No Going Back

by Dwarf_Jesus

What's Left Behind (*EDITED*)

Agent Lugo crept silently through the darkened empty hallways of an empty apartment complex. He could've sworn he had seen someone moving at the end of the hall and was prepared to confront them. Beads of sweat began to run down his face and his heart rate skyrocketed as he drew nearer to the end of the hallway. Each step he took, was a step closer to his potential demise. After what seemed like hours he reached the end of the hallway. As he slowly turned the corner at the end of the hall he heard a faint thudding behind him and he whirled around to face the source of this unnerving noise. Alas, it was too late for Lugo, for when he turned around there was already an enemy agent in the process of driving his knife deep into Lugo's chest.

“Player one defeated...Player two is victorious”, blared the television speakers in their monotone synthesized voice.

“Oh come on, this time I know you cheated!”, whined Gaige, “I want a rematch!”. Gaige huffed and crossed his arms in display of childish frustration.

“I swear I didn't cheat at all Gaige!, Patrick retorted defiantly, “Have you ever thought that maybe you're just bad at this?”, he added with a wry smile. As Gaige processed that remark, he could almost picture himself slowly wrapping his hands around Patrick's neck and throttling the life out of him, but that might not go over to well with his parents so he restrained himself.

“Oh yeah?”, Gaige paused to think of an intelligent comeback, “Well...well maybe you're just a...you know what? Fuck you!”, Gaige stammered, unable to conjure up a passable insult.

“Hey calm down man, I was only joking.”, Patrick said in an attempt to cool his friend down, but Gaige would have none of it. “Look...if you want I can even tell you how to play as well as me!”, Gaige paused for a moment to consider the offer.

“Alright...I'm listening”, he muttered angrily after a short period of silence.

“Okay then, let's get started. If you want to beat your enemy you have to start by getting to know him.”, Patrick stated, doing his best to keep himself from outright laughing at Gaige's hilariously non-threatening “angry” face.

“Wait...Patrick I don't think two soldiers are really going to want to have a nice chat over a cup of tea and talk about themselves!”, Gaige interrupted, completely befuddled by the concept he was being introduced to.

“No Gaige, not like that. I mean you have to watch him.”, Patrick continued, doing his best to avoid becoming frustrated with his friend's lack of comprehension.

“Okay, now you're just sounding really creepy!”, Gaige half yelled in his state of now complete confusion.

“Gaige, seriously stop with the interruptions alright! I mean you have to learn how your enemy operates, watch what he does and how he does it. You have to learn how he thinks and you have to be able to predict what he's going to do and counter it before he does it.”, Gaige was beginning to listen more intently as Patricks voice shifted to an oddly dark tone “You have to think like your enemy and you have to act like your enemy...”, Gaige became entranced by his friends sudden shift in character, “Before you can defeat your enemy, you have to be your enemy.”, Patrick stated in a dark malevolent tone. He locked eyes with Gaige momentarily before bursting out into uproarious laughter. “I'm just shitting you, I have no idea, you just suck at this game!”

* * *

Be the enemy Gaige...just be the enemy. Gaige thought as he scanned the landscape through the cottage window, looking for patterns in the horses behaviour. He gave out a heavy sigh, Patrick was right, what a load of bullshit, how do I think like a horse? He lay back and stared at the ceiling. How long had he been there; days, weeks? The days seemed eternal from his bed.

The yellow horse would be home soon, Gaige would have to fake being asleep. The horse seemed too timid to approach him otherwise. He never heard it say a word, it just walked up, left him some food and walked back downstairs. None of the horses were much for conversation with him, the most he would get in terms of interaction was being glared at by that damned blue pegasus. He could still see it glaring up at his window from the park. “Well fuck you too,” he murmured.

He heard his jury rigged earpiece crackle to life. It sounded like someone was speaking. Gaige grabbed the headset “Hello,” the voice trailed into static “You there, in the cottage, can you hear me,” He stared at the earpiece dumbfounded. “What are you, stupid? Don't just sit there, respond to me!” hissed the voice, “I know you heard me.”

Gaige quickly put on the earpiece and activated the microphone, “Hello?”

“Oh good, you can follow basic instructions, that's a start,” chided the voice, “Walk over to the window.” Gaige paused momentarily, “Get on with it, I don't have all day.” Gaige slowly swung his feet to the side of the bed and got up, walking slowly towards the window. He looked around outside, but saw nothing of particular intrigue.

“What am I looking for out here?” he asked

“Look over towards the woods, see that path?” Gaige scanned the woods and noticed a poorly maintained dirt path into the thick woods.

“Yeah, what about it?”

“I know he brought more of you here, I need you to help me find them, bring them there. Find as many as you can, I can't let him take them. Please, Gaige, I need you to help me help all of you. You were with a group when you were taken, they couldn't have landed far from you.”

“What is this all about, who are you, how'd you get onto my comms network?” Gaige interrogated. He was mildly disturbed by the fact that not only did he not recognize the voice, but that the man knew so much about him. “How can you see me, I don't see anyone out there.”

“Oh Gaige, I see everything and I know more than you can possibly imagine. They do call me “The Watcher” after all.”

“Why should I listen to you? You just sound like some narcissist with a radio.”

“Do you have any other options?” There was a long pause, “That's what I thought. Now tut-tut, get going, I only have so many whiskey bottles to pass the time until you get here.” Gaige heard a faint humming above him and looked up to see a pristine surveillance drone hovering over him, its' camera trained on him. “We'll be in touch.” The drone gave a couple quick beeps and then zipped off back towards the woods, disappearing into the brush.

Gaige stood dumbfounded. Wandering security drones were uncommon in the wasteland, but to see one in pristine condition after ten years was almost unthinkable. Rare as it was to see a drone it was rarer still to see someone in control of one. It left Gaige wondering. Perhaps someone back in the wastes did have it all figured out, maybe that's why he was here. It crossed his mind that if someone had control of a communications network and advanced electronics that perhaps the Ark hadn't failed in its' mission, as everyone had assumed when it lost contact with Earth. Gaige had to find out; he had to know for sure. He was here for a reason and he needed to know why, he needed answers. More than anything, Gaige needed to know whether Patrick and Dawson were here as well, the man on The Watcher mentioned something about a group being transported here with him, maybe a few had survived the attack. If there was any chance of finding them, he would take it.

* * *

A figure lay still in the bushes on the fringes of the thick woods. She leaned into her radio, “I think I've got your guy.” she whispered into her microphone.

“Do you know for sure,” crackled the voice on the other end.

“Seems to match the description they gave us. God, he is one mangy looking motherfucker, but I guess you aren't much better.” she sneered, wrinkling her nose as she looked through her binoculars at the bearded man in the window.

“You've got a real mouth on you don't you?” retorted the man on the radio, “Just get back here, we'll have to figure out how we're going to go about this.”

“Yeah yeah, be back in a few.” She stuffed her binoculars back into her pack and brought up her hood. It would be getting dark soon and she didn't want to be caught out in the open at night. She slunk back into the woods with catlike grace, melting into the shadows.

* * *

Fluttershy came home late, the sun was low in the sky by the time she gingerly stepped back into her home. She hummed to herself as she trotted over towards her living room but stopped dead at the entrance to the room. There was something wrong. There felt to be an eerie emptiness to the house. All that could be heard was a faint, uneven creaking.

She searched for the source of the noise, only to find her back door ajar, moving gently back and forth in the midsummer's breeze. Strange, how did that happen? She trotted up to the door to close it, but a figure caught her eye. It stood tall and dark. It was hard to tell what it was, it stood against the setting sun, a poorly formed silhouette, standing perfectly still. She began approaching it, slowly, squinting hard to discern what it was.

As she approached the figure it became apparent that it was the monster, the monster that was supposed to be in her bed. It hadn't moved in days as far as she could tell, surely it wouldn't have had the strength to walk. Perhaps it was not as weak as she had presumed. She paused, leaning backwards, considering retiring to her cottage, there was surely some other pony that would catch it, No, you can do this, they left it with you, it's your responsibility, she told herself, willing her legs to slowly and carefully carry her forwards.

The monster was staying perfectly still, it's long coat fluttered lightly in the wind. As she got closer she could see it was looking at something. She tracked its' sad gaze to a mare guiding her filly down a path away from the schoolhouse. The little filly trotted happily in circles around her mother, excitedly telling a story that neither of them were close enough to hear.

Suddenly, the monster whipped around, hearing the crunching of leaves underneath Fluttershy's hoof. It reached for its' blade. Fluttershy reflexively did the only thing that she knew would save her, it was risky, but she would have to try the Stare. Her eyes pierced into the monsters and world slowed and fell silent, then everything went dark.

* * *

Fluttershy was overwhelmed at first with the emotions that were emanating from this creature. As her mind flooded with its' memories she could see exactly what it had seen and felt everything it had ever felt. She was bombarded with visions of pestilence, death, devastation, suffering and hopelessness. Those visions came merged with feelings of regret, hatred, melancholy and rage. The intensity and sheer amounts of sentimentality emanating from deep within the creature's cortex were making Fluttershy's head spin. She was unable to focus properly and soon became woozy, almost to the point where her dinner was attempting to make an unannounced appearance, much to her chagrin. She could she darkness creeping into the edges of her vision as she began to break out in a cold sweat. She could feel the creature trying to resist the stare. She had never encountered anything with the ability to actively resist her stare, nor had she prepared to face one that could do so. She could make out the monster's voice in her head.

“Get out!”, Fluttershy's head began to feel like it was being slowly impounded on either side. A searing pain shot through the front of her head, nearly leading her to lose her focus.

I can't lose it, not now, and with that she put all focused as hard as she could on continuing to break into the monster's memories. Every ounce of energy she had left in her went towards breaking the creature's mental lock. She could hear its' scream echoing in her head and with that she forced her way inside of its' memories. Her vision went completely dark and flashed momentarily. This hasn't ever happened before, She thought to herself as her eyes were suddenly assaulted by daylight and ash. As her vision returned and her eyes re-focused to her strange new surroundings she noticed that the world around her was now as grey as stone. The cloud cover was thick and dark and ash could be seen blowing lazily in the wind. The countryside around her was in shambles, charred and ruined she couldn't make out a single living soul. All that she could see were fires in the distance and a dead forest. Where am I?

Fluttershy heard the light crunch of somepony walking behind her and she froze up in fear of what it may be. After about a minute of petrification, she decided that whatever it was she heard must not have been dangerous and slowly turned around to face what was behind her. A gruesome sight awaited her. The monster stood solemnly next to a rectangular hole in the ground, slowly and deliberately shovelling dirt into it. She looked a little closer and noticed a small wooden cross. It was a grave that it was filling in. Only she didn't have to look to far to realize that that wasn't the only grave, there were at least ten and they all looked fresh. Fluttershy was speechless. Never in her life had she seen so much death. Did the monster do all of this?, she asked herself. It couldn't have, surely there was nothing that could be so cruel...Was there?

Fluttershy's train of thought was interrupted by the sound of something else approaching her and as she whipped around to face it she realized that it was another monkey monster. This one was clad in thick raggedy clothes and was covered from head to toe in dirt. The monster stroked its' long greasy mane with one of its' paws as it drew closer to Fluttershy. It was a light brown and had an unkempt beard that dominated its' muzzle. Its' large, chocolate coloured eyes could almost trick somepony into believing it was friendly and innocent.The monster seemed to pay no heed to the fact that it was walking directly towards her and seemed to almost be looking through her, as if she wasn't even there. Despite all that, Flutteshy was still utterly horrified as she stood trembling now standing only mere inches from the monster. As the monster drew closer to her she closed her eyes and silently prayed that it wouldn't hurt her as she tensed up, anticipating the monster to strike at any moment. Only the strike never came, she opened her eyes and realized the monster had passed right though her.

“Gaige, don't you think you've done enough for today? Here, go get some rest and I'll take over for you ok?”, the other monster put a hand on his companions shoulder.

Gaige...that must be its' name. Fluttershy also assumed by his stature and his voice that he was the monster equivalent of a stallion.

Gaige didn't seem to acknowledge the other monster behind him. He just continued to stare blankly at makeshift wooden grave markers. After a long, somber silence, Gaige removed his helmet and turned to the other monster. “Maybe Carol was right...I can't protect anyone.”, Gaige's eyes were red and irritated. His eye sockets were sunken and dark, he looked like he was severely sleep deprived.

“ Don't you listen to that bitch Gaige! You've gotten us through more than we could have ever hoped to get through alone!”, the other monster sounded frustrated by Gaige's remark.

“But at what cost? We just lost a whole quarter of our group today. What does it matter how far I get the group if we're all gonna die like this anyways! I don't think I'm strong enough to keep doing this. I won't last much longer.”, Gaige never even turned to look at his comrade, he just continued staring at the field of graves with a blank expression, but his melancholic tone of voice defied his expression.

“Gaige you can't talk like that. You've got a kid to take care of now for god's sake! You can't just give up! Carson needs you! We all need you! Fuck's sake man get it together! This isn't the time to be selfish.”, the other monster scolded. Yet Gaige still stood silently staring ahead, failing to fully agknowledge his comrade. The other monster let out a heavy sigh, “Look...just come back to camp. Its' getting dark and it's not safe here at night. We're not losing anyone else today.”, and with that the other monster started off back towards Fluttershy, passing through her once again on his way back to his camp. Gaige remained still, in a sort of vigil by the graves.

Fluttershy was on the brink of tears. She didn't know how Gaige could continue functioning after seeing that many of his friends die in front of him. Maybe this pushed him over the edge?, she pondered. Though she still bore contempt towards him as this still did not justify Gaige's own cruelty and terrorization of the innocent denizens of Ponyville. She felt the need to search for why he had been so cruel and violent to everypony, but she was too preoccupied with observing the tragedy of this new world she was in.

As Fluttershy looked around more and more she began to realize that this was not just an average summer night. The landscape around here bore scars of past fires and explosions. There's was nothing she could see that was alive, save Gaige. The place where she stood overlooked what must have been a city. Only it was now in ruins, with wrecked machinery and litter as its' only inhabitants. The only light she could perceive against the harsh ashen dusk was that of the fires that blazed fiercely throughout parts of the former city. There wasn't even any sunlight that penetrated the thick dark grey clouds that covered the sky as far as she could see. This was a veritable wasteland. What happened here?

After a long while of staring into the abyss that was the world that surrounded her, Fluttershy noticed a small silhouette moving in the darkness towards Gaige. As she looked a little closer she realized it was a much smaller monster. The little monster silently approached Gaige and stood next to him. Gaige reached over and patted the little monster on the head as he said something inaudible to her Fluttershy dared move closer to get a better look at the two strange creatures. The little monster looked to be like the monster equivalent of a small colt. Fragile and innocent. His soft, terribly thin face covered in patches of dirt and grime. His bright blue eyes seemed like the last bastion of innocence in this desolation. He had a gaze that could pierce you heart. “Gaige, are we going in there tomorrow?”, the little monster asked, pointing at the ruined city.

“Yes, we have to. We need to find food and this is our best bet.”

“Are we starving yet Gaige?”

“Yes, but it takes a long time to die from starvation. We'll find something before then, I promise you.”

“But that means we have to go in there. I don't want to go in there, what if there are more bad men?”

“There's no one in there Carson...”

So the little one's name is Carson, what an odd name, Fluttershy thought to herself.

“How do you know?”

“Because...we killed them all”

“Okay.”

“Okay what?”, Gaige asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Nothing, just okay.” and with that the two continued to stare out toward the ruins that lay ahead of them. Suddenly the ground began to vibrate and a terrible rumbling and crashing could be heard emanating from the city. Fluttershy watched as Gaige held onto a trembling and weeping Carson. Gaige stroked his hair as he held tightly onto him as he shushed him. As the rumbling came to a close and the ground stopped vibrating Gaige let go of Carson and said,

“Don't worry, that was only a building falling down. Pretty soon all the buildings in the world are going to fall...but not on us.”

“How do you know?”, asked a teary eyed Carson.

“I just do.”, Gaige replied reassuringly.

“Gaige...Promise me no one else is going to die”, Carson mumbled.

“You know I can't promise that. The city should be safe but I can't promise you that. Everybody dies Carson, that's just how it is.”

“Okay”, replied Carson. The two stood there silently for a long while. Fluttershy couldn't bear to see Carson living under such circumstances. He was so small and innocent. He deserved better than this. Fluttershy could now see why Gaige was obviously a damaged creature. He came from a cruel world. Populated by cruel creatures. There was no way anypony could stay “normal” under such circumstances. Fluttershy thought that she had seen the worst that could happen to anyone in such a world. It wasn't until Carson spoke up for a second time that she realized that the world she was seeing, was much crueler than she had thought. “I miss my papa...”, Carson began sobbing as he flung himself onto Gaige in a tight, trembling embrace. Gaige just stood there, shocked by this sudden embrace and unsure of how to react to it. Eventually he returned the embrace and whispered to Carson.

“I know....I miss mine too.”, the pair stood there for a long time in each other's embrace.They were two shadows in the night beside the dying fire, each the other's world entire.

“Get the fuck out!”, Fluttershy could hear the monster's voice in her head once again. This time it was louder and angrier than before. Her head began spinning once more and she could see the memory in front of her was beginning to fade away as darkness began to engulf her vision once again. Fluttershy attempted to continue to hold the stare, but she was spent. She had no energy left to resist Gaige's psychological defences. With that, she broke the stare and stood swaying in a daze for a few seconds.

* * *

Gaige was slowly pulled himself back into reality. He found himself whispering, “I'm sorry...”, to himself over and over. Gaige did his best to get his mind off of his past, but he knew he'd only be able to bury his past for so long. In the end, everything he did would catch up to him. Everyone he killed, everything he did and everyone he lost would haunt every minute of his life, like a malevolent shadow that he could never escape. He sat in a veritable paradise while the child he was sworn to protect cowered alone in the wastes. The thought of it made him feel sick. I promised his father I'd never leave.

He looked up to see the yellow horse staring back at him mouth open as if to say something, eyes misty. He didn't quite remember what she had seen in him, but it was obvious it was something terrible. There were others approaching him, from behind the horse. More horses, white this time, in centurion-esque armour.

“By order of Princess Celestia you are being detained and brought to Canterlot. Any attempt to resist will be met with heavy force, lethal if necessary.” barked one of the horses, dressed in more ornate armour. Gaige was fully aware of what was happening, yet did nothing. He simply stood still while two of the horse flanked him and pushed him hard, ushering him forwards, towards a chariot. As he was carolled onto the chariot, he stared off shadow of the woods and it stared back. There were shadows in the dark, they moved silently through the bracken, watching. The chariot lurched forward and sailed into the air, drawn by two pegasi.

Gaige's earpiece crackled to life once more. “Well you've done well for yourself haven't you?” whispered The Watcher, now a voice that only Gaige could hear. “All you had to do was get to the woods, it really wasn't that hard,” he gave an exasperated sigh, “Look we'll figure this out later, just try not to do anything stupid, although that does seem to be asking a little much from the likes of you.”