Act 3 Chapter 46 : Battlestations!
"The great commanders don't stand in little tents on hilltops drinking gin and tonics, watching their soldiers fight. The great commanders don't charge at the head of their formations. The great commanders don't cower in their castles while their warriors go to battle.
The great commanders sit in tiny offices, making sure everyone has enough food and water, every weapon is sharp, and every soldier knows they are valued for what they contribute to the effort."
- Princess Celestia in her book 'On The Unpleasantness Of Warfare : A Skill To Be Studied, Mastered, And Then Avoided'
One would think that I’d have spent the rest of the night in frantic, maddened activity, arranging the battlefield and giving speeches to the troops. I certainly thought that was what was going to happen, but Taxi snatched the only cup of coffee I could find right out of my hooves. Unfortunately, I was still only on my legs by dint of a shoulder to lean on which left my crutch more or less in control of our destination; dull and infuriatingly pacifying when all I wanted to do was rip the throats out of a few mutants, but better than trying to help with the logistics when I could barely keep my eyes open.
After the meeting, Taxi dragged me—or rather ‘helped’ me—into one of the solitary confinement cells just below the control room. The four starkly unpainted walls hadn’t yet suffered under the hooves of the Everfree Fortress’s resident graffiti artists and the cot was a lumpen thing shoved in a corner, but to a pony who’d spent most of yesterday dead or running in mortal terror, it was the finest bedroom one could have asked for. My driver laid me down, unzipped my heart-pouch and plugged me into the wall, then went to the door and pulled it shut, cutting off the distant sounds of an army preparing for war. When she returned, she curled up against my back and put her legs around me.
I let time slip away. At some point, a rotund fluff and feather pillow shoved itself into my forelegs, made a few sleepy chirping sounds, then passed out in a softly purring heap.
----
I woke feeling energized and—surprisingly—alone.
The lumpy mattress aside, as I stretched my legs they felt strong and steady. Grabbing a muzzle full of my coat, I tugged it off my flank and sat there in the silence of the tiny cell, studying the golden scales on my hip. A part of me wanted to resent them; after all, my talent led me to that front porch, staring down a row of guns, with that toothy prick holding the Helm of Nightmare Moon as he ordered his beasts to use me for target practice.
Still, hadn’t this been what I signed up for when I cracked Stone Shine’s skull with that bat? I could have lain there on the floor of my bedroom and let the intuition pass. I might even have found a way to recover from the death of my best friend in an apparent house fire at such a tender age and gone on to get my mark in spoon making or woodworking or something like that.
Who knows? Maybe I could have been one of those poor souls upstairs, praying to images of a mad, drunk, bagel addicted messiah to save them from the end.
I lifted the Crusader, running my toe over the shining pictograph of the sun as another unpleasant question occurred to me: had there been a hoof in my fate sometime before my cutie-mark appeared? It certainly seemed so. There were too many coincidences, too many threads connecting themselves to one another.
“Detective? I don’t believe you’ve had enough rest.”
The voice sounded like she was in the room with me but seemed modulated somehow such that I felt neither surprise nor alarm at being spoken to by somepony invisible.
I raised my head and settled my coat back over my hip.
“I feel fine, Tourniquet. What’s going on?” I asked, picking up my hat and blowing dust off the brim.
“Well, in that case, Swift wanted me to give you an update when you woke. The Aroyos are moving into positions for the attack. We identified seven staging bases where Blackcoats are coming and going regularly, and they are going to be hit simultaneously.”
“Good. What about the Helm of Nightmare Moon? Any luck tracking it?”
“Yes and no. We followed it right up until they moved through the Uptown shield. After that we lost them, but the shield did waver for a minute when they passed through. If they can make holes in the shield without bringing it down completely, that would tend to suggest it’s being projected from somewhere outside; the laws of arcane dynamics still apply, even if these ponies seem bent on twisting them all out of shape. I’m working that angle right now.”
“Interesting,” I murmured, heading to the door. It swung open on its own, revealing the bare hall outside. “Where is everypony?”
“It’s half past midnight, Detective. Big day, tomorrow, and I figured if our opponents were going to retaliate, it would take them a while to organize so we might as well be rested. The combat teams are ready to strike, though, per your instructions. All they need is the word.” There was a long pause, then she added, a little grumpily, “Your grandfather is an unsettlingly capable sneak.”
“What do you mean?”
“He moves around inside me with near impunity, and I have been almost totally unable to follow him because he seems to have some kind of sixth sense for the presence of sensors and cameras. I don’t like it one bit.”
“What’s that spooky bastard done now?” I asked.
“He’s standing behind you.”
I stopped halfway through a stride with one leg in the air, then set it carefully down and looked over my shoulder to find Bones leaning on the lintel of the doorway I’d just left, cigarette clenched between his teeth and smoke rising from the holes where his eyes had once been. If he could have smiled, I’m sure he would have.
“Mornin’, Junior,” Bones snickered, stubbing out his cigarette on the bottom of his bony hoof. “I can’t say I’m impressed with your security awareness. Resting in an unlocked room monitored by only two cameras and three motion detectors? Not healthy for a pony as popular as you are.”
“You should have seen my old apartment,” I replied, working my muzzle a couple times. I raised my head and called, “Tourniquet! Can you direct me to a toothbrush and a place to piss?”
“Down the hall, last door on the left,” she answered.
I set off at a trot, enjoying the feeling of functional legs. Bones quickly caught up, the cloud of cigarette smoke following him down.
“So, sonny… Sneaking into a heavily fortified building. You aren’t nervous enough for this to be your first rodeo, but you’re not paranoid enough to have done this more than a few times. What’s your plan?”
“Right now? We use Tourniquet’s distraction and hope it works. If it doesn’t, we blow up the Dragon Flagon Wagon and escape in the resulting chaos. Everything else is details.”
Bones stopped where he was and I continued on, hooves clattering on the concrete flooring. After a moment, he cantered around in front of me and put his toe on my chest to bring us both to a halt. I don’t know as he looked worried, but something about his stance suggested he had some questions.
“I’ve spent the last four hours prepping supplies and stuffing that wheeled abomination with every single trick I could think of for getting us there, safely. You’re telling me our attack hinges on causing an explosion and running away if things go sideways?”
“Seems like a decent strategy. Swift has an encyclopedic knowledge of the sewers that the metal filly stuffed in her brain along with who knows what else. The truck is a mobile fort. Limerence can mask the sounds of our approach, Taxi can kill damn near anything she gets into close combat with, and if worst comes to worst, I have five more crystal rounds in this thing,” I said, shaking my sleeve back off the Crusader.
Bones shook his head and tugged at his ragged coat. “Sonny, they’ve got an army and their own fortress. Crusaders are dangerous to use on a good day, but if you pop that round in there, it’ll light us up like a flare on a clear night to any unicorn within eight miles. You might have felt invincible, but the Grand Shadow doesn’t work when you’ve let the berserker off the chain, and you’re not invincible when it stops: you’re dead, little as that might mean to you most days.”
“I know. I’m grasping at straws, here,” I muttered, pausing at a door labeled ‘restroom’. “I’ve no idea how this can go well, though. This is the best I’ve got.”
The skeleton’s shoulders dropped as he stuffed his hoof back in his coat and plucked out his box of cigarettes. He stared forlornly at the last fag in the pack, then put it away. I ducked into the toilet and went to find a toothbrush and soap. When I finished with my ablutions, he was gone.
----
Little had changed as I stepped out into the chilly air outside Supermax. The guard posts were as full and vigilant as ever, but none seemed much interested in me. They held their places, watching the distant fog for signs of movement. My breath clouded in front of my face, but that was becoming the norm. I held my coat tighter and sighed, heading for the truck, as ready to face death as a traumatized multiple-murder victim could be.
Limerence peered out of the passenger window, then quickly rolled it down. “Detective? Do you need me to get something else done? I’m afraid I had to rest a bit, but I finished your checklist.”
“What do you mean?” I asked. “I was asleep until about fifteen minutes ago.”
He blinked a couple of times. “Asleep? Are you feeling alright?”
“I’m feeling pretty good, actually. Why?”
“Because we either have a changeling wandering around wearing your face, or you’ve been sleepwalking in an extremely unsettling fashion,” he replied, pushing the door open and stepping down onto the pavement with a roll of paper tucked in his front pocket.
That brought me up short. “Hold the phone. What?”
“You’ve been running about like a mad pony all night long, Detective! I had to snatch a few hours’ sleep, but I spoke to some of the guards when I woke up and they said you’d been at it until about a half hour ago. I was under the impression you wished to remain relatively unseen, but you seemed unbothered.”
I flicked my eyes towards the guard posts, then back to Limerence and the scroll in his pocket.
“Is...is that the checklist I left you?” I asked, holding out my hoof.
“Eh...yes, yes it is,” he replied, proffering the paper with his horn. “Is something peculiar happening?”
“Let me know when something peculiar is not happening; I’d like to mark the occasion,” I muttered, taking the scroll and quickly unrolling it.
The densely numbered checklist was in my hoofwriting, but only if I’d taken a course in calligraphy that I couldn’t remember sitting in for. The letters were shaped in the same sharp style, but with little flourishes and dots that leant the whole thing an officious air.
I squinted at the first few items and mouthed the words as I read:
1.Examine text of ‘A Military History of the Cutie Mark Crusades’; apply information from page 115 to current strategic situation and give to pony known as Wisteria.
2.Arrange and distribute anti-necromantic spell works for Vivarium, Supermax, and other defended locations.
3.Examine artifacts from the Archive to determine if any of them might be used against aerial attacks and—
I stopped and unrolled the page the rest of the way. It tumbled over my leg and onto the gravel.
“I gave you this?” I asked, turning it one way, then the other.
“Er...yes?” he murmured, a tad uncertainly, “You had several similar lists. Even Mags received one, I believe.”
Letting the page drop, I shut my eyes and put my hoof on my breast above my heart plug. I sent a quick, querying thought in the direction of my heart and got the oddest sensation in return; I saw a flash of powerful moonlight as though through closed eyelids, felt a distinct grumpiness, then tasted custard.
“Lim, did any of those orders seem dangerous or unusual?” I asked cautiously.
The Archivist gave me a curious look, then carefully picked up the list and ran his eyes down the page. “Not that I noticed. They seem quite sensible directives, if a tad specific and detail oriented for a pony I generally associate with driven mania. I simply figured you had Tourniquet assist you. Would you please explain before I allow my burgeoning urge to hit you with a stun spell and strap you to something to finish this conversation become an inconvenience?”
“The answer won’t make you feel any better, but I don’t think we’re in any danger,” I answered, turning to the D.F.W, which had a few new and interesting protrusions from some of the weapon mountings. “I met Bones on the way up here. What did he do to the truck?”
“Largely adding duffle bags full of stabilized explosives and loading it with some of the spare armaments. If you want specifics, I’m afraid you’ll have to ask him yourself.” Limerence hesitated, then quickly wet his lips with his tongue and added, “Detective, I feel I should mention this, but am uncertain how.”
“Go on?”
“The necromancy that created your grandfather’s current condition is one that the Archivists are...familiar with, though have had no direct dealings in...aside from my brother. The magic is quite old, but it is one Zefu was very well-versed in. I had hoped it merely a coincidence, but—”
I narrowed my eyes and took a step forward until my muzzle was next to his ear and his next to mine, lest there be any prying ears about.
“Why didn’t you bring this up before?” I whispered.
“I wasn’t sure. I was able to get close enough to Bones to run a quick signature scan, though. It is most assuredly Zang Dynasty zebra necromancy: Zefu’s specialty.”
“We saw his body, Lim,” I murmured.
“Did we?” he asked, his voice chilly. “Or did we see a corpse burnt beyond recognition? He would have the requisite skills and clearances to modify the Archive’s defenses. Even if he was not alive when your grandfather was put in his current predicament—”
“He might still have learned from whoever did. Alright, fine. Why bother to fake his death, then?”
“Why are you appearing to be dead to most everypony in the city?” he pointed out. “My father had many powerful friends. If I thought, for an instant, that somepony like you were pursuing me while I attempted to achieve some great undertaking that required me to be mobile, I would wish to appear dead as well. Zang Dynasty necromancy would be entirely capable of many of the acts we have seen; burning of souls, theft of souls, storage of souls and so on.”
“But...but why? Why kill Don Tome?”
Limerence shook his head, a little sadly. “Father would never allow truck with the sort of monsters we now face. He was dangerous to anypony who dared threaten the stability of Detrot. I pray I am wrong, but...too many things are assembling into a picture that points to my brother being alive, in some capacity. I would like to think Zefu incapable of such vile acts, but...”
I put my foreleg around his neck and held him against my shoulder for a moment.
“For now, keep this between us,” I murmured. “We don’t need Bones haring off to hunt down your brother and beat thirty years’ worth of resentment out of him if Zefu is still around. If he lives—”
“If he lives, I will have explanations out of him before he dies,” Limerence promised, then backed away and subtly tilted his head toward the prison.
I spun in time to catch Mags before she could attach herself to my head, grabbing her out of midair and hugging the little ball of squirming fluff against my breast. She giggled softly, wriggling out of my grasp and spinning onto the asphalt in front of me, coming to a semblance of attention. She was wearing what looked like a tiny, pink bulletproofed vest and her holstered pistol. A checklist exactly like Lim’s was stuffed down the front pocket.
“Egg Pony! I finished with dumb list and I be ready for fighting!” she declared.
Reaching out, I tugged the checklist out of her vest and read it. It was only a fifth as long as Lim’s.
1.Get your gun and load it.
2.Find a pony called Fluff N Stuff and get a bulletproof vest. If Fluff N Stuff argues, tell them Hard Boiled will feed them their own lungs with a fork.
3.Find Wisteria and tell her you are going into a fight with Hard Boiled and ask her about a shield talisman.
4.Get food, then sleep for six hours.
5.Find, steal, or borrow at least five magazines for your pistol.
I dropped the list and sat down hard, putting my front hooves on the pavement in an attempt to steady myself.
‘Alright, focus. Nightmare Moon or some part of her was out there running around with my meat suit. Why?’ I thought, then shuddered at the image of her rushing around wearing my body. ‘And why didn’t Gale stop her?’
“Lim, I want you to discreetly find out as much of what I spent last night having ponies do as you can,” I ordered, pointing back toward Supermax. “Then get me something to eat. Sweets and Swift need to be ready to rumble inside of an hour.”
“What are you going to be doing?” he asked.
“Sitting in the truck, plugged into the cigarette lighter,” I replied, patting my chest with my toe. I turned to my ward. “Mags, did I tell you why I was taking you along?”
She did her very best ‘harrumph’ and her feathers bristled. “Like Egg Pony could leave me! I be your tribe lord!”
“I’m serious. What did I say to you?”
Her pupils slowly shrank, then dilated again. “You...really be not remembering? You not be seeming drunk…”
“Just pretend I was hammered. What did I say?”
The little griffin’s brow furrowed, and she touched her pistol grip, then looked up at me a little nervously. “You say, ‘Mags, get your gun! I need you to be saving my life when I do a dumb thing day after tomorrow!’ and then you says I can’t be telling you what or you be dying...maybe forever.”
“And that didn’t seem peculiar to you?” I demanded.
“What be ‘pec-ul-iar’ meaning?” she asked.
“Strange! Weird! Unusual!”
“Egg Pony, when you be not pec-ul-iar?”
I shot a warning look at Limerence, who quickly covered the smirk on his face with a cough into his hoof.
“Alright, we’re going to gloss over this for now. Get strapped into the D.F.W. We’re leaving soon.”
There was a shout, then Wisteria coasted in from overhead and skidded to a stop, folding her wings against her hips. The leader of the Aroyos was without her foal, but she was wearing two light machine guns strapped to her sides by means of an elaborate combat saddle.
“Crusada! De Lady In Shadows be sayin’ to see ye off! De toothy pegasus, she be join ye when ye underway! Dey be makin’ final arrangements.” She reached under her wing and pulled a bottle with six ladybugs crouched inside it from a slot in her saddle. “Here. I and I have what ye be askin’ for.”
“I gave you a list, did I?” I grunted.
She gave me that questioning look I was now becoming quickly tired of. “Dat ye did... though I and I be unsure what some of de t’ings ye have me do be for. Why we be monitorin’ de cloud factories? Dey not change much since de Darkening.”
I tilted my head, then turned towards Uptown where the low clouds still hung above the middle of the city, continuously pumped out by the factories. I couldn’t be sure, but they seemed a bit darker than they had last I’d looked at them. It might have been my imagination, though.
“I’ll figure it out. Where’s Taxi?”
“Whoooo!”
There was a shout of glee, followed by a roar that turned the blood in my veins to pure laxative. I threw myself to the ground, rolling over with the Crusader pointed at the sky as a massive, draconic shape crashed to earth just a few meters away, spraying me with gravel and dust. I sat there, shaking, staring down the barrel of my gun at the mighty, yellow head of Vexis.
Swift’s ‘catch’ was looking healthier than she had the last time I saw her, but then a burrito left in the back of the freezer for six months would have looked better than the frost-bitten, starved mess we’d left huddled in one of the prison’s lower levels with her brother tucked under her wing. Speaking of her wing, somepony with a good command of sewing needles had been at it with some kind of flexible fabric, patching the holes the Hailstorm left in her membranes quite handily.
My driver swung nimbly down from Vexis’s shoulders, landing on the pavement in front of me and patting her mount’s neck as I slowly lowered my quivering gun.
“Sweets! I swear, you almost earned yourself a death laser in the face!” I snapped, scrambling up.
“Sorry, Hardy,” she said, not sounding sorry whatsoever. “Just needed to take Vexis out for a bit of exercise. She and her brother have graciously volunteered as mobile weapon platforms.”
I turned to the young dragon, and she shrugged, expressively.
“I do not know why the other dragons think eating ponies is a good idea. Seems like chewing dynamite,” Vexis grumbled, giving my driver a cautious look as she folded her wings. “But if I have ponies with guns standing on me, I will not taste good, either.”
“Hrmph,” I said. “I wouldn’t have happened to suggest that, say...last night, would I?”
Taxi flicked one eartip back and forth. “Errr...you must have been pretty out of it after all that running around last night. Plugging yourself into the wall isn’t a permanent replacement for sleep, you know, even if Tourniquet does give you power straight off the mains.”
“So I did suggest it, then. Lovely. Lim, would you wait here for a minute. Sweets, can I talk to you in the cab? Privately?”
----
I muscled my way past a heap of bags and into the back compartment of the D.F.W. with my bemused driver on my heels. Settling down on one of the long benches, I held out my hoof for her to join me. When she was comfortably seated, I began.
“Sweets, there’s no sane way to say this, so I’m just going to come out with it. I’m pretty sure Nightmare Moon or whatever she left in my head was piggybacking my body last night. Assume that everything I asked you to do is probably a good idea, but also that I have no idea what ninety-five percent of it was. Oh, and if I told you to do anything that might get me killed, assume it was for a good reason.”
Taxi blinked at me a few times, then her ears laid back and the expression on her face sank into one of near total despair.
“I...Hardy, please tell me you’re joking,” she said, softly.
“I’m not.”
“B-but you told me—”
I put up my leg to stop her. “Take a moment and think. Did I tell you to keep whatever you’re about to say from me?”
Her expression wavered, then she quickly dipped her chin, as though even that might be revealing too much.
“I...I thought you were just going to have your memory erased so you could play some trick on the Family or something,” she muttered. “It sounds like the kind of thing you’d do. H-how did I not notice it wasn’t you?”
“She’s the Nightmare, and she needed you not to,” I replied, reaching out to put a hoof on her knee as the horrible realizations started to dawn on her. “I probably needed you not to, as well. I don’t want to climb down that rabbit hole with you, right now.”
“Ponyfeathers! Hardy, do you know how scary it is to have my talent manipulated like that?”
“Any more scary than being dragged around from murder to murder by these shinies on my ass?” I groused, using my tail to sweep my coat off my flank. “Look, for now, our situation is such that I think she has a whole heap of good reasons to play fair. That being the case, I need you to trust whatever it is she told you. There are lives hanging in the balance.”
Taxi grimaced, then pushed herself up from the bench, stepped over the bags, and headed into the front compartment to take her seat at the driver’s wheel. “You know, it’s really not fair when the pony I’d normally go to for advice has other people living in his head who may or may not be screwing with him. Especially considering what she told me to let you do. I swear, I thought you were having a manic episode or something and we could laugh about it later on.”
“I’m not happy about it, either, Sweets. We’ve got to get moving, though. Tourniquet’s people are in place and I’d like to give our opponents as little time as possible to figure out what we’re doing.”
There was a quick double knock on the back door. Taxi pushed a lever on the dash and the tailgate slid open, revealing Bones, with Mags sitting on his skeletal back, and Limerence standing alongside them.
“You kids done in here?” my grandfather asked. “Do you need me to get you a towel? Want a cigarette per chance?”
I clenched my jaw, again fighting the urge to discover if Bones was bulletproof.
“Get in. We’re moving. Swift will be joining us soon.”
Taxi fired the engine, which was immediately dampened to almost nothing as my companions situated themselves in the back. I climbed into the front seat and found myself staring at a stick jutting up from under the console that reminded me of a gear shifter. It had a big, shiny button on the end and a thin, exposed wire leading into the dashboard.
“What’s this?” I asked, gently tapping the control.
“That’s the trigger for the grenadine launcher,” she answered. “Sorry it’s in kind of an inconvenient spot. The handle and button usually live in the hoofwell, but if we want to use it, there’s some assembly required. Press the button and everything within twenty meters of the front bumper get a bath in dragon drink that’ll leave a hangover they never wake up from.”
I scooted back in my seat. “Is there a safety?”
Taxi cocked her eyebrow at me and put the D.F.W. into gear. “A safety? On a flamethrower?”
“Right. I forgot for a moment that we’re working with a ‘lowest bidder’ situation where ‘lowest’ is refugees being paid in three hots and a cot.”
“If you want to complain, you can have Bones use the flamethrower and you sit on the roof with the flak cannon!” she snapped.
My ears perked. “We have a flak cannon?”
“Most of one,” Bones added from the back. “It’s belt fed, but there’s no reloading mechanism. Fifty shots, then it’s dead. Still, that’s fifty shots during which the sky is ours.”
“Sounds good. Speaking of that, I am curious what our resident carnivore is up to,” I replied, then pulled the bottle of Ladybugs out of my pocket and popped the cork out of the top, offering my hoof to the one who crawled to the top first. “Sunshine, sunshine and all that. Show me Swift.”
----
I fell through the Ladybug network, a single flicker of flame floating through a building on fire. The network felt far larger and far more alive than it had the last time I was inside it. I caught drifts of conversation, whispered messages, flickers of imagery, and bits of song, but behind it all there was the overwhelming sensation of ultimate connectedness.
Gradually, my light joined a great pipeline of others floating towards a single, glistening point in the distance. I didn’t register the change until a sensation of violent speed was followed by being flung towards that gleaming ball of glory, careening down the threads of disparate consciousness. I crashed into it and was consumed, flaring out like a candle in the sun.
When my partner’s eyes opened, it took a second to make any sort of sense of what I was seeing, and when I did, I wished I hadn’t.
The inside of Tourniquet’s ‘nest’ was disturbingly organic in a fashion that made me want to climb out of my skin. I was surrounded on all sides, encapsulated in gently pulsing electrical wires that surrounded, supported, and—in more cases than I was comfortable with—entered me. My body was wrapped in a pair of forelegs that felt like two heating pads.
I felt something working its way out of my throat and shuddered as a shining tube was gently pulled out of my muzzle, still dripping with saliva. It slid down amongst the other wires and I let out a loud sigh, then coughed a couple times.
“Phew...I don’t know if it’s a good thing that I’m getting used to that, T,” Swift murmured, then her ears twitched. “Oh! Is Hardy watching me?”
“Yes, he has some Ladybugs with him,” Tourniquet said, from a place above my head. “Do you think he’s figured out that Nightmare Moon’s little ‘proxy’ was steering his body last night?”
“I hope so! He’ll be freaked otherwise!”
Swift shuffled her wings as more of the cables started to withdraw from her anatomy. I don’t know what disturbed me more, the totality of the invasion or how little it seemed to bother my partner.
“I tracked everything he ordered ponies to do,” Tourniquet added. “It was quite a collection, but none of it seems to undermine our defense. If anything, it improved our chances of survival, if we had any to begin with.”
“Good…” Swift hesitated, then tilted her head back to look into Tourniquet’s crystal eyes. “I looked at our troop deployment and...T, I don’t think we have enough to beat them without losing a bunch of lives. The griffins and the diamond dogs are great, but there aren’t many of them. Most of the ponies are untrained, and nopony besides a few retired guards has ever seen battle. Even with light arms and if we’re assuming we can take out all those dragons, the city will never be the same. Equestria will never be the same.”
“There are too many unknowns,” the construct said, softly, hugging my partner a little closer. “At least I got to meet you, Swift. That gives me hope. On top of that, if there’s one thing I know, it’s that Hard Boiled is going to bring justice to this world, before the end.”
“I’m going to go get armored up and join him,” my partner said, wiggling as the wires around her hooves started to sink. “I wish I could maintain my sight of the city while we do this. Being able to see electrical fields is really useful.”
“Yes, but you got so buzzed earlier that you ended up eating half a box of donuts. Besides, you’ll have the Hailstorm! That thing sees souls! Much more useful than some filly stuck in a pit who can’t even go outside with you while you kick tail.”
Swift squirmed one of her wings free and gently bopped Tourniquet on the back of the head. “Don’t say stuff like that, T. You’re my friend, and you’ll always be useful to me. Now, lemme down so I can go get my vest and weapons.”
“Should I order the attack, Warden?”
Swift snickered and rubbed her cheek against Tourniquet’s chest. “I love it when you call me that. Is everypony ready?”
“The Marked are all there, and a few of them are starting to see activity that might indicate the P.A.C.T. are aware something is up. By my projections, it’ll take that crazy truck at least forty minutes to reach the point where my vision ends and the dead zone near Uptown begins.”
“Give the order, T. I’ll snag a snack, then get going.” Swift’s eyes rolled up towards a point above her head, and she addressed the air, “Sir, if you heard all of that—” She paused, then I felt her cheeks flush. “Sir, if you heard that, I’d appreciate if you forgot most of it. I’ve got to charge the Hailstorm. I’ll catch up to you before the D.F.W. leaves the wastes. Leave the top open!”
----
Charge. Retreat. Give the order.
The significance of little words like those changes on the field of battle, when more than a few lives are set to be lost. My little partner, who’d puked herself silly at the mere sight of a dead body just two months ago, had just set in motion the largest combat operation in Detrot since the war. I sometimes wondered if anypony else even had a thought to spare for the history being written. Granted, that tended to assume there was going to be someone to write the history, and if my name made it into an academic text I’d long ago made a vow to hunt the author down and feed him his own pens.
Still, every order has consequences. Even the most detached commander has to struggle not to consider the bloodshed he’s unleashed.
----
The world faded back in, and I raised my head off the truck’s seat. The ladybug on my hoof buzzed up into the bottle, and I popped the cork back in. I suppose the little guy figured he’d be safer in my pocket. Maybe if my coat were to be destroyed during our day, the dimensional pocket would be severed and there might be a tiny civilization of Ladybugs living out their lives in another universe somewhere, keeping the light of life alive amongst newly evolved lint creatures. The thought was enough to give me a small smile.
Taxi politely cleared her throat.
“Orders, Chief?” she asked.
I yanked my seatbelt on and pointed out the windshield toward the row of jagged buildings springing up from the horizon, a boiling mix of eternal storm clouds hanging above them.
“Orders are to strap in, then haul our flanks to the Office at best speed. Lim, open the top hatch. Mags, you stick with Bones. He tells you to do something, you do it, same as if I told you. Got me?”
“I be sticking with him just till tomorrow, then I sticks to you, like you say a few hours ago!” Mags chirped.
“Don’t worry, Junior,” Bones added, putting a protective leg around my ward’s shoulders. “I’ll keep her safe.”
“You keep her safe, and you keep you safe. Once we’re in the Office, you’re the map. You die and we will have to start skipping to plans ‘B’, ‘C’, and ‘D’ real quick.”
Bones pulled a small piece of paper out of his pocket and held it toward me. “Colt, I learned long ago that stupid shit like that is what gets ponies killed. This is a map of the building, as best I can remember. You hold onto it. If I fall, you get everypony in and out.”
“You’re still coming?” I asked, stowing the paper.
“Damn right. I only said that thing about leading you through back in the war meeting so you’d take me along.”
“Good to hear.” I nodded at the tailgate. “Sweets? Close us up and let’s move.”
----
I missed having paydays. It occurred to me I hadn’t had one in a couple of months. They were always good days, when my paycheck dropped into my bank account and I could throw a few bits at my retirement fund while the rest went to rent, beer, utilities, and additional beer.
Rumbling toward the city, I longed for a payday to give life some more pleasant punctuation. Lately, life was all exclamation points and question marks. I’d had a run of commas when I pulled Scarlet into my bed, but that was all too brief a respite.
I was pulled from these thoughts by Swift, who arrived by dropping onto the roof and giving a quick shave and a haircut knock to let us know she wasn’t a target. Swinging down and inside, she piled into the front compartment beside me. The Hailstorm was wrapped around her middle, turrets swiveling alertly back and forth, and she was, again, fully armored and armed for battle. A bit of what I think was gristle stuck out of the corner of her muzzle.
“Kid,” I said.
“Sir,” she acknowledged.
“What’s the state of things on the ground out there?”
“They should be starting any second, Sir.” She quickly pointed out the window. “Look over there! Just about…now!”
I followed her toe to a spot just below the skyline and leaned forward in my seat until my muzzle was just an inch from the glass.
A brilliant golden bloom spread its petals on the side of one of the smaller tower-blocks at the outer edge of the waste. Fire spurted from each outspread limb as the explosion tore into three floors at once, pieces of debris wheeled off in all directions. I imagined, briefly, that I could make out a few blackened shapes which might have been bodies toppling from the upper floors into the gaping hole left by the explosion. The sound hit us a second later, barely more than a pop at that distance, but up close it must have been deafening.
After a moment, a plume of smoke appeared, further into the city, lit by the red fury of the eclipse. It was followed quickly by a third, broader explosion, whose sound didn’t reach us. The fires danced and writhed upon the air like giant snakes chewing at my city.
I swallowed, discovering my mouth was suddenly dry.
“Sweets, engage the cloak,” I whispered. I don’t know if she heard me, or if she’d decided that was the correct course of action on her own, but she smacked the button on the dash and a hum of arcane resonance started to gently vibrate my skull.
“There’s a damn thing I hoped never to see again,” Bones murmured. I jumped in my seat, then forced myself to relax; he’d come up behind Swift with his trademark stealth and having a skull so close—even a friendly one—was still unsettling. He seemed not to have noticed my discomfort, his empty eye sockets riveted on the burning city. “After the war, I told myself I was done with the madness. No more investigations. No more bloodshed. No more dodging death squads or crawling through mud. Then, fool that I am, I just had to take that housefire personally.”
“I think anypony would have,” I muttered, watching as another explosion dotted the sky. Part of me wished I could hear what was going on out there, but I knew it would just make it harder to sleep.
“Hardy, just to be clear, most ponies aren’t anywhere near as obsessive as your family,” Taxi commented.
“I think I’m glad the Boiled line is a bit obsessive,” Lim added, softly. “The Archivists failed to protect the city. Were it not for that obsession, I would be dead, and no one would have stopped the gang war or saved Swift’s family. The Vivarium would be a crater, rather than a bastion. The griffins might all be dead or slaughtering one another en-masse in the streets. The police department might have been butchered to a pony. Our opponents would likely have had the power they need much sooner, rather than having to begin the eclipse nigh a month before the final act.”
“For that matter, the Crusades might not have ended,” Swift put in, thoughtfully. “I mean...the Dragon King could still be alive. Bones killed him, right? The war might have gone on, and they’d have had all the chaos they needed thirty years ago...”
There was a protracted silence as all of us considered the various knife edges life was balanced on of late.
Swift was the first one to speak, unless one counted Mags, who was noisily eating something in the back.
“Sir, you...you don’t think they started the Crusades, do you?” she asked.
“Who, kid?”
“The Family. Wouldn’t that be their kind of thing? It’s just a thought I had.”
I put a hoof on her shoulder and turned her to face me. “Kid, I think you better finish that thought.”
“Nawww, it’s silly, Sir. Nopony is that organized,” Swift said, shaking her head. After I failed to let go of her, she continued, uncertainly, “I mean, yeah, it would follow their ends pretty well. Causing chaos and so on. They’d just have to rile up a bunch of young dragons, then give a dangerous outsider to the draconic government their resources. They’ve got the money and the magic. Once they threw down the diplomatic leader and then put a warmonger in her place it would all sort of...come tumbling...oh...”
I dropped my hoof off my partner’s shoulder and lay back in my seat. “The law firm has been around for long enough. It would jive with their tendency to play the long game.”
“One of the last major sorties was supposed to be on Detrot,” Bones said, faintly. “Princess Luna herself put that down, though the records are sealed on exactly how. I wasn’t there, sadly. I was in the Dragon Lands.”
“It’s irrelevant right now whether or not they did,” I said, pulling myself together. “We’ll add it to the stack of things the bureaucracy will have to sort out when there is one, again. How is our time?”
“Two minutes to the edge of the city, Sir. If you have any instructions for Tourniquet, I’ll have to get out and find a power line. We’ve also got some major blind spots nearer the middle of town,” Swift murmured.
“Blind spots?” I asked.
“The city infrastructure is a mess,” Taxi explained, giving the truck a bootfull that pressed us all back in our seats. “The Stilettos were reporting that sections of the old city are without power, and it seems the Blackcoats were intentionally sabotaging power stations in some places. Not damaging them, but diverting electricity from the dam. I don’t suppose Tourniquet can do anything about that, can she?”
“It isn’t as easy as going out there with an axe,” Swift said, quietly turning to look out at the smoky sky. “We’d have to blow up power stations and that would cause overloads and might even destroy the whole grid. We can do it, but it would mean Tourniquet goes back to surviving on the life energy of the ponies inside Supermax...”
“Which I am vetoing out of the gate, thanks,” I said, holding up a foreleg. “We’re going to need the grid once the center of the city is ours again and, to be clear, that’s besides not particularly wanting to drive the Aroyos out of the Everfree Fortress.”
The radio crackled, and Gypsy’s voice filled the cab. “This is Everfree Fortress to D.F.W., come in D.F.W! Over!”
I picked up the hoofset and held the receiver to my muzzle. “Everfree Fortress, this is Danger Egg. Talk to me. Over.”
“Danger Egg? Really?”
“You want call signs, you lay them out beforehand or you get what I come up with on the spot. Now talk.”
“Alright, Danger Egg. Big T says she lost you, but Queen Bug is still monitoring. Our teams throughout the city have hit all the staging areas and are starting to see real resistance.” Gypsy seemed to hesitate, then her voice returned with a fresh hint of tension. “Damn… We might as well have poked a wasp nest! There are an awful lot more Blackcoats and those mutant things than we thought! We’re seeing major movement around the Vivarium and near the Morgue. We’ll keep you apprised, but the radios are real spotty. So far, it looks like it’s working, though. We couldn’t get anyone close to your destination, so there’s no telling what you’ll find. Over.”
“When you lose us on the radios, I’ll have bugs on all of us. I want ponies plugged in and paying attention. If we don’t make it out, we’ll send the pylon key with our rear guard. Crack as many pylons as you can and do as much damage as possible. Failing that...well, follow the lists I left everypony. Over.”
“Will do. Good luck, Danger Egg. Everfree Fortress out.”
Setting the hoofset back in the holster, I turned to find all of my companions staring at me.
“What?”
Swift’s lip twitched. “DangerEgg? Really, Sir?”
I jabbed a hoof at her. “Yes, Pigeon Muncher.” I turned to Taxi, who was grinning, hugely. “And that goes double for you, Super Stripes. Silent But Deadly and Bones—”
“Wait, how come your grandad doesn’t get a dumb call sign?” Swift demanded.
“Because he’s undead, kid. Anyone who believes the name ‘Bones’ refers to a former soldier from the war is already sitting at the top of the food chain. If information goes that high, it won’t matter what our call signs are.”
“May I be something besides Silent But Deadly?” Limerence asked.
“No! Now, everyone take a Ladybug,” I said, holding out the bottle and tugging out the cork. “We’re going to keep in tight contact. Bones, you are guarding Mags until we get to the building, then Mags, you’re guarding the truck. Swift, you’re guarding Mags. If things get too hot in the Office, you fly her out of here at best speed.”
“But Sir—”
“No, kid. You’re sitting this one out. If things get too dicey, you leave. You don’t come in after us.”
My partner slumped and ducked back between the seats, sulkily grabbing her pack off the floor and dragging it to one of the benches along the wall. “Yes, Sir.”
We were now amongst the buildings and the debris lining both sides of the street seemed to be getting a little thicker. Overhead, I caught more than a few darting, black shapes moving between the rooftops. Even Limerence’s silence spell couldn’t fully mask the growl of the engine, though fortunately it didn’t seem they were quite aware of where we were just yet. That or the chaos in the rest of the city had caught them off guard and orders were slow coming; I hoped desperately that was the case and that we weren’t walking into a trap of some kind.
The first sign we’d been noticed came in the form of a loud *sproing* noise that shook the inside of the cab. It reminded me distinctly of a coiled spring hitting a frying pan. Taxi glanced at the dash, then her eyes almost bugged out of her head as the loud hum of the camo faded. A hot burst of pink smoke roiled out of the dash that smelled strongly of cayenne pepper.
“Hardy, they just popped a null field on us! Mercy, they must have laid it on the whole block! Shielding is holding, but the cloak is down!”
“We’re sitting ducks! Battlestations!”
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Happy to see the next chapter. Ready for the next one and all but I have to say, my favorite part of this chapter is definitely the new names (especially Pidgeon Muncher). Keep up the great work (if you want to that is, nothing as far as I know is holding you back from relaxing by having this sold as a book living the rest of your life in the Bahamas from the sales). Love yer stuff.
Chaos is maximised when you cheap out on the suplies and try to do a job using keyhole surgery with a paper straw and a wooden toothpick.
Thres very little chaos after a total obliteration blast because theres nothing left to be chaotic.
Chaos has all the best stories though.
The last quarter has begun, the goalpost is still in shadows but the players have begun to be revealed.
The Office is about to receive a visit from a disgruntled former employee.
This might not be a wining move, Hard Boiled, but you only need to ensure that they do not.
8778602
I hope the first actual book I write gets as good a reception as this thing I wrote for practice and to teach myself to write.
8778726
The Office is kinda...I don't even know where the Office came from. This is going to be pretty fucked up.
Sorry in advance.
-C
"A Skilled To Be Studied"
"A Skill To Be Studied"?
8778743
Hokay... let me get this straight... Hardy has been killed several times, the last biggie was being machine-gunned down and burnt to a crisp in his family home, his grandfather is a walking undead skeleton, Lim has just worked out his only remaining flesh and blood is one of the enemy and his own brother betrayed, then killed, his father and all of his friends, Taxi has a traumatic past that is nightmare fuel, Swift has been irrecoverably genetically mutated, Mag's entire clan has been murdered just to cover up a robbery, the Sisters are banished to the Moon and the Princess of Friendship has been wiped from history and cannot help, Detrot is a demented arcane machine driven by chaos and suffering, and its population has either been mutated or is getting attacked by said mutants with its police force being mercilessly attacked and driven underground, the Family inters its weak and old as tortured living dead in a pylon behind their mansion, dead pony's souls are being used to power more horror, the three safest places up until now were the Morgue, a SuperMax prison and a House of Ill Repute run by a dragon... oh, and Nightmare Moon is wandering around wearing a Hard Boiled suit...
After this we get warned that the next thing to happen will be "pretty f&*#ed up"... Seriously??
Chessie, you are either evilly insanely creative or creatively insanely evil... I am not sure which...
8778876 I worry sometimes that I could be a little fucked up.
I tend to restrain myself where Starlight is concerned.
Kasen had to stop me a few times from taking things too far.
Unfortunately, he's not been around for The Office.
-Chessie
I love reading crime-thrillers. This is awesome! Well done!
8779025 The TV Tropes page for this'un contains both 'heartwarming' and 'nightmare fuel' in the tags.
-Chessie
Man I really want to draw “before” and “after” pictures of the Night Trotter to when it was refurbished to the T.F.W.
8778743
We’ll be sure to tell us WHEN you actually get a book published. Because I can guarantee you I will be one of the first to buy it.
8778982
One of my personal life mottos,
And count another as intrigued by a so called actual book. If you let us know more about it, I'm sure there are a lot of us who'd at last consider buying it or maybe even advertising it.
First of all, I suspected Zefu ever since the attack happened, it seemed to obvious though. Anyway...
Holy shit, Swift was deepthroating Touriquet! They really are banging!... That's actually kinda hot.
Oh, is Swift getting a bit dominant here? I like that.
Time to dive into the fireworks!
I momentarily read that as "feed him his own penis". lol.
8779982
I'm not saying I wrote part of that with you in mind, but...
-C
8780091
My initial framing for that sentence was 'feed him his own quills', then I thought 'feed him his own pens', because a more modern setting. Then I thought 'I just read this as 'feed him his own penis'.' and followed the thought up with 'Okay, we're going with feed him his own pens'.
-C
8780471
Awww, Thanks Chessie, love that Swifty cuteness.
And here I thought keeping track of all the Middle Earth plot threads was complicated.
8778743
8779280
Opinion seconded.
It's finally started! From now on, NOTHING has 'script immunity', and we have to hope and pray that our personal favorite characters actually survive this mess. This writing project is literally better than only a sparse handful of stories written in the last century. I wait with bated breath to see what comes next.
Pausing partway through this chapter to say I knew Zefu's death was suspect!! I've had a feeling all this time and I'm glad my inkling might be right, I thought I was being a big conspiracist! This is satisfaction beyond belief
This thing with Tourniquet and Swift amuses me greatly. I don't know what kind of thing it is, although I am fighting bitterly with my shipping instincts about it. Which brings to mind a relevant quote about characters being building-sexual. Found this beuty in the comment section of a fic a while back.
You know, I gotta wonder what the city looks like if things resolve. I mean, even if Handy manages to take down these assholes and the Princesses come back and all that, let us see what has changed: everyone now knows, beyond a shadow of a doubt and plausible deniability, how powerful the Vivarium is. Unless everyone involved goes turtle, that is just a fact of life now. Then there's everything with Tourniquet and Supermax, and, well, you know!
I guess a lot of ponies might move out after all is said and done, and some new blood might move in, but still, there's a lot of powerful groups who have been operating in the shadows that just got shoved under a spotlight. How does a city government even pretend to operate when everyone knows that a couple gangs run significant portions of the area? How do people trust the PACT and the police department when they see that one of them turned traitor, and the other had to be saved from them? I have no doubt that there is a solution, but it sure as hell isn't going to be a conventional one.
8784585 Think about it like this.
Everyone could die next chapter. Then you don't have to ask questions like that.
In all seriousness, though, I have actually sat down to think about things like that if the ending plays out the way I hope it will. To be clear, I don't know what the ending will be, yet. The characters have been kinda doing their own thing for awhile. I'm as surprised at the places they go as most of you lot.
-Chessie
8784857
Ahhh, but it's so interesting!
I guess this is where the plot armor comes off. For the last time. I don't think anyone has enough left in them for a long drawn-out campaign here.
8784857
It really surprises me that you write by giving each character their own personalities, and just let them do whatever. It's admirable, really. I never could get that going on in my head. Be a lot easier to write if I could, though. And you made it work. All I have going for my writing is just being lucky enough to have some friends to swap ideas with and being incredibly stubborn.
Zefu was suspect way back when his body was unrecognizable in Act 2, I think everyone knew about that. Bigger question is, did you plan to bring him back in like this from the beginning? Or was it just a back door that just became convenient again? The one regret I have over him is: In his short appearance, Taxi never got to bang him. (to my memory) At least she's had a bunch of other exotic races under her tail though.
The part with Swift and Tourniquet was...I think its safe to say we were all thinking it, even if we didn't really see it happen before now. I mean sex is the fastest way to transfer a huge amount of data at once and Tourniquet has a lot of...ahem, "data", to transfer.
At this point I'm just surprised the graffiti porn wall didn't have the Warden and her prison engaged in some technomagic hentai outta the dreams of the Vivarium's anime enthusiasts. Was this what you meant by posting NSFW pictures of Swift on the prospective Starlight Discord server?
8786959
I don't really think any of the characters had major plot armor except Hardy, and his 'plot armor' comes with holes and reasons (which will be revealed).
That said, keep in mind, I am not about killing characters without a reason.
-Chessie
FINALLY Caught up for the first time !!!
Sure. I finally catch up, and then when the next chapter drops I’m so swamped I can’t get to it for weeks.
Anywho. Kind of figured the war was all a part of this plan, with that remark about
Garblethe Dragon King getting access to some kind of weird magic.8803791
Sorry, I know it's long. I'll try to finish it ASAP.
-Chessie
8820053
Hey, no sweat, I prefer long stories, I believe I’ve to caught up to or have read the top 4 longest stories on this site.
So by all means, keep it up !
Hey.
i0.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/mobile/000/016/295/tumblr_mami53FpbT1qixynyo1_250.jpg
8824660 Awww...love you too.
-C
Crazy as usual. Kinda of sad it stopped before the action got going. I have to complain about the 'The Family' though as they honestly seem incredibly OP in a sort of reversed deus ex machina way (i.e. an expected power or event screwing over an otherwise hopeful situation, especially as a contrived plot device in a play or novel. -- liberties taken with google def).
I really, really want to know what the whole story is with NMM in this. Same goes for who the mastermind is behind all this plotting and scheming. Clearly somebody's up for a grudge match or something. Aside from extra-dimensional creatures or some dragon, a being on par with Discord, Celestia, or Luna seems like the best bet. It's difficult to believe that any of those three are so easily blindsided. If I had a head-canon here regarding that situation, it would be that things might be blindingly obvious to the sisters if they had better intel than being stuck elsewhere.
I have to wonder what sort of effects the elements of harmony (or the power behind them) might have as a tool here if they were an option. They're obviously out of the picture, though.
8824902 Are you going to complain about The Family or are you going to complain that you don't know why they're so powerful?
Because this is me we're talking about. I tend to tie up loose ends. I will tell you they are this OP for a reason.
-Chessie
8825421
Hmm. Not sure. Once I know why they're so powerful I might be able to say for sure. I want to say that the basic concept is fine, but the whole tie into NMM moon and implication that they were around and busy back when Luna and Celestia were new to all this just doesn't make sense.
I just find that my disbelief of the whole all encompassing, long term planning and OPness has become very hard to suspend. Especially when we start talking about more than a couple centuries of it. When one considers the general ponies == humans analog it just doesn't make any sense at all. Under that rationale all this would be nearly impossible for a pony or a group to orchestrate/keep together in their head reliably without slipping. Zebras might as well be ponies for this purpose. The dragons in this story seem to be a bit subpar at overcoming base instincts/emotions. I can see that some necromancy could be handy here, but without understanding Necromancy as more than a "because magic" way to keep any number of ponies arbitrarily alive forever, there is the issue that basically everybody dies, taking their knowledge and plans with them to the grave. Obviously the bit with Limerence's father going to some length to avoid being resurrected is a hint of some kind but still...
I just don't see any logical force/actor that could actually make this work. Also, if they were so darn powerful they should just have been able to like conquer Equestria by now through sheer persistence and consistency. It's unclear what sort of wish could give them something they aren't already capable of obtaining.
As a result it's starting to feel, to me at least, like so-so writing that's propping up the story. Maybe that's just because the story has dragged on so long. The premise of nobody has figured it out, guessed, or even really been suspicious. because they're so evil, super schemers, and utterly diabolical... blah blah blah is just overdone.
Hopefully the reason they're so OP is not because the author wanted to ram some so-so story idea down the reader's throats and couldn't find any other way to make the bits hold together...
Maybe I just don't like Noir that much as a genre and this story is treading on a fine line somewhere. Part of what frustrates me the most at the end of the day is that almost every story puts the reader in the position of knowing just a little bit more than the characters and here I feel like I know and understand less than the characters do.
P.S.
As a side note, when running the word count through a calculator, it suggests that this story would be ~2600 pages long... That's about as long as the first three Game of Thrones novels put together. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Song_of_Ice_and_Fire)
P.P.S
Just my two cents, but this story has continued the depressing trend of almost deus-ex away anything that makes alicorns remotely special. Thus completing undermine their implied status and everything that leads from it. Like why they heck are they running a country if they're just regular unicorns with flappy bits?
8832416
I do hear you, and believe me, when I found out exactly what was going on I was pretty shocked myself.
That said, it all ties together. There were clues with which you could put the whole arc of the story together in Act 1. Nobody caught them, though, which will make it all the more satisfying when you discover exactly what is going on.
-Chessie
8832424
I suspect nobody was really looking for hints at an overarching plot in Act 1 in the first place so much as just sort of building a conception of what the story was about and getting familiar with the characters. I certainly didn't do much in-depth hunting, just kinda commented on what struck me at the moment as odd, important, etc...
I'd have to re-read (and it's a fair bit of rereading...), but hazily I don't think the arcs/acts really ever resolved things so much as mostly introducing more unresolved things...
8833164 Oh, plenty has been resolved. A second reading might be worthwhile. You haven't been able to binge it, which probably complicates things.
I do promise you a nice, neat little bow on top at the end, here. This isn't being written by George R.R. Martin. I am following, despite the length, a narrative structure that leads to a climax (not one of those stupid existential crisis endings) and a denouement.
-Chessie
I feel like this deserves to be on the West Point required reading list.
Whether the world wants it or not! Hardy is the law.
And more than a few interrobangs.
Well, that's a cheerful thing to say.
I don't know why Limerance is complaining, a fart spell would probably be pretty effective against the mutants.
two bits
For lims sake I hope its not his brother
But I have thought it was him since they mentioned they were going to have to do test to be sure it was a zony
Gonna keep it 100 with you
I read feed him his own pens wrong.