothing to stop it.”
Luckily, Damascus wasn’t about to waste our time, waiting for me to think of something to say, though he might have mistaken my silence for something other than awe. “I expect there are reasons for you to doubt me, for you to hesitate, but know that you must put your instincts aside.”
“I trust you.” I said, surprised that he could have thought otherwise.
“Good. That saves us time. But there are still two things we must address before you can leave this place.” I felt Caliber bristle beside me, as if she was a windup toy whose key was being turned.
“There’ve been some changes to my contract.” She explained, as we turned our heads to face one another, and both became twofaced for light and the lack of it. “I’m gonna be working on standing orders.” She sounded proud, as if this was something that other mercenaries might be jealous of. “And as of now, we’ve got ourselves a neat little Your wish is my command relationship.” I tapped a hoof against my chest, wondering onto whose wishes she meant to leash herself. “That’s right.”
The storm behind him cast torpid shadows over the throne room, and they became whales drifting through a sea that was the color of butter, or a sky in the flush of sunrise. And Damascus went on, before I could even begin to choke on my first word. “Now, for the last step we must take, before your first.”
He lifted his hoof, and set it on a small box, whose trimming glinted in the light of the window, beside half a dozen eyes. “You have a wasteland to stitch together, and I have fires to start… We have everything to do, and no time to do it in. Take these, for when your trust begins to lose its balance.” He pushed the case over to me, and it slid over the glass as if it were ice. “Take these, and you will know Me.”
“Damascus…” Caliber breathed out his name, and stared down at the thing, as if it were an animal to be sacrificed before us. I floated the case over - as it pleaded to be taken into the folds of my magic, and tucked into the hollow of my saddlebags - and clicked it open. A row of small spheres, all cushioned in the compartment’s soft lining, caught the chamber’s lights in all its tides and streams, and I saw that each was tinted a different shade, with its own color taking slow breaths somewhere beneath a silvery surface.
I counted all six, and then shut the case as the mercenary spoke. “You don’t know what’s in there.”
“They are memories that I no longer needed – sentiments that once hung around my neck like millstones. My mistakes are my own, my sins like wounds that should be made fresh for every passing morning, but those small pieces of history were to be forgotten: kept separate… but safe.”
“She’s a unicorn.” Caliber said, fencing me out with a word, like a line put to paper with a flourish, with a twist of the neck or roll of the hoof. “She could watch those, Damascus.”
“She may be the last one who has the chance.” I couldn’t help peeking into the case then, wondering how my horn might allow me to relive history, even where others could not. But I was quickly drawn back to the buck before the storm, as a crinkle in the scars on his cheek, made it seem like he was smiling. “The north always had a remarkably flat head.”
I packed the orbs away, even as Caliber furrowed her brow, and tightened her lips. She seemed to know enough about the devices to stand against their being wrapped in ribbon, and I decided that she could help me if I were ever to go wandering into these abandoned pieces of Damascus’ almost mythological life. “I’ll keep them safe.” I said, as they watched me fiddle with the clasp of my saddlebag.
“Don’t fall in and out of them as you might a daydream. And if you must, then visit each once, and only once.” An enormous plume of smoke pressed against the window then, and darkened the chamber like a hoof over a candle, as if to remind us of the beast that had come to eat at time as a serpent might its own tail. “We cannot afford to see you wasted. In a world full of misery and uncertainty, it is too great comfort to know that, in the end, there is still light in the darkness.”
The mercenary drew a cross around her chest, as if making a promise. I’ll take care of her. “Caliber will brief you as you go, but do not hesitate to walk circles around the path, to wander off of its sides. To put reins on destiny, would be to tie a rope around its neck, and choke it with every turn.”
I might have wished him Good Luck, as to remain in Hell was to let the mouth of the Coltilde close around you, but I had come to understand how little luck meant to ponies of the Faith. Besides, the buck didn’t seem at all interested in anything like a goodbye, and so I moved to follow Caliber out of the chamber, and found that she was standing by, as if to let me pull her along by the leash.
Before leaving Damascus and his Kingdom of Glass, I did manage a salute, and a neat little march that I couldn’t help being proud of, if only for how hard it had been to keep myself from skipping.
*** *** ***
“That was Sweetie Belle, the voice of the frozen era, with Wish upon a Star, a song that’s been topping the charts for over a century.” The previously explosive buck now spoke in soft, reverent voice, as if he didn’t want to wake the age old music, or had simply changed for coming out of Okavango’s speakers.
I could see the valley’s northern mountain range coming to an end through the last swirls of mist, as we stepped off the highway, and walked towards that divider of valleys. The wind howled over uneven hills and wove through the ornate cement pillars that lifted the road high beside us. Across the fields ahead, it played eerie songs with electrical pylons and pine tree clusters as its only instruments.
“You’re listening to Galaxy News Radio; we’re Radio Free Wasteland, and we’re here… for you.” For a moment, I thought that somepony soft-spoken had booted the DJ out of his chair, to hijack the station, but then the buck’s voice picked up into a howl, breaking the air of calm that had settled under a crooning storm and the echoes of Ms. Belle’s heart-wrenching song. “Boy, do I have some news for you!”
Few ruins dotted the valley’s western mouth, though the rails lay ahead like a long spine built across the back of Equestria, and the road rose to curve off behind the distant end of southern mountains.
“It’s going to be a little bit of both sides of the coin today, kiddies. We’re living in a bipolar time, so get yourselves ready for some serious ups and downs in today’s report.” Caliber had set a course for the farthest standing electrical pylon, and we walked past cabals of pine trees and boulders, all bound together by streaks of grass, crossing the untamed earth to reach what she had called her shack.
“First things first; the dark and twisted. I know this isn’t always what you wanna hear, but you all know the rule: Truth, no matter how bad it hurts.” The voice bounced behind us, as Okavango entertained himself. “So you kids know all about what’s been going down up north, don’t you?” He paused. “Of course you don’t! That’s why I have a job… Now, forget about everything you might have read in the picture books or tour guides children, ‘cause the farther up you go, the more fucked up things get.”
“You can forget the wonderland: We’re talkin’ Winter Wasteland, and that means you’ve got the cold nipping at your hooves right along with every two-bit savage or snapping set of manacles.” As he spoke, I had to wonder what the season of summer was like, as every word seemed to remind my body of the chill in the air. “I’ll tell you; if I was drinking all the same irradiated crap, and living under deep freeze to boot, I might have to make my living as a lime-flavored Popsicle machine.”
I looked to Caliber for an explanation, feeling like I had missed something, but she just smiled and waved me away. “However the Slavers, bless their hearts, have decided to try and protect the towns along their Railway from that old dog named Winter… too bad their doing it by putting them to the torch. Those lovable bastards have spread themselves wide, and I mean wide folks. Straight out of this Old DJ’s iron sights. And, not only are they snatching ponies up from the Capital to Calvary, these collectors have recently gone above and beyond the call of being evil sons of bitches… but we’ll get to that in a sec.”
“Now they’ve got themselves set up cozy, and run their ring over one line; one set of tracks.” With one terrible train. “But DJ, don’t you see?” He asked, doing an impression of us all. “If we set some good old fashioned dynamite down on that ‘one line’ we can stop those Slavers short!” The funny thing was, I might have said exactly that. “Not happening, my little heroes. Those tracks are damn near indestructible. Wartime defense regulations wouldn’t have had it any other way: That Applejack was a real stickler.”
As we drew ever closer to the electrical pylon, I noticed a modest pen of steel sheets and woodwork around its base, and an opening that looked out onto the East and the traces of Hell that remained there.
“Now, lemme tell you how things get worse: A settlement far and clear of us here in dearest Manehattan… has gone quiet. But this wasn’t some shanty town that got blown away in a radstorm; this was Free Rein. I couldn’t tell you exactly what happened there, but from what I’m hearing: the place was flattened. Oh, and if you’re wondering why I can’t tell you more, hear this: there was nothing left. No survivors, no corpses, no witnesses… children, that shiver down your spine wasn’t from the col-.”
The voice cut off, not fifty paces from the repurposed electrical pylon, and I looked back to investigate. “He was about to get to the Good News,” I complained, getting the words out before I noticed Okavango sputtering and seizing in place. Bursts of static shot out of him like artillery rounds, and the percussion of swing songs coupled with sultry horn sections to mimic the sounds of a warzone.
“Love me… Love me… Love me as though there were no no no no no no no no no.” I doubled back to his side, but found myself at a loss for having no limbs to restrain or arteries to inject with a save-all sedative.
I winced away as he played out the sound of a massive, terrible explosion. “Where will you be when the bombs fall?” Then came actual gunfire to outshine the music. “Enlist to- to- to- to-…”
“Sugar Bombs.” Jingle. “Fancy Foal!” Jangle. “Take a Sparkle Break… for Equestria’s Sake.” Jingle.
“Yippee-yaaaaaayy!”
“This is new,” Caliber said, standing by as I tried to console the panicking spritebot.
“Reserve your spot today.” I could only hold him in my magic, as he rattled and shook, like a machine with a wrench in its belly. “It’s all coming down… Oh… Oh they hit the Capital! The entire city, the Princ-“
“Kindness Honesty Laughter…” Okavango started to cackle maniacally, as his voice devolved into that of a mad mare. The music became chipper and obnoxious, and I wished that my magic could suffocate it, and silence this massive malfunction. “Ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo...” The howl changed from that of the DJ, to a soul singer’s, and finally a siren to announce the end of days.
“Armor? The means to remake yourself. Build Mass with Sasasasasasasasasasassssssss…” He hissed. “Weapons? The world is a dangerous and unbalanced place, children. The roads are the dustiest...” The meld of music, advertisements and voices both familiar and unknown were rubbing me the wrong way, but I managed to turn Okavango around, and stared into his flickering heart. Red. Blue. Red. Blue. White!
“Equestria? Celestia! It’d be best if ya: Left Equestria!” The seditious song cut out. “Guidance? Duck and Cover, duck and coooov-er.” Caliber stepped up to my side, and lifted a hoof. “Absolutely Everything? “You bet! To protect our Equestrian way of life.” She slammed her hoof down against the spritebot, as if he were a sputtering jukebox. “Virtue…” He managed, before coming to rest only a few paces East.
“Stay there!” She ordered, pointing her miraculous hoof at a silent Okavango. “Stay right there!” He obeyed, and whimpered like a dog on a guilt trip, knowing that he’d done something wrong. I looked to Caliber, hoping that she might explain. “Cerberus lets itself by… but it doesn’t let itself out.”
“You mean…”
“Yeah, Mister In-Between isn’t leaving the nest.” She began pacing along some imagined line. “I set up shop in this pylon because it’s over what every map marks as the edge of Hell. Call me superstitious, but I’m not sleeping inside the lines of a place like that.” I looked back at the patchwork walls that ringed the last soldier of electricity, and realized that the wreck we’d been heading for was Caliber’s home. “I knew it had to mean something.” Despite the whole ordeal, she seemed pleased, if only for finding this proof.
I, on the other hoof, could only stare at the electrical pylon. “You live here?” I peered into the doorless doorway, and counted two shelves full of color, one naked bed, and a rusty table. “There’s no roof!”
A series of disheartened beeps pulled me back into the story of that surgery of hoofbumps, though I was now too wary to cross back over into Hell’s palm. Okavango stared at me from beyond the rim, as if a wire fence had risen to keep us apart, and I felt myself getting caught up in thinking that he was being taken from me. “Settle down, Sugar.” Caliber set a hoof on my shoulder, as if standing beside me on the docks, to watch our little spritebot drowning in the radio currents of Hell.
“Okavango!” He turned away from us, and began to float back into the circle of that ugly city, with his eye to the earth. “Okavango!” I reached a hoof out over the border, as if I was trying to pull him back. But it was over; he had surrendered to the world as it reached down with uncaring tongs, and forced us apart. “I’ll come back for you,” I promised, with my voice at a whisper. “I’ll come back for you!”
After a few more seconds of holding my hoof out, like some sailor’s wife waving to the ships as they were taken by the sea, it started to hurt a little, so I stopped. Okavango too, realized that it would take him quite a long time to get back home if he kept up this melancholic pace, and turned back around to beep one last goodbye, before moving on at a much less emotionally expressive speed. But, despite these changes, Caliber didn’t watch us with anything but a slanted expression on her face.
“You guys are weird.”
*** *** ***
“Are we ready to go, Caliber?” Now, it was my turn to be waiting in the wings, as the mercenary stalled the beginning of our mission to tinker with her favorite gun’s rig over a workbench.
I didn’t mind that much, as the world had gotten no smaller, and no less beautiful in its second day. Equestria lay beneath a great collide between the East’s mist and sunlight through a filter, and the West’s temperamental sky, raging like a colorless fire over the broken pieces of a highway. And I found myself loving the country for what it had once been, as well as the nation on its knees that it had now become.
I had changed back into my father’s clothes, and even donned the cross bearing coat, if only to survive the darkening storm that still heaved and threatened snow above us. Caliber too, had returned to her usual outfit, and the Raider’s garb now burned beside her shack. Damascus hadn’t seemed to mind the disguise, but it would do me no good to go about rallying Equestria, dressed as one of its worst pests.
As I took another look at the path ahead, and measured a great, open field marked by rare clusters of stripped pine trees, it occurred to me that Caliber would have grown up in this place. With the light of the open sky on our right, beating against the earth, the illusion of sunset in the morning was created for shadows leaning south. The grass whispered and the wild wind roared, for being bent over these narrow valleys, and I knew that this place might shape a filly far differently than the Stable had me.
“Caliber.” She looked up from her desk, as if peering at me over eyeglasses, and I couldn’t help but to picture her in a bedraggled shirt and tie, bent over a newspaper whose headlines read WAR! with coffee and a pipe building pillars of steam in place of her cigarette. “Is this where you grew up?”
The shack was cozy enough, and wasn’t much smaller than my own quarters, but it was far too isolated to have fostered a family, and far too naked, like a raft caught in the storm. “All I can tell you is that I got my cutie mark in the snow, and that this rifle’s been with me as far as I can remember.” She lifted a hoof away from the disemboweled rifle, and tapped at the bandage on her temple. “Only got bits and pieces to go on, mostly: everything before my crusadin’ was over – as they say – is as clear as flat cola.”
“Most of my growing up got blown right out of me.” It was a gunshot wound. My mouth hung open, as I blinked at the mare who had dusted herself off after her own execution: who had beaten Shady Sands. “I had this blossom of gunpowder on the side of my face after it was over, like a crater, and the Doc figured I couldn’t have been more than a few paces away from the pistol.” She explained, skipping over her death as if it were a movie whose reel had only just been pieced together.
My eyes leapt from the neatly dressed wound to the crosshair on her flanks, as the thought of a life tied up in so much violence made my legs buckle. The mare smiled, and even knowing that she still could gave me a sickly kind of hope, that was far too bogged down in pity and guilt to taste anything but sour. “Got shot quite a while after this pretty little thing appeared on my flank.” But, even then, she would only have been pushing at the front lines of childhood. “And a long way away, too: Down South.”
“I couldn’t remember anything until I tried piecing together my cutie mark story. But once I’d put some color onto that empty slate, a lot of things started coming back to me.” I could only stare, marveling at the relationship between this mare, her mark, and her marksman’s carbine. In a way, the thought of it was kind of beautiful, and it left me feeling even happier to have been bound to this mare.
I watched, as she weighed her body down, with the belts of her battle saddle drawing taught, each wearing bullets like bars on the shoulder of a new world soldier. “We should stop in Silo City on our way to the satellite tower. Damascus says there’s one hell of a sniper working the wall there, and it couldn’t hurt to shop around a little... After all, you don’t play Follow the Lady with less than three cards.” She closed her bag, after sliding in what looked like a child’s map of the entire country, with its monuments made into swollen caricatures, and then tossed me her rifle.
To see the weapon up in the air startled me, and my magic grabbed at it just as a dozen hooves might come into a clamor for the bridal bouquet. “I just fixed a scope onto it for ya… Try it out.” I looked back at her dumbly, as if I needed more instruction. “Go ahead. Aim it down at that gas station. Let’s see if you can read the sign.” I brought the rifle to bear, and she took it in her hooves, to help me point it towards the southwest. “There, see… hanging under that big, pasty looking Phoenix.”
A large roof cast its shadow over most of the station, standing with its skirts hiked over a cluster of blocky gas pumps and a burnt out jalopy, which had been left to a lonely feast from this paradisiacal soda fountain. Its height could not match the overpass that lurched on behind it, though a figure rose, in the shape of a great bird, with an outstretched wing waving travelers down from the road.
Even for the coming midday, the station’s lights still blinked up at the Phoenix, though its feathers had nearly taken on the color of fuel, for a hundred years of fallout.
And then, I saw them, hanging in the shadow of the station, swaying like wind chimes: Corpses.
Footnote: Level Up!
Perk Added: Bloody Mess: Death is just so much messier around you. And he should be coming around a little more often, now that you have +5% damage. Make some Friends!
END OF BOOK I: GENESIS
|*| I guess you think you know this story |*|
You don't. You're all too drunk on toasts and glory.
The watered down one, the one you know.
Was made up centuries ago.
They made it sound all soft and sappy.
Just to keep the children happy.
Twisted fictions, sick addictions.
You're grown up now. It's time to listen.
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Another great chapter! You're not deviating from the plot of the previous one too much it seems so far, but that can always change.
how long will this story be if you just finished book one?
Nothing like waking up to another chapter of Begin Again. It's the reading material of champions... keep up the great work.
Is that a quote from something else at the bottom? It's nice to get to see where Caliber lives/lived.
*than
*quiet
*our
Errors I spotted.
Anyway. I laughed so hard at the scene when Okavango had to leave. I love how childish Grace is. She's so... amusing. It's almost like she knows she's in a story and does everything she can to change it's genre from post apocalyptic dystopian adventure to a slice of life high school drama or something.
this chapter reminds me of this
taking book names form the bible now are we?
I like your writing, it differs a lot from other fanfics, and is in my opinion much better.
something about children so important to change the font?
3139035
I'd have no choice but to graft it on somewhere.
String!
thesoulofashark.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/cat-string.jpg
I've been to the mountaintop, and I've looked over, and I've seen the promised land.
That is to say, I have a pretty good idea of where this story will end. (At 40 chapters, after 7 - 9 books)
But whose to say I won't think of the greatest story arc ever conceived?
3141275
Man, I wish I could get away with putting this stuff in the description, like they do on so many book jackets.
"The reading material of champions."
static2.businessinsider.com/image/4f6b38c2eab8ea112c000004/this-is-what-caused-the-epic-downfall-of-wheaties.jpg
3141602
Nice catch! That's actually a bastardization of Nicki Minaj's bastardization of Roald Dahl's bastardization of the Cinderella story.
static.screenweek.it/2011/5/9/game-of-thrones-1x04-cripples-bastards-and-broken-things-jon-snow-cap_mid.jpg
3141873
Thanks for that. But Fluttersyke is going to have your head.
You really have Grace's character on lock, though you still have to wonder: how deluded is she really?
Is it that's she's trying to change the genre of the story, or that she only sees Slice of Life/High School Drama like blinders over everything else?
3142289
Thanks for pointing that out. Looking back: Okavango was actually quite a lot like Grace's Wilson. 
That scene always used to choke me up.
Anyway, I like to keep things nice and biblical around here, so wash your feet, and don't look back.
I'll give you one guess as to what the next book is gonna be called. (Hint: The girls end up doing a lot of walking.)
I like your opinion. It reminds me of mine
3144607
The salt shaker and the line "don't look back" is a reference to Lot's wife.
And the next book will be called Exodus.
Anyway,3144502
If Fluttersyke didn't want me to spot mistakes they shouldn't have been left in there.
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All I know for certain is that Grace's childishness captivates me so. At this stage I don't know if she's going to end up being brought closer to earth, or take off in a more surreal and frightening direction. Either way, every time this updates I have to curb my enthusiasm and remind myself that however strongly this story has started, and it has started very strongly, that it could still turn bad at the drop of a hat. I'm really looking forward to more chapters, but at the same time desperately afraid you're going to mess this up some how.
I've got to admit, seeing multiple references to "God" strikes me as weird, in a very stable-24 sort of way. Like a little sample of what Littlepip must have felt.
3145911
I'm not sure I understand.
Are you talking about her reaction to a male Overseer.
As in: it's weirding you out that I don't always use the feminine.
I really liked this chapter. Like, a lot. Especially that everything you put into those ten thousand words, that was really good. In fact, I've made a checklist, because apparently I'm feeling sparkleish:
Things that you done good, son.
1) That song at the end, combined with Book 1's title and the picture of Grace, was beautiful. I really think it captures the overarching essence of this story, with both the style of our heroine's thoughts and the overall epicness she now finds herself in.
2) Caliber's response to Grace and Okavango separating legitimately did make me burst out laughing. That was priceless.
3) I have to say that I agree with Y1 in that I absolutely love Grace's innocence. Things like this:
Really do make it seem like she fights to bring the lot of us readers out of the darkness that permeates her world. She is like an optimistic ray of biblical sunshine.
4) I also love this line:
To me, it seems like doubt and suspicion would be what the vast majority of written heroes thrust into this position would be feeling, and I find it fantastic that Grace is pretty much the exact opposite of that. She is an awesome character.
Now, for a few small typos I managed to find:
"There is is not," pick one!
than*
I'm not actually entirely sure what you want there, 'just', 'as', or nothing.
[Insert object anypony might possess here] ...Strength? Numbers?
quiet*
heaved*
Nitpicking!
Double-space beat down!
In response to a certain letter/number combo:
I'm at you, bro.
25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lvopa3TvyY1qcc5ero6_r1_500.gif
3147557 3144696
(And in very different ways 
)
Now now, I love you both equally.
But I'm putting my money on Fluttersyke.
24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lnoiheLnlJ1qcf60uo1_500.gif
3146190
The gender reversal, yeah. After seeing Littlepip always referring to godesses, seeing the male (Or neutral, I suppose) version used just struck me as a similar sort of weird as what she might have felt with stable 24. Just, probably not quite as extreme.
3147557
reactiongifs.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/joker.gif.pagespeed.ce.-AAVGSd4iU.gif
You win this round.
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3148269
I do worry about walking that line. But God is a just such powerful word, and I've already built in words like palm and fingers on far shakier stilts (Minotaurs have hands! It's totally canon!)
But you shouldn't worry: I am very aware of these unwritten rules, and I'll try not to abuse them too blatantly.
("I think Celestia is a pretty cool God. Eh kills changelings and doesn't afraid of anything.)
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Oh, it works well enough, so I'm not worried about it at all. I was just amused to find myself having a (smaller-scale) parallel to Littlepip's reaction toward stable 24, so I thought I'd share.
Nooo! Okavango! I mean yeah, he's not dead, but he can't come with them! And we just met that adorable little ball of metal, too. I have to admit, it was pretty funny when he just slid that steel plate down over his eye like " I'm a robot with sunglasses. Deal with it."
Grace, despite all that's happened so far, continues in her optimism, and I like that. I've got a feeling she's going to have a breakdown soon though. As far as the story goes, you've more than earned a favorite! keep it up!
Small errors:
and twisted like any of the Brahmin in the alley. While not wrong, the problem I have here is that prior to this sentence, Grace has no knowledge whatsoever of the name of these beasts. It's even rather strongly implied with some of the description a few paragraphs before this that she believes the raiders made them.
Looks like it’ll just be you and Me.” not sure me should be capitalized here, and I don't think this was the only occurrence.
If Damascus is as good a liar as I think he is: the Slavers... More of that colon where a comma should go.