PART 4 - WRONG ADDRESS. Chapter 1: Underground
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March 30th, 1013 AN - 11:20 PM
Carol City, Equestria
A slowly breathing unicorn stood in front of the bathroom sink, leaning against it with their hooves, droplets of water from the cracked ceiling landing on the overgrown fetlocks. They stared at themselves, bloodshot, widened green eyes locked onto their counterparts in the cracked, stained mirror. The unicorn chewed on their lip, blood trickling from it. Spastic, raspy breaths emerged from them as they twitched, shaking their head slowly, slowing their breath down with every second. The weak crystalline bulb swung on its long cord, vibrated by the loud music in the bigger space outside the door.
The pony leaned closer to the mirror, touching it with their tattoo and piercing-covered snout. It was oddly shaped, featuring small indents and cavities, signs of poorly healed bones. Little of the coat on the right side was unstained, either bulging with greenish joy spots or covered in ink. The only discernible picture among the unending inks was a segregated, small image below their left eye, a rhombus formation of three colored in crystals and one drawn in an outline. Their cheeks were deeply sunken in, and almost half of the teeth in their open hanging mouth were artificial. Shifting from side to side on the flimsy cord, the bulb illuminated the weak pinks of what remained of the pony’s receding mane.
Their eyes slowly rolled back and their eyelids shut. A deep gurgling sound came from their throat, culminating in a guttural, wet splash of bile into the dirty sink. The unicorn paused after hurling up the gelatinous substance, freezing in place, but erupted again into a long output of bile moments afterward, covering their torn-up black hoodie and the chains wrapped around the joints of their legs in drops of muddy liquid. Once there was no more bile, the unicorn took a deep, raspy breath, wiping their mouth with a shaking hoof. Then they finally addressed a persistent knocking on the bathroom door:
“Piss off, I had to fucking puke!” they shouted in an unsteady voice, clearing their throat afterward. “Holy shit, you people.”
The pony got all their hooves on the tiles and headed for the door, bashing the inside lock with a muscular hoof and ramming it open with their head. It opened with a pause, budging against something fleshy, but going all the way once the unicorn rammed it again. On leaving, walked over a pony on the floor, clutching their head and groaning in pain, a trickle of blood leaving their nose. The unicorn stared at them for half a second and turned away, taking increasingly steadier steps toward the pile of decrepit couches, rugs, pieces of cardboard and other items of makeshift furniture that housed food, drink and speakers that blared music. Having made a few steps, they abruptly turned around and glared at the downed pony, squinting at the trickle that had turned green. The unicorn rushed back to them, bucking them with their hind hooves several times. Once they were done, they hissed and exhaled, shaking their head.
“You’re not even people.”
“Handsome!” a shrill voice shouted from the other side of the large maintenance area made disco hall. “The fuck you doing? Oh, shit, again? Again?!” The voice belonged to a leatherbound earth stallion with spiky green hair, who pulled himself out of the embrace of a pair of passed out identical, makeup-coated mares to wave at the unicorn. “Chill! Come over here.”
Handsome’s eyes twitched, but then they sighed and plowed through idly bouncing, punky ragged ponies, heading toward the couches in the center. Leaning against the side of the couch the stallion sat on, they wiped their hind hooves against the back of an unconscious pony’s black hoodie. Their squinted eyes dilated a little, scanning the chaotic mess of strobe colors and inebriated equines filling the decorated room.
“Dude, this party sucks,” Handsome said, glaring at the stallion. “I fucking hate these… people.”
“Yo, I invited these morons,” he replied, shrugging, grinning at the unicorn with gilded teeth. “Have to keep morale up and shit. Big holiday.”
“Uhuh. Three days before shit went fucked? Big fucking holiday my ass.”
“Handsome, bro, you know they check the tunnels for us after last time. Gotta be discrete and shit.”
Handsome’s lips curled down as they tracked a black, jagged equine shape with glowing green eyes in the distance, drinking with a group of ponies.
“So like, don’t leave corpses behind. It gets everyone down and we may get busted.”
“Well fucking dump him somewhere if he’s dead,” the unicorn stated, glaring through the earth stallion’s shades. “I don’t care. I don’t care for shit.”
After a few seconds of staring, the stallion looked away, chuckling briefly, and reaching over for a drink on a nearby box. He looked at the unicorn again, then at the bottle, his hoof a fair distance away from the drink, and continued to shift his head from one to the other, eventually making a waving gesture with his other hoof.
“Yeah, whatever.”
“Hey, fetch your boss a drink, bro! Stop being a cunt." The stallion punched himself against the stomach. "You want the bull to have a talk with you?”
Handsome half-knelt, lighting up their horn, and hurled the bottle in the stallion’s direction. It hit him straight in the face, and shattered once he scrambled to keep it from falling.
“Keep hiring roaches, and you stop being my boss.” The unicorn hissed. “You want to go up against me? Say another word.” The earth pony grunted and swore, pulling a few pieces of glass out of his face. “I’m not going to be beating suckers up for a bug humper. I’m sick of this crap. Bad enough every day's the same with you shiteaters. And fuck your bull, he’s a cock.”
Lobbing a gob of spit on the floor, Handsome moved to a relatively secluded corner of the party zone, tracking the banners and ribbons hanging off the machinery and spread underneath the ceiling, scowling at their contents. Having arrived at a couple of boxes with drinks on them, the unicorn flung crumpled a sheet reading “04-03” and threw it off one of the boxes, sitting down on the spot it occupied. Weakly lighting up their horn, Handsome moved a bigger box closer to the makeshift table, slouching against it in an impromptu armchair.
The unicorn took a few swigs of the drink, gulping most of the bottle down after the initial taste. Halfway through the next bottle, a tapping of a hoof on the side of the box-seat got Handsome to choke and have to clear their throat.
“The fuck you assholes want?” the unicorn shouted. “I’m sitting here, you got a problem with that?”
“Okay, okay!.. Don’t be a buzzkill,” a pink pegasus with bangy salad green hair said. “I just got something, y’know, fun to do, and you look bored as balls.” He motioned over to an actual table nearby. “Something real good.”
“If you're offering joy, I've had my fill of roach piss for the night,” Handsome replied through gritted teeth, downing the rest of the bottle in one gulp. “Throat's sore.”
“Dude! That’s the point. This is better, and it’s not as gross either. Fuck joy, for real.”
“Do I know you?” The unicorn turned around, half getting off their seat, staring directly at the pegasus with their mouth open, huffing. “Do you know ME?”
“What? Like, uh— What, wait, uh… Oh, fuck,” the pegasus stammered in response, pressing a hoof against his face after glaring at the unicorn’s bottom half, uncovered by any clothes, exposed as the pony was slouching. “Yeah, okay, I kinda figured since they call you Handsome—”
“The fuck kinda business is it of yours?” Handsome said raspily. “I’m a mare if you wanna. I don’t give a shit. I can make you suck it no matter what.” They got off the box and moved slowly toward the backpedaling pegasus. “What the hell are you starting at? Yeah, see my face? I did half of these myself.” The unicorn lit up their horn to smash their bottle against their own face, only blinking for a second as their snout was punctured by a few shards of wet glass. “You think I couldn’t have done nothing down there? Cause I could have! I can show you how, if you’re interested, you nosy fuck!” The pony jabbed the surviving tip of the bottle toward the pegasus, who flung himself back, scowling.
“Holy shit, you’re insane,” the stallion said with a shrug. He picked the tip of the bottle out of the telekinetic grip with a hoof and gave the inside of it a lick, shuddering and grinning. “Welcome to the club. Wanna come over? I’m not bullshitting, I got stuff that’ll blow the usual roach-made crap out of the water. You can stay at my place if it takes you hard.”
Handsome stared at the pegasus, breathing loudly, staying silent. The tip of the bottle moved with their magic again and made a sharp stabbing motion toward the pegasus, who ducked and rolled within a half second. The unicorn’s head tilted, droplets of blood from their lip and the fresh snout wounds dripping on the floor.
“Okay. Fine. Don’t make me sign anything. Hear?”
“Yeah, sure! Let’s get out of this ditch,” the pink pegasus agreed with a smile, turning toward the table nearby, where a big sheet of paper lay, similar to the banners strewn all over the party zone, but bearing a different symbol, a circle with shapes inside of it. “I swear I’ll start smashing roaches if I see another one next to me.”
Handsome sucked on the blood coming down their snout. They rubbed their eyes and spat on the ground, straightening out their worn hoodie. A hoof brushed back what remained of their mane. The pink pegasus in his racing jacket was heading off to one of the exits, toward the tracks. The changeling guards that stood there with their glowing smokesticks shouted him out, pointing to get back to the main exit, guarded by the actual gang members. The pegasus smashed one against a wall, and felled the other on the ground, stepping on the equine’s leg joints one by one, the disguise flickering in and out. The loud music and sporadic lighting left that unnoticed by everyone but the unicorn, who stared and mouthed silent words with their bloodsoaked lips.
Taking a glance back at the main contingent of the gang, who were unpacking a crate of greenish pills while the stallion with the green mohawk rambled on, the unicorn sped after the pegasus, who had almost disappeared toward the tracks.
“My place is just up there,” he said, without looking back.
“You can talk like I’m a ‘she’.” Handsome told him, clearing her throat. “For variety.”
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March 31st, 1013 AN - 3:32 AM
Carol City, Equestria
“Uuuoff… I can feel everything,” a stallion next to the unicorn on the floor blubbered, touching his face as his eyes dilated. “Shit, I see everything…”
“I don’t feel shit,” Handsome stated, shrugging and lowering her face into the fuming bowl everyone was gathered around.
“Do you… know why we’re here?” the pink pegasus said slowly, looking through the mare, bangs of his green mane falling over his eyes.
The mare shook her head, waving a colored trail of vapor emitting from a series of hookahs all over the room away from her. Her own pupils grew increasingly larger, and her mouth hung open, to a lesser extent than the other ponies in the congregation. She mouthed a series of curses at one of the ponies, a blonde-maned green earth mare, who squinted at her in return. Having seen another blonde green pony to the other side of her, Handsome pushed her hooves against her eyes, rubbing her face and opening up a bandaged wound.
“I’m getting high,” the mare responded, having a short coughing fit afterward. The flame underneath the bowl trembled, casting dashing shadows on the walls.
“We’re letting our true nature take over,” the second green earth pony said, without looking at her. “This is how it really is. This is how it should be.”
“What’s your cutie mark?” another pony asked. Handsome lifted her head to look at them, but the trembling flames cast a shadow over their face.
“The fuck’s it to you?” the mare replied.“It don’t matter. Stupid fucking shit.” She reached for a bottle of salted liquor and gulped it down.
“Exactly. It doesn’t matter anymore. We’re not bound by this old magic anymore. We're in transit.”
“We’re going to be free soon. Again.”
Handsome’s head slumped, a string of drool hanging from her mouth. She scowled, bashing herself on the head. The rest were sitting on their haunches, slowly tilting side to side in unison, breathing slower and slower. The unicorn slumped her back against the couch close behind her. Her hind legs twitched slightly. She looked up at the beaked figures eyeing her from all sides.
“You’ll fall asleep and wake to a new world again,” a flat-billed shape told her. “Our world. We’ll make this right.”
“We’ll make this right, without their yoke,” said another one. He sat to the side, looking directly at Handsome. "Something has got to give."
“It’s come down to this,” an owl spoke up, glaring at her from the dark. “So we’ll make it work. It’s better than leaving things as they are.”
“You see now?” a seagull said. “No more bullshit. No more lies. No more boredom.”
“This is a fucking circus…” Handsome rasped quietly.
“Take another breath and you’ll see… This is what makes us what we are. With each new day.”
“Fuck this.” She grabbed the rest of the bottles from the table, scrounged up a box of unfinished pizza, and scuttled back toward the sofa, leaning against it and staring at the figures who sat silently, motionlessly, boring into her with their eyes. The mare shrugged and opened a bottle, gulping down its contents.
“Do you know what's going to happen?,” the Vulture told her, its teeth glowing in the flame.
“I dunno shit.” Handsome shrugged, leaning her smooth-skinned head against a fallen cushion, drooling out of the thick, long beak.
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“You’ve been here before. Get up, sweetie.”
The unicorn rolled around on the tiger skin carpet, clutching her head and grunting. She moaned, pushing against a nearby glass table with her bare back.
“...”
Handsome took a hissy breath and pulled herself up, clinging to the table. Her snout ended up dunked into a deep bowl of faintly steaming liquid, causing her to have a coughing fit, knocking herself on the chest.
“Wha… who?” she muttered. Rising to her hooves, she stumbled through the large, decorated living room, filled with unconscious, drooling ponies and expensive ornaments, half of them knocked down or tilted. “Ugh, what was that?..”
Her flank brushed against a tall record holder with a turntable, a disk labeled “EMPEROR” spinning on its top. The device rattled, and the droning, distorted noise coming out of it hiccuped, continuing at a slower, less coherent pace. Her eyes passed over the messy room, tearing up at the strong smell emitting from the bowl and several hookahs next to some of the unconscious ponies. Handsome yawned and shook her head, squinting and scanning the ponies.
Directly underneath the record holder was a lanky stallion with a long black mane, crumbs stuck in his dreadlocks, liquid splashed on his pitch black shades. Curled up on the floor nearby was an overweight red stallion in a white shirt, whose red cap, lying in front of him, was filled with vomit. A pale blue stallion in a red leather letterpony jacket with a darker blue gelled mane sat unconscious, propped up against the table. Hanging partly off a window-wide hammock was a brown stallion in a striped shirt, whose goatee was stained with a crusted, thin trickle of browning blood. Underneath the hammock was another stallion, on top of whom lay a picture of a setting sun that formerly hung over the window.
Handsome paused by a nearby wall-mounted mirror, passing a glance over herself. An quiet mess of noises left her when she stumbled over a model carriage - a long, red cart, the roof of which bore the logo of a hawk with brightly glowing eyes made of electrified crystals. Handsome kicked the toy, pulling it out of the gaping, face-like wall socket.
“I’ve looked worse…” the unicorn mumbled. She turned her head and moved around, squinting at her image. There were fresh wounds on her face and some cuts around her abdomen, trails of darkening red on the massive, warped mess of tattoos that covered both of her flanks, completely drowning the cutiemark in shapes, lines, figures, words and colors.
Glancing to her side, she noticed that far on the other side of the room, near what must have been an indoor fire, was a pile of unconscious people. A green earth mare and stallion, and a red-haired, bearded yellow unicorn nearby, his glasses some distance away on the floor. Close by was a young male griffon with curled-up black plumage, splayed against a decorative vined rock. Hanging on the far wall was a dried, cracked skull with a star-like symbol painted on it in red paint. Underneath it was a big videodrome running on mute, various addons and additional drives spinning and flickering.
The green-haired pegasus sprawled on a couch close to where she awoke. His eyes were wide open.
“Hey, you… How fuckin’ long have I…” Handsome stammered, biting on her tongue and spitting on the tiger carpet. “What did I take again? Are the pigs gonna come?”
The pegasus remained silent. His eyes stared at the ceiling unblinkingly, both pupils heavily dilated, leaving almost no whites. His hooves were crossed on his chest. With them, two large chopping knives were being held tightly, pressing hard into the stallion’s chest, leaving indents. Quiet, tense puffs of breath came from his flaring nostrils.
“You there! The fuck did we take!” she demanded, waving a hoof in front of his eyes, brushing a fetlock over his snout. “What’s going on? Where’s the bathroom?” There was no reaction.
Handsome rolled her eyes and turned around, bucking the couch, to no effect. She proceeded to stumble outside, into the corridor, and slowly trod on, shielding her eyes from the morning light with a hoof. The mare ended up tripping over, banging her head against a clothes rack, collapsing it onto herself. Shouting and growling, she bucked it off, throwing clothes all over the corridor. One of the items, a racer’s plastic helmet with a toned visor, ended up bouncing off the wall and hitting her once again. Once she kicked it far down the corridor, Handsome lay on her back, clearing her throat and staring at the ceiling. Colorful patterns shifted and moved all over it, projected by small crystalline maps on the sides of the walls.
The mare’s pupils shrunk back to a normal size after a minute of looking at the patterns. She took a deep breath and shut her eyes, scrambling to feel through the clothes surrounding her. She opened her eyes upon having reached a hoodie, only to grimace after seeing it was pink, despite being in good condition. She rifled through its pockets, looting a pack of mint chewing gum and throwing a few pieces in her mouth. The pocket also contained a crystalline pendant on a chain, which she held onto with her mouth. Handsome crawled further up the corridor, touching clothes and throwing them aside.
“Ugh… Fuck this,” she mumbled, spitting into somebody’s jacket, laying the pendant aside. After rubbing her eyes, Handsome scowled and grabbed the nearest outfit she could find. The unicorn moaned as she struggled back onto her hooves and slowly put on the loosely fitting clothes. She shook her head and popped a bubble of gum before opening her eyes again. “Whatever.” The mare swung a hoof through the air, bending down to pick up the crystalline object and shoving it into her pocket. She then continued down the corridor, wearing an untidy postpony’s uniform, squinting hard to avoid the rising sun.
Handsome budged doors as she passed them, making her way through the sizable apartment and steadily reaching the entrance. She grunted and huffed as each refused to open, none of the doors bearing any indication as to their contents. Eventually, the unicorn took a detour through the kitchen, which was located behind a transparent door, and stuck her head under the kitchen tap. This sent a pile of dishes flying all over, most crashing on the floor. The mare showered her head and gargled water for a few minutes, before retreating and making her way back to the front door, throwing her wet head around.
“Wha?..” she muttered, pressing an ear to the door. There were knocking noises outside the apartment, which quickly passed. The unicorn scowled, making her way to the entry door and giving it a push. It opened with a creak, having already been opened earlier during the night. Handsome stepped outside, having to shield her eyes from the sun. There was no apartment block - the unicorn was out on the street, having left what was a private house. “Okay…”
Placed on the porch was a cardboard box. The top was fastened with scotch tape and bore a postal symbol - a circle containing a star, a heart and a crescent moon. The words “EQUESTRIA DELIVERY” ran along the tape. Handsome looked back into the still quiet house and closed the front door. She looked at the package for a few seconds, before shrugging and fizzling her horn to life, using it to help tear the package open.
“...”
The box contained a wad of yellow foreign bills, which the unicorn stuffed into a pocket of the suit. There was also a written note, a glossy pamphlet, and a large rubber mask - a vulture. She stared into its eyeholes as it was hoisted up into the air by her telekinesis. Her lips moved silently, and her eyes widened. After a bit of hesitation, she put the mask on. Handsome’s whole body shook and jolted, her breath ceasing for a few moments. She eventually took a loud, deep breath, moaning and chuckling in a low, throaty, raspy gurgle.
“F-fuck… I can… I’ve been…”
The note hung in front of her face, shaking as the unicorn’s horn threatened to shut down. Her dilated pupils scanned the lines of text.
”Hey, Skate.
Got you your things. That’s the best for going into the deep shit pits. I shouldn’t have to tell you, but we have to be discrete, the start has got to be smooth, cause if this turns into a shitstorm, we'd rather not improvise. Also, as you can see, the money didn’t go to waste, everything is high quality. If you can hook up more contacts, that would be good.
Since you insist, here’s your part. The southeastern part of the subway is real screwed up. Sun Hearth to Dasher to Memorial, Dasher in particular is fucked, you can guess why repairs are taking so long. Need some serious cleaning there. You won’t believe the sort of trash you can find there, so don’t wing it. Take your time, study the layout. Tap a few locals, they may know something, just don’t get into the messy details.
Don’t fuck this up. It’s best if we wait with this, anyway. Don’t get cocky.
Check it,
Boomer.”
“Heart, Dasher, Memorial… Dasher. Oh. Ah. Ahah. Yeeeah.” Handsome said. She arched her back, her eyes rolling, hooves rubbing the vulture’s mask into her face. “You got it.”
The unicorn breathed heavily, eliciting light squeaking noises, as she mounted a sleek, plastic-padded two-wheeled vehicle parked by the fence. It chirped and went aglow as she put the crystal pendant against it, and with a pump of the pedal, it took her down the vacant streets under the morning haze.
***
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Handsome's head bashed against a safety poster on the wall of the tunnel off the empty station. She rammed once more with her entire body, forcing open a secluded space. She breathed loudly, scrounging through the tight room filled with boxes and cases, most containing used, taped-together firearms and flammables. Throwing several off to the side, causing their contents to drop all over the floor, the masked unicorn made her way to the far wall of the small room. There, on the wall, hung a large customized blunderbuss, roughly the size of Handsome herself. Underneath it, on a table, lay a massive wooden club, hammered all over with nails, slabs of iron, stuck with syringes, covered in patches of dried paint.
“Eenie, meenie, miney…” Her hoof landed on the large blade that replaced most of the butt of the enormous gun. “Moe.”
Handsome stormed out of the cache, levitating the blunderbuss to her side, telekinetically maneuvering chunks of crystal down its barrel. The bright green glow of her horn illuminated the walls of the subway, as well as the sparks the bladed hilt of the gun left behind as it scraped against the smooth stone. Noise was audible beyond the scraping - whirring, humming magical machinery, and off to the side, loudly conversing voices. The mare stopped abruptly and turned, smashing the massive weapon against a wall. It met no physical barrier, floating through solid rock, which went transparent and revealed a service door. The vulture’s beak nodded, and Handsome rammed the door open.
Those inside jumped at the loud noise and cowered at the screeching wail that came from the unicorn as she unloaded the gun into the nearest hoodlum. The stallion’s baggy, dirty street clothes had large holes burned through them, myriads of tiny, searing crystalline projectiles penetrating them and ripping into the flesh. He was covered in smoke within seconds, falling over with his mouth open in a silent scream, convulsing with his hooves clutching his melting chest. His killer stampeded at the others, who failed to put up any resistance. One of them was knocked straight off their hooves and carried by the unicorn’s push into one of the whirring machines, plastering them against the metal. Their snout was crushed deep into their head with a blow of the levitated gun, leaving their body to erupt into sparkles and twitch as its changeling drone shape liquified.
The remaining ones glared at the masked unicorn for another couple of seconds, before sprinting down to their right - into a narrow passage connecting maintenance rooms. She screech-laughed, stomping her hooves and scraping the blade of the gun against the floor as she caught up to the entrance to the corridor. Instead of Handsome entering, the blunderbuss was lifted inside instead, pushed forward a couple of meters. Its trigger went off, sending a hail of scorching crystals down toward the escapees, whose glowing, seared bodies lit the dark passway up as they fell over, gurgling and yelling. Their voices ceased to echo through the maintenance area when the masked mare walked over them, stomping her hooves against their bodies until neither writhed any longer.
She entered the room they attempted to rush for, the gun trailing behind, slicing off limbs as it did. As soon as she did, a glowing projectile hit the wall next to her, barely missing the masked killer’s head. A half-shaved mare in dirty, dark coveralls stood by a lamplit table at the other side of the room, aiming a wristbound gun at her, eyes open wide, shouting something. Handsome cackled and coughed, stomping over to her, side-stepping on time to evade another shot, and preventing the third from being fired by uppercutting the mare with the bladed hilt. The cut went straight up to her face, slicing the chest and neck in half, causing a flood of green goop to erupt from the now-idle body. She landed her hoof on the mare’s piercing-laden face before it morphed back into its original changeling form.
“FUCK, I NEEDED THIS!!!” she let out a garbled, raspy screech. Her horn glowed brighter, miscellaneous pieces of crystal being pulled from the paper and utensil-filled table, crushed in mid-air, and shoved down the barrel of the gun.
The mare continued to roar and scream as she left back the way she came from, stepping over the dismembered, molten bodies. Handsome's hollering was drowned out by the sound of a passing train, zooming through the subway. A group of four more hoodlums met her in the room she came in through, having emerged from another maintenance chamber - three pierced, tattooed earth stallions with chains wrapped around their forehooves and a unicorn mare in a cheap, dark suit, who levitated a small crystalline firearm in front of herself, with gritted teeth. The unicorn’s gun threw itself toward the mare, knocking the competitor out of air, its force of impact launching her body far back, throwing her headfirst into a sharp angle of the wall.
The masked mare let out a feral growl, slurping as she audibly licked her lips under her beaked visage. Neglecting to go on the offensive, the three stallions circled her, spinning the ends of the heavy chains around in the air, glaring at her, shouting a cacophony of curses and swears. Two of them were nearly identical to one another, one pony’s tattoos being muddled, and the piercings lacking glint to their metal. The unicorn cocked her head in that stallion’s direction, roaring at him and unloading a storm of fiery crystals, which he failed to dodge, being hit on the top of his head as he ducked. His scalp immediately began to steam, smoke and boil, melting on the spot while the equine let out a distorted scream. It was cut short by a heavy swing from the blunderbuss, leveling the remnants of his head into the ground, coating the dark iron weapon in steaming green liquid.
The two remaining hoodlums took that time to move in, swinging their chains from a distance, hitting the gun as it retreated from the changeling’s bashed-in body. It trembled in the air, stumbling the killer as well, as her horn flickered out of function. With a hissing groan, she spun around and glared at the two with her bloodshot, widened green eyes. In the moment’s pause transpiring after one of them stared back, abruptly going silent with his jaw hanging open, she pulled strongly at the chain with her forehoof. That downed the stallion and left his head to be stomped on by the same hoof, which turned it into pinkish-red mush of brain, blood and bone in five successive stomps. A bit of brain remained on her hoof as she leaped back, evading a downward chain swipe that crushed the fallen pony’s head even further.
The other stallion, a near identical copy, recoiled from his missed strike, stumbling on unsteady legs, shaking and breathing heavily. His body sparkled and fizzled, small parts of his attire getting blurrier, almost melting into the rest of his body. The changeling’s eyes became a blank green void, and he fell over, clinging to his head with sharpening hooves. The mare hissed through the mask, gurgling and growling as she made her way to the twitching, struggling body, forcing it on its back. One of her hooves punched through the drone’s gritted teeth, forcing the mouth open, leaving enough space for her other hoof to shove its way in as well. With a raspy roar, she pulled its mouth open, until the unstable, melding chitin comprising the drone’s cheeks began to tear and pop. After a few seconds of cracking, popping, sizzling noises, the changeling’s lower jaw came clean off, while the inertia of the pull forced the vulture’s hoof to plant the rest of its head into the floor, bashing the back of it apart, spreading liquid synapse all over.
“FINALLY!” she screamed, descending into giddy laughter.
The mare lifted her head to see the unicorn that had been thrown away first - in her place, a less crude, more ponylike changeling figure sat, its snake-like eyes rolled back, shuddering in place, a part of their head missing, splashed on the wall. The gun and the clothes the other ‘unicorn’ once wore had disintegrated into bits of green synaptic sludge on the floor. As Handsome climbed back from the mutilated corpse and took hold of her weapon again, she moved on through the tunnel, not before swiping the hilt blade against the body, nearly slicing the degenerating mass in half.
The lamps illuminating the tunnel flickered, and the ever present distant shouting became louder, the noisy subway maintenance machinery having been depowered. Rows of three rectangular crystal generators with wires tangling all over the floor lined the sides of the room, and in the middle stood a big glass pillar of liquid crystal, covered in perspiration. The light orange glow of the massive coolant and generator devices went dimmer, no longer casting light on the scrambling contingent of the room, each of them dressed in dark, worn street clothes, glistening metal fastened to their forehooves, some of the pins littering their leathery clothing continuing to provide small reflections to give them away. Most kept to the cover of the large pieces of machinery, but Handsome was quick enough to intercept a latecomer, whose glowing smokestick gave them away in the gloom, and unload a crystalline shot into them. The pony screamed gutturally, their mane catching fire, but their struggle was brought to an end by a swing of a metal pipe to their neck.
The same metal pipe began to bang furiously on the metal at the base of the glass pillar, creating striking waves of clanging noise, almost diverting the vulture from her continued assault. She still made her way to where an entire group of ragged individuals took cover, swinging her gun like a club, the short moment of disorientation being compensated by the effective range of her melee - three gangsters were incapacitated in one swipe, only one having been hit, yet flying into their allies with propelled force. Aggravated chatter and pipe clanging were drowned out for a moment by the thundering sound of the discharging blunderbuss, peppering three bodies with searing crystals at once, filling the maintenance chamber with brief wails of agony, brought to a quick end by the bludgeoning of the bodies with the huge metal tube.
“HARD AT WORK, YOU BLISTERING CUNTS?”
She found herself glared at by at least a dozen pairs of eyes, some of them flickering and distorting erratically. The hoodlums directly opposite her had abandoned their cover after seeing what became of the ones who hid where she now stood. Instead, the common thugs had fallen to the farther back of the chamber, making noise, chattering and swinging their scrap weapons around. In front of her was now a brown stallion with dirty, spiky green hair, bound in tight leathery attire, pins and decorative chains hanging off him, his blood-covered pipe hung over his shoulder. He stared in her eyes from behind his shades, which slipped down his nose. Handsome stared in return, twirling her gun slowly in the air, tilting her head.
“You’re dead meat, you trashbag,” the earth stallion shouted at her, smashing a nearby piece of machinery with his pipe for emphasis.
“DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?” the mare growled back in return, her voice croaking. She cleared her throat and huffed a few times, continuing to glare unblinkingly in his eyes. Mild depressions formed on the mask from the chewing the mare was doing underneath, mouth splitting into a neurotic grin.
“You’re DEAD, psycho!”
“Fucking WRONG!” Handsome roared with laughter, abruptly pointing the gun at the stallion and pulling back the wide trigger. “I’m FIRED, BOSS!”
The stallion let out a falsetto screech, tumbling on the floor, losing his pipe and shades and darting off. He bull-rushed through his thugs, hollering and wailing as he disappeared down another tunnel. Another train swung through the tunnel beside the area, filling the chamber with even more noise. The hoodlum formation was further destroyed when the vulture followed through, on the other side, clearing a path with another shot that left writhing, scorched equines behind, swinging the gun hilt-forward in a pendulum manner, mowing down the disorganized gang as it attempted to get in the way. Only some did - after the struggling from the crystal-seared ponies ended, and having seen three ponies disemboweled with a single swipe and four drones liquify as their heads were taken clean off by the barrel, at least two set off to flee in the opposite direction from where the spiky-haired one ran away to.
The mare emitted a sharp, high-pitched noise, shaking in place, and stormed after the two, catching up to them within seconds, tackling one and knocking the other off his legs in the same motion. At the sight of the tackled thug’s blood turning green, she spat into the mask and brought her head hard down upon theirs, bashing their forehead right in, weak, deteriorated chitin giving in to the powerful blow. Before the other could get up, she quickly turned her head to where the leader ran off to, squinting her eyes. With a shrug, she brought the blade down on one of the pony’s hind legs, chopping half of it off, the rest being saved by the metal chain that got in the way.
Having left a crippled, silently screaming victim behind, she followed through on the target, imitating his noisemaking with her gun, running the blade against metal as the gun was dragged along her in the gallop. The sight of the wide open area, filled with empty crates repurposed as boxes and couches, a small, decrepit table-mounted videodrome, and numerous wet stains on the floor began to clear up in the darkness. Some banners put up in high places remained stuck there, and part of the boxes that had been put into disuse were piled up in a corner. There were only two equines in there - the writhing, swearing brown stallion, and a sleek, buzz-cut, snake-eyed, horned changeling that held him by the shoulders, his horn aglow. Both jumped and sharply turned their heads to her as she stampeded into the room, the stallion falling over with a loud scream, immediately bending over to cradle the side of his flank and hind leg. Light smoke came from there still, a weak glow beginning to fire up in his body.
The changeling scowled, lighting up his horn, covering his body in dark green flame. Handsome rolled her eyes and withdrew the gun from firing position, turning the stained, battered blade side toward the synaptic instead.
“I knew this’d end up like this. I knew this’d happen,” he said, his voice echoing and distorted. “I told him to get rid of you. He didn’t do shit. You ponies aren’t that smart, are you?”
"You talk like I don't know shit, roach,” Handsome retorted with a sharp, hiccupy giggle. “It's all because of your insect ass. I wouldn’t be murderfucking my way through all you fucking degenerates if he had some FUCKING INTEGRITY.”
“Bet you still don’t get why your country went to shit, cockhead,” the changeling said sharply before loosening the flames from his body and manifesting with his horn into a blindingly bright green aetherial orb. The ambient trash and items of improvised furniture began to shake, the videodrome stuttered on and off, and the stallion puked.
In the fraction of a moment when the green energy suddenly disappeared from the changeling’s body, Handsome rushed at him, levitating the hilt in front of herself, and impaling the synaptic through the chest. His horn went aglow with energy again, but by then the blade had crushed through his mimicked ribcage, and blood poured out of his mouth. He opened his mouth, but before he could make any sound, his horn turned just as bright once again, and then discharged the energy straight into his head, exploding it outright. The blood that poured out of him had already turned green, bubbling on the floor. Handsome turned to the brown stallion, who was trying to drag himself out of the hidden door to the tracks. She caught up and landed a heavy forehoof on his injured, blackened hind leg.
“THE SHIT ARE YOU DOING?” he shouted, reeling, his voice having been blown at screaming in pain.
“Getting unfucked,” Handsome replied, taking her hoof off of the debilitated hind leg and smacking the stallion on his side with it. His body, covered in dust and greenish synapse, thrashed as the gun was shoved directly onto his snout, absorbing it entirely, only stopping at the far reaches of his face, nearly bending back the clipped ears.
The wide trigger was pushed slowly, whereas the iron tube kept being forced into his head. The pony’s struggle intensified when the weapon released, coughing out fumes and sparks, having ran out of crystalline scrap to shoot. The heat and residual searing particles, however, caused the mare's former boss to emit inequine noises, bashing against the gun until his forehooves cracked and bled. Handsome continued to push the trigger further in, even after there was no more residue to force into the stallion’s face. Smoke and a sharp, ozonous odor seeped through the cracks of free space between the pony’s face and the heating iron. Eventually, the smoke turned into steam, and dark brown droplets began to add to the growing reddish pool underneath his head.
She retrieved her weapon once it had broken through most of his face. Stomping on his still chest for leverage, the mare brought her horn to fizzling point in getting the weapon unstuck. As soon as it levitated in the air, a mess of flesh and gore dripped from the barrel.
“...” Handsome stood in place and breathed heavily, puffing air loudly through the mask, sucking parts of it in. She turned to the headless, liquefying corpse of the synaptic and gave it a light kick. “What, you wanted that to be me? Yeah, I know how you do. You bugs are all the same. I know you through and fucking through. Fuck off, asshole,” she muttered at the space where his head would have been.
Stepping slowly, swiveling a little as she went, the mare made her way back to the generator room. She chuckled, giving off an echo that spread through the chamber she had rampaged through. She stopped to lean against one of the coolers for a second, shaking her head. Her eyes had dilated, darting between all the bodies and dismembered bodyparts littering the room. Handsome growled, having ended up standing in a puddle of liquified drone.
She moved on, stepping through a trail of blood, wiping her hooves there, mixing green with red. Stopping by the unmoving body of the stallion whose leg she nearly amputated, the mare gave it a kick. After squinting and tilting her head, she brought a hind leg on his head, squashing it against the floor. She shrugged, mumbling to herself, turning to chuckles while stumbling through the narrow corridor to the first maintenance area.
Handsome cleared her throat, dropping the gun on the floor. With a grunt, she bent down and grabbed it with her forehooves, hoisting it on her back, her horn going dark. She trudged through the door, the illusion of solid concrete having faded. Occasionally stopping to stabilize the gun on her back, the mare trudged along the rails toward the station. Slowly turning her head left and right, she eventually stumbled back into the weapons stash. She emerged with the gun still on her back, now fastened with a belt, and the massive, spiked bludgeon being levitated in front of her instead. She gave it a pat, twirling the spike, iron, knife and needle-stuffed piece of wood in the air, occasionally stumbling whenever her horn fizzled for a moment under the weight.
The echoing beeping of a train departing from a nearby station sounded through the tunnels. The mare coughed, her cough turning into a chuckle, which then blew up into a raspy laughing fit. She fell over, banging her masked face in the metal ties between the rails. Her bludgeon dropped down, clanging against the conductor rails, casting a few sparks from contact with the current.
The unicorn began to hit the ground with her forehooves, roaring with laughter. She had descended into another coughing fit by when the sounds of an oncoming train got closer. Spitting into her mask, she breathed deeply, grasping her temples. Handsome squinted at the station ahead of her.
She chuckled again, gulping, and got up, lighting her horn up enough to drag the customized club behind her, the scant portion of plain wood facing forward while all the sharp extremities scraped against the floor. There was a humongous bovine standing on the empty station with his arms crossed. He glared at her. As she moved toward the station, he stretched out a trunk-like arm and beckoned her over. In so doing, he made visible a hawk griffon, criss-crossed with leathery bandoilers, goggles resting on her forehead, squatting on the floor, beak buried in her gloved talons.
“Hey, you,” he spoke up, pointing at Handsome in her battered, bloodied uniform and stained, dimpled mask. “Tell me ‘bout yourself.”
The unicorn made her way closer to the station, her eyes glued to the massive minotaur. He was roughly the size of the generator pillar from the maintenance tunnels. His fists were adorned with large rings, each reading a letter. The eight rings formed the words “ROAD RAGE”, with a wide spike coming out of each letter. His dark green vest was covered in pins and slips, and the spiked mohawk ended in slabs of shining metal. He eyed her down as she struggled with the mask, peeling it back to reveal her sweaty, grinning face.
“I’m Handsome,” she explained, air hissing as it went through her clung-together teeth. “I work for you.”
“You’re Handsome,” the bull repeated, shutting his eyes for a moment and nodding. “Got that. I’ll piss your name on your grave.”
“Hah, no."
While the bull glared at her, she lit up her horn with a burst of bright green magic, and thrust the club ahead, twirling it as it went. After the initial thrust, the cackling unicorn left it to inertia. The large bull was already stomping towards her, his spiked knuckles centimeters away from her head, but the club had hit him. The last of the mare’s magic had pushed it toward him at an angle - his next step brought him straight into the lower row of the club’s spikes, the rest slotting into his bulky body afterward. Handsome had hopped backwards, clinging on to her mask, leaving him to groan and stumble off the station and onto the tracks. The bull threatened to remain stable, but fell over with a loud thud and a growl when the griffon shot from her seat and torpedoed onto his side, tumbling him onto the electrified rails.
His hands clung to the club, having gotten impaled by the sharp objects, and struggled to pull it out of his ravaged body. By when both Handsome and the griffon made it to his body, he had succeeded, the club now laying in one of his arms, still attached to it by multiple sharpened irons that had pierced the palm. The bull’s body continued to twitch and his mouth foamed.
“Hey, Goldbeak,” the mare said, smiling. The griffon sat on the edge of the station, having propped her beak with one hand.
“You got any idea what you’ve done? Fuck me,” the avian replied. “Go, get your damn toy before the train passes.” She pointed at the club, which Handsome was halfway through detaching from the minotaur’s impaled hand. “And tear off that pin, right there.”
“Don’t bust my balls,” the mare replied, grunting with effort, the club now in her telekinetic grip with a chunk of minotaur flesh still attached to it. “You need it, you go get it.”
“You got a horn, and he’s all… Fuck it, nevermind, I don't need it that badly,” Goldbeak said, scowling and getting off the edge of the platform. “Come on, train’s about to come. We gotta talk.”
She passed a hand to the unicorn, who threw her weapons onto the platform and was making her way over, huffing and coughing while climbing. Several seconds after she'd climbed over, the train sped by, with a noticeable bump in its passing, and an acute smell of burned flesh on the air.
“So… lemme guess, you're my new boss?” Handsome asked, yawning, picking up her weapons from the floor.
“Dude, you have no fucking idea of the sort of shit you’re in now. This,” Goldbeak pointed at the steaming, squashed, sliced remains of Road Rage. “This shit wasn’t meant to happen. Definitely not today. This is all wrong, this is not the time, this is not the plan, dammit! You haven’t got a clue what the shit is going on.”
“Try me,” the mare offered, sitting down on a bench and unbuttoning part of the bloodstained uniform, breathing heavily as sweat rolled off her snout.
“Bitch, you… Okay, for starters: why the fuck is this YOU?” the griffon asked, speaking slowly, looking the mare directly in the eyes, having gotten on her hind paws. “Where is Skate? How much DO you know?”
“Feels like more than what you give me credit for,” Handsome shrugged. "Not that I give a shit."
“I’m fucking sure. Oh, this is a mess…” the griffon’s eyes darted as she ran her talons through her pinkish overcast bang. She reached into her pocket and jolted slightly, retrieving a hand still empty. “Fuck, fuck, fuck…”
The unicorn jumped in her seat as the sound of popping thunder came from just up the standstill escalators, raising her club with a weak green light.
“Wha?..”
“Hello… Goldbeak,” a croaky, accented voice came from up the steps. “Hello, Ska— Oh.” The figure it belonged to, a crooked, trenchcoat-wearing avian leaning on a tall cane, stood motionless for a moment, blinking with one glowing eye. “I see.” He struck his cane against the step he was at, and reappeared, with the same pop, in a dissipating puff of stormy cumulus next to Goldbeak. Handsome jumped yet again, mouthing to herself as she looked at the old albatross, half of his face obscured by plumage.
Him and the mare looked at each other while Goldbeak leaned against a column, her arms crossed.
“Uh… Hundred thousand,” Handsome said.
“...?...” The old griffon opened his beak, took a pause, and closed it.
“I’ve clearly seen something real fucking serious. From what I gather, you’re paying fuckwads to kill other fuckwads. Dunno why, don’t care either,” the mare explained, a twitching smile forming on her face. “Whatever just happened didn’t go to your plan. You musta thought that pink loser was going to get this,” she switched abruptly to a softer tone, lifting the empty-eyed vulture’s mask in her hooves. “Now you are going to off me because you don’t wanna get caught. Or, how about you pay me in good old Equestrian bits and I work for you. It's gonna work.”
There was another silent pause. The albatross raised an eyebrow, scratching at his time-battered beak with a claw. He shifted in place, making a light thudding noise. His left leg was made of wood, carved finely and incrusted with silver.
“Really now… How poignant. Um, ‘Goldbeak’,” he called the hawk out. “Would you say this individual is reliable? In a sense.”
“He’s fucked in the head. Sure am glad we holed up down here. If this were any more public...”
“Do you think we’re at risk of an intelligence leak if we agree?” the albatross asked another question, albeit looking at Handsome instead. One of his eyes went aglow again, with pure white light, and he raised the hand he wasn’t using to hold himself upright with the cane. Lighting crackled between his talons. “This is your subordinate, I understand.”
“This is what was going to get the actual vulture pony fucking killed,” Goldbeak replied with a frown, pointing a talon at Handsome. “THIS is why I insisted we wait with this place. You can’t just go in like this. You gotta make it big and dirty. But now, like...”
“I can see your reasoning…” the old griffon muttered, leaning to the side for a glimpse of the remains of Road Rage. “So, is your friend reliable?”
“Utterly headfucked. Even I don’t know. He’s not my friend, either. He’s a straitjacket loony dweeb. I'm not even sure if he's a he.”
“Look, mister Geezer…” Handsome raised her hooves, sighing. “You give me the money, and I’ll go wherever you want, so long as I can squash some fucking bugs. I've been... waiting for this.”
“What about your compatriots? I presume they’re also—”
“Oh, I destroyed those assholes. There’s not a single one left. I don’t care, I joined the Snakes so I could hide from pigs and crush bugs.” Her eyes began to widen. “I don’t care about anyone. I'll be doing this no matter what, but if you're gonna pay me for it, and give me roaches to kill?.. I can blow you if you want.” She erupted into another toothy grin, showing off the mostly artificial teeth.
Her and the albatross stared each other in the eyes intently, both occasionally tilting their heads. She never dropped her grin, whereas he let go of the arcane glow. Finally, it was the avian who let out a laugh.
“Very well then! So long as you promise to be slightly more… discrete. We can make this work. You have to realize you’re an exception from the rule,” he said with a smile. “You should be dead. Your set of talents, however… They’re welcome. But you don’t want to blow the lid on what is going on too early, wouldn’t you agree? We don’t want people to start lionizing their liberators just yet… hold back a little. And speaking of holding back, mister— may I have your name?”
“Handsome,” Goldbeak muttered, leaving Handsome to nod.
“Close enough. What I would like you to do is not to create too much of a mess until it’s ‘go time’, so to say. But once it is, then, by all means… Don’t leave anyone alive. Be quick. Be efficient. Speak with your actions.”
“Uh… Right, get me out of here to somewhere safe. I haven’t got anything to change into.” Handsome scratched at the back of her head with a bloodied hoof. “I need to stash my toys away, too. And the bike, I’m not giving it back to that loser, port it over too! I fucking earned it. And the money, I want to see the money. So, like. You’re a… wizard, do something.”
The griffon laughed once again. Goldbeak had dropped on all fours, an odorous smokestick in her beak, and hopped down, disappearing into the tunnel where the massacre took place. The mare arched her back and got on her hooves, grabbing her weapons and the mask. She looked at the old albatross.
“The exact term is ‘Storm’.”
“Do I look like a give a shit? Get me out of here, give me my money, I’ll phase the fuck out on some good shit, and I’ll make the world a better place,” the pony said with a scowl. “Drop me and the ride by the apartments at Sun Hearth. Any funny business, I’ll find you and shove your fake leg down your throat.”
He cracked his cane against the floor, his eye filling with plain white light. Sharp air accumulated around the mare, wrapping the weapons and the mask into separate cradles of dark cloudy matter.
“Goldbeak will check if you did what you said you did. Personally, I can see you leave us little reason for doubt,” he spoke in a slow, deep, overly enunciating voice, keeping eye contact with the mare through his luminant, now-blank eyes. “Today you will get seventy five out of your hundred, and I suggest you stay on your guard the next few hours to make sure no one appropriates the shipment. After that, in one week, at two in the afternoon, go to Mustang Sally at Starling Avenue. There you will receive the remaining cash, as well as your next assignment.”
“That was NOT what I—”
“You can take seventy five thousand and a free trip home,” the griffon replied with a grin, white light shining from his throat. “Or I could vaporize you.”
"If you’re fucking with me…” Handsome growled, jerking in place as small bolts of lightning struck the floor near her.
“I am not. And since I am not, one piece of advice…“ The mess of scars on the other side of his face lighting up in the flash of teleportation. “Try not to vaporize yourself with whatever you plan to procure with the money. That would be an abrupt end to your story.”
---
May 29th, 1013 AN
“You felt it from the start?”
“I did, yeah. Right then and there. It woke up in me. I tried to keep it down… But I knew I couldn’t. It was funny to me then.”
“What… did it feel like?”
Handsome drooped her head into her cupped hooves, having it thud against the polished table. Her budding locks of hair bounced with the compartment's vibrations. The shadows of the trees passing by the window danced on her bandage-covered face. The carriage took a heavy shake and continued by smoothly, past the whistling wind.
“It’s not, like, one single thing, shit… You ever felt alive?”
“Well, technically, uh…”
“I was alive that day. The sounds… the smells… the feeling… the rush… You never want it to stop once it takes over. Your body doesn’t matter, your brain doesn’t matter, nothing matters. It doesn't matter what you're made of, who you're a part of. There's no 'you', no individual, no 'you', no unity. In that moment, you’re just perfect. Everything is perfect.”
Handsome took a sip from her glass of water, turning her head to watch the faraway hills and trees pass by, a large lake catching those sun rays that made it through the thick cover of clouds. She fell back on the bunk, lowering her head on the cushion. Her eyes grazed the compartment slowly, eventually closing as the crystalline decorations and sparkling ornaments began to glitter in the dark of a tunnel. Her hooves shifted to her temples as the lightworks jingled and jangled. The unicorn's mane squeaked against the smooth texture of the wall that her head bumped against.
“You don’t think it’s what you took?’
“No. That was nothing. I saw… things, after I went there. But that was bullshit. This was different. I had a purpose. I needed to be there. It had to be this way.”
“Well… maybe it’s your calling? You know what I mean.”
The unicorn rolled over, staring, and frowning. Her companion was left in the dark by the sun.
“No, it isn’t,” she said quietly, her eyelids with trembling, fledling eyelashes closing down on her green eyes. “But it felt like it was. I murdered half of my entire gang that day. It started feeling right.”
“Which kind of right?”
“The kind where you realize that you were meant to exist. The kind where you know this was meant to happen. The kind where you know this is something to live for. When you get out of the loop and find something that's finally giving you some damn satisfaction. I found myself. And those others, I guess they did, too. Not wandering around aimlessly anymore.”
“In any case… we’re here now. The sun is high.”
“And better off for it.”
---
April 2nd, 1013 AN - 11:40 PM
Carol City, Equestria
Handsome trudged down the corridor of the run-down apartment block. Occasional creaking sounds and voices coming from the apartments made her jerk, lifting up the club she kept in front of herself. The mare left wet hoofprints behind, being soaked in water through and through, thus lacking most of the signs of fighting. Stopping next to an apartment, she leaned against the door with a hoof, and hacked at the ground for a couple of moments, breathing through her nose. As a weak stream of water and stomach acid streaked from her mouth, the door of the apartment opened.
“Ugh… hello, Handsome. I’m not going to ask,” a pale grey unicorn mare mumbled. Her with turqouise hair sat in a slightly disheveled bun on top of her head, and the glasses sitting at the edge of her snout were kept together by duct tape. “Come in, there’s pizza in the coldbox.”
“Yeah, I’m… I’m alright. I’ll handle myself,” Handsome slurred, picking her weapons up from the ground and stepping into the apartment. “Where you going?.”
“Um… Talking to some people… y’know,” the unicorn said slowly, biting her lip, her eyes darting here and there. “Getting in our boss’ good graces, making deals.”
“Bull’s dead. Never liked him,” the soaked mare babbled, yawning, nearly walking into a wardrobe. “Talk to Goldbeak, she’s in charge now.”
“What the— Wait, how—”
“I’m drinking the last of our booze,” Handsome stated, turning her head back to glare at the other mare. “Also, I'm not leaving. Just try to kick me out.”
“I— but, wait, wait! Okay, just don't break anything, I'm already in debt! That bar isn't a gold mine, you kn—”
“Hah, heh, ahh, yeah... Alright, Page, I may give you a bit of a surprise,” She bucked the door closed with a hind hoof and belched quietly, coughing. “If I stay awake.”
“Handsome, I’d really rather not have any sur… I’ll just go now.”
“Good idea.”
Handsome grunted, carrying herself to the bedroom of the three-room apartment. With a hiss, she dropped the spiked club down on the floor, and threw the gun off her back, tossing the belt off into the corner. She spent the next several minutes dragging the weapons under the wide bed, grunting as the club nearly took multiple floorboards with it.
“This is gonna need some work,” the mare said to herself, yawning loudly.
Some more time was spent getting rid of the soaked wet uniform, which she threw in the rough direction of the wardrobe in the hallway. Having arched her back, the parts of her coat that weren’t overtaken by scar tissue ruffled and wet, she got herself to the kitchen, opposite of the bedroom. Her eyes grazed over the small bits of unfinished greenery on the table. Handsome sighed, grabbing a partly full glass of liquid and gulping it down. She let out a laugh, shaking her head from the salted whiskey.
The mare pulled the icebox’ door open, gazing at the shelves. Her mouth ceased to close, and a string of drool hung off her scarred lower lip. Hiccuping, she shoved a hoof deep into the freezer, emerging with a brownish object in a plastic bag. Handsome shut the door by slamming into it, causing the whole machine to shake and hum. Having put the object on the kitchen table, she snuck her muscled body through the tight space between the couch and the table
With sluggish, unsteady hooves, she unpacked the bag and bit into a piece of fried meat. She chewed slowly, her eyelids fluttering and eventually closing.
“Yeah, that’s right… That’s how we do,” she mumbled to herself, her mouth full of meat that her artificial teeth tore into. “Shit’s different now.”
Handsome leaned back, slipping halfway down, and banged her head loudly on the table, throwing most of the dishes straight onto the floor. With a tiny sprinkle of blood and freshly woken eyes, eyelids fluttering, the mare burped quietly, staring at the clock on the wall.
“The fuck am I even going to buy?” She rubbed the back of her head, staining her hoof with blood once more that day. “Hey, Page— Ah, right, fuck.”
The mare gave a raspy chuckle as her cut up tongue licked at her own blood.
“I could try something flashy this time.”
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Kinda figured there was a reason that this wasn't labeled completed. Really glad this got an update, there isn't really anything else like this.