Fallout Equestria : Black And White

by Philweasel

Chapter 1.17 - I Lost My Soul In Demonivore

Chapter 16 - I Lost My Soul In Demonivore

“...thought as much. Regina is trying to sabotage the peace process.”

Zenai closed her eyes as Silent Steel’s voice continued with its normal steady wave of horseapples, not in the mood to argue, “You really think so?”

“Fluttershy is an old mare, with a fragile mental state. By sending her out there with only Silver Scribe as back up she ensures Fluttershy will lose it at some vital moment, ruining both her reputation and the peace process. As a result she strikes a hard blow against both myself and many other aspiring candidates that are set to run against her.”

Zenai could see a nutso conspiracy theory when she saw one. This one was squirrels all up the yahoo, “At the expense of war with Caesar?”

“No, it would just sour our relations for a time. And even if it did lead to war, Caesar would have no chance against the NCR. His only two routes for invasion are across an ocean or a desert. His forces, while impressive for a wasteland power, would be also torn apart by the Rangers or our air forces at full strength.”

Zenai sighed, feeling her heart sink at hearing the phantom threat of war being used as political chips to win an election, “So what do you want me to do?”

“Support Fluttershy, make sure she remains stable and in control of the situation.” Silent Steel paused for a seconds consideration, “And be nice to her, get her on side. Velvet Remedy will always support Regina, they are friends after all, but Fluttershy has never had any strong ties to our Arbiter. Fluttershy’s support may sway many of the Follower’s against Regina, allowing us to use their influnence to save the peace between us and the zebra.”

Zenai... couldn’t care to even bother debating it, “Sure, I can do that.”

“Thank you Zenai. Whatever your original intentions, you are quickly becoming invaluable to me. Keep it up and the rewards will be substantial. Silent Steel out.”

Zenai sighed as the feed cut out, turning her computer off and falling back onto her bed. It was weird. In her heart she felt loyal to Regina, yet Silent Steel was praising her and Regina was indifferent to hostile. She didn’t believe what Silent Steel was telling her, but it was true that he had a lot of political capital tied up in successfully achieving peace.

Is this what being a hero was these days? Getting in bed with those you hated, just because your interests were aligned for the moment?

Zenai grunted and pushed herself up onto her hooves. It didn’t matter. Silent Steel wanted her to support Fluttershy? That she could do. She put her pipboy on and loaded her bag with medical supplies, setting out for Fluttershy’s offices. If she really was having to rely on Silver Scribe alone then she would likely need some help, maybe with something that a combat trained archivist with a Follower’s education would be useful for?

She located Fluttershy’s offices and stepped inside, Steel Marrow at the back angrily sorting through some files. She paused a little as he gave her a deeply unhappy glare, still she swallowed her fear and introduced herself smartly and officially, “Um, you know me right? Zenai? I’m here to ask if I could support you and Fluttershy in any way, um, maybe take a little of the burden off her?” She turned her head as he let his eyes fall, looking rather despondent, “Um... Mr Steel Marrow, are you ok?”

“Egh... shitty night.” Steel Marrow sighed, beckoning her over with a giant paw, “Come, I do have something you can help me with.”

~

“So, the councillor is worried about Missess Fluttershy is he?”

“Is he right to be?”

Steel Marrow paused for a moment to consider his answer, finally giving her an unfriendly glare and motioning with a clawed finger, “You are not trusted. Whys should I share compromising information with yous?”

Zenai... admitted that was a good question, “I’m on your side, I respect Fluttershy. My issues are with the political establishment, you must have read that from my file.”

“Hmmph... den prove it.” Steel Marrow stood, walking over to take a file from the cabinet and throwing it onto the desk. It was a dossier, for Arick Grimfeathers by the look of it. Zenai grimaced at the thought of the griffon, Steel Marrow acknowledging her reaction with a tilt of his head before continuing, “Arick getting lot of good luck lately, and many pony note hez being unusually focused lately. It all seems to have led towards buying big stake in Far Go traders, long before they invited here by Misser Dust Kicker. Some think he doing this intentionally, that he knew buying those shares would get him over here.”

Zenai tried not to sigh. Another conspiracy theory? “How could he possibly know Dust Kicker would invite Far Go traders over?”

“I dons’t know, how long has Dust Kicker been shortlisted for this mission?” Steel Marrow shrugged, “Not hard to predict Dust Kicker recommend Far Go traders, he got long history with them.”

“So... Arick would need to know that Dust Kicker was shortlisted?”

“Or somepony else told Arick.”

Zenai felt this was all entertainingly cloak and dagger, and wasn’t the greatest fan of Arick. Still this all still seemed rather improbable, and more easily explained by coincidence. Plus Steel Marrow was a doctor, where on earth was he getting all the ‘some say, they say’?, “When did you become a spy?”

Steel Marrow grimaced at the question, exposing rows of very sharp teeth in her direction, “Fluttershy is a ‘high value target’, and I serves as both her nurse and bodyguard. Calamity often shares information with me about possible threats to her.”

“And he’s shared a threat from Arick?”

“Arick has direct access to her, is open to the highest bidder and has several unique advantages when it comes to Missess Fluttershy.” Steel Marrow hesitated for a moment before continuing, “For one thing, she hates him. She lets down her guard too easily, becomes some... aggravated schoolmarm. Forgets he’s a full grown griffon in his prime.”

Zenai shivered at the idea. She didn’t think even Arick would go as far as to physically attack Fluttershy but she admitted she wouldn’t last long in such a confrontation, “And the other?”

“I... it’s none of your business.” Steel Marrow didn’t put much force into it and seemed deeply conflicted as he turned away and gripped the desk. Zenai turned her head to look at him and he stared back grimly, finally speaking in a tone that suggested he was desperately trying to contain his emotions, “Arick Grimfeathers is currently the sole source of several recreational drugs in this area, including Party Time Mint-alls, Dash and UltraDash.”

“And... what does that have to do with Fluttershy?”

“...”

“She’s a dash-header?”

Steel Marrow winced in pain, his words growled, “I thought everyone knew...”

Zenai tried to process this, her mind quickly failing. UltraDash was the drug of choice for the young, rich and stupid, not elderly government officials. Dash? Outside of its combat use it was mainly seen in the hooves of the down and outs in Manehatten gutters, “I... I mean I heard about Party Time Mint-all’s, but pretty much every ambassador has had that accusation thrown against them. Isn’t it illegal to enter negotiations while under their effects?”

Steel Marrow turned to face her head on, looming over her in a very intimidating manner, “Who’d dare test Fluttershy for drugs?”

Zenai backed away, wondering why he suddenly looked so hostile. She quickly worked it out, trying desperately to look as sincere as possible, “I’m not going to tell anyone! Promise!”

“I wouldn’t have told you if it mattered.” Steel Marrow growled, turning his head away, “No one will believe you, and maybe... never mind. But it would hurt her, and I would hurt you. Understand?”

She answered as quickly as she was able, “Yessir!”

“Are you willing to help?” He waved a claw at her, “You are zebra, and not a known associate of Missess Fluttershy. You can go places I cannot, and I know you have skills as a spy.”

Zenai coughed in surprise, “Skills as a spy?”

“You get over here by asking nicely?”

Zenai had to admit this point. She liked to think of her class as more... guile hero, but her skill set was admittedly well suited towards espionage. And she was eager to help protect Fluttershy from Arick, having a sincere affection for the elder pegasi and a sincere distaste for the griffon,“Ok... you have a point. I’ll help.”

Steel Marrow nodded in gruff satisfaction, beckoning her over, “Good. Now come with me.”

~

Zenai shadowed Steel Marrow from the rooftops as he strode proudly through the streets, attracting all the attention you would expect from a full grown hellhound. His eyes darted about, murmuring under his breath into the two way radio set up between them, “See those Far Go employees over by the banner?”

“Yes?”

“They’re officially designated as ‘security’. Thiss trade caravan has a suspicious number of them.”

Zenai thought added security would be a good idea in a strange foreign country. Still, it did mean Arick had a lot of thugs at his beck and call, “Enough to cause a problem?”

“Yes. All of them with very shady backgrounds.” Steel Marrow stalked onwards, the crowds parting before him with a mixture of curiosity and fear, “See that children’s entertainer?

Children’s entertainer? She located the stallion in question, a brown coated unicorn with bright pink hair and a smiley face cutie mark, surrounded by laughing children, “Um, yes?”

“Keep seeing him. Around Fluttershy, around Star Swirl. He spoke to her the day before she left, gave her a balloon.”

Zenai hesitated a moment, “And... that’s sinister?”

Steel Marrow growled at her scepticism, “The besst spies act as entertainers. They can go anywhere without notice, the most important ponies let their guard down around them.”

Zenai didn’t know about that, still she filed away the information regardless. They were approaching the Far Go offices now, Zenai spotting a bunch of their thugs breaking away to shadow the hellhound, “You have company.”

“I see them. I’m goings to draw them away, get inside the building and finds what you can.”

Zenai watched as Steel Marrow stalked suspiciously towards the building, looking for entrances. He seemed to give up and settle against a shadowed spot to watch the place, all of the Far Go guards watching the hellhound carefully, moving round so they were in a position to flank him. It was only too easy to slip down to street level, jimmy open a window and slip inside.

The building was a pretty small one so it wasn’t hard to find the offices of the senior directors. Zenai slipped inside the first and padded over to the desk, judging from it neatness and stacked financial records that this was likely to be Daisy’s. She quickly went to work on the computer, activating her hacking programs.

Daisy’s password ended up being ‘Alone’. She must have been in a miserable mood when she thought that one up.

There was a message to Golden Dawn of Star Fall quite near to the top, the latest in a long series of communications between them it seemed. She opened it up and tried to prevent her eyes from glazing over, the messages heavy with involved discussions on logistics and economics. She forced herself to concentrate and remember everything from her economics classes, eventually pulling something concrete out of the mire of confusing figures.

They were discussing smuggling. More, they were discussing cornering the market with smuggled goods, making Caesar’s economic stability reliant on them. Star Fall was to be a hub for black market goods from the NCR, and Daisy was going to sabotage legitimate trade and blame it on Arick. They were hopeful that the prospect of mutual economic collapse and demonstration of the money that could be made by peaceful trade would bring both sides to the table.

Clever, and very much in everyone’s interests. What they were suggesting would still most likely send Caesar and Themba into a holy rage, not to mention put Daisy in prison. With that motivating her Zenai eagerly deleted the e-mails, sticking a note in their place informing them of the dangers of leaving compromising messages on their computers.

She continued down the list, looking for mentions of Arick. There were a few but they weren’t very interesting, just messages informing her that Arick was heading this mission and that she had to suck it up. Her gentle enquiries into why got stonewalled.

That was odd in itself though, Daisy was a bigshot in the Far Go traders. For her to be stonewalled meant it was coming from the top. She didn’t recognise the sender’s name but the head of Far Go was Sweet Silver, an ambitious and fairly ruthless figure who she was pretty sure could be brought. Unfortunately that was all the information that she had on him.

She closed down the account, moving stealthy into the next room, occupied by Arick and Ace Gold’s desks. As before it was unoccupied, Zenai sliding over and stabbing her pipbuck into Arick’s computer. This one wasn’t as hard as expected but she still almost crashed out quite a few times before she finally hit the right password, ‘Angel Delight’. She didn’t know what that meant, and was pretty sure she didn’t want to know. Unfortunately the contents of the computer were a disappointment.

Nothing. He had deleted everything. That worried her a little, but maybe he was really that paranoid.

She tried a few things to see if she could get anything but eventually had to give up, figuring she should go for Ace Gold’s computer and see if Arick had sent anything incriminating. This computer ended up being almost impossible, almost as hard as the main servers in the Follower’s compound. She tried again and again and was just about to give up when she pretty much hit lucky and the system opened up for her.

His password was ‘RE8K1E’. Smug bastard.

The first message instantly caught her eye. It was from Elegant Waters, AKA ‘Lady’ Elegant, Ace Gold’s sister and an all round spoiled brat who Zenai had the displeasure of meeting a couple of times. She eagerly opened up the message and scrolled through it with anticipation...

And then closed it, feeling profoundly guilty for giving into her urge to snoop for gossip. It seemed at the end of the day even spoiled brats occasionally ended up being simple young fillies, worried to the point of tears about their absent big brothers.

She sighed and continued searching. There was a few bits of communication with old school friends, full of technical jargon and memes she was too old to understand. She was slightly impressed by the fact that his friends had penetrated the radio haze that surrounded the zebra lands with what were apparently homemade transmitters, obviously Ace Gold’s friends were as smart as he was. From what she could gather Ace’s reasons for this little adventure were simple and very fitting with his age, he was feeling smothered and threatened by his family situation and wanted to prove his manhood on a bold, foolhardy expedition.

Considering her present situation, she wondered if she had really grown up as much as she thought she had.

And that was it. No hidden secrets, no incriminating messages. She felt stupid for having been so hopeful, all involved were too smart to leave their evil plans sitting on their computers.

Her eyes moved to the safe. Unfortunately she wasn’t as good a lockpick as she was a hacker. She tried anyway.

Nine bobby pins later she had to suppress a woop as the safe finally clicked open, revealing a stack of financial papers, a... novelty dildo... and a folded sheet of paper. She took the paper and opened it up, figuring that was her best bet.

It was instructions for building a bomb, along with where to put it.

In the council chamber of Caesar’s palace.

It was to go off this afternoon.

“Holy... fuck! Fuck!”

“Hey!” The door behind Zenai was kicked open and a beefy looking pony with an ugly expression stomped inside, aiming a shotgun at her and growling his order, “Get against the wall, fucking thief!”

Zenai panicked, spinning round and waving the note in his direction in rather too dramatic a manner, “It’s a bomb, it’s... ooff!”

He shot her in the chest, throwing her into the desk behind. Wood splintered and loose papers fell down upon her, grunting in pain as she grasped at her wound. Her hoof came away with nothing but damaged barding and shotgun pellets, relief flooding her as she desperately waved at the pony pointing the shotgun at her, “Please stop, I can explain!”

“Arick told me to watch for ponies like you. Told me I’m stupid, not to let them talk!” His tail tightened on the trigger, his muscles tensing in rage, “Gonna shoot you! Gonna shoot you good!”

Zenai thanked him for pointing his intellectual weaknesses, putting on her best ‘terrified’ face... which was pretty easy, all things considered, “Look behind you!”

The pony actually turned , giving Zenai that vital few seconds to plan her approach. He was blocking the door, too big to take hand to hand, too aggressive to trick...

He growled as he realised he had been fooled, turning back to her with his small, bloodshot eyes hot with rage...

She drew her pistol, his chest and throat melting away as the plasma bolt hit him dead centre. He gasped, briefly, pathetically, before hitting the floor in a spreading puddle of gore, his last breath rasping in what was left of his windpipe.

Zenai felt she should vomit, but really just felt empty.

She looked down at him, trying to think of the pony as nothing more than another raider. Really he had just got better clothes on, and his masters a little better at disguising their true nature. She couldn’t help but think of Dust Kicker then however, and how he had once been a raider. How many of them were like this poor fool, stupid ponies who would listen to anyone who showed them a bit of respect?

More concerning of course was the fact that she had just killed somepony in the middle of the Far Go offices, with a unique weapon of a type not normally found in these lands.

No... most concerning was the fact that somepony was about to assassinate Caesar. She reached for her pipbuck and set up a connection to Caesar’s offices... then Dust... then Steel Marrow. She cursed as it dutifully informed her that each was out of range, wondering if it was broken somehow. Even if was she was no pipbuck technician and she was swiftly running out of time, realising that she would have to do this the old fashioned way. She logged back into Daisy’s computer and sent off a couple of messages to Dust Kicker, Fluttershy and Oteka before sprinting out of the office, barging past a few surprised looking caravan workers and down the street towards the palace.

Right now she might be the only one who could stop this.

~

She reached the palace with impressive swiftness, while not much for cross country she was a pretty fine galloper in her opinion. She was pretty out of breath by the time she reached the palace however and so had to wait to recover her words as she accosted the first guard she came across, the stallion increasingly confused and irritated by her attempts to convince him to follow with pantomime. Even when she could finally speak he clearly received her words with scepticism, looking down at her like she was wasting his time, “Caesar’s about to be bombed?”

“Yes, a bomb in the council chamber!”

“And where did you hear this from?”

“Does it matter?!”

“Sure it doesn’t. I take every unsubstantiated claim some filly throws at me with the greatest seriousness.”

Zenai was increasingly sure this guard was a waste of time, “Just tell me where Caesar is!”

The guard gazed stonily at her, “Why should I do that?”

“Because I’m his guest, an emissary from Equestria!”

The stallion rolled his eyes, still he finally gave in, “Fine. He’s down by the old baths, looking over some of the old equipment.”

That was right below the council chamber! She had to hurry!

~

And hurry she did, actually getting lost a few times in her haste and cursing herself each time. Still she finally found the area she was looking for, not having to look far for the familiar figure of Caesar and his guards. She galloped towards them as fast as she was able, “Caesar!”

They all turned, Caesar’s guards tensing and moving forward before Caesar waved them back. He fixed his eyes on Zenai as she galloped forward, proud and slightly cautious, “What has you in such a hurry?”

Zenai didn’t have time for niceties, she gasped it out as quickly as she could, “There’s a bomb in the council chamber, meant for you!”

One of Caesar’s guard looked up, turning to his liege, “Sir, that’s right above us.”

“I’m aware of that.” Caesar looked a little worried, still he kept his cool as he gazed assessingly at her, “Where did you hear this?”

Zenai paused, could she really reveal that? It would no doubt have terrible consequences, and she just wasn’t in the right frame of mind to accurately assess what they could be, “Can... I tell you later? I’m still not sure what it means.”

Caesar narrowed his eyes, his tone scathing, “Zenai, your best friend has been communicating with Star Fall, she was last seen being aided by one of the terrorists that destroyed Estelle and blamed it on me. I note you were also in Estelle when this went down, and were unaccounted for more than an hour, in the company of one who later ended up dead. Now you wilfully withhold information from me, and still expect trust?”

Zenai lowered her head, knowing he was right. Still... “I... hope for trust Caesar. I know you have no reason to give it to me, but your death would have terrible consequences for peace between the NCR and Golden Coast. I can only hope you trust in my loyalty to my country, and to peace and prosperity between us.”

“I...” Caesar hesitated for a moment before frowning, giving her a long assessing look. Eventually he spoke, firm and official, “I will go with you. I do not know what to think, but that is good enough.”

One of Caesar’s saluted sharply, “Sire, I will check out the council chamber for explosives.”

“Thank you Letote.” Caesar nodded to the guard before turning back to Zenai, “You will come with me to my chambers. It is far from the council chamber, and reinforced against attack. If you have treachery in you... then you will be the first to die.”

Zenai nodded firmly as she fell into step alongside them. She knew she was right, and hoped this would be a way to regain Caesar’s trust. She still felt a twinge of fear as they made their way towards Caesar’s rooms, ready at any moment for an explosion. Still they were soon far enough away from the council chamber that any detonation would be blocked by the heavy stone of the palace. She could only hope...

Zenai’s first memory of the moment was sailing through the air, her insides lurching as her organs followed a moment after. It was an odd sensation, like she was swimming through rushing water, her limbs flopping around uselessly through the overwhelming sense of pressure.

Then came the heat. Then the thud.

It was followed by pain and confusion, Zenai opening her eyes to fire and rubble. The area had partially collapsed in all directions, Zenai’s eyes stinging from the smoke. Worse was that she was finding it hard to focus anyway, her head a fuzzy mess and the events of the day a blur. She couldn’t remember why she was there, what was going on or where to go from here, staggering through a blur of light and sound as every part of her throbbed with pain. She remembered she should be concerned about somepony, and the lack of knowledge about who exactly that was only made it worse, “Help! Someone help!”

Something came out of the smoke, a large dark figure that eventually formed into something recognisable. Zenai shouted in relief, “Star Swirl!”

It wasn’t Star Swirl. She only had time to note the alicorn’s blue colouring and far more angular face before the glow that surrounded the sword beside her drew her attention to the weapon, especially as it rose into the air. Her next question died on her lips as it reversed itself and snapped forward, hilt slamming into her forehead.

~

Silver Scribe’s worried, guilty looking face loomed over her. Zenai fought back the urge to wallop it.

“So she’s awake at last.”

Zenai looked over to the unfamiliar voice, noting that they appeared to be in an abandoned house of some kind, building material still stacked around the edges and a thin layer of dust lying upon everything. Said dust swirled about as a strange unicorn pony jumped down from his perch, Zenai recognising him after a moment as the entertainer who had been shadowing them. She propped herself up on a hoof, glaring angrily at the two of them, “What the hell is going on?! Why did you... clobber me?!”

“Please don’t blame him.” Silver Scribe quick moved to assure her, guilt all over her face as she drew back a few paces, “Mr Sunshine helped me find this place when I was escaping from the palace, that’s all. I’m really sorry for hitting you...”

Zenai focused her glare on Silver Scribe at her insistence, ignoring the stallion for the moment. Indeed she had some very pertinent questions to ask her, “And why were you escaping from the palace exactly?”

“I...” Silver Scribe looked around the room for some sort of escape, finally focusing her gaze upon her hooves, “I messed things up. It was supposed to be smooth and clean, it was supposed...”

“What was!?”

“As... assassinating Caesar.”

They made the mistake of leaving Zenai’s gun lying next to her. She grabbed it off the floor with her teeth and pointed it straight at the alicorn, causing her to reel backwards in terror and fall clumsily onto her buttocks. Mr Sunshine tensed slightly but made no move to intervene, allowing Zenai to aim the barrel very carefully on the point between Silver Scribe’s eyes, “Who orfered iff!”

“I...”

Zenai pulled the weapon from her mouth and cradled it in her hoof, keeping pressure on the trigger as she waved it at the alicorn, “Who are you working for?! The Applejack Rangers?! Twilight Society?!”

Silver Scribe looked like she was about to cry, the sight of the huge alicorn cowering before the tiny zebra almost comical if not for the circumstances, “Regina!”

Zenai’s eyes went wide... and then very very narrow, “I will kill you right now if you lie to me again.”

“It’s true!” Silver Scribe begged desperately, her eyes full of sincerity, “I got a message from her, the security code checked out and everything! She said that Caesar’s rule was built on fear and coercion, listed his crimes, said that in order to ensure peace he had to be taken out of the equation!”

Zenai’s mind reeled from the information. It couldn’t be true. It couldn’t, “It... was really from Regina?”

“Yes!”

“No.”

Zenai looked over to Mr Sunshine, the pony standing quietly in the corner with a calm expression on his face. She still didn’t know why he was here, “What?”

“Government doesn’t move that fast, she hasn’t had enough time to discuss such a drastic course of action.” The unicorn chuckled merrily, “Plus... what assets does she have in the field? Silver Scribe, Fluttershy, Arick Grimfeathers? The fact that Silver Scribe was assigned to an assassination mission already moves the operation from desperate to insane.”

“H... hey...”

“My dear lady, your combat skills are self admittedly restricted to competitive fencing at mid card level. You are no assassin.”

Zenai gritted her teeth, reluctantly lowering her weapon. She was still going to shoot the stupid bitch, but dumbassery rather than malice was enough to move the execution to ‘later’, “Did you set that bomb?”

Silver Scribe quickly shook her head, “No! I just... if Caesar escaped the bomb it was my job to finish him off.”

Zenai reluctantly inquired further, “Did you?”

“I... no.” Silver Scribe looked depressed for a moment before allowing a nervous little smile, “But... that’s a good thing right?”

“What happened?”

“He... disarmed me. Grabbed a spear off one of his bodyguards and nearly battered down my shield.” The alicorn dropped her head in shame, “I heard more of his guards coming and realised I had lost my chance, tried to run. I... I took you with me.”

“So now it looks like I was helping you!”

“Can I ask something Miss Silver?” Mr Sunshine enquired in a conversational tone, like he was discussing the weather, “This message from Regina...”

Silver Scribe quickly interjected, “It had the right security code! It’s not my fault!”

“Oh I have no doubt. Pinkie Pie’s network is famously robust and well designed for security, that’s why the NCR uses it. It is not however completely impenetrable. Acquiring Regina’s security code and faking a message from her would be... difficult, but not impossible, especially to untrained eyes.” Mr Sunshine held up a hoof to stop any further interruptions, continuing on, “More pressingly however, I have to enquire... what happened to the message she sent?”

Silver Scribe stared blankly, “What do you mean?”

“Did you delete it, clear the cache?”

Zenai’s horror grew ten fold as the alicorn continued to stare blankly ahead, her brain now completely shut down. She fingered the pistol again, her teeth grinding together, “The message, where Regina ordered the assassination of Caesar, is on YOUR COMPUTER!? THE COMPUTER IN THE PALACE WHERE HE LIVES!?”

Silver Scribe hid her head between her legs, “Yes...”

Zenai advanced forward with her pistol clutched in her hooves, raising it above her head with a fierce anger filling her heart...

Mr Sunshine gently caught her hoof before it descended. His voice was calm, gentle, “We might need her.”

Zenai looked at him, incredulous, “For what? Target practice?”

“Getting that message back.”

“We... we would have to break into the palace, find her computer, delete the file and get out again, without getting killed!”

“You have summarised the mission perfectly.”

Zenai looked around for the elite operatives that would be backing them up. They must have been really good, because she still couldn’t see them, “It’s impossible. None of us are trained to do that.”

“I am. And you are.” Mr Sunshine looked up at Silver Scribe, “Silver Scribe might not be combat trained, but she can shoot lightning, erect shields, and she’s a very skilful telekinetic.”

Zenai was still convinced this was the worst idea ever, and she doubted Silver Scribe’s prettily floating objects would help, “And how will that help us?”

“She can guard our exit. If we need to get out quickly we can jump from the windows on that side, she can float us down and shield us until we get back into hiding.” Mr Sunshine smiled genially, motioning to Zenai and himself, “I believe the two of us have a good chance at this Zenai. I am... good at what I do, and you are familiar with the palace and capable at computer hacking.”

Zenai narrowed her eyes at the ‘children’s entertainer’, wondering what it wasn’t exactly that he was so good at, “Who are you?”

“A friend in need.” Mr Sunshine chuckled to himself, “I have other reasons for getting into that palace, true. I am however honestly interested in stopping war between the NCR and zebra nations, and in keeping Regina’s reputation intact.”

Zenai glared, “And those other reasons?”

“For my ears only I’m afraid.” He smiled mockingly, closing his eyes, “Regina’s downfall, or trusting me. What do you say?”

~

An alicorn, a zebra and a unicorn walk into a bar...

She had to admit Mr Sunshine knew his stuff however, quick quiet and with a sharp eye for safe routes through the city. He also cast a rather impressive illusion on them that distorted their features and made them considerably more difficult to identify, shrinking Silver down to look like a slightly oddly proportioned unicorn. With that on their side they made it to the palace without much incident, approaching the little side path that Zenai knew for a fact was rather lightly guarded. As expected there were only two guards on duty, both looking rather lazy and dismotivated. Mr Sunshine led them up the path and into the shadows next to the buildings opposite, silently creeping through the darkness...

Something suddenly lurched out of the shadows and pointed a gun at them, another stepping out of the building behind. Zenai identified the two as Caesar’s guards, cursing as more appeared from nearby in response to the shouting. Of course they knew they would take this route, knew that it was considered lightly guarded. They had walked right into a trap, “Don’t shoot, we surrender.”

The guards galloped out, surrounding them with weapons drawn. Zenai dropped her pistol back into its holster, lowering her ears in a gesture of surrender. Silver Scribe did the same, lowering her head with a terrified little whimper.

The lead guard frowned suddenly, “Hey, where’s the stalli...”

Mr Sunshine stepped out behind the guard and impaled a long blade through his throat, two more knives shooting out to strike at the eyeballs of the guards closest. The remainder yelled out and opened fire, blasting their choking comrade to the ground as Mr Sunshine danced away with magic flashing. Knives span and danced in the air, sending them panicking as they struck with pinpoint precision. It was over in moments, Mr Sunshine smiling merrily as he stepped into the mess and retrieved each blade in turn, cleaning them off and returning them to his suit, “Ah, perfect. I haven’t lost my touch.”

Zenai propped her mouth closed with a hoof, just staring at the devastation, “You’re... how did you do that?”

Mr Sunshine shrugged, “Practice.”

“At killing ponies?”

He laughed, smiling kindly and broadly at the zebra, “I am a children’s entertainer. Telekinesis, sleight of hoof, illusions and agility are my bread and butter.”

Zenai shivered at the pony’s glibness, knowing the zebra he just killed had families, friends, were just doing their jobs. Not to mention this just added more fuel to the fire of Caesar’s rage, “Well... whatever. Let’s just not make a habit of it. What next?”

Mr Sunshine chuckled, turning up towards the palace, “Silver Scribe dear, get up to the garden and wait for us. Keep quiet, stick to cover.”

She nodded nervously, “R..right...”

“Zenai, the floor is yours. You know the layout better than I.”

Zenai frowned at him, reluctantly stepping forward at his urging, “Follow me.”

~

This palace was eerily deserted, most of the guards obviously out looking for them. Still they had already been caught once and Zenai had no taste for further fighting, she kept as slow and cautious as possible as she led Mr Sunshine towards their rooms.

She knew they would likely be guarded. She wished she had considered buying something non lethal to back up her plasma pistol, the zebra were famous for their light, silent crossbows. Load that with her knock out formula and... but she hadn’t, and she would have to deal with that choice. She really hoped she wouldn’t bump into anypony she knew, she didn’t think she could deal with that...

And on cue she turned a corner and bumped into somepony she knew. It just wasn’t the one she expected, “Steel Marrow?”

The hellhound looked as surprised as her, stepping back and dropping his blooded claws. He was surrounded by the dismembered corpses of guards, a heavy grief and weariness seeming to sit upon him. Still he managed to force his face into something that looked like a smile as he spoke, “At least... somepony made it.” He shook his head, his expression pleading, “What are you doing back here?”

Zenai couldn’t help worry for Fluttershy now. Steel Marrow could only be here for her, “We... we’re here to delete some incriminating information off Silver Scribe’s computer. You?”

“I am... looking for Fluttershy.” He tensed briefly before deflating again, looking honestly devastated, “I visited her office, the clerk there told me Caesar took her.”

Zenai’s heart ached for the faithful hound, after his aggression and confidence before his look of hopelessness cut her to the core, “I don’t think he’ll hurt her.”

“But... I do not know that. And I cannot go to her.” He looked over at Zenai, honestly lost, “If I break her free, kill Caesar guards... do I make her a fugitive? Is it better to leave her in his hooves?”

“I...” Zenai sighed, giving him a sympathetic nod, “I don’t know Steel Marrow, I’m sorry.”

He smiled genuinely at her, “Of course, I apologise for forcing my burdens onto you. I know what I must do.”

“And that is?”

“I will give myself up to them.” Steel Marrow finally got a little of his old dignity back as he stood up straight, “I will go peacefully, and try to secure Fluttershy’s welfare.”

Zenai gave him a smile, “Then... good luck.”

“And you too.” He returned the nod, “Do what you have to do and escape swiftly, make for the mountains.”

“Right.” She continued past him with heavy reluctance, looking behind as the dignified hound turned and headed off to his own destiny. It was only then that she realised Mr Sunshine had vanished, only to suddenly turn to her from further down the corridor like he had always been there, “Wh... where did you go?”

“I was letting you have a moment with your friend.” He chuckled merrily, waving her on, “Come on, he’s drawn the guards from Silver Scribe’s room. This is our chance.”

She reluctantly continued after the stallion, forcing her eyes away from the guard corpses. So many already dead, and for what? What hurt the most is that she still didn’t know.

What hurt even more was that Mr Sunshine looked so damn happy, “What are you smiling about?”

“Nothing disparaging, I assure you.” Mr Sunshine chuckled happily, looking wistful, “Have you ever felt the kind of love Steel Marrow speaks of Zenai?”

She frowned bitterly, not needing another lesson in why she was an unfriendly, unloving loner, “Not really. I guess you have?”

Mr Sunshine sighed melodramatically, “Like Steel Marrow I often felt an outcast, trapped in a place where I never truly belonged. Like him a mare set me free from that, gave me friends, a purpose, a place to belong.”

Zenai snorted, still frustrated by his words. She wished it was that easy, “You’re not with them now.”

Mr Sunshine sighed, shaking his head, “One’s duty to family sometimes forces you apart from their comfort.”

Zenai was very suspicious now. She had never trusted this strange stallion, now more than ever he seemed to be trying to hint something to her. She suspected she already knew what it was “Are you here for me?”

“So arrogant, ha.” Mr Sunshine gave her a grin, “Be assured, I mean you absolutely no harm. I’m here for what you brought with you Zenai.”

“You’re from... the Twilight Society!”

Mr Sunshine chuckled, “I guess I don’t look much like an Applejack Ranger do I?”

“You think... I’ll just give it to you?”

She already knew her words were weak. He just laughed at them, “Not yours to give is it now Zenai? Currently I assume it’s sitting in your room yes?”

She seethed impotently, “And this was all just a way to get inside the palace and retrieve it?”

“Not at all.” He gave an offended little grin, “I could have done this alone anytime. Breaking in before however might have harmed relationships with Caesar, which believe me is not my ladyship’s intention.”

Zenai sighed, dropping her head, “So... you really do want to delete those messages then?”

“Indeed. And afterwards I will head over to your rooms and retrieve the package.” He smiled across at Zenai, “And if you’re feeling grateful for my assistance and wish this to be resolved with the minimum of fuss, maybe you would find it in your heart to provide the details of any security you have placed?”

Zenai might not have been able to stop him, but this was going a little too far, “You really think I would just... hand you a device for world domination?”

“Help us steal a device from those who would misuse it, so that we can help deliver peace and happiness back to the wasteland?” Mr Sunshine chuckled, “Why indeed?”

That... hurt. She tried to keep it from her voice, “You... think I believe that you want peace and happiness?”

“Who doesn’t Zenai? Everypony wishes for happiness, safety, a place to live and love and thrive.” Mr Sunshine chuckled sadly, “Once, Celestia gave it to us. Now who is worthy to succeed her? Regina? She has come up short. Littlepip? She has no interest.”

“And the Twilight Society has the answer?”

“Oh no. Twilight never had the answer, and neither have those who followed. Such authority derives from a Princess.” Mr Sunshine suddenly looked up in mock suprise as they reached a door, turning to Zenai with a broad grin, “But we will have to continue this discussion later. It seems we have arrived.”

~

Silver Scribe’s room was a mess, the covers in disarray and books and documents just scattered around. Zenai gave them a quick scan to make sure there was nothing incriminating there but it was mostly old university notes and scribbled shopping lists. Her eyes crossed a photograph and she moved in for a closer look. It appeared to show a slightly younger Silver Scribe standing proudly among a set of seven other alicorns, most of them very... odd looking. Two had noticeably undeveloped bone structure, one a cleft palate, one wasn’t actually looking at the camera and was being noticeably supervised by one of the others. Zenai guessed that these were her sisters, the ones who hadn’t got lucky.

“Please Zenai, the message.” Mr Sunshine stood at the side of the computer, his hoof held out, “We should endeavour to hurry, before Caesar realises this area is unguarded.”

She frowned, trotting over, “Can’t you do it?”

“My skills are many, but technology is not among them.”

Zenai sighed and got to work. The same as the room, Silver Scribe’s computer was totally disorganised. Still she located Regina’s message pretty quickly, giving it a quick browse. It was as Silver Scribe had described, looking perfectly official and arriving from a government account with Regina’s name on it. She wasn’t an expert but she made an attempt to track it back, a paper trail that indeed originated from within the Presidential Palace, “If this is a forgery... it’s very good.”

“As I said, I am not an expert. Still, could not somepony simply break into Regina’s computer and send this?”

Zenai shook her head, “I know a little about the government’s security protocols. A message with red level security would need to be sent from her command centre, which is heavily guarded. It would then have to be reviewed by her security head, who would assign the code at the bottom.” She furrowed her brow in consideration of the implications, “They would need to break into two highly secure systems, and erase their presence afterwards.”

“Well... somepony managed to break into the SPP. They said that was impossible too.”

Zenai shook her head, they didn’t have time to debate it. She sent a copy back to Regina before deleting it, making sure it was cleared from the cache, “Right, it’s done. What... what now?”

Mr Sunshine stepped back, taking a bow before turning to the door, “I will complete my second objective. I advise you vacate the palace by the plan we agreed on.”

“And do what?”

He chuckled softly, “Run. Into the mountains. Hide, wait.” He doffed an imaginary cap, giving her a sympathetic look before turning away, “I wish you well Zenai. I’m sorry it hasn’t gone as well as you hoped.”

~

“Zenai... are you ok?”

Zenai sighed and indicated for Silver Scribe to be quiet as she came out of the bushes, not even going to dignify that with a response. She supposed being alive and the alicorn still being here was an advantage of sorts, still she couldn’t see many other rays of sunshine through this cloud. She moved closer to Silver, beckoning her over, “I deleted the messages.”

“Mr Sunshine?”

“He had things to do.”

“Oh.” Silver Scribe hesitated for a second before asking the big question, “What now?”

“We run, try and...”

There was a crash nearby, followed by a heavy thud. It sounded like somepony had barged through a door and collapsed. Zenai immediately trotted forward, her ears pricked up, “Did you hear that?”

Silver Scribe nodded, “One of the others?”

If it was they couldn’t wait around. Zenai tore through the gardens, trying to locate the source of the sound. She eventually tracked it to a small garden in a nook of the palace, the door swinging open and a small, limp figure lying on the ground a few feet away.

A small, butterscotch yellow figure in a green dress, “Fluttershy! No!” She galloped over, looking the Pegasus over for any obvious injuries before shaking her by the shoulders, “Wake up!”

“Zenai?”

Zenai gasped with relief and backed away to give Fluttershy some space, the Pegasus shakily drawing herself to her feet and trying to blink away whatever had brought her to the ground. She looked confused, lost, turning her head to Zenai for some answers, “What happened?”

Silver Scribe instantly galloped over and hugged Fluttershy, Zenai unable to help a smile as the big alicorn almost flattened the mare. Still, they would have time for reunions later, “We have to get out of here, now.”

Silver Scribe turned, her voice quavering, “What about Steel Marrow, Dust Kicker and Mr Sunshine?”

“Dust and Steel can take care of themselves, and Sunshine made his intentions perfectly clear.” Zenai nodded to Fluttershy, her tone fully stressing her urgency, “Judging from how Fluttershy was running there’s likely to be someone chasing her, and we’re not looking for a fight here.”

“I am.” Silver Scribe stepped forward to cover Fluttershy with her body, eyes proud and furious, “Fluttershy managed to escape from them and she’s old, let’s see how they fare against somepony who can actually fight back!”

Zenai rolled her eyes, “Silver, you’re a clerk. Stop trying to sound like a badass, haven’t you messed things up enough already?”

And then Chigaru hit the ground, everything swiftly going to hell.

~

Zenai took in deep gasps of breath as she stared in horror at Steel Marrow, the hellhound falling to his knees with blood pouring from every orfice. He was already dead, for it to have such a dramatic effect it must have been incredible concentrated. Why was it inside Chigaru in the first place? She was immediately reminded of Puppysmiles, the suit, the gas…

But she couldn’t debate it now. She spotted Fluttershy pulling a healing potion from her bag and leapt forward to grab her shoulders before she did something incredibly stupid, holding the mare back as she struggled, “Fluttershy, you can’t go in there! You’ll just die with him!”

“I... I’ve got it.”

“Silver?” Zenai looked up to see the alicorn already galloping forward, raising her hoof to stop her but realising there was little she could do. The pink gas already seemed like it had finished Steel Marrow off, still... alicorn were immune to it right? Maybe she could pull him free and they could throw enough healing potions down him to bring him back...

Then the gas reared upwards, solidifying slightly into a spear of churning fuchsia. It stabbed forward, Silver Scribe trying to turn but not fast enough to stop it striking against her side. She yelled in pain and quickly galloped in a circle away from the beast, her fur wet and matted when it had hit her. The gas swirled around her to cut her off and Silver Scribe panicked, screaming as it stung and bit at her flesh.

Zenai let go of Fluttershy, drawing her plasma pistol and firing a bolt of green fire at the monstrosity. This at least seemed to have an effect, the pink gas seeming to dissipate and withdraw as the bolt passed through. At the very least it fully turned its attention to her, striking forward only to be cut off by a further plasma bolt. She backed away warily, firing again only for the pink gas to swirl away with terrifying speed. It was that speed that worried her, alicorns were immune to pink gas and hellhounds were resistant, what then would this sentient cloud do to her if it caught her?

And even at the thought the gas swirled forward, Zenai’s hasty plasma bolt shooting well wide as it lunged in an arc towards her. She didn’t have time to sight up another shot.

...

And then she did, the gas hesitating for a brief moment as Fluttershy came out to the side of her. Her eyes burned with an intense, bitter rage, the air seeming to shift for a moment against her sheer force of will. Her voice was scratched, strained, wet with pain and rage, “Why!? Why do you feel these things, why do you take so much pleasure in pain!?”

“Because I enjoy it. Admit it to yourself Fluttershy, you enjoy it too.”

Her stare broke, the pegasi reeling backwards as the pink gas rounded on her, “What?”

”That’s what your stare is isn’t it? All that hate, anger, contempt towards those around you, all locked up behind those fake smiles?

“I...”

Zenai had enough of this, darting out and firing a plasma bolt into the cloud. Again it was just too fast however, wheeling away before darting straight at her. She yelled out in panic and tried to run... and the cloud hesitated, drawing back. Zenai looked around in confusion, trying to work out why it was hesitating.

And then she saw it, running over and grabbing the motionless Fluttershy by the shoulder and pointing her plasma pistol out towards the beast, “So, what’s the deal you fucking demon... cloud thing? Got a soft spot for Fluttershy? This your idea of chatting her up?”

The cloud circled for a moment before drawing back, shrinking back towards his suit.

Fluttershy looked back at Zenai, clearly terrified and very confused, “What are you doing?”

“He doesn’t want to hurt you.” Zenai nodded at the creature, “Why not? What the hell is your deal?”

Fluttershy snarled her objection, “He’s been trying to kill me all night!”

Zenai didn’t have to work very hard to explain this one, “Fluttershy, he’s a cloud of instantly deadly pink gas, inside some kind of power suit capable of throwing an alicorn across a room. You’re a... old lady.” She looked across a Chigaru, “If he wanted to kill you, you would already be dead.”

Chigaru retreated back into his suited form with a rush, jumping away into a nearby tree as she fired another plasma bolt at him. He straightened out and extended his head, regarding Zenai with that impassive, masked face for several seconds. And then he spoke, smooth and calm as ever, “You are a tricky one indeed. Worthy of a little charity.” He lowered his head into a nod, “Run. Get out of Demonivore.”

Zenai snarled and fired another shot, Chigaru jumping away again to cling spiderlike to the side of the palace, “You could do this all day you know, and more soldiers are coming.”

“Why?” Zenai yelled up at him, frustration boiling, “Why let us go?”

“They always ask why.” Chigaru shook his head, “I’m not all that complicated.”

“Zenai.” Silver Quill stepped up behind, “We... should do what he says.”

“Rrr... sure.” She stepped backwards, holstering her weapon, “No more games Chigaru. We’re going.”

“My little ponies.” He chuckled evily, “The game is only open when you break the board. The pieces... they’re replaceable.” His gaze moved to Fluttershy, “Some less than others. Keep her safe. This one hasn’t even begun to suffer.”

And then he was gone, disappeared back into the palace like the bug he was. Zenai turned to the silent Fluttershy, her concern heavy on her heart. The mare was just staring ahead with a far away expression and Zenai even shook her leg to absolutely no response, “Fluttershy, let’s go.”

Nothing.

“Fluttershy!” Zenai shook her again but again just got a blank stare. The sound of running hoofbeats from within the palace convinced her not to wait around, “Silver, pick her up!”

“Right!”

“Let’s go!”

They had not got five feet however when Silver Scribe yelled out, Zenai turning to see her paused in horror in the middle of the street with Fluttershy whimpering quietly on the ground behind. She ran over with a grunt of anger, hoping Fluttershy hadn’t been hurt, “Did you drop her?!”

Silver Scribe responded with a quiet horror, “She... pushed herself off...”

Zenai turned her head to the elderly pegasus, Fluttershy pressing her head against the ground and refusing to even look at them, “Fluttershy, come on, we have to go!”

She still refused to acknowledge them in any way.

“I... rr... Pick her up in your teeth.”

Silver Scribe looked at Zenai in horror, “What?!”

“Quickly!”

“I can’t do that! This is... Fluttershy! I’ll hurt her!”

Zenai growled her words, refusing to let this beat her. The blood was pumping now, bringing with it a fierce determination. She wouldn’t die here, “Pick her up in your teeth or leave her behind.”

Silver Scribe danced on her hooves for a moment, fixed her eyes in a determined scowl, leaned down...

Fluttershy bucked her in the nose, sending her reeling backwards.

“Fluttershy!” Zenai shouted a little louder than intended, glaring at the pegusus. Honestly, she was behaving like a naughty child, “You’re going to get us all killed! Do you want that?”

Fluttershy glared coldly at Zenai, her features suddenly deformed by rage and anger, “Some smug, traitorous bitch and a complete fuck up of an alicorn who ruined everything I’ve ever worked for? Why not?”

Zenai paused. This... did not sound like Fluttershy, “Wha...”

“It doesn’t matter. None of this...” Fluttershy looked around, pain and hate in her eyes, “I was mistaken. I always thought that I survived because my sins wouldn’t let me off that easy, that if I killed myself before they were paid off I would go to hell for them. But now I realise... this is hell.”

“Fluttershy, I know things look bad...”

“Bad!?” She spat, advancing forward with her features twisted in range, “I spent Two. Hundred. Years, watching you kill each other, unable to do anything to stop it! And finally, finally, I felt the spell fail, felt my body disintegrate around me... I thought I was finally free!” She laughed, “Oh, what a wonderful joke! I was faced with this grand new world, full of such wonderful things! Wide, desolate wastes. Private militaries of thugs. Enough corruption and scandal to make the Crystal Empire jealous.”

“Fluttershy...”

She grimaced, levelling her eyes at the ground, “Should have known it when I first heard about the Followers. A whole organisation, built in worship of me. I’m in hell already, and I’ll never see my friends, my family... I’m stuck here, with YOU!”

Silver Scribe rubbed her nose better, advancing forward cautiously but resolutely, “Ambassador, you have...”

Fluttershy whirled on the alicorn, “Don’t tell me what I have to do, you stupid little... agh! Why? Why they have to send you with me?!” She stomped a hoof down, angling her head up at the alicorn, “You’re a useless, whiny fuck up, who’s only quality was being slightly less of a fuck up than your sisters! You’re only here because Twilight Frost is so desperate she would have picked anyone who could read and write as her apprentice providing they had some ratty wings and a horn!”

Silver Scribe levelled her eyes at Fluttershy, glaring softly down at her, “I need you to come with me now. Ok?”

Fluttershy paused in consideration of the firmly stated words, seemingly unsure how to reply, “I... no! No! I’m not going anywhere with you!”

“You’re acting like a child.”

“I’m not a child, you’re a child!”

Silver Quill drew her head back, quietly assessing, “Is this how you want to go? How you want everyone to see you? A child having a tantrum?”

“No! I...” Fluttershy looked around, twichy and nervous, “Go! I... let’s go! Hurry up!”

Silver Scribe nodded to Zenai and she hesitantly set the pace, looking behind to see Fluttershy stumbling along as she was gently herded by Silver Scribe. It wasn’t a perfect set up, but they had to get under cover before anything else could be arranged. They had already lost too much time.

~

They managed to get some way into the city before Zenai felt safe enough to stop, amazed they hadn’t been caught already. Fluttershy had settled into a robotic but reasonably hurried pace, still she hadn’t even been trying to stick to the shadows and was clearly twitchy and mumbling quietly under her breath. Zenai hoped those watching would mistake her for just another mad old bag lady, fail to notice the zebra and alicorn sneaking along beside. She drew close to Silver Scribe as they settled down near some rubbish bins, keeping her eyes alert for danger, “Suggestions about what to do with Fluttershy?”

Silver Scribe gave Fluttershy a brief glance, regret filling her at the sight of the lost, broken pegasus, “She’s... I guess it’s stating the obvious to say she’s not well. I can’t predict how her mental state will change.” She turned to Zenai, pleading, “Can’t you tranquilize her? We could strap her to my back.”

Zenai wished it was that easy. Her anaesthetic was effective, but still a homemade concoction a lot stronger than she intended. She wasn’t about to start using it on her friends without very good reason, “Fluttershy is an old mare, with a clearly damaged, swollen windpipe and a history of...” Zenai paused before she started revealing too much, rewinding her thoughts and deciding to keep Fluttershy’s drug use to herself for the moment, “Well she’s likely on a lot of other medication, and I’ve neither got access to her medical records nor am in any way trained as an anaesthetist. In short, no. I can’t risk it.”

“So... we continue like this?”

“Or leave her behind.” Zenai hated saying it, but it needed to be put out there, “I doubt Caesar would hurt her, and she’s slowing us down.”

Silver Scribe frowned, clearly not liking that idea, “That... Chigaru pony tried to kill her!”

“As I said, if he had wanted to he could have killed her in a moment.”

“And...” Silver Scribe looked hesitant, her face screwing up in pain. She took a deep breath, finally balling up enough courage to say it, “...well... I just don’t want to leave her alone. She could... hurt herself.”

Zenai sighed, looking over to the pegasus and nodding. Fluttershy looked so lost, every trace of the proud, kindly mentor lost in a sea of despair so deep Zenai wondered if she would ever be the same again, “Ok, that’s a fair point. As a matter of fact I think we need to be careful about giving her any firearms. Just in case.”

Silver Scribe nodded, though she was clearly not comfortable discussing this, “Ok.”

“What about you?” Zenai focused her gaze on the alicorn, “Have you any sort of weapons training at all?”

Silver Scribe didn’t look much more comfortable with this topic either, “Um... I used to fence.”

“Isn’t that... competition sword dueling?”

“Yeah.”

Zenai sighed, just imagining the alicorn facing up exactly half a rapier’s length from her opponent in full point in line style. She could only imagine how many holes Caesar’s troops would blast through her, “Ok... and your magic?”

She concentrated, getting a tiny spark after several seconds of effort. She gave a sheepish look, “Still burnt out. I’m sorry, I’ve never experienced having my shields broken like that before. I took it right through my horn.”

Zenai sighed, realising it was a real bad day when she was the only combat capable unit on the field. She indicated Silver Scribe to stay where she was and moved forward to scout ahead, hearing some kind of motor approaching from around the corner. It sounded like an air conditioner...

She peaked around the corner, instantly faced with what looked like three tons of metal death.

It was a war droid, one of the big long armed droids like the ones that were guarding the Lost Legion. It quickly proved how fast it was as its autocannon arm swung round and spat lead at her, Zenai diving under cover as it tore apart the scenery. And the scenery was certainly torn apart, the bullets tearing through solid brick like they were made of cardboard. Zenai realised to her horror that this thing was designed to fight ponies in power armour, if she was hit by one of those rounds she would likely be torn in half.

She scooted along a row of flower pots and came up shooting, hitting the machine twice before diving away once more. The plasma bolts made its armour glow bright and melt a little, still it did little to slow it down as it came round shooting. Zenai screamed, terror seizing her tight as a bullet cut right overhead, realising she stood little chance against this thing. Fluttershy and Silver Scribe were nowhere to be seen. She was going to die here, alone, having failed miserably to stop any of this from happening.

A gunshot echoed out, Zenai’s ears perking up as she hurt it strike the war droid. Further shots rang out and Zenai recognised Dust Kicker’s rifle and shotgun, her heart soaring as she rolled out of cover and brought up her weapon. The war droid had turned from her to target this new attacker, leaving its back wide open. She didn’t stop firing for a second, soon leaving its rear armour a smoking slag. Her next two shots burned it from the inside, leaving the machine crashing to the ground with sparks flying.

“That weapon is pretty good against armour.”

Zenai couldn’t help it, she galloped over and threw herself around Dust Kicker’s leg, squeezing it tight. It was all she could do not to sob, especially as she recognised the black metal of the suit he was wearing, “You... have NO idea how happy I am to see you!”

“Likewise sweet pea. It’s been a long day.” He patted his chest with his other hoof, “Program secured safe and tight, like you said.”

Indeed she had. She had only hoped he would have made it in time, “Did you bump into a stallion called Mr Sunshine?”

“No. Should I?”

“No, you shouldn’t.” Zenai grinned at some good fortune, finally after all that had happened, “What happened to you?”

“Heard the explosion, suited up, checked out the situation.” He gave a grim look, his good mood suddenly departing, “Realised that somepony was starting a war, and the easiest way to achieve that... was take out Fluttershy. I tried to save her.”

“From Chigaru?”

Dust gave her a surprised look, “Yeah. How...?”

“Mr... Dust Kicker...”

Dust looked round to spot Fluttershy hesitantly staggering out from behind the ruined wall, seeming like she didn’t believe what she was seeing. He on the other hand grinned wildly, cantering over and placing a hoof on her shoulder, “Ambassador, I’m glad you made it. I’m sorry I couldn’t do more to help you back there.”

“It doesn’t matter...” Fluttershy looked down at her hooves, “We’re all going to die anyway.”

Dust hesitated for a second before angrily tilting her head up, looking the surprised mare in the eye, “You’ve been in worse than this girl. Chin up, eyes forward.”

She looked at him in confusion for a moment or two before tearing her head away, just staring off into the distance with a hurt, stubborn expression.

Dust didn’t even acknowledge her reluctance, grinning as he spotted Silver Scribe sulking around in the background, “Silver Scribe, it’s good to see you made it out too. We’re going to need your magic out there.”

“I...” Silver Scribe considered her responses for a moment before simply nodding, “I’ll do my best. I promise.”

“Good. We’re escaping this city right?”

Zenai nodded, “Yeah.”

“Then let’s move ponies!” Dust waved them onwards, setting a fast pace through the city that Zenai was surprised to see Fluttershy actually keep up with. Dust’s survival certainly seemed to have put some vigour in her, though she knew not to kid herself as to how much. After a moment Dust moved in close to her, speaking quietly, “Have we got any more coming?”

Zenai shook her head, regret and sympathy filling her belly, “Steel Marrow didn’t make it.”

“I see. What about Arick and Ace Gold? Daisy?”

“I haven’t seen any of them.”

Dust nodded, reassured by the lack of concrete news at least, “Ok... Zenai, you ready for this? I doubt the rest of our escape is going to go smoothly.”

“I... I’m not sure...”

He looked down at her, smiling, “Zenai, you know you’re smart and brave and skilled. I’ve watched the events of the last few weeks file the jagged edges off, I’ve seen you grow from your mistakes. Believe me, I know you can do this. Now you just need to prove it to yourself.”

She tried to think of a good response to that. Eventually she realised she didn’t need to say anything, “Thank you Dust.”

“No problem.”

She knew he was just trying to make sure they didn’t all break at the first sign of danger, well aware that they were all under a lot of stress, and were none of them military trained. Still she appreciated his words, felt both the weight of feeling behind them and the happy feeling of being right. Dust was a great leader, and she knew his reluctance to lead wasn’t just personal preference. No pony who hated it could be that genuine.

And she knew she needed to learn from the examples he gave her. She fell back a little to stand beside Silver Scribe, trotting along at the back with her eyes glumly focused on Fluttershy, “Silver.”

She turned her head down to the zebra, “Um... yes?”

“You did good, getting Fluttershy to come with us. I had no idea what to do, and if we had hesitated any longer we would have been caught for sure.”

“Thanks. I...” Silver Scribe looked at Zenai, unsure how to respond. Eventually she dropped her head, looking ashamed, “I’ve got everything wrong. I thought I had it all figured out, that it was everypony else who was ignorant of what was really going on. All this... is my fault.”

“And you’re not off the hook yet. But stuff like that? That’s a good start.”

Silver Scribe smiled gratefully at Zenai, her expression eventually becoming wistful and a little shy, “I have... quite a few sisters. I was always the leader, always the one looking after them all.” She bit her lip, looking a little sad, “Most of them... have problems.”

Zenai nodded, remembering the photo, “They didn’t develop properly.”

“No. Me and my sisters Iris Reach and Crimson Skies are the only ones without physical or intellectual disabilities. And I was always the most intelligent, the most powerful.” She lowered her head, looking about to cry, “I guess I got used to thinking I was better than everypony else, that I knew best...”

Zenai... made a resolution to be more self aware of her faults. She couldn’t criticise the mare. She had spent her childhood watching out for herself, grown to resent and feel superior to those who needed parents and family. She had won herself many enemies with her arrogance and self assured attitude, forcing herself to get top marks to justify her own self regard. She had come to believe those marks meant she couldn’t fail, “You can fix all this Silver.”

Silver Scribe chuckled pathetically, “I sure hope so...”

~

Dust ably led them through the side streets, dodging roaming packs of guards without incident. Zenai was starting to believe they might actually do this, and she had to admit she was getting tired and slow now. If they didn’t get a rest soon she would likely be blundering straight into a pack of Caesar’s goons...

Speak of the devil, a bullet cut across her leg and she yelled out stumbling. She looked up in the direction of the shot and saw a zebra perched on the roof with a rifle in hoof, diving to the side as another bullet struck the ground, “Sniper, roof!”

“Got it.” Dust turned, dancing backwards and bringing his rifle to his eye. He fired and there was a yell of pain, firing again to be rewarded with a crash and a thud. He looked back towards Zenai, reloading his rifle and returning it to her side, “You ok?”

“Yeah, I...”

More bullets struck the wall next to her and Zenai let out a girlish scream, cantering away as Dust jumped in to shield her, guns blazing. Zenai jumped behind a trash dumpster and took a moment to assess the situation. They were at the intersection of two alleyways and a third exit onto a main street, across which was the garages and east exit from the city. Unfortunately it wasn’t the best area to defend and she could see movement from both alleyways, along with very little cover that guarded from both sides. Fluttershy was cowering in a corner with her hooves over her head, Silver Scribe pressed against a wall and breathing heavily.

Caesar’s troops were advancing cautiously, not opening themselves up to shots and concentrating on suppressing fire. The exit was obvious, run out onto the street and reach the cover on the other side.

Too obvious.

A gunshot rang out, striking the wall next to Silver Scribe with a crack of shattering masonry. She bolted with a desperate whinny, her legs stumbling.

“Silver, stay in cover!”

It was too late. Silver Quill broke cover with a terrified yell, galloping for the harder shielding of the wall a few feet across the road. She didn’t make it, not managing halfway before her side was torn apart by submachine gun fire in a rain of blood and meat. The alicorn gasped and staggered a few more paces before a thrown spear impaled her through the throat, finally dropping her to the ground with a wet thud.

“No! No!”

“Damnit…” Dust caught Fluttershy before she ran out herself, blasting at a zebra solider who had edged out a little too far and seriously damaging his armor with a well aimed rifle shot. He immediately dropped out of sight with a cry of pain, allowing Dust time to get a proper grip on the pegasus, “She’s already dead!”

Fluttershy snarled her answer, “She’s not dead! We just need to get her a healing potion!”

“That’s what the spear is for! We would need to remove it first, and we don’t have time!”

“Well that’s different isn’t it!?” She struggled valiantly against Dust’s grip, her voice raised to a screech, “You just don’t WANT to save her!”

Zenai couldn’t do this. She couldn’t listen to two of the adults she actually respected argue over such a…. horrible thing. She wouldn’t listen. She decided to give a third option.

She snapped out the energy cell of her pistol, carefully opening the casing and using a bobby pin to break open the seal and the cooling valve. Then she placed the cell back into the pistol, gripped it in a non-firing position and walked out into the street.

Her heart beat as the zebra pointed their guns at her, near eight of them, none of them friendly looking. She lowered her ears and dropped her head, only hoping the fact they hadn’t fired yet was a good thing.

“Are you surrendering?”

She nodded firmly at the groups captain.

“Then drop your weapon!”

She dutifully removed the energy cell, cradling it in her hoof and spitting her pistol to the ground. Then she threw the clip over to them, “There, no funny business.”

The captain moved forward to catch it, “Nice to see some sense…”

It promptly exploded on impact. The captain was killed instantly and the others were sent tumbling over each other with cries of pain and panic.

Dust flung himself into the fray with gusto, firing both weapons with pinpoint accuracy, ignoring the shots bouncing off his own armor as he worked his way through the panicking unit. Zenai grabbed her dropped pistol and sprinted into cover, loading another cell and leaning out to spray them with plasma fire. Fluttershy took the moment of confusion to run on over to Silver Quill, the alicorn lying totally still now.

Zenai had taken down her second enemy when she found her eyesight blurring, her body shaking for a moment before a wave of nausea overtook her and she was forced to spit her pistol out and vomit into a nearby corner. She knew it was the worst possible timing but she couldn’t stop, her body feeling like it had been hit by a sledgehammer. She felt cold and shaking, and couldn’t concentrate…

Dust threw a grenade back into the alleyway before galloping over to her side, “Hey, Zenai, you alright?”

She shook her head, looking down at the pool of vomit, “I… I don’t know…”

Dust smiled warmly at her, taking her shoulder and bringing her round to face him, “Combat shakes. It happens.”

Zenai returned a pale, wan smile of her own before wiping her mouth off and running over to Fluttershy. She could already tell it wasn’t good. Fluttershy had her hooves on the spear but didn’t seem to be doing anything with it, simply standing there with a faraway look on her face. Zenai hurried over, “Fluttershy…”

“She’s dead.” Fluttershy’s voice sounded puzzled, confused. Her eyes were already filling with tears, “She’s already dead. There’s nothing I can do.”

Zenai looked down reluctantly at Silver Scribe, drinking in the pain and horror of seeing the alicorn like this. Silver Scribe had been an idiot, she had got them into this mess. Zenai had spent the past few hours shouting at her, calling her out on her stupid decisions. She hadn’t been able to do a damn thing right.

She lay there, face twisted in pain, eyes wide open and staring dimly into nothingness. Blood covered her lips, her throat torn open and her side a bloody mess. Her mane lay dank with crimson fluid. It was… horrible.

“Watch out!”

Zenai looked up in sudden surprise as Dust shouted out, spotting the solider drawing a bead on them from the alleyway opposite. He wasn’t one of the normal soldiery like the others, instead clad in the black and gold combat armor of Caesar’s elite. He moved before Zenai had a chance to react, bracing his revolver and blowing a hole through Zenai’s shoulder. She screamed, hit the floor and gasped as the sky swung around her, white light filling her vision. She grasped desperately for a healing potion, watching helplessly as the zebra sighted up on Fluttershy…

Fluttershy suddenly broke into a gallop, snatched up a submachine gun in her mouth and gave an incoherent scream as she swung it at the zebra. He fired at her but his shot went wide, Fluttershy’s own return fire causing him to duck away as it tore up the wall beside him. More gunfire sounded out and Zenai curled up as bullets struck the ground around her, cringing as the zebra’s second shot tore open Fluttershy’s leg. The elderly pegasus staggered a little, drew up her weapon with a yell and blew him off his hooves with a sustained burst of fire.

He grunted as he hit the ground, already extending his neck to retrieve his fallen gun. Zenai wanted to yell out in warning, tell Fluttershy to reload quickly. Better yet to find a better weapon, her little sub machine gun no match for the zebra’s armor…

But Fluttershy just galloped forward, jumped on top of the solider and brought the weapon down with a mighty thud. He yelled and struck her in the face but she simply shrugged it off and brought the weapon down again, and again, screaming in rage as blood splattered her butterscotch fur. He yelled out and threw her off, Fluttershy tumbling across the tiles in an inelegant ball of fur as he got to his hooves and wiped the blood from the cut across his muzzle, “Ifurna sadda, Fluttershy canne…”

Fluttershy jumped to her hooves , galloped forward and tackled him into a wall. He grunted in surprise and elbowed her to the ground, only to yell in pain as she fixed her teeth into his leg. Zenai winced as he kicked her into the wall with a hard crack, the pegasus letting go and sinking down with a pained whine.

Zenai finally found a healing potion and downed, it, grunting at the pain from her still healing shoulder as she tried to sight up her pistol on the looming soldier. She cursed in frustration as her vision swam, unable to fire without the possibility of hitting Fluttershy...

And Fluttershy snatched up the zebra’s fallen revolver and pointed it straight at his face. The soldier’s eyes immediately went wide, backing away with a desperate tone in his voice, “Wait, Ambassador. We have orders to capture you, not kill…” He gave a brief look of relief as she leveled the weapon down…

Just before she blew his hoof off. He looked down at the bloody mess in uncomprehending surprise for a moment before falling to the ground, gasping out as she advanced, “Ambassador…”

“Fck… yth!” Fluttershy struck him with the weapon, stamping his head into the ground with a firm hoof. She backed away as he cried out for mercy, so much spittle flying from her teeth that it was a wonder she kept a grip on the pistol, “Ambsither!? Ivf bin heff befur, tffing to maff peace! I shuffer av fuffing boffered!”

Zenai advanced cautiously, sensing Fluttershy was under… considerable stress, “Fluttershy, please… we have to go…”

She looked at Zenai for a second, like she had forgotten she was there. Then she simply turned back and unloaded every single bullet she had into the zebra’s head.

Zenai simply… stared as she watched the element of kindness execute a wounded opponent in cold blood, her mouth hanging open at the horror of it all. Fluttershy just dropped the weapon into the spreading gore and charged forward, kicking and punching the ruined corpse like a mare possessed, “I should have let them kill you all! I should have created… a poison, wiping every single one of you off this planet! Maybe then… maybe then MY FRIENDS WOULDN’T ALL BE DEAD, JUST BECAUSE I THOUGHT YOU DIRTY LITTLE FUCKERS WOULD STOP KILLING EACH OTHER FOR ONE FUCKING SECOND! BECAUSE I THOUGHT THERE MIGHT BE SOMETHING SO PURE, SO GOOD THAT YOU COULDN’T ALL CORRUPT IT INTO A FUCKING WEAPON!”

Zenai hesitated, eyes wide and trembling at the horrific sight. Fluttershy was absolutely covered in blood now, her voice cracked and screechy, her eyes feral. She desperately tried to call out to the mare, to help her somehow, “Fluttershy, please, stop this!”

“Zenai! Could do with some help!”

Zenai looked round, spotting Dust in cover behind some walls with quite a few holes blown through his armor. He was poking his head up every now and then but the overwhelming volume of fire was keeping him down, at least seven well armed zebra marching towards him.

They were pinned.

Zenai charged out to fire a few plasma shots into the crowd but was immediately punched to the ground by a bullet to the chest, rolling away into cover before she took any more damage. She found a convenient wall and assessed her ruined armor, assured that it wasn’t going to stop many more shots like that. Her VATS was charged but at range her accuracy was hardly great, she could get maybe… three of them if she was lucky? The others would tear her apart a second later.

And then Fluttershy decided to make things worse. She ran out in full view, covered in blood, holding the empty revolver in her mouth. Zenai could do nothing to stop her as she advanced out past the cover, her weapon pointed at the armed zebra before her. She wanted to look away, not have to watch as the mare was blown apart before her eyes. The soldiers mercifully hesitated, whether from recognizing her, horror at her gory appearance or simple confusion as to why she hadn’t fired yet. It… couldn’t last for long, “Fluttershy! Don’t shoot!”

The zebra paused, unsure, looking at each other for guidance. Fluttershy looked back at Zenai for one brief moment before reaching into her saddlebag and pulling out a grenade.

“Zenai… I’m going to put her down.” Dust brought up his sniper rifle, sighting up on the pegasus with a grim expression, “I can break her shoulder, damage her jaw, hopefully without killing her.”

Zenai looked at him in confusion and horror, “What?!”

“She’s going to blow herself up. Can you think of a better way of stopping her?”

“Than blowing her jaw off?!”

Dust just grunted, closing one eye as he took careful aim…

Dark wings unfurled in the night, swooping down into the street with swift, deadly agility. A figure leapt off in midflight, sparking with magic as the twin pistols either side fired with pinpoint accuracy. Rifles shattered apart as the bullets tore through them, Caesar’s soldiers allowed a few moments of cursing and shock before the figure landed in the middle of their formation. The twin pistols span in a tight magic powered arc, hooves striking the zebra off their feet and sending them spinning into the pavement. One remaining guardstallion charged in with a combat knife clutched in his jaw, only to be sent flying as Ace Gold flipped backwards and took the pony under the chin with a sharp crack.

Arick parachuted his wings and fell to the ground with a thud, sighting up on the road beyond with a heavy machine gun strapped to his side. He took a moment to make sure the area was clear before angling his head back, giving them all a winning grin, “Hey, sorry we’re a little late. Had to get our escape route from this place ready.”

Zenai’s jaw clenched, not quite sure what to say. On one hand, he had just saved their asses, and Fluttershy was momentarily frozen in shock mid action. On the other… “This is all your fault!”

Arick snorted, giving a mockingly innocent smile, “Really? How so?”

“You tried to kill Caesar!”

Arick waved her off dismissively, turning back to the route behind, “That pathetic attempt? If I really wanted to kill Caesar I would have done a lot better than that. Haven’t you worked it out yet?”

Dust Kicker stepped forward, still breathing a little heavily, “Worked out what?”

“That attempt was designed to fail, ruin the peace treaty and frame all of us for the attempt. Caesar’s likely already found the messages linking each of us to the plot, making sure we can’t patch things up or discover who was really responsible.”

Zenai… admitted that sounded plausible. They had been framed after all, and…

“It’s… all lies.”

Zenai turned to Fluttershy, the grenade still sitting in her hoof. She gazed at Arick with wild eyes swiftly turning to anger, the griffon looking on in confusion for a moment before realization dawned, “Fluttershy? Damn, what the fuck happened to you?”

She opened her mouth wide and furious, spittle flying, “You happened! You always happen!”

Arick… laughed. Loud and casually, landing his face in his open claw, “Man oh man, they’re never going to let me forget this. Come on, load the old mare up, put that grenade somewhere where she can’t accidently blow herself to bits.” He looked around searchingly, still inappropriately gliib, “Where’s Sil got to?”

Everyone hesitated. Dust was eventually forced to answer him, “Silver Scribe is dead.”

Arick looked regretful for a second before shrugging his shoulders, “Really? Damn. That’s a shame.”

Fluttershy grabbed the fallen revolver from the ground and pointed it straight at Arick, her voice firm and completely direct, “No morth. I’m ending you, nuw.”

Arick simply grinned at Fluttershy, though he did look a little sad and regretful at the same time, “Come on Fluttershy, you know you’re not going to shoot me. Get that thing out of your mouth, you look pathetic.”

She growled, “Ith thaf all yoth av to say? Aboth Sither, aboth everthing?”

“What do you want me to say?” Arick shrugged his shoulders, “It’s sad she’s gone, she was a good girl. But it wasn’t anything to do with me.”

Fluttershy paused for a brief moment of consideration before pulling the trigger.

She was still looking at the unloaded weapon in confusion as Ace Gold crept up behind and activated his magic, dropping the pegasus with a single burst of energy.

Arick paused for a moment in complete shock before giving a nervous laugh, nodding gratefully to Ace Gold “Nice one Ace. Man… she actually tried to shoot me.”

“I didn’t do it for you.” Ace advanced forward hesitantly, his horn glowing softly. He dropped his pistols and closed his eyes in concentration, his horn suddenly flashing with light as much of the blood and gore leapt away from Fluttershy and hit a nearby wall with a horrible wet sound. He then trotted over and placed an experimental hoof on the mare’s head, something deep and sad in his expression, “What the hell… this was supposed to be some rousing adventure...”

“It is. Look at us, escaping from the Caesar’s capital, a group of battle worn adventurers of all species fighting for truth!”

“It’s not… a fucking game.” Ace Gold looked up at Arick angrily for a moment before returning his gaze to Fluttershy, carefully shifting her mane from her eyes, “Get us the hell out of here.”

Arick looked… irritated, jumpy. He paced nervously, eyebrows raised, claws raking the ground as he stared around, “Ok, fine. Just… Ace, you know the escape route yeah?”

He looked up, “Yeah?”

“Then get going.” Arick stared down the street, gripping his machine gun and taking it in his claws, “I’m gonna buy you some time.”

Ace gave him a challenging look, anger and hurt in his expression, “You’re not coming with?”

He snorted, “All got a little heavy for me. I’ll catch up later, go!”

“You… don’t die. Ok?”

Arick simply smirked, “Just got a gun aimed right at my skull, trigger pulled by somepony trying to send me straight to hell. My luck’s still holding steady short stuff.”

“Right…” Ace turned away with an angry snarl, his expression softening slightly as he took Fluttershy in his telekinesis and attempted to levitate her. He was doing pretty well to hide it but he was obviously struggling, not least because he was attempting to keep her limp body in some kind of comfortable position without looking directly at her.

Dust eventually moved over, nodding to the foal, “Place her on my back.” He shook his head at Ace’s angry expression, returning a calm one of his own, “She’ll slow you down, stop you from using your pistols. We need you to get us all out of here.”

“Fine.” He grunted, lowering the pegasus onto his back with careful precision before drawing his pistols and galloping towards the fences on the other side of the street, “Come on, it’s this way.”

~

The garage was the same as the one they had used to get to the mountains previously, still filled with the heavily armored APC’s they had used before. There were shouts from the gantry above and Dust and Ace reacted instantly, Dust ducking behind cover as Ace launched himself forward. Two shots later and one of the zebra hit the ground with a thud, Zenai melting the gantry under the other and sending him crashing through the melted metal with a yell. Ace Gold immediately cantered over to him and hit him with his anesthetic spell, nodding to the other, “Healing potion.”

Zenai didn’t argue, this was no time for ethical debate. She grabbed the injured zebra and forced a healing potion down him, clocking him across the head as he began to stir. She looked back to make sure Dust was behind her before moving into the open door of the first APC, looking around the cramped interior. It wasn’t the same one as the one they used before but it was still almost identical, and felt reassuringly sturdy, “Does anypony know how to drive one of these?”

“Not this design, but I can drive go-carts.” Ace strolled over to the controls, looking them over, “I think I can work this out.”

“And I have some experience with armored trucks.” Dust followed in, studying the interior himself, “But I think I’ll be better placed on guns. Ace, you drive. Zenai, look after Fluttershy.”

“Right.” Zenai prepared a bench for the mare, helping Dust to lay her down before both he and Ace moved to their respective compartments. She tried to ignore her continued nervousness as the APC started up and rolled out into the desert beyond, concentrating on the mare in front of her. She was in a bad way, in ways not easily healed by just throwing healing potions at her. She instead opened up the various medical bags they were carrying and got to work, reducing the swelling in her neck, treating the slow to heal bullet wound on her leg to stop infection and injecting a few drugs to lower her heart rate and blood pressure. It wasn’t much, all just obvious surface problems, still it would hopefully keep her alive.

“Holy shit!”

Zenai looked up at the sound of Dust’s voice before hurrying over to the viewport, gasping in horror at what was going on back at the city. A dark shape soared above, purple scales lit by anti air fire as it wheeled and spat flame at the palace below. Zenai instantly recognized it, “Spike!”

“He must think Fluttershy’s still there.”

“We have to tell him…”

A bright spear of light flew out from a high tower near the walls, Spike too busy with some missiles on the other side to notice until it was too late. It struck him hard on the flank and detonated in a huge, bright flash of light, Zenai gasping as it shredded a wing and flung him into the path of another concentrated burst of weapons fire. Spike struggled backwards as he tried to make some distance but his wing was too damaged, he was hit a couple of more times and eventually just dropped out of the sky, hitting the sea with an almighty crash. He didn’t come back up.

Zenai was glad Fluttershy was still out, “Do you think he’s alright?”

“He’s… pretty tough. Dragons are aquatic right?”

Zenai… didn’t actually know, “I’m not sure.”

“He likely swam away to avoid them, it’s what I would do.” Dust looked down from the gantry, nodding reassuringly, “And he did draw attention away from us. We’ll get to the mountains, throw him a communication to meet up. We’ll get through this yet Zenai, you’ll see.”

Zenai looked at Fluttershy, then at the spot where Spike had fallen. She looked at their almost depleted supplies of ammo and medicine, across the existed looking faces of Dust and Ace. She felt her own body fail. She remembered the faces of Steel Marrow and Silver Scribe.

This time she didn’t believe him.

End of Part 1, Fools Gold.

Part 2, The Light over the Darkness, coming soon!
___________________________________________________________

Footnote: Level up! (7)

Perk Acquired – Vigilant Recycler
Waste not, want not. When you use Energy Weapons, you are more likely to recover drained ammunition. You also have more efficient recycling recipes available at the wasteland's workbenches. The efficient recycling recipes make you twice as likely to recover drained cells when you use Energy weapons, reduce the cost of recharging drained cells from four to three.

This fanfiction is based on Fallout Equestria by Kkat, it is highly recommended that you read that first for context. Reading Fallout Equestria: Pink Eyes by Mimezinga will help understanding, but isn’t required.

Many of the characters and much of the setting are not mine but are on loan from the very awesome Kkat, or are taken from My Little Pony - Friendship Is Magic by Hasbro. This story makes no pretentions at being canon with either, and is merely a ‘what-if’ set in the same world.

If you enjoy Fallout Equestria Side Stories, you will want to check the Fallout Equestria Side Stories post on Equestria Daily and the Fallout Equestria Side Stories thread on Ponychan.

Comments

[Kexisoc]

So, to summarize my whole perspective at this point: Blarg! I can`t trust anypony anymore!

Firstly, a masterful feat, portraying the events in this chapter that occurred simultaneously during the events of the 'Vulnerabilities' chapter. While at the same time, my certainty of assuming who's behind who has been entirely null.

The tragedy of Silver Scribe's demise is twofold. She died with the assumption that it was Regina that instigated the attack, which in near certainty is a false allegation, one she will never know. Secondly, from what I observed, her attitude was the result of having an exceptional amount to live up to. Among the few of the second-generation alicorns that turned out 'right'. Which, to Silent Steel's credit, proved his assumption that this left her very impressionable and incapable of doubting questionable orders.

Chigaru's sparing of the group's lives. I'm back to speculation. His remarks towards Fluttershy sounded very personal. Particularly his opinion that she hasn't yet suffered enough. I can only assume from a schemer's point of view, he wished demonize the identity of the Zebra nation further so that in the event Fluttershy returns to Equestria, she'd be rooting for war.

And speaking of Fluttershy's spiraling ...it's at this point, expected of pony of the pre-war era, not conditioned from 300 years of the wasteland, to plummet fullstop into post-traumatic syndrome. But that's the problem with living saints, nobody gives them the time to rest or step down. In Fluttershy's case, she could not step away from being a symbol.

And Mr. Sunshine, you are suspiciously not upset at this diplomatic turn of events. A children entertainer gracefully removing trained soldiers with knives? Conveniently having a safe location prepared after the assassination attempt? Acting on behalf the Twilight Society without anypony knowing? Claiming to have many specific skills except for hacking when it could be seen as a convenient cover-story? Departing with the statement that he considers Regina, even Littlepip, as undesirable leaders of Equestria?

Still marking Rufus as a possible conspirator, you've proved it could be anypony at this point.

So yeah, reading this update left me very winded.

But on a last note, you'd think with Zenai's stunt with the energy cell, she'd have gained the Mad Bomber perk instead.

[Philweasel]

Zenai's explosives and repair skill isn't quite high enough for mad bomber, though it's certainly a good direction to take. They need some heavy firepower after all.

And we are here, at the end of the beginning! I've got a lot of things I'm looking forward too in the next part, not least a deeper look into the zebra history, religion and culture. First however I'm taking some time to proof read everything so far, adding bits, tidying up and the like. I want to add a special shout out to szamanx0, who's already helped me a lot with this

Thanks for reading all! See you in a few weeks!