Fallout Equestria: Treasure Hunting

by Hnetu

Chapter 15: A Look In The Mirror

Chapter Fifteen: A Look In the Mirror
“I don’t have a problem. I’m in complete control.”

History.

I never paid much attention to history before. All I knew were the basics, from things that mom had told me about Stables, the lessons from when she was a filly, and survival techniques. I didn’t know much about mom’s past either. History really didn’t seem to matter when we were busy fighting to live another day.

I knew about the War that created the Wasteland, and all the ‘big’ details, the things that anypony who dug around as much as my family did knew. The Princesses ruled over Equestria in the centuries before the War. I knew that ponies and zebras fought over resources. I knew about the Goddess Luna taking over, and how the Ministries effectively took over the government. A few big names got stuck in with those lessons. Aside from the Goddesses, I picked up the names of the Ministry Mares, and maybe some of their close relatives. They held a special place in the history of Equestria and the Wasteland, after all.

I’d never taken the time to care about that, though. I prayed that the Goddesses would watch out for us, and kept on living as best I could. Not once did I stop and try to make sense of all the little pieces that fell together to end the world. With the way society had fallen apart, I didn’t think anypony knew the whole story. Things like the how and why didn’t matter. Equestria had been destroyed by balefire and whatever else the zebras threw at our kind, and the civilized world ended.

This was the first time I’d ever actually paid attention to exactly how history had happened. It might have been the fact that I couldn’t ignore the hollow echo inside my head as the glowing ghoul talked, but she made history seem to come alive. In the few hours we’d traveled together, she’d told us little bits and details about how Blackhoof worked, bringing it to life in ways that no newspaper clipping ever could.

“But why would they do that?” Lost asked. “It seems entirely counterproductive!” She reared up, flailing her forehooves in the air.

“Nopony said they did it on purpose,” answered the undead mare. “Look. My own husband worked for the Ministry of Wartime Technology. Half the time, he couldn’t tell me about what went on when he was at work. The Ministries did work together sometimes, especially for big projects, but things were classified. And even the companies the Ministry backed financially, or contracted ideas out to, didn’t have all the details.”

“Sounds like Celestia should have stayed in charge,” I muttered. That wasn’t actually fair. I blamed the lack of sleep. The sun hanging in the tiny gap between the horizon and the clouds nearly blinded me, which did nothing for my mood. For once, I wished it would just rise above the cloud cover and stay there. Between the brightness of the sunlight and the glow from the ghoul, I had a hard time seeing anything.

“Probably, but she had her reasons,” answered the undead pony. She shrugged and kept walking. “Like I said, we all made choices. Sometimes they weren’t the right ones. Those lucky enough got to see through to the other side.” She stopped and looked down at the ground, scuffing it with a rotten hoof. “A few of us are still trying to make up for the mistakes,” she whispered, almost too quietly to hear.

I almost didn’t catch it, since I was too busy holding back vomit from watching a skinless spot slide over her leg muscles. I never wanted to know what the inside of a pony looked like again, especially not one covered in dark spots where her blood had pooled.

Then again, I’d seen the insides of several after I’d shot them. Maybe it just freaked me out to see them still moving?

“Nopony can fix the Wasteland all on their own,” said Lost. She trotted a few steps closer and nudged me. She seemed to be in a much better mood, and I smiled. Maybe, just maybe, she understood why I hadn’t killed the alicorn. I hoped it wouldn’t come around to bite me in the flanks. If it did, I would wait until then to stress about it. For now, I enjoyed my sister’s smile.

“Itis not something that ponies will do, itis something we must all do,” Xeno added.

Fine Tune smirked. “Anything for my Queen,” he said. “Changelings would like the old ways back too. I’ve heard whispers of a land full of love. So full that other hives tried to invade to get to it.” He grimaced and placed a hoof over his stomach. “Speaking of which...”

Before I could ask what he meant, the sound of a tuba cut me off. A little bobbing robot hovered around the corner, identical to the one Wirepony had eaten forever ago. It blasted the obnoxious music from its speaker, far too loudly for comfort.

“Wonderful,” rasped the ghoul. “A sprite-bot.” She kept walking, talking over the music. “The whole thing with the Ministries was a case of the left hoof not knowing what the right hoof was doing. Spandrel told me they were trying to do the right thing. Rosie said the same thing. They never told me what the right thing was, but-”

The music stopped.

All of us, the ghoul included, stopped and looked at the sprite-bot. It bobbed in the air, twisting to look from me to my sister, then past Xeno and Fine Tune over to face the glowing ghoul.

“What in Celestia’s name?” she rasped.

“What in the...” whispered my sister.

Even Xeno looked confused, and her hoof slid toward her knife.

With a loud tinny pop, the music started again. Heavy tuba over annoying polka filled the air once more, and the sprite-bot continued to bob in the air.

“Well, I haven’t seen that before. What about you four?” asked the undead mare. For the first time since we’d started following her, she actually turned around to look at us. Her glowing eyes looked almost afraid.

“No.”

“Nope.”

“Ihave not.”

Fine Tune just grumbled, holding the hoof over his stomach. “Silence is better than that horrid music.” Maybe he wasn’t a fan of that kind? I knew I prefered the DJ’s music instead. To each their own, I supposed.

The sprite-bot turned and bobbed away, going in the same direction as the town in front of us. We waited, traveling a safe distance behind it, where the music wasn’t quite so obnoxious.

“I always hated March of the Parasprites. Anyway, where was I?” the ghoul asked. “Right. Left hoof, right hoof. Sorry if I’m rambling; I haven’t had anypony to talk to about much since, well...” She looked up at the sky and counted with her hoof, kicking it in the air with each step. “Since the first one.”

“First what?” I asked.

“Since the first one of my friends died,” she answered nonchalantly.

“I’m sorry,” both my sister and I said in unison. I looked down at the PipBuck, wondering. Would Gunbuck have been our friend? He was the first one to die by my hooves, too.

“His own failure. I found a replacement,” she said with a cold and hollow laugh. “Something I’ll have to do again soon, actually.”

“You speak in riddles worse than my mother,” said Xeno. She lifted a hoof to block the slowly disappearing sunlight from her eyes. “Isit much further?”

I checked the PipBuck’s map screen. “PipBuck says it’s close. Shouldn’t be more than another hour?” I guessed. Assuming we didn’t run into any more distractions like ghoul raiders, or sprite-bots acting peculiar. Which we would, of course, because the Wasteland enjoyed kicking a pony when she was down. Either that or Xeno’s crazy zebra luck would get me right when I felt relaxed.

I yawned.

Might as well be prepared. I kicked the battle saddle to make sure Persistence was completely loaded. The last thing I needed was to run into a fight with no ammun- I froze. According to the PipBuck, I had two bullets left for my rifle. Really? Had I used that much ammo when fighting the ghouls? I flicked through the organizer spell built into the little arcano-tech device, and put one of the pistols on top of my saddlebags as backup.

As if to remind me just how dangerous this little portion of the city was, the PipBuck gave a definitive click.

I started paying attention again, just in time to hear the ghoul finish her explanation.

“...friends in lots of places. When you live for two centuries, you get around,” she said. “Occasionally I ask for favors, like I did with you.” She flicked the wispy remains of her tail back and pointed them in my direction. Favors, like transporting drugs… Oh well, at least she wasn’t murdering or enslaving others like Mistress Amble.

“Wait, what?” I asked, trying to pick the conversation back up. I thought we’d been talking about the Ministries. Oh right, interruptions by rogue sprite-bots.

“I said I have friends in many places, helping me. An old sack of bones like myself needs lots of help, lest I slip away,” she explained with a laugh. The echoey chuckle bounced around in my skull, as if I could feel it moving across my brain. “After what happened with the Ministries, and the world falling apart, I wanted to make sure I always had ponies, and others, that I could count on. That’s what keeps somepony like me from slipping into darkness, like the ghoul raiders you so callously murdered earlier.” The glow inside her brightened, making her into a shining beacon in the slowly encroaching shadow of the clouds. “The radiation helps keep me together, too.”

“Callously murdered?” I asked, more than a little miffed. “They were mindless, and trying to kill us.”

“I was teasing,” the ghoul answered.

“Is friendship really that integral to keeping sane?” asked Lost. She looked over at me, then to the two others with us. Lost and I had always had one another, and now we had friends. Fine Tune, well, he was a wildcard. He seemed okay so far though. Xeno had proven herself loyal to the point of throwing herself at slavers on our behalf. No matter what else she did, I’d always consider her a friend.

“Honey... friendship is magic. It’s what ties everything together,” rasped the glowing mare. “It gives you a goal to work for, to strive to be better, to help one another. If we’d considered it as important as winning the War, we’d have beaten the zebras with both forehooves tied behind our backs.”

Maybe it was just exhaustion, but the amount of sense that made hurt.

* * *

I got shot in the flank. Again. Zebra luck should not be a thing. Or I should just accept the fact that the Wasteland sucks and stop blaming random things for our bad encounters, or thanking it for when we get a boon. I could probably stop blaming cheater magic for my own faults, but I didn’t think that would ever go away. I also didn’t think that sprite-bot would go away, or stop blaring the terrible music.

I fired my pistol across the street at the raiders, then crouched behind the overturned skywagon. The tiny gun sounded more like a popgun than a real weapon, and its range didn’t compare to Persistence. Without my hunting rifle, we were screwed. They’d taken to hiding in a building and I doubted the pistol would make a big difference from so far away. Lost had the plasma pistol, which was nice, but Loyalty outshined its power tenfold, if she was close enough. And Xeno…

“Ugh, this isn’t working,” groaned L.A. She crouched down behind our makeshift cover and closed her eyes. “They've got us trapped and we've only got one gun that'll-” She rolled her hooves against her temples while the rest of us kept shooting. “Got it!”

“Got what?” I asked her between shots.

“We need to swap guns,” she answered. “You’re the best shot and you’ve got S.A.T.S..” She looked over at Xeno.

“Xeno, can you give Hidden your sniper rifle,” L.A. shouted over the gunfire and polka music. She didn’t sound angry or demanding, but the damnable music made it so hard to hear the wood of the skywagon wasn’t going to hold.

“But itwas a gift!” Xeno shouted back, holding the weapon close. She looked at the gun and then at me. “As long as she doesnot break it.”

Between the loud B-KEWs of Lost’s pistol, she yelled at us both, “She’ll be careful. She’s only borrowing it.”

A shot tore completely through the battered cover, splintering wood all over the five of us. Having a glowing ghoul in our little group did not help for fights or getting through places unnoticed. She stood with her pistol out, taking potshots at the windows of the building to keep raider ponies down. But with the hole in her side, I didn’t know how long she’d make it.

The ghoul in the clinic healed in radiation, and the glowing mare here practically created it. She’d be fine.

“Xeno! Rifle?” I shouted, fighting the cacophony of noise.

She passed it to me hesitantly. Grabbing it with my flesh forehoof, I punched a hole through the rotten wood we were using as cover. The steel made short work of it and gave me a nice little opening to slide the barrel of the gun through. No time to put it on my battle saddle.

“Here goes nothing,” I said to myself. I looked through the scope and propped myself up, using the gun to keep my balance. I’d never fired like a zebra before, but if Xeno could do it, so could I. I slid my hooves into the wide grooves and took aim.

“It’s just like normal,” I said to myself. I found a pony and slid into S.A.T.S. Choosing the head of the raider, I took the shot. The gun nearly kicked me off my hooves, but the bullet did what it needed to. The inside of the room the raider had been hiding became a red mess.

Gunfire paused. Were they regrouping? It didn’t matter. I spun the rifle around, looking for another target.

“Grenade!” yelled Lost. She ducked.

A little apple-shaped grenade bounced onto the skywagon and over to our side of the cover. Fine Tune snatched it up with the blue-green haze of his magic. With a flick, he arced it back over the wooden vehicle and away. It blew up in the air, harmlessly.

“Alright, tactics... Xeno, watch for anypony trying to sneak up on us. Hidden, umm... you,” she said, pointing at the glowing ghoul, “and you, keep doing what you’re doing. Fine. Transform to something and sneak over there, see if you can’t slit some throats maybe?” She turned and fired another burst of plasma at our attackers. I could tell she was looking for something for each of us to do, to make sure we all helped.

“I- but- I’m not good at that!” he squeaked. In the blue-green haze of his magic he held the pistol. I realized he hadn’t fired a single shot. Was he afraid of fighting if it wasn’t necessary to survive? “Sneak and unlock. I survive! Not a fighter.”

“Learn?” I asked him. We didn’t have time- I saw a pony. Firing the sniper rifle, a bang cut through the air and the bullet tore the mare’s foreleg off at the shoulder. It wasn’t the headshot I wanted, but with three legs she’d be out of the fight.

“But what if I-”

“You have a knife as a part of your body. You threatened my life with it. How are you not a fighter!” Lost yelled the question at him, her voice calm but cold.

I fired again, before she could say something else. Speeches didn’t matter. Another raider died and we survived a few seconds longer. There weren’t many left, assuming they threw everything they had at us. So far the undead pony had done more damage than any of us. If only I had two hundred years to practice shooting.

“I can sabotage, but I’m terrible at actual fighting,” he stammered.

I fired another shot, but missed entirely. They’d come out of the building, the next shot would be easy. I pulled the trigger once more.

Click.

The gun had one bullet left! Why had...? I peeked over the sight and saw the problem. “Lost, the gun jammed!” I yelled, dragging her from trying to figure out what to do with Fine. I couldn’t get the bullet out with my hooves. The space between breech and barrel wasn’t large enough.

“Toss it to me,” she yelled after firing another burst of magical plasma.

I did as she asked.

“Why did you break my rifle, Hiddenpony?” asked Xeno. She looked almost hurt.

“It wasn’t on purpose,” I apologized. It really wasn’t. But Lost could fix it. She had a knack for getting anything mechanical to work right.

Several more gunshots sounded behind me. “I think that was all of them,” said the ghoul. I really needed to learn her name. The pink haze around her gun slipped away as she put it into the holster at her side.

“Good,” answered my sister. “What’s the E.F.S. say?”

“I believe that the glowing one is correct,” agreed Xeno, looking past the edge of our cover. I made a point to keep using that term until I learned her actual name.

Lost ignored her. She sat against the skywagon and did something with the gun, moving little parts around inside with quiet clicks using her magic. The jammed bullet ejected, and she tossed the gun to Xeno. “No offense, but I trust the PipBuck.”

I looked out across the road at the building. I couldn’t see any ponies in the windows and the only markers in the corner of my vision came from my companions, all green. “Looks good,” I said.

“Alright, good,” L.A. said with a sigh of relief. She peeked past the edge of the skywagon and looked around. “Let’s just get the fuck to town...”

* * *

A billboard pony waved slowly from the sign beside the road, her hoof caught in the wind. She smiled down at us, through the muck splattered across her face and mane. A little speech bubble built into the sign said ‘Welcome to Idle!’ in faded green letters. Two giant holes through the center of the phrase had ripped some of the letters off. Somepony really hadn’t liked the name of the town. I liked the new name, ‘idle,’ which meant to me ‘restful,’ and rest was the one thing I needed right now.

Past the sign, I saw the beginnings of real civilization, if I could call it that. The road we walked on looked like every other one in the Wasteland I’d ever seen, but its condition wasn’t quite as bad. Boarded-up houses dotted the side of the road, which didn’t seem to be as radioactive as the city center we’d left a few miles back. Every building I saw called to me like a savior, as if the Goddesses themselves had put them there for me and me alone. They all looked boarded-up and safe, like the perfect place to take a nice long nap. Actually they looked terrible but anything with a partial roof looked great right now.

“Almost there,” I said to myself. My hooves felt lighter all of a sudden, like I could make it. We’d find an inn. We’d rest for a few hours. I’d find a little shop and talk to the trader for a cold bottle of Sparkle~Cola. Then I’d pass out for several more hours. It would be perfect. “Here, Lost, take the PipBuck,” I said, offering my hoof up. “I’m going to sleep the minute we trot into town, and I want nothing to keep me from it. You lead.”

“Alright, once we find somewhere safe. I think we’ve all earned a nap,” Lost answered. Her blue haze of telekinesis wrapped around my leg and the PipBuck, the latter detaching with a quiet click. She floated it over and clicked it onto her leg, much to the amusement of The Glowing One.

“Fancy trick that,” she said, lifting her own. “You know a lot about them? I could use a pony to fix Spandrel’s. It broke a few decades back.”

“Well, I can take a look, but I don’t know if I can fix it without knowing why it broke,” Lost answered, blinking. The little flashes of light from the E.F.S. activating glowed for just a second before fading away.

“Ain’t that a shame, oh well,” The Glowing One rasped. She turned tail and kept on toward Idle.

Fine Tune groaned, a chirp slipping through his disguise.

“What’s wrong?” I asked him.

“Hungry.”

Right. He sounded exactly like I felt. We needed to stop and collapse, before something bad happened. Stopping, I reached back and dug out one of the snack cakes. “Here, this work?” I asked.

“Changeling, remember?” he said, waving the cake away. “Need love.”

I looked ahead. Lost and Xeno were still following The Glowing One. She’d probably get mad at me for this... “What do I need to do?” I asked him. We couldn’t be down a team member.

“I don’t think you could stand to lose any right now,” he said, grimacing. I could see him fighting it, but he still opened his mouth and moved closer. Actions speak louder than words, changeling.

“I’m tougher than I look. I can stand to lose a little right now,” I argued. “I have enough love of music and love for my sister to go around. I can spare some. I’ll be fine. Promise.” I could take it. I’d always been a tough pony. It would take more than a little feeding off my emotions to take me down. After everything Mistress Amble did to destroy my guilt, I knew what it was like to survive without some feeling for a while. This would be different. This was for a good cause.

“I... I shouldn’t,” he whispered. Already the fire rose from around his hooves, sickeningly green and close enough to burn me, had it been real flame. It faded, and the changeling took a step closer, his horn glowing the same color as the fire from his transformation.

Everything in my vision glowed green as something passed over my eyes. I felt a crushing tightness deep inside my chest, around my heart. It felt as if somepony were both crushing and stabbing me from every angle, inside and out. It hurt worse than being burnt alive, worse than losing my hoof.

I couldn’t breathe.

Through the shroud across my vision, I could only see the glowing blue eyes of the changeling. I stepped forward, drawn to it. Something touched my forehead, something cold and hard. His horn. Everything felt wrong. The air left my lungs. My heart stopped beating. My legs felt cold. They almost felt like something was... grabbing them, holding tight and not letting me move. I tried to back up. This wasn’t right. He could kill me like this. I didn’t want to feed him.

Not like this.

Not if it meant losing-

The world rushed back. I gasped, the air catching in my throat several times. My heart pounded in my chest, so high into my throat I thought it might be what blocked the air. The pain began to dissipate, slowly. I still felt it inside, as if it were in my heart, still stabbing at me. I fell forward onto the shattered road. My hooves curled up against me all on my own. For what seemed like ages, I just lay there and shivered.

“Are you okay?” asked the stallion, his voice full of life again. Even with the concerned look he had, Fine Tune smiled, standing taller. Even his coat looking brighter. He nudged me with the tip of his horn.

I jumped into the air, moving away as fast as I could. I did not want that thing to touch me again. There was cheater magic, yes, but that was... I couldn’t. I didn’t want to think about it ever again. Instead I galloped away. I didn’t care if he caught up. I didn’t stop until I reached my sister. When I did, I latched onto her so tightly that the two of us toppled to the ground.

“I love you, Lost Art,” I said, repeating the phrase over and over under my breath. I don’t know whether I just wanted her to know that I cared about her as my sister, or if I was trying to convince myself that he hadn’t sucked away all the love I had in me. In a way, it was worse than what Mistress Amble did.

With her I had one thing: certainty.

“Whoa!” she yelled as I grabbed onto her. “What’s wrong, Hidden?” she asked, wrapping a forehoof around me. “I love you too, sis.” She squeezed my shoulders tight.

“I’m fine, I just... I just needed that,” I explained, unlatching myself from her. “Let’s just hurry into town.” I trotted off, tail between my legs, until I’d made some distance from the group. I heard the questions about what happened behind me, but I paid no mind. I followed the road to the town, as if it were the only one left in the Wasteland, not paying attention to anything else and trying not to think any more than I absolutely had to.

I slowed to a stroll as I passed what looked like the proper entrance into the town. It looked... bad. Where even the slaver town of U Cig had been rebuilt somewhat, this place was in shambles. Most buildings looked completely shattered and uninhabitable. A few stood in stark contrast, with roofs above and even several windows still intact. Boarded-up or not, this didn’t look quite as much a safe haven as I’d originally thought. I could hear the groaning and murmur of ponies talking in the distance, their voices sounding distressed and tired.

I knew how they felt.

This was a town that sold ponies to slavers? What in the Goddesses’ names went on in this shithole?

A grungy orange pony walked around the corner, down the street, wobbling on his hooves. He took one look at me and forced himself into a trot. His eyes didn’t focus on me, and didn’t look quite like they could focus on anything. He stared straight forward, his whole head bobbing side to side as he trotted over.

I took a step back, just in case.

“Spare a cap?” he asked, hiccuping. He stopped a bit too close to me for comfort, one hoof in the air and shaking worse than anything I’d seen. He kept leaning forward on three hooves until he finally toppled forward. “Whoops. S’ry ‘bout dat. Anyway. Spare a cap for a down on ‘is luck stallion?” he asked again.

“Sure, just go away,” I pleaded, digging out a few caps from my saddlebags.

The stallion’s eyes lit up to the point where they almost glowed. “Thanks babe, dunno what I’d do wit’outcha. Just needed a cap to turn everything around. One more and it’ll be my last,” he rambled, pulling the outstretched hoof back and holding it over his heart. It shook there a moment before he fell on his haunches and raised both forehooves out to beg. “Just need a little boost and I’ll be good.”

“Boost of...” I started to ask, but thought better of it. The less I knew the better. I dropped a hoofful of caps into his waiting hooves and took another step back. Reaching back, I pulled one more cap out. “One more for some information,” I offered.

“Anything!” he shouted, waving a shaking orange hoof at me. Every time he waved the hoof more dust fell from his coat. I sincerely hoped the other ponies in the town weren’t like this.

“Where’s the pony in charge?” I asked, holding the cap away from him.

“In the bar, like everypony else!” yelled the beggar. He snatched at the cap, throwing himself off balance and dropping to the street once more. Caps fell from his hooves, bounced and rolled away, scattering all across the street.

That did it. Ponies emerged from every alleyway, like radroaches. Dirt-covered mares and filth-encrusted stallions dove into the street, hooves and magic all grabbing for the rolling, bouncing caps. They shouted and argued with each other, yelling about their need for a fix.

I threw the one I was holding down, and backed away. The bar. Good enough. I turned tail, reared, and ran from the town and the scrambling ponies. It was a lead, if nothing else. Lost might be able to find it on the map, if The Glowing One didn’t already know where it was. I just had to tell her.

* * *

“The Restless Mare,” explained The Glowing One. “This is where I get off.”

“Where you what?” questioned my sister, her lips twitching as she tried not to smile.

The ghoul laughed. “No, I mean where we part ways. Trade me my goods and I’ll give you your caps,” she explained. The stub of her horn began to glow its pale pink, and the flap of my saddlebag opened. Several bottles, vials, tins, and syringes of various drugs that I’d been carrying floated out. She counted with her hoof as each one floated from my saddlebags to hers, a twisted smile crossing her rotting lips.

“Itis the beginning of the day, what pony would be in a bar at this hour?” asked Xeno, her eyes watching the chems as they floated between our saddlebags. “I still find it strange that ponies donot brew their own.”

“Some ponies like to get started early, I guess,” said Lost. “We don’t all carry booze around all the time. Either way, I could use something to drink.” She looked over at Fine Tune, who hadn’t said a word since we’d regrouped. He looked much better, aside from the guilty way he stared at the ground. Neither of us had mentioned in any detail what had happened. “What about you? Do bugponies drink?”

“No, I’m full anyway,” he said without looking up. “Should have waited...” he muttered under his breath.

I skewed both ears over in his direction. “Let’s hurry inside, there might be somepony who can send us in the right direction,” I said, trotting forward to end what could have become an awkward conversation.

“So, will you tell us your name?” asked my sister. She stared down The Glowing One, who casually closed her saddlebags. The PipBuck on her leg clicked repeatedly.

The ghoul just smiled.

“Itis not important Lostpony. She is a Glowpony, one of the dead from your old world. Her business is her own,” Xeno said, trotting past. She looked at the ghoul and gave her the once over. “Itis time that we finish, and not worry about their pasts. Thereis work to do in our future. My brothers.” She stepped past me and pushed her way through the door to The Restless Mare.

“It looks like you all have far more important things to be worrying about,” she said, pausing to shrug, “I’m just a mare trying to make the best of a bad situation. I’ve got important business to attend to myself. ” She brushed past my sister, roughly bumping into her shoulder. “Rosie’s going to be waiting for me, and I wouldn’t want to make a very special somepony wait. Would you?” Her glowing eyes shifted, staring at my sister with a smirk.

L.A. didn’t falter. She only nodded slowly. “No,” she said, and walked past me into the bar.

I looked over to Fine Tune, and gulped. The look on his face matched the one I could have sworn I had. I pushed the door open. “After you.”

The unicorn stallion trotted past me and I followed him inside.

“...take kindly to your type!” shouted a mare.

I blinked several times, trying to get used to the light. The bar was much darker than the light outside, even with the cloud cover blocking the sun. I saw several tables, all with ponies sitting around them, and a bar with only a single stool open. Most of the ponies sitting inside looked just as bad as the ones outside, except the barkeep and one older mare running her hoof through her mane and slamming shots with her telekinesis.

I’d never seen a real bar before. Were they always this crowded?

A bottle smashed into the wall next to my head, and I jumped back, instinctively biting down on the battle saddle’s bit. Luckily for the patrons, I was out of ammo.

“Get! Y’hear!” yelled another pony. Several others yelled similar things, even some curses more colorful than I’d thought possible. A few got up, knocking chairs over. None of them looked happy. Fortunately, I didn’t see that any of them were armed.

“Iam not-”

The bottle smashed into the helmet Xeno wore, knocking it aside. Luckily, she wasn’t hurt. If they hurt her I’d... I stomped my steel hoof on the wooden floor, hard.

“Not a slaver!” the zebra managed to shout.

“What’s going on?” I asked. I needed context, and I needed it now. Was it necessary to really hurt these ponies, or were we somehow in the wrong?

“I swear to Celestia, if you drunken idgits don’t fuckin’ knock it off...!” snapped the barkeep, a dark-coated unicorn with a short red mane. She slammed a hoof on the counter and glared at the rowdy patrons. “I am not havin’ this shit in my bar!”

“You’ll what? Lookit what her kind did here! You think we want this shit in our town?” asked the stallion who’d done most of the yelling so far. He pointed a hoof at one of the ponies who hadn’t stood, a mare barely able to keep her head off the table.

“Ihave told you, Iam not a slaver, itis merely the barding,” Xeno explained.

“She’s with us,” said Lost. “Leave her alone.” She stepped between our friend and the stallion.

“She’s a fuckin’ striped bitch is what she is,” yelled a mare from the back of the room.

“This is your last warnin’!” shouted the barkeep.

“What’s wrong with zebras?” I asked as I released the bit of my battle saddle. If I had two seconds, I could get at the pistol in my saddlebags.

Another bottle flew through the air, only to stop halfway through the room. A purple haze whipped it back where it came from, and it smashed into a mare’s face. She screamed and dropped to the floor.

“Get. Outta. My. Bar. Now!” shouted the pony behind the counter, a gigantic shotgun appearing as if from nowhere. She waved it a few times.

“Aww, fuck,” whined one mare. “Chaser’s gotta be a pissy bitch again.” She looked at the barkeep and scoffed. “You know we’re right! Don’t you deny it. Her kind are a plague-”

The shotgun belched fire and smoke, with a loud boom echoing in the room. The mare jumped into the air, her flank peppered with dozens of small buckshot pellets. “Don’t think cause I fucked you once that I’ll go easy!” the barkeep shouted. “All of you! Out!”

Chaos broke loose out as ponies started running for the exits. Tables flipped as they scrambled to get away, chairs toppled, and the blood-splatter from the shotgun blast soaked the floor. Several ponies slipped on the blood as they ran, while others hobbled away as fast as their addled hooves would take them. Yells and screams accompanied the hectic escape. They jumped over one another, not caring about each other.

Hadn’t we just been told this morning that friendship was magic? Did any of these ponies care about anypony but themselves?

“What just happened?” I yelled over the sound of running hooves at my sister. I dove out of the way of a herd of charging ponies.

Fine Tune answered instead. “Xenophobia.”

The last few ponies cleared out, leaving only the barkeep, the older drinker, and the four of us inside. The bar looked no worse for wear. Tables could be set back up, blood could be mopped. I didn’t really want to think about it. I just wanted to get a soda and go to sleep.

“Fuckin’ bitches startin’ a fight first thing in the mornin’,” muttered the charcoal unicorn. “I’m too old for this shit.”

“Quite a scheen,” slurred the one remaining mare. She had an orange coat and dark green eyes, but she didn’t look up at us. Instead she mussed her purple mane again.

The barkeep slid her shotgun away and tucked it under the counter. “Yeah, just what I didn’t need first thing in the morning,” agreed Chaser. She looked over at us and waved a hoof. “Alright, sit at the bar. Let’s talk about the trouble you’re causin’ in my bar first thing in the mornin’.”

“What’ll I do... What’ll I do...” muttered the disheveled-looking mare with a hiccup. She slammed back another shot and laid her head on the bartop.

We trotted further in, the wooden floor creaking with nearly every step. Fine Tune trotted away and started to pick the tables and chairs up. I trotted over and helped instead of sitting down. I knew that the minute I put my hooves up, I’d pass out. I wanted to be awake to hear what was going on, so I twisted an ear back and listened while righting a table.

Thinky ponies listened. Thinky ponies learned.

Lost and Xeno hopped into seats at the bar, ignoring the drunken pony slamming shots, and faced the bartender.

“Alright my fine,” Chaser said, dragging the word on, “mares! What can I get for you?” She tossed two cups onto the counter with her telekinesis and smiled like a showpony. “We’ve got, well... We’ve got awful swill in several vaguely-different flavors.” Her voice sounded completely different than how she’d talked to the ponies who needed a shot in the ass. Where she’d been gruff and forceful before, now she sounded almost soft.

“Information,” my sister answered. “And an explanation for why they hated my zebra friend here so much.” She pushed the glass away with her hoof.

“Now now, we can talk over a drink,” chided the bartender. “Look, the town’s in a bad way. They don’t like ‘her kind’ because she’s a zebra, and somepony went around spreadin’ the rumor that the drugs they love to hate so much come from the zebra lands.” She lifted a bottle of something without a label and poured the two glasses full. Pausing a moment, she floated the bottle to the side and refilled the muttering mare’s glass as well.

“The drugs come from the zebras? News to me,” L.A. mused.

“Itis true, Lostpony. Zebra have a long tradition of creating brews. Itis how I learned,” Xeno said with a shrug. She grabbed the newly-filled glass and lifted it up. For a moment she inspected the brown liquid, before throwing her head back and downing the booze. Seconds after swallowing, she coughed. “Itis strong...”

Wait, zebras were the cause of the drugs, like the Buck I’d taken such a liking to? If that meant I could get more out of her when I ran out- but I had plenty still. I hadn’t needed to use it for a fight at all lately. I filed the little revelation in the back of my mind, where the orders from Mistress Amble and the little digging claws waited.

“Fine Tune, help me with this one?” I asked, hefting one of the larger tables back up.

He set the chair he had in his hooves down, and walked over to help.

“Well, that’s still news to me,” Lost admitted. She dragged the glass back and lifted it with her magic. “Alright, how much for the rest of the information?” She tilted the glass and drank it in one solid gulp. With a loud sigh, she smiled and set the glass back down. “And how much for another?”

“You don’t have to buy information off me,” answered the barkeep. “I like talkin’. Something you sort of have to like when you get into this business. Or you just really like the sauce.” She winked at my sister, and poured another shot.

“Lostpony, weare here on business. I wish to finish as quick as we can,” Xeno said, giving my sister a glare as she downed the second shot. Chaser filled the glass up as Xeno set it down.

“Business, what kind?” asked Chaser. Before Lost even set the glass down she already had another pour started.

“Slavery,” I answered for them. I tipped the last chair up and trotted over to join my sister and friend at the bar. “Somepony said that they’d gotten into trouble at a bar in this town and been sold. We need to know who did it.” If this was the bar, I wouldn’t hesitate to jump the counter and pummel her into the ground. I propped my shackled hoof up, not-so-subtly slamming it onto the counter.

Chips, stab marks, and not-so-pleasant graffiti already marred the surface. I didn’t think one more dent would matter.

“Slavers, eh?” asked the charcoal mare. She lifted another glass from behind the counter and filled it to the brim for me. “Sounds like a problem. Why, ya accusin’ me then?” She flashed a shit-eating grin.

“Well, this is the only, err, real bar I’ve seen so far,” I answered, staring at her. “And if there’s anything like that going on, sending ponies off to get tortured like I was, well, somepony will have to answer to me.” I tried to sound as tough as possible. I knew I couldn’t outright murder them without putting my own life in jeopardy, though. Damn orders.

“And you think I’m your mare, without lookin’ anywhere else first?” she asked, raising an eyebrow. “Barge in, start some shit, tell me I’m in the wrong? Checked for other bars yet?”

“Is there more than one?” I asked.

“And does it have whiskey as good as yours?” my sister asked immediately after. She lifted the glass and set it down upside down.

“Now now, I can’t be sellin’ out my competition,” said the mare, waving her hoof at the three of us. “Maybe if the pony in charge says its okay, that’d be different.” She slid the bottle away and collected the glass from my sister.

“You donot wish to ruin another who steals your customers?” asked Xeno.

The bartender laughed and shook her head. “Not how we do things ‘round here.”

Frustrated, I drank the shot. It burned the entire way down, but not as badly as I’d expected. Either she’d watered it down, or I was getting used to the taste. I hiccuped once, and felt the fiery burn all over again. Maybe not, eugh. Not wanting another, I set the glass upside down on the counter.

“So, who’s in charge?”

Chaser pointed to the mare with her head on the counter, who still muttered to herself. She ran her hooves through her mane repeatedly, messing it up even worse than it had been.

Lost moved to sit next to the pony ‘in charge.’ She put a hoof on the unicorn’s shoulder and leaned toward her. “She says you’re in charge? What’s your name?” she asked.

“Ah dun much like tha name me dam gave meh. S’abituva mouthful,” she explained, her face still pressed against the wooden counter. “I much ‘refer meh mouth bein’ fulla shum good ol’ Wile Pegasurs,” she said, giggling and waving the almost empty bottle in the air. “Mos’ jus’ call meh Relly now-a-days. S’better ‘at way..." She tried to pour herself another glass, and ended up spilling much of it across the bar. “Cause I'm usu’ly Relly Drunk!” As if finally noticing us, she lifted her head and lifted the full glass. “Howdy, new ponies. Niceter meetcha.” She downed the shot and looked us over.

“The mayor is also the town drunk,” Chaser explained. “But she’s still in charge. Now, why don’t you all have a nice chat with her while I sit back and just watch.” She moved her eyes across the group of us, lingering longer than she should have on each of us, before trotting back. “Hay! Careful with that, it’s an heirloom!” she snapped at Fine Tune.

The changeling stopped tapping the picture hanging on the wall and walked over to us. “Sorry,” he whispered. His eyes seemed to light up when he got closer to the barkeep. They glowed the same as when he’d drained me, but nopony else seemed to notice.

“So, whatcha need?” Relly slurred. “Nip! Gimme ‘nother, woudcha?” She asked, holding the now empty bottle up and waving it in the air. The green haze of her magic dropped from the bottle and it bounced off the counter.

“Yeah, but pay up, ya silly drunk,” Chaser answered, laughing. “Last one. You been here all night.”

The exchange was telling. How bad were things if the mayor was a drunk, and she’d been drinking the entire night away?

“Just what’s going on here?” asked my sister.

“S’drugs. S’booze,” the orange unicorn mare answered. I looked down at her cutie mark; two bottles, one empty and lying on its side. Why would a filly get that as a cutie mark, and why would she be in charge? But if addiction and slavery were problems in this town, maybe that just passed for normal here. “I dunno where I went wrong!” She hiccuped. “Had schuch big plans, ‘n they all wentta sheet. Hol’ on.” She lifted a set of saddlebags from the floor and dug out several caps. “‘Ere ya go Nip. Gimme ‘nother. Las’ un. Promise.”

This conversation was taking far too long. I just wanted to sleep and get a drink… “Got any soda, a Sparkle~Cola maybe?” I asked the pony behind the counter.

“Yeah yeah,” she answered, collecting the caps. “You all gotta pay up as well. I ain’t no charity.” She lifted a bottle without even looking away from us and popped the cap off. It went into her pile. She passed the bottle to me.

“Thanks,” I said, and chugged the entire thing in one go. It got rid of the burning, a little. Better than nothing. I tossed a small pile of caps onto the counter and watched her take as many as she needed. I pushed the remainder back into my saddlebags.

Lost sat, looking thoughtful, and placed a hoof on Xeno’s shoulder. “We need to do the right thing,” she said. Good, she wasn’t being bitter about everything that happened. Deep down, my sister still wanted to do good, even if she might argue the opposite sometimes. It reminded me of the conversation in Stable Sixty, where she’d refused to let me give up. I thanked the Goddesses I had that Lost back.

“Isit part of the friendship the Glowpony spoke of?” Xeno asked.

“Somewhat. Hidden knows what I’m talking about,” Lost answered. She pointed down to the PipBuck on her leg. “Something we started before we met you.” She turned to the frazzle-maned unicorn. “Where do we start? We’ll fix both problems.”

Fine Tune tilted his head and looked at my sister. “But, my Queen, isn’t our job here to free the ones sold like I was?” He stepped side to side on his hooves, looking a bit uneasy. “I’d like to get back on the road soon…” He shuddered. Either he had something he didn’t want to mention here, or being stuck in one form too long was starting to get to him. I’d noticed that whenever it was just us, he tended to revert back to his changeling shape, rather than keep up the illusion of being a pony. I’d ask him later.

“We will, and fast. We’ve only just gotten here. Let’s do what we can to destroy everything Amble could use to her advantage here,” L.A. affirmed. She looked back at the unicorn sitting at the counter, hunched over the empty glass.

“Betta ta ashk meh assistant. Bubble knows all da little detailsss,” answered Relly. She hiccuped again and looked at the glass in front of her. Resting a hoof on it, she tilted it back and forth. “S’nother bar yah. I know that much.”

The door opened, and a mare trotted in. She looked different than the others, clean pink coat and without the bloodshot neediness in her eyes. Her mane was a darker shade of pink, and curled just a bit at the very ends, while her long tail trailed just above the floor behind her. With aquamarine eyes, she scanned over us before stopping at the bartender.

“Morning shipment,” she announced in a sweet voice. Something in the back of my mind clicked, an old digging sensation that lasted only a second. The mare’s eyes darted back and forth over us once more before coming to rest on me. She swallowed then took a step back. “It’s around back like normal. I’ll pick up the caps later!” She turned and left.

I knew I’d heard that voice somewhere before. I just didn’t know where. Something about it...

* * *

Drinks finished and hooves rested, my sister suggested we make our next move.

“I can’t stay up like you can, Lost,” I muttered, my head on the counter. I just needed a few weeks of sleep, and I’d be okay. Restful sleep with no annoying dreams keeping me awake and reminding me of all the times I’d fucked up, or that I’d never be as good as mom. If she were still alive...

“The sooner we finish here, the sooner we can go back to visit the Steel Rangers and get a good meal and a good night’s sleep,” she offered. “And the sooner we finish there the sooner we can go to Xeno’s home and put her brothers to rest.” She smiled over to the zebra and placed a hoof on her shoulder. “You’re tough, Hidden. You can go another hour or two.”

“I can, but I don’t want to,” I countered. If it were an order, I’d have jumped at it. I thanked Celestia and Luna twice each that she’d just requested it, and hadn’t made it an order.

Maybe another soda, maybe some Buck, and I could handle it without complaint. Something to put the little pony to rest and let somepony stronger take over. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. She was right. I was tough and I’d made it through worse. A week of not sleeping when being broken by slavers was one thing. An extra few hours I could handle. Opening my eyes, I nodded. “I can do it.”

“It’ll be easy. Ask a few ponies around town if they know anything. Xeno and I will go talk to Relly’s assistant,” she said, reaching over to brush my mane down. “I believe in you.”

I nuzzled the hoof and stood up. That’s what I needed, some faith. The Goddesses would look after me. They had so far. I stretched all four of my legs, and even wiggled the steel hoof to make sure it worked. The hinge felt a little stiff, but I’d get that looked at when we met up with Praline again. It still needed a good going-over after what Slipstock and Vice Brand had done to it.

“Alright,” I said. “I can talk to ponies. I can do that much.” I hugged her. I waved to Fine Tune, and headed for the door.

L.A. turned to the changeling. “Fine Tune, watch after my sister while I’m gone.”

“My Queen,” said the changeling with a salute. Chaser only raised her eyebrow at the exchange, but he paid her no mind. With his orders given, he trotted after me.

The five of us walked out of the bar, with L.A. and Xeno trotting behind Relly. The drunken mayor wobbled as she walked, barely able to keep on all four hooves. We waved to one another before finally splitting off. My sister and friend went one way, while Fine Tune and I trotted the other direction.

“We’ll meet here when we’re done,” Lost yelled over her shoulder.

Outside didn’t feel any better. Actually, I felt worse. On one level, I wanted to be mad at Lost for not letting me have even a moment to relax, no matter how right she was. No sleep could beat the sleep of a nice warm bed, safe and protected by friends and family. Any sleep I got here wouldn’t compare to that in any way. Still, she’d stuck me with Fine Tune, and I was still terrified from the feeding. I looked over at him and waved a hoof, pointing to one of the buildings. “We’ll go that way first,” I said in the kindest voice I could muster.

“I’m sorry.”

“For?” I asked. I didn’t want him to think I held a grudge. Good ponies didn’t hold grudges, and thinky ponies knew how powerful forgiveness was. The Glowing One said that friendship was important, and forgiving had to be a part of that.

“Normally feeding isn’t like that,” he said. He trotted past me in the direction I pointed, his eyes downcast. “Normally I can do it without a pony feeling, and it only takes an instant. If there’s enough love around, it’s almost like... I can just open my mouth and inhale and it just gathers. I don’t know how I can explain it to a pony who eats food.” He shrugged. “But when I’m starving like that, well, it can get ugly. Stress, the running, all those transformations in a short time. It’s taxing.”

That was an understatement.

“So, I’m sorry.”

“I forgive you,” I answered.

Fine Tune forced a smile, but didn’t look up from the street.

I trotted past him, down the street. “Let’s just get started talking to ponies and get what we can.” I wished I had Persistence loaded. Or that I still the PipBuck, so I could use the E.F.S. I regretted giving it to my sister. Nothing to be done about it now. I walked over to the nearest pony I could see.

A mare sat on the stoop of a building, her head lying on crossed forehooves underneath her. She stared at the clouds above without a care. She looked at me with a twisted smile and waved a hoof. Pointing at my nose, she announced, “Pony.”

I didn’t want to know what drugs she might be on, that made her so oblivious. I crouched down next to her. “Do you know all the bars in town?” I asked. If there was another bar, and that one had something to do with the slaves, I needed to make that my top priority.

“Restless Mare’s a good one,” she answered, not quite looking at me. “Good times at the other though, s’round back of town.” She waved a hoof in the opposite direction from where I’d approached her. “Got a funny name.” She giggled. “The Goddesses’ Bed.”

“Ever been?” I asked. This might just be my lucky day! If I could get the answers I needed right off then I could get a nap while I waited for Lost to get back. With a name like that, it had to stand out.

“Nah, it s ’spensive,” she said with an over-exaggerated shake of her head. Her ears swiveled forward and she pushed herself up. “Got a cap or five? Or a Mint-al? I got a haze in my head... I-If I had some in me, I’d help more!”

I placed a hoof on her chest and shook my head. I didn’t need to help her addiction. If all went as planned, we could clean up that problem while fixing our own plan for revenge. But I needed to be fast.

She slumped back down and looked up at the clouds again. “Just like a cloud, except in my head...” Breathing out long and slow, she closed her eyes. “A little cloud...”

“C’mon,” I said waving to the changeling. “You go ask ponies over there, and I’ll keep on this side, okay?”

“Sure thing,” he answered. He saluted just like he’d done to my sister and trotted across the broken street. It wasn’t too far across, but it’d still be faster if we worked separately.

I moved to the next pony. “Know where The Goddesses’ Bed is?” I asked. When he didn’t answer, I tried something else. “Know a pink pony that’s not covered in grime?” I didn’t get an answer for that either. “Hay, you in there?” I finally asked, nudging him hard.

“Ah!” he snapped, going rigid. “Pink one! Yes, she’s great. Gives exactly what ya need. You looking for something? I got something.” He tilted his head to the side and rummaged around him, before eventually finding an empty syringe. “Oh,” he whispered, looking at it.

I rolled my eyes and trotted off, ignoring his calls for me to come back. I didn’t have time for that. The Goddesses’ Bed sounded like the perfect place for me. I’d love to get a chance to sleep where the Goddesses did. It was probably the most comfortable bed ever.

I faceplanted into the street.

“I’m up!” I shouted to nopony. Fine Tune shot me a look from across the street, but I waved him off. Pushing myself up, I moved to the next pony.

Most of the answers I got were all the same. Cryptic bits and pieces, but nothing concrete. The pink pony always seemed to show up when a pony really needed her. She had something for everypony. The more desperate ponies I questioned just asked me if I knew where she was, instead of giving answers. I ended up trotting down three different streets and a half-dozen alleyways before I finally got some answers.

“They get the best shit,” explained a large blue mare sitting on a building’s stoop.. She scratched her coat several times, particularly her left foreleg. “I don’t think I could stand the collar though.” She shivered.

“Collar? What kind?” I asked, pushing for answers. I wondered what had its hooks in her. Something with a needle, going by how she scratched her leg. Did I have any Med-X to spare? The mare, sitting, was nearly twice the size of me. If I could get her on my good side...

“The kind that hurt, everything hurts,” she muttered. “They make you numb, y’hear? That bitch.” She scratched again. “Won’t share, she gets a better share. You got some caps?” She looked at my saddlebags.

“No, I-”

She lunged at me, and tackled me to the ground. I didn’t expect a mare her size to move so fast, and landed under her with an ‘oof.’ She stood on me with one giant forehoof on my chest. She dropped her haunch onto my legs, holding me down. The other hoof smacked my saddlebags, knocking several of my things on to the ground. Bullets, grenades, and food spilled everywhere. Caps rolled away into the alley.

“Get off of me!” I shouted, kicking her stomach with my rear hooves. For my effort I got grunts and groans, but not enough to get her off me. I was a strong pony and I knew it, but even I wasn’t strong enough to force her off without any leverage.

In the back of my mind, an old fear showed its ugly face. I started to sweat. Being pinned down was bad. She was a mare though, and she couldn’t do a-anything like that.

“Liar,” she muttered, casting a glassy-eyed look at me. She stepped on me with her other forehoof, then scratched at it. She shifted and put all her weight on my haunches, pinning me completely.

Ponies all around perked up. Heads popped out of the shattered windows, their hazy unfocused eyes watching. A pony trotted from the cross-street and sat down, just watching. She stared at the two of us, making little motions toward my belongings before pulling back.

With all the blue mare’s weight on me, I couldn’t help but scream in pain. I wasn’t the biggest pony by a long shot, and this mare weighed a ton. I found it hard to breathe with that nagging fear creeping up in the back of my mind. I pounded on her with forehooves, refusing to give up. I tried in vain to push the huge pony off me. Where in the Goddesses name was that fucking changeling?

“Fine!” I shouted as the mare smashed open the other saddlebag. She moved around Persistence and leaned in close to dig around in my saddlebag with her mouth. The ponies all around seemed intent to watch what happened but not move closer. I could see their eyes darting back and forth between me and the scattered belongings. One stallion sat counting the caps rolling around with his hoof.

“Ahha,” she said in a muffled voice, with her muzzle dug into my saddlebag. She pulled her face from it with a syringe of Med-X clasped between her teeth. It was one of the ones we’d taken from the clinic back the night before. “Good enough,” she said, dropping the syringe into her hoof. She popped the top off the needle with her teeth.

“Get off me!” I shouted again, kicking her several more times. If I could just twist my- “Ow!” I tried to inhale but couldn’t draw breath.

Something dug into my mind. I could hear Mistress Amble saying I should kill her. I needed to to survive. The little claws became her hooves, pushing me, directing me. It wouldn’t be a big deal. She wasn’t important, just some druggie wasted out of her mind. If I wanted to survive, I had to kill her. All I had to do was get my hooves in the right spot. I struggled harder.

The blue mare jabbed herself in the leg with the syringe. With dexterity I’d never expected of such a lumbering earth pony, she injected herself. With a heavy sigh she let off me and slumped back. The needle just hung from her leg as a passive expression overtook her face. Was one shot really enough for her to just…

‘Murderer...’ whispered a voice in my mind. I just needed one hit in the right spot, steel would beat flesh every time.

She fell over, face first onto the ground. I heard glass shatter, as the needle cracked somewhere underneath her.

The changeling floated behind her, his wings beating so fast I couldn’t see them. He chirped at me several times, “Kiki, crii.” With a flash, a pegasus mare appeared in his place. “Sorry,” she said in a sweet voice. “Couldn’t get away from a talkative unicorn stallion. Found her because of, well, she smelled like a good meal.”

“You drained her?” I asked, gasping. “Wait! Is that permanent?” The arrival of the changeling had spooked the onlookers. By the time I managed to catch my breath they were all gone, with none of my belongings stolen. Changeling fire might just be close enough to balefire to really scare a pony that wasn’t thinking straight.

“I tried, but she had nothing left to take!” she squeaked, her voice cracking. “But, I got good news...” She dropped to the ground and offered a hoof to help me up.

I grabbed on and pulled myself from the ground. I could feel gravel and chips from the highway dug into my flanks. At least the armor and my jacket kept it from hurting my back. I patted the armor down to check it for dents and dings, but didn’t find any major damage. Together, the two of us collected my things and put them back in their place in my saddlebags.

I looked at the mare lying there. Her chest rose and fell as she breathed. Was that what happened when a changeling took what little was left of a pony’s emotions? I couldn’t help but shudder. I needed sleep. This was far too many risks to take.

“We should head back and tell the Queen everything. I think I know what’s going on,” she offered, flapping her wings and floating up into the air again.

“Or you could tell me,” I offered. “All I got out of them is that there’s a place called The Goddesses’ Bed, that’s the other bar.” Putting on the proverbial thinky-pony hat, I tried to piece it all together, from what I knew. “Well, and that the pink pony I saw before gives the best fix, and that collared ponies get the best... so...”

“They use the drugs to keep them behaving,” Fine finished for me. “It’s not marked either, the pony who runs it keeps a different sign on the building. I couldn’t find out which one though, nopony would share.” She shrugged and flew higher, looking past the battered rooftops.

Good, now we had a reason to handle both the problems of the town. If we got rid of that pink pony and her drugs, it’d be easier to handle any ponies that were kept in slavery.

“Let’s go tell Lost.”

* * *

“Do you really think that?” I asked the changeling, now back in his unicorn form.

He nodded. “I don’t see why not. I’ve seen dozens of ways ponies keep their slaves in line,” he said. “Some like Queen Amble use force,” he shuddered, “others fear and coercion. You get used to it...”

The two of us rounded a corner.

“Being this free is wonderful though!” he announced happily. “The new Queen hasn’t threatened me or anything. She asks and suggests. No beatings and no collar.” He chirped through his disguise, prancing about on his hooves. “Hehe, anyway. A slaver using drugs makes sense.”

“And if the pink pony I recognize is part of it...” I added. I looked down the street. Fewer ponies leaned against the buildings, as if this part were barren. “Ugh. Where do I know her from?”

“You recognize her?” asked the changeling.

“I remember the voice, but not the pony. It might have been a slaver, or another slave? I don’t know. It’s on the tip of my brain, and I can’t place it,” I answered. I knew that voice from somewhere, but where? If I didn’t get an answer soon...

Then the mare trotted into the street. Pretty, light pink without a speck of dirt on her. Mane perfectly brushed and bright aquamarine eyes. She was out of place, like those perfect-looking buildings surrounded by rubble. Casually, she looked one way then the other. When she saw me, she backed away and turned tail.

If I caught up to her, I could get my answers from the source. Nopony would know exactly what was going on better than her. I galloped after her, spinning on my steel hoof and running down the same road she’d gone down. If I could do this quickly enough.

I needed sleep, bad. I just needed to ask a question or two. It wasn’t like I’d kill her or anything.

Yet.

Fine Tune chased after me, yelling something I couldn’t hear over the wind in my ears. He could catch up, we had a meeting place.

The mare ran faster than I did. She was taller than me, and skinnier too. Those long legs meant she’d be a good runner, but I could keep up. Pushing myself, I pounded my hooves across the cracked asphalt after her. She had a good lead, but I’d catch up in time. I could outrun any unicorn.

She dove around another corner.

I spun around it seconds later, just in time to catch her tail around the right corner. With that pink flutter of hair, I knew where to go. I charged after. It hurt to breathe. I needed something to help, but I didn’t have time to stop. I just needed to keep going.

When I reached the intersection I checked left, just to make sure no other ponies might be waiting in ambush. A pink blur, but no guns pointed at me. I turned right.

Wait.

Turning around, I cocked my head to the side. She couldn’t. I ran left instead. She’d turned left, I’d been imagining that. That had to be it. I was just seeing things...

I shook the thought away and galloped faster. I jumped over trash strewn through the road, around a mare sitting slumped against the wall, and stopped at the dead end. Left this time.

I turned and ran down that way. The city seemed like a maze. Every street and alley looked the same: a massive grid that I’d only walked a part of once. Ruins blended together on both sides. Without a point of reference I was already lost. I just needed to find that mare.

Stopping at the next intersection, I looked down every possible path, even behind me. I didn’t see a thing. Then the mare darted across the street, several blocks ahead. How’d she beaten me there?

I pushed myself after her. The ground hurt my hooves, but I kept on. She couldn’t outrun me. I dodged past a toppled building, jumping across the fallen mortar and wood. Just another block.

I turned down the road she’d run down. She was still in front of me. Good. I could do this. I wasn’t out yet, and I could get her before I finally passed out from exhaustion.

She turned and looked at me. The mare stood nearly still, her ears pinned back, the only movement the swishing of her tail. Then, almost as if taunting me, she jumped behind a fallen skywagon and out of sight.

“Wait! I just want to talk!” I yelled. I was lying, of course. I didn’t need her to know that. Ponies looked up, watching me run with little interest. I followed, trampling discarded inhalers and syringes. My steel hoof crushed them underneath, but I couldn’t feel it. I got behind the skywagon to see...

Nothing.

I spun around several times. Where’d she gone? The building in front of me had every window blocked by either rubble or fallen furniture.

I closed my eyes. My hearing wasn’t super-sensitive by any means, but just maybe...

Somewhere I heard the canter of hooves, clacking loudly against the asphalt. I let my ears find it, swiveling them back and forth. I could barely hear it. The sound was faint.

I ran in the direction I thought it was.

“Miss Hidden! Stop!” yelled Fine from above, once again the pegasus mare. She dove over the skywagon and landed atop it. “Listen, she’s not-”

“Shut up. I got this,” I yelled. I could do it without help. I didn’t need cheater magic or cheating wings. I was just as good with my hooves as any of them. I didn’t need help. I just needed to catch her! Sleep or not, I’d get her. It just... took a little push.

“But-”

I didn’t hear the rest. I’d already taken off in the direction I hoped was the right one. Jumping over a sleeping stallion I twisted, hooking a leg on a bent light pole and spinning around it for a tighter turn.

Paydirt! The mare galloped several blocks away, but I could catch her. I just had to push.

She looked back and gasped. She skittered on the pavement and dove into an alleyway. Alleyway, good. I could do that. Just one hoof in front of the other, I’d run until my heart gave out. I rounded the-

Another pink blur flew by, barely in the corner of my eye. I spun around, hoping I’d just been hallucinating in my sleep deprivation. The mare darted down the street, going the direction we’d just come from..

“What in the Goddesses’ names!” I shouted as I doubled back. We were running the opposite direction, back toward where I’d seen Fine Tune. I didn’t know what trickery or bit of cheating she managed to use, but I would catch her. The change in direction closed much of the gap. If I just... If I just...

I lunged at her. I missed completely. The pink pony somehow managed to dodge me. I slammed face-first onto the street, and slid several hooves on cracked asphalt. It hurt. Nowhere near as bad as some of the things I’d been through, but it still hurt. Especially on my face. And my pride.

I felt a tiny crumb of rock in my eye. Just great. I pushed myself to my hooves and sat on my haunches. My breathing was ragged, and I was so exhausted that I couldn’t help but yawn. If only I... I opened my saddlebags. Without the sorting spell from the PipBuck, I had to dig, but I found it quickly enough. Wrapping my fetlock around the bottle, I dug it out.

“Hello my old friend,” I whispered to the bottle of Buck. Stronger and faster. I’d let another pony be tired. It might not work like the Dash had that one time, but I liked this better anyway. With this, I could get her on the ground. I’d win. “Promise not to tell Lost, okay?” I whispered to it. I popped the cap open and poured one little tablet into my mouth. I capped the bottle and stuffed it away, saving the rest for later.

I started to gallop again. It would kick in soon enough. I had to make up the lost time to catch that tricky bitch. My hooves hurt less. My head even felt clearer. I ran faster. I felt much faster. Another pony could deal with being tired for a while. Another pony could deal with the aches and pains in my legs. All I could feel was the power in my hooves and the pounding of my heart behind my eyes.

Time slipped away. All I could do was run. Pounding hooves on the ground, pounding heartbeat in my ears. The ponies watching seemed to blur away, grungy colors and staring eyes passed without thought. I didn’t care that I couldn’t tell where I was anymore. Another pony could deal with that once I caught the bitch. I’d run my legs out from under me if it meant I could get her.

The mare turned around a corner again, but this time I chose a different tactic. Charging down the closest alley, I shoved a pony out of the way and barreled over more wreckage. It didn’t matter if I didn’t know where I was. I just needed to find that fucking mare and pummel her until she talked.

I leapt into the street past the alley, and turned to wait. I stood there, tensed, my hooves digging into the road. She’d come out any second. She had to. Then I’d get her. I’d smash her, break her legs so she couldn’t run.

No more legs. No drugs. Answer questions. Simple.

The mare didn’t show up. She didn’t come from the road she’d taken. I’d made sure she’d take the road she’d taken. Frustrated, I turned into the alley, just in time to see her turn tail and run.

She had fear in her eyes now.

“Miss Hidden! There you are!” yelled Fine Tune, fluttering down to the ground in front of me. “Stop for a second, please,” she pleaded.

Skidding to a stop, I stared at the pegasus and snorted, “No.” This mare was mine. “I can catch her. No tricky unicorn can get away. I’ll find her. I’ll get answers.” I shoved Fine away, hard. I ran. I smashed my way through wooden boards littering the ground. I’d get that fucking mare.

I realized absently that I was repeating my threats. I didn’t really care. It’d been far too long since I’d felt that wonderful Buck in my veins. I needed to get the most out of it while I could. I saw the pink mare’s tail flit around the corner again. Did she really think that doubling-back trick would work again?

I barreled out onto the mane road and planted all four hooves on the ground. Left. Right. There! I charged.

“Miss Hidden Fortune!” yelled the faint voice of Fine Tune. “There’s more than one!”

Just like a cheater unicorn. I chased her anyway. Heavy hooffalls on the road. Kicked up dust behind me. Snorting and panting. I could only see her, that blur of her pink tail. The tail I’d tear off and rip up with my hooves. She’d get what was coming. I’d make sure of it.

The little pony in pain inside me yelled, drowned out by the overwhelming power of the drug coursing through me. She screamed to stop, to just rest. She told me she needed just five minutes and we could continue. Five minutes was too long. Five minutes fell on deaf ears.

In five minutes that mare might be gone. In five...

My hooves suddenly felt heavy. Like I was trying to lift a tank. The shackles weighed a ton each. I could lift it. Just chase the pony, I yelled inside my head.

She kept stopping and staring at me, darting away whenever I got close.

I ran slower. It felt like the street had melted around me, and I had to slog through it rather than run on top of it. Everything got hazy, red and hazy. If I could just catch her. She’d tell me. Multiple ponies. Tricking me.

Realization hit me hard. Multiple meant more than one. I couldn’t think, because of the Buck, I couldn’t piece it together. I just had to run, but, it didn’t matter. If there was more than one, which was the right one? How did I know how many there were?

Was I losing my mind? I was? I wasn’t? I couldn’t even think like this.

Every time she rounded a corner, and ran somewhere else. Every time I lost sight of her, only to see her running down a different street a second later. It wasn’t my sleep-addled mind mixing everything up. She just knew how to be in more than one place at a time. I’d never outrun her, no matter how hard I tried. With everything I had. Drugs, strength, and endurance, even the attitude to not give up when my legs just wanted to break under the strain.

I’d never catch her. Ever.

I slowed to a trot. Cheater magic. Like Lost’s. Like mom’s. Like Xeno’s luck and Fine Tune’s transformations. A trick to gain an edge. Something I could never catch up to.

I fell to my haunches and stared up at the clouds. My heartbeat pounded in my ears, blocking out everything else. I didn’t feel like catching her anymore. I didn’t want to smash anything. Sleep was the only thing I wanted. And to cry.

They all had something to make it easier. Warmth on my cheeks. Somepony else’s tears? I looked up at the pegasus mare floating down toward me. Other ponies stared, hooves pointed.

Pegasi weren’t common at all, I realized somewhere in the back of my mind. Funny the things I noticed when I wasn’t running my flanks off in a drug-induced haze. Fine Tune had put himself- herself? Did it matter? Fine Tune went through personal risk to tell me. To keep me from running to death. I latched on to the changeling and just, cried.

After a few minutes of tear-soaked release of tension, I sat back, caught my breath, and looked at Fine Tune. “We should get out of sight before I manage to draw any more attention to us...”

The changeling turned pegasus helped me to my hooves with an affirmative chirp. Limping, and leaning on Fine Tune for support we made our way to a ruined building that appeared to be a store at some point.

“More than one of the same pony? Are you sure?” I asked, closing the door behind me. The fewer ponies that knew this part, the better.

“Yes,” she answered, standing next to the splintered counter. “I got enough of a look to take her form.” With another flash of green fire, the pink unicorn mare stood in front of me.

I fought the urge to hit her as hard as I could. The only thing stopping me was the knowledge of how useless it would be. That and not wanting to hurt my newest friend. The ache deep in my legs was a deterrent, too. I couldn’t breathe through my nose yet, after all the sobbing I’d done. I never wanted to show my face in this city again, even if they were just a bunch of drug-addicted wastelanders. I had some pride, dammit.

“I just need to get close and work my way in. If they have any way to talk to one another without speaking, they might notice there’s something wrong,” she said, in that same voice I couldn’t quite put my hoof on. “And I can’t use magic.” To demonstrate, she lifted a perfectly white coffee cup off from beside the register. Her magic had the same blue-green haze as the unicorn stallion Fine Tune favored. It wasn’t exactly the same color as the pink mare’s magic, but it might just be close enough to throw the doubles off.

“What else can we do?” I asked, watching that cup bob around in the air within Fine’s telekinesis. It looked perfectly-preserved. I wondered if an earth pony had made it. That’d explain why my steel hoof- I shook my head to get back on task. “I need to go back. I can’t.”

Everything hurt. Coming down off the Buck made it all worse, too. I felt like I was back in U Cig in Vice Brand’s office, with the gigantic stallion trying to break all four of my legs. I still wanted to go to sleep. Maybe, just maybe, I could sleep while Fine Tune kept looking around. A snooze on a bar floor seemed like paradise right now.

“I’m sorry,” she said, dropping the cup on the counter. “I never thought I’d have this type of opportunity, and my Queen seems to have a good idea of what to do. I’m sure if my hive knew what was going on, they’d be helping too.”

“Please, just... That voice,” I groaned. My head hurt worse than my legs, hearing that voice but not being able to place where I knew it from. I wanted to stop worrying about it, and let the frustration just go away. “If the slaves they have here are changelings, will you be able to tell?” I changed the subject, hoping that it might lead her closer with less time wasted.

“I’d already know if they were. We can, well, sense one another. It’s hard to describe. I could hear their voices if they were from my hive and they were close enough,” she explained. “Ever notice how I never use ‘words’ while I’m not transformed into a pony?” she asked.

I had noticed that, but I thought it was just a weird quirk.

“We don’t need spoken language, we only use it when talking to ponies, or any other species that needs verbal words,” she said. She trotted around the counter and started to dig for things. “Everything not nailed down, right?”

I couldn’t help but smile. We had the time, might as well make good use of it. I snorted though, trying to clear my nose.

I hated crying.

“Right. But finish the story, it’s taking my mind off the pain,” I answered. Anything that kept me occupied and not thinking about my legs was a good thing. Plus, making my brain work kept me from falling asleep and hitting the pavement face-first. Again.

“Okay, well. There’s not much else to say. We talk within our own heads, and every other changeling nearby can hear it as long as they’re from the same hive. The Queen can talk to all of us, and it overpowers the ambient voices, because the Queen is much stronger than us,” she explained, tossing bits up onto the counter from the cash register.

“Does that mean Mistress Amble is a changeling?” I asked her. If she was, I knew just how to get my revenge. I trudged through the aisles of the store. This one had slim pickings: empty cans, spent bullet casings, and a lot of junk. There wasn’t anything worth selling even. Merchants bought a lot of stuff, but I couldn’t think of anypony who wanted a bent can and a fork with no stabby bits.

“No. She’s a surrogate,” the changeling admitted. She sounded sad, even with the fake voice she was using. “We lost our Queen when she captured us. Any that try to take the position are killed. She kept us all so starved that I’d have to eat on my way back.”

“Why’d you return?” I asked her.

“Why do you do the things she trained you to do?” she countered.

I understood all too well. I trotted back to the counter and collected the old world bits and the coffee cup. The locals had probably long ago cleaned the store of everything they deemed useful.

“Thank you.” I hugged the bugpony, as tight as I could. In retrospect, it was probably good that my legs were weak at the moment, and that Fine’s chitin was tough.

She smiled. A flash lit up the room and the mare suddenly looked like my sister. “Watch after my sister while I’m gone,” she repeated Lost’s words. Orders, exactly. Maybe I couldn’t call this strange new creature a friend just yet. The same problems I had in my own head must course through hers. Another flash of green fire erupted, leaving just the pink unicorn standing with me.

I shuddered. I hated that quirk. Did he really need to change form to repeat what others said?

We trotted outside, onto another street I didn’t recognize. Rubble from a collapsed building covered half the street, and few ponies seemed interested in this particular corner of the city. I didn’t care, really. Not after all that had happened.

“Be safe?” I offered.

“I will be. Meet at the bar when I find something out,” she answered. Her voice still got on my nerves. “Go that way.” She pointed down the street.

We parted ways, and I walked in the direction she’d pointed me. Given that she’d had wings at one point and could say where it was from a higher vantage point, I trusted her judgement.

I didn’t look at the ponies as I walked. I didn’t think I could face them. After tearing through the streets back and forth, criss-crossing around after a pony I’d never have been able to catch, my pride wouldn’t allow it. Instead, I hung my head and stared at the cracked street below me. One step after another, each one pulling at muscles that shouldn’t still hurt. I could take a Med-X to get rid of it, if it got too bad. I didn’t want to resort to that, not with the reminders of what happened to ponies who abused it all around me.

I stole glances at a few ponies walking along the street corner talking to one another, hoping none would notice me. I couldn’t hear what they were saying and I didn’t want to, especially if it was about the crazy mare with the steel hoof tearing through the town. The quiet murmur of life was more than enough noise for my ears, especially after the pounding I’d dealt with earlier as my heartbeat tried to blow my eardrums out. This was what happened to ponies who let addiction get a hold of them. I didn’t want to end up like them, lost in a ruined city that once meant so much to ponykind. It was a place that ponies had once fought and died to protect, but now all it stood for was the reminder of the worst we had in us.

I could be like these ponies. All it would take was one wrong turn. Maybe I should be thankful to Mistress Amble, for giving me a week to recover from my near-addiction. “I don’t have a problem,” I told myself. “I’m in complete control.” I could even be introspective. Like a thinky pony.

I kept walking on my dead hooves, around a corner and onto the next street. Ignore the ponies, just keep walking. That’s all I had to do. All I wanted or could do. I stared at the road.

* * *

Xeno waved to me from the entrance of the bar. I’d finally made it back. Without the clock on the PipBuck, I had no idea how long It had taken me to wander back. Several wrong turns made it take far longer than I expected. What should have been a short walk turned into what felt like a trek halfway across the Wasteland. Even through the cloud cover, I could tell it was getting later. We’d arrived first thing in the morning, and already it must have been early afternoon.

Had I really spent the whole morning running myself to... I looked down at my hooves. The left one looked chipped. Had I really run myself to this? I waved back at Xeno shakily. Standing on three hooves wasn’t something I felt I could do at the moment. I still needed a nap. Just something quick. Bar floor. Under a table. In the shade. Nap.

“I donot think it would be wise to enter, Hiddenpony,” Xeno said as I trotted up to her. She stuck her hoof out and pressed against my shoulder. “Itis not something you should see.” She stared at me, her dark blue eyes saying I should listen.

“I appreciate it, but I really need to tell Lost I need to sleep,” I said, as forcefully as I could. It wasn’t much. My voice cracked and I sniffled. Stupid crying.

She cocked her head to the side, then shook it several times. “Itis best that you do not. Iam aware that we are not the same, the ponies here have reminded me of this much,” she said, muttering the last part. “But, I think that you should trust me.”

“I do trust you, but just, please,” I pleaded. “Please understand?” I sat down on my haunches and lifted my forehooves up and pressed them together. I begged her.

“Donot say I didnot warn you, Miss Fortune,” she ordered. The last two words came as if she were spitting poison. Every part of her seemed to rebel, but she said it anyway.

I cringed, but nodded. “You warned me,” I agreed as if I had a choice in the matter. I pushed open the door.

The bar looked the same as it had the last time, minus the drunk Relly sitting at the corner of the counter. Instead my sister and the bartender stood at the far end talking... and drinking. Chaser looked all smiles, constantly tipping my sister’s glass until it was straight up. She laughed and giggled as they talked.

My sister looked positively smashed. She was drunker than she’d been after I’d lost my hoof so long ago. She wobbled on her rear hooves and kept catching herself against the bar whenever she bent too far. The blue haze around her glass looked weak, and every so often it would slosh to the side and spill some of the clear booze over, until the bartender pushed it up again.

Chaser leaned forward, nuzzling at my sister’s cheek. Lost moved the wrong way, bumping their muzzles together. She giggled and kissed the mare’s nose, blushing. She hiccuped.

The two laughed and kissed again.

I twitched.

If I’d had the power of the Goddesses, both of them would have been dust! Sister or not, I couldn’t forgive that behavior. The pain in my legs suddenly felt like a distant memory, and my heart pounded as if I were on Buck once more. I stormed up to the bar and smacked the glass out of Lost’s telekinesis. The glass shattered under a table.

Slowly, Lost looked over, her eyes drifting from the bar to me and finally to the shattered glass. She pinned her ears back and glared through her glasses. “Hidden!” she yelled, closing one eye and wincing. “Shhh...” She put a hoof before her mouth. “Not sho loud.”

I fought back the urge to hit her. I wanted to. A good smack with the hunk of steel at the end of my leg might set her straight. Assuming it didn’t break her jaw. I hooked my fetlock around her back and pulled instead.

“Hol’ on,” she argued, turning to the bartender. “I gotsta go now, Chasey…” She kissed the bottom of her hoof and waved it in the air at the bartender, missing entirely.

Chaser took the hint and pressed their hooves together. “Take care, sweetlips,” she answered, kissing the bottom of her own hoof. She shot me a look as I dragged my sister to the door.

The minute we got outside, I slammed the door closed and glared at Lost.

Xeno shook her head. “Donot say I didnot warn you, Hiddenpony,” she said. “Iwill not get involved, itis between sisters.” She took a few steps back and pulled the slaver helmet down further, smashing her mohawk further over her eye and obscuring her face.

“Heyyyy Hidden,” my sister slurred. She took her glasses off with her telekinesis and looked at me through them. “They’re blurry,” she explained. “You okay, Hidden? Where’s Fine, Fine... the bugpony?”

I hit her. It wasn’t the same as the hit I’d given her back at Leathers. And it wasn’t as hard as I wanted to hit her. Instead I slapped her with the side of my hoof, and I made sure to use the flesh one.

She wobbled to the side, barely managing to stay upright. For what seemed like forever she stood trying to keep her balance, a determined look in her eye as she fought against gravity to stay on her hooves. Her face twisted up, slow and forced as she processed what just happened. She won out in the end, and looked up at me. With watering eyes, she opened her mouth several times before finally managing to get words out. “What was that for?” she asked.

“What the absolute fuck are you doing?” I yelled at her. Know what? Fuck the addiction. A few seconds on Buck to take away any guilt at beating the shit out of my sister would be welcome. Too bad Mistress didn’t drill that out of me too. I glared at her, trying to burn a hole through her head.

“You ‘ere takin’ forevar,” she answered, her face still contorted to the side. She didn’t cry, but the water in the corners of her eyes didn’t disappear either. “Nip Chaser wanted to talk.” She fell back, landing hard on her haunches. The force made her hiccup. “And then I had a drink...” She rolled her head to the side, looking over at the bar longingly.

“You made me go off, when I’d had no sleep, and made me ask ponies about everything, while you sat here and drank!” I screamed at her. It wasn’t a question. I didn’t need her to answer, just to understand how livid I was.

“Well, see... Bubble gave me a bunch of info, and I had time,” she said, digging one of her hooves against the pavement. “And I had to come back, so I didn’t think a drink could hurt? And then Chaser gave me this li’l pill, and it made everything so clear!” She looked up at me, the tears gone and a big fake smile across her lips. “I worked it out, it only took a minute. Map of town and how long it would be fo' you to come back.” She pointed at it a few times. Raising both hooves seemed to be too much for her. She wobbled back and forth, sticking both forelegs out to try and keep her balance.

“You what.”

“Its called a Mint-al,” she said with a hiccup.

I ground my teeth. “The stuff you told me to put back when we were in Skirt the first time?” I asked. She’d gotten on my case about the Buck usage before, but it was okay for her to use Mint-als? “What’s wrong with you?”

“No, no!” she said, waving a hoof at me. She slowly worked her way to her hooves. Already she looked steadier. “It’s good schtuff. I knew exactly how long I had. And a drink was fine. Chaser told me, she said the town was big.” She hiccuped again, and started to giggle. “Chasey’s not bad.” She licked her lips and took another wobbly step forward, then fell against me.

“Lost!” I snapped at her. I fell back under the combined weight. “What’s in the Goddesses’ names?”

“They fucked,” said Xeno.

“They what?!” I screamed, throwing her off of me.

She tried to nuzzle me in midair, but lost her balance and fell back onto her rump again. Squeaking, she burped. “Uh huh,” she muttered, not looking at me. “Sche made a good point, and with the, oh Goddesses. Hidden!” She jumped up and wrapped her hooves around my neck. “I could feel everything so well,” she slurred. “It’s like, my brain opened. So clear!” She stared right into my eyes and kissed my nose. I smelt the stink of alcohol on her, with just a hint of mint on her breath, along with something... else.

I shuddered. Not helping, Lost.

I shoved her back and held her at length with my hoof. What about Crčme Brűlée? Should I tell her that I knew about it? My mind raced, between rage and regret. I doubted even a thinky pony would know how to handle this situation.

“Aww, but Hidden,” she whined. “It was amazing. Even with the booze, it was like the sky opened and I could see everything so vividly.” She caught my stare and rubbed the back of her mane with her hoof. “S’wrong? I had time. What’s a mare ‘tween sischters?”

“What about Crčme Brűlée, Lost Art?” I asked before I could stop myself. “What about her?”

She looked at me for a minute, then down at the PipBuck. “I tried to call her...”

She didn’t question how I knew. “What? What?” I fell back onto my own haunches, blinking rapidly. What had just happened?

“I know you know. It’s easy to work out. You wouldn’t be so mad otherwise,” she explained, swaying side to side as she talked. “I couldn’t get a hold of her. I tried first thing, but I didn’t know how to work the broadcaster.” She poked at it once, then fell forward. Catching herself at the last second, she lay on her side and stared up at me. Her hooves curled a little, she smiled. “It’s just sex, Hidden.”

The thought of something being ‘just sex’ sent a shiver up my spine. As if it were just sex. I couldn’t even begin to think about something like that. Not after... and then- Ugh. I screamed internally, once again wanting to lash out at her.

“Crčme and I aren’t a couple Hidden. We’re just friends, we agreed on it,” she said, staring up at me with one eye. “I could die tomorrow. I don’t want to die lonely. I want to feel... I want to experience things.”

I didn’t have an answer for that. I just sat there dumbfounded. I couldn’t think. It felt like I’d taken another tablet of Buck, or like somepony had stuck some Med-X directly into my brain. The connections just didn’t come. My sister; a sex fiend? Did things like that matter so little?

“I want to feel while I can,” she finished. She reached back and dug around in the saddlebags she had on her back. Somewhere in my mind I wondered if they’d had sex with her wearing her armor.

Or had I really taken that long to get back?

She pulled out a little tin and flicked it open with her magic. A tiny pill floated out and to her mouth. She bit down on it and swallowed. Her eyes widened and she sat upright, perfectly straight. “Hidden, are you okay?” she asked, looking me up and down. “You look like shit.”

“I’m fine,” I lied. I didn’t know what to do. I just wanted to forget this entire thing happened. I stood up and went to sit next to Xeno. She might be upset we were taking so long, but at least I knew how to feel about her. I needed time.

“Hidden?” she asked. The fear in her voice was heartbreaking.

“Let’s talk about it later. We need to finish here so we can bring Xeno’s brothers to their home.”

Xeno smiled at that answer. It was a small smile, mostly hidden by the flopped-over mane, but I saw it.

“Okay...” she said, looking at the ground.

* * *

“Ahh! I’m awake!” I yelped, startling myself.

Xeno gave me a look, one eyebrow raised. She patted me on the shoulder and shook her head. “That was a short nap, Hiddenpony.”

Wiping my eyes with my flesh hoof, I looked around. The cloud cover still hid the sun. Lost sat on the opposite side of Xeno, still swaying gently in the afterglow of what happened. Xeno patted me again and took the slaver helmet off, letting her mane springing back up into its normal mohawk.

“How long was I out?” I asked, still trying to see straight. Everything just looked too bright, and I felt worse than before. The back of my head pounded, as if Wirepony had been stomping on it.

“Seven minutes,” Lost answered, looking at the PipBuck’s screen.

“That’s it?” I asked. It didn’t feel that long. I’d only just closed my eyes when I woke back up. It couldn’t... I looked up at the sky.

Celestia. Luna. One hour, that’s all I asked.

A bright pink pony with a brighter pink mane trotted up. The same pretty unicorn with aquamarine eyes. A cutie mark of a two overlapped pony silhouettes adorned her flank, one overlapping the other as if the second were just a shadow. The same mare I’d spent hours chasing. If that wasn’t Fine Tune, I was gonna blow her fucking head off.

The minute the mare saw us, her ears perked up and a baleful green flame erupted. With a shrill chirp, the black-carapaced changeling fluttered over and landed right in front of our little group. He chirped excitedly, pointing a holed hoof about before finally clopping a hoof to his head. Another flash of fire and the blue unicorn with the f-holes replaced the bugpony. “Found it!” he yelled happily.

“If youhad come back, we couldhave told you where it was,” said Xeno. She looked more than a little agitated.

“Things got in the way,” I snapped, more at the situation than the mare herself. “It worked out though, didn’t it?” I asked, letting the words drip with venom. “Gave my sister enough time to rut.”

Lost didn’t respond. She swayed once more, looking at the ground. Good. I wanted her to feel bad about it. I’d been run to death and she’d been sitting pretty, letting me do all the hard work. Yeah, I knew everything about what our little dynamic meant. Lost did the tech stuff and the plans, I did the heavy lifting and the shooting. It worked well, but Goddesses’ dammit, I needed a break sometimes!

“It’s on the far end of town, hidden under the sign of another building,” Fine Tune explained, he waved his hooves. With another flash, he transformed back into the mare. In the sickeningly familiar voice he repeated, “Go around back, through the service building. Did you not get the news or are you just from ages ago? Jeez!”

A shiver ran up my spine, and ended with a digging sensation in the back of my mind. Every time Fine Tune did that, I remembered the time he transformed into Mistress and I nearly killed him. I couldn’t chance another one of those. Instead I looked at the ground.

“The name of the fake sign?” Lost asked.

“I can’t read it,” Fine Tune explained, lighting aflame once more and transforming back into his standard unicorn form. “It’s something in zebra writing, I think.”

Xeno tilted her head to the side and stood up. She squinted at the changeling, and whispered something to herself in her native tongue. I didn’t hear the words, not that I could have understood them even if I had. “Show me,” she said.

After a quick double-check of our gear, we headed out. I hadn’t been able to find anything resembling ammunition for Persistence, but I had the little popgun. And my steel hoof. If the unicorn mare spent her time running rather than facing me, well, I hoped it was because she was weak, and not just to fuck with me. The brothel, or bar, or whatever it was called would have a bodyguard probably, especially if drugged out ponies would try to get in.

A thinky pony would have plans set up just in case. And that’s what we needed. Emergency plans. Lost could figure out something in a flash if she still somehow had the ‘clarity’ she did earlier. Xeno had luck on her side, and with the grace of the Goddesses it’d stay on the same good streak it’d been on lately. Fine Tune knew how to go about being unseen, so I didn’t have to worry about him.

I just had to make sure I could handle myself. I had grenades, guns, and a steel hoof. I’d be fine.

We trotted in relative silence after Fine Tune, who returned to the form of the pink mare. Xeno kept her knife out, slid into a hastily-made shoulder-slit in her armor, while Lost kept Loyalty and the other plasma pistol she’d been using on the holsters attached to her legs. I looked the least-prepared, with an empty gun and my armor covered by a tattered jacket.

How silly we must have looked, walking into the lion’s den.

The further into the town we got, the worse everything looked. Buildings seemed more and more destroyed, as if we were getting closer to the center of whatever destroyed Blackhoof. The ponies looked worse and worse too, going from dirty ponies keeping to themselves, to ponies actively attacking one another over used syringes and inhalers.

I actually missed the run-down part of town we’d entered. At least the houses had roofs there. Occasionally I noticed a pony or piece of ruins that I recognized, and rage boiled inside. Memories of the chase. My insides twisted about, anger and self-loathing twisting my stomach into knots. I wanted to be mad at that mare, but deep down, I just felt more angry with myself.

I laughed.

“What’s wrong?” asked my sister. Everypony stared at me, pony, changeling, and zebra.

“Nothing,” I said sheepishly. Suddenly it dawned on me, exactly how much of a crutch I used the phrase ‘cheater magic.’ Every time I’d felt like I wasn’t good enough, or like I’d done something wrong. Honestly, it felt good, but funny at the same time. Maybe I could just accept who I was and push to be a better me instead of blaming everything else.

Ponies couldn’t change their cutie marks, though.

The trot took a lot longer than I wanted. It gave me too much time to think.

Finally, Fine Tune stopped at a run-down building with a new roof lying slanted atop it. The whole place looked terrible. If somepony thought it was a good idea to get laid here, and actually pay for it, they were either crazy or desperate. Or the inside looked a lot better than the outside.

Above the mane entryway hung two signs that looked hopelessly mismatched. Both originally said ‘SHELTER,’ but had been ripped from their places and moved above the door. Both had also been defaced repeatedly, with graffiti that looked more fitting for a raider den sprayed over the words. Now, it labeled the building as ‘HELTER SKELTER.’

“Here we are,” announced Fine Tune.

“Thatis not zebra writing. Itis gibberish,” Xeno spat, glaring at the changeling. She muttered something in her native tongue, rolling her eyes and looking at my sister and I.

Lost shook her head. “Let’s just get this over with. Where’s this service building?” she asked.

* * *

I stared at the front door. I had a bone to pick with the mare that’d given me the runaround, and using a subtle approach through the back was not something I felt like doing. Instead, I pushed my way in through the front entrance. As I stepped through, I pulled the pistol from my saddlebags with my teeth.

The inside looked wonderful. I’d expected something run-down and barely serviceable, a place nopony really wanted to go for a mare or stallion, but a place they ended up going to because it happened to be the only one around they knew they could get some. Unlike Chaser’s bar, this place had some class. It looked like the kind of place Lost could kick her hooves up and relax with a moderately priced whore.

A moldy blue carpet ran from the entrance in past the bar. Around the edges of the room were several booths with tilted tables between them, and an open bench along the far right wall with a small table, where a filthy stallion sat, chatting up a depressed-looking mare. The bar had several nice-looking stools and a polished counter than reflected the room’s dim light, making it look almost like a mirror. Behind the bar was an actual mirror, with several half-full bottles of whiskey and other assorted drinks lined up for the guests’ choosing. A staircase went up to the next floor, which only existed as a walkway to give access to several doors. I couldn’t see how many, due to a gigantic glass chandelier hanging in the way. In the corner, past the glimmering glass, I could see the corner of a piano, one being played by a rather talented pony who I couldn’t see. Between two of the booths in the back was a service door that must have led to the service building.

The door shut behind me, followed by a loud chime.

In response, a light-green earth pony mare peeked up from behind the bar. She slammed her hoof on it a few times and yelled, “Customer!” Her scream got the attention of the two in the corner, but they went back to talking a second later.

From the back door emerged the pink mare. She looked over at the bar the minute she entered, rather than at me. “I’ve got it Blossom, you just stay right there doin’ the sa- Oh, shit.”

I shot her in the head before she could get away. I missed having ammo for Persistence, but the little popgun of a pistol did a good enough job. The dead body dropped with a wet thud, and blood poured from the hole in her skull onto the dirty wooden floor.

The pony behind the counter screamed, and ducked back underneath the counter. The stallion who’d been chatting with the mare inside instead got up and ran. He dodged behind me and ducked out the door with speed I didn’t think possible. The door chimed again when it slammed shut.

I spit the gun from my teeth into my hoof. “Dammit, I needed to ask her questions first,” I thought out loud. Oh well. I’d find another version of her to get answers from.

The fact that I’d shot without hesitation didn’t really bother me like it should have. I’d killed her. The fact that I didn’t care got to me, but only a little. Just like with the raiders so long ago, I wanted to feel remorse, but I couldn’t. I caught myself smiling. Whatever Mistress Amble had done inside my head, well... at least it came with some blessings. I probably needed help. To talk to somepony about it, and see if I couldn’t get better, and learn to feel sadness about taking the life of another again.

I walked over to the corpse. She looked serene, almost, without running away from me and ducking between alleyways.

The door slammed open, making it chime again. I turned around to see Lost Art and our friends standing in the doorway, Lost floating Loyalty beside her. She looked at the corpse in front of me and gasped.

I turned away from her, just in time to catch the corpse fading away. It startled me, to see her body darken from pink to black, and then finally just melt away into nothingness.

“Well, that’s a buzzkill,” I muttered. She took away my prize. Wait. Real ponies left corpses. Did that mean she wasn’t really multiple ponies that all looked the same? She actually managed to make copies of herself? I liked that, a lot. I felt my lips curl into a wicked little smile. Just like with raiders, I didn’t need to worry about the morality.

“W-what did you do?” screamed my sister after a long pause.

“I killed her,” I answered. “Well, I thought I did. Turns out she wasn’t really... real. I’m gonna go find the rest and kill them.” I stuffed the gun back into my mouth, and turned to run. If she’d come from the back room, that was probably where I would find the rest. The building looked pretty big on the outside, so there had to be multiple rooms. Plenty of places for me to find her.

Lost yelled something at me as I left the room, but I didn’t care. I had ponies to kill.

I pushed through the door and looked around. In front of me was a large room with several counters and a two stoves opposite it. The kitchen, great. If it was a bar turned into a brothel, that only made sense. Several ponies inside ran to and fro in the chaos. One of them happened to be the pretty pink mare with the nice clean coat I’d been looking for.

I fired at her, repeatedly. I wasn’t as good with the pistol as I was with Persistence or a big gun on my battle saddle, and the first few bullets missed. It took four shots before one finally hit. She faltered and went down when the shot went through her side. The mess of blood on the other side looked absolutely beautiful. I put another bullet into the side of her head and turned.

Another pony ran away, but I didn’t care. She wasn’t the one I needed. Letting her flee, I checked the next room, which was a small storage closet. Plenty of food inside, but no pink mare. I left it to collect later. They wouldn’t miss it, not after I finished with them. Inside the freezer, which didn’t work, I found another of the pink mares.

She cowered in the corner, and by the look in her eye, she knew I’d trapped her. Too bad, wrong spot, wrong time. I fired two shots and several clicks. What a great time to run out of ammo. Tossing the popgun, I charged her.

She tried to dart around me, but it didn’t work. I slammed into her with everything I had and pinned her to the wall.

“No, please don-”

She stopped yelling when I crushed her throat. She wheezed, her eyes bugging out as she choked on her own blood, trying to whimper something, until I smashed her head completely. Steel hoof beat flesh and bone every time. My legs burned from exhaustion, and probably withdrawal from the Buck earlier, but it didn’t matter. I kept hitting her until nothing remained. Then I ran.

There had to be more. I could kill a bunch of them! I know I’d seen plenty running. Lost could stop them if they tried to get out. I knew she’d be able to get at least one before I got them all.

Outside the freezer, I caught sight of a pink blur fleeing the same way I’d come in. I gave chase. She made it through the door back into the mane room, but I tackled her to the ground before she got more than a few hooves.

CRUNCH!

Her skull shattered, and she went limp.

“No, that isn’t how we do things!” yelled my sister.

“Itis a faster way, we can return to handle my brothers this way!” Xeno yelled back.

Fine Tune sat on his haunches between them, waving his hooves at the two in a vain attempt to keep the two of them from arguing.

I looked at them and just laughed, loud enough to make all three look my way.

Lost glared at me over the rims of her glasses. “Hidden, we can not-”

The chandelier smashed into the ground right in front of me, shattering into a million pieces and flinging glass everywhere. The sound scared me more than the fact I’d nearly just died, as the sound of hundreds of pieces of polished glass hitting the ground echoed between my ears worse than The Glowing One’s laughter.

“Fuck!” screamed my sister. Fine Tune chirped in fear at the same time. Xeno yelled something in zebra.

I groaned as the sensation of glass in my skin finally caught up with me. I’d been hit by the shrapnel, but none got me in any vital spots. I could feel something in my eyes though. I’d deal with it later.

“So close,” yelled the voice of the pink mare.

The four of us all looked up simultaneously, only to see two of the mares standing on the next floor’s walkway. The piano kept playing, without an actual pony sitting at the keys. Seeing the rage I felt at nearly being crushed, they ran.

“Alright, let her,” L.A. snapped at Xeno. “If you can guard the front door. Fine Tune, transform into Hidden and just… I don’t know. Guard the back so they don’t sneak out, please?” Her voice sounded frantic, as she issued the requests to them.

Not waiting for them to agree to the plan, I got up and made for the stairs. Shouts echoed from upstairs, their tone ranging from angry to terrified. Behind me, I could hear the pounding of hooves on the wooden floor as my companions took their places. As I ran up to the second floor, an aquamarine-hazed chair flew through the air right at me.

“Hidden! Look out!” yelled my sister from behind me.

I smashed the chair away with my steel hoof and looked back. Lost was following me up. Alright, time to keep going.

The splintered pieces of chair floated in the air, held by the unicorn’s telekinesis. The aquamarine haze disappeared as my sister took over the pieces and flung them in the opposite direction.

They might have outnumbered me, but I had better backup! Another chair flew through the air, but between my sister slowing it down and me batting it away, it didn’t come close. Halfway up the stairs I saw something terrifying. The edge of the piano appeared at the top of the stairs.

“Lost!” I yelled, my bloodlust forgotten for the moment. I was strong, stronger than most, but I didn’t think even I could bash my way through a full-sized piano.

“Jump!” she shouted back at me.

That probably wouldn’t- I didn’t have a choice! The piano slid down the top half of the stairs at me, and I did exactly like she said. I leaped up into the air, feeling the familiar sensation of my sister’s magic around my legs. I couldn’t grip it, but it kept me in the air just long enough to grab onto the top half of the piano with my hooves.

“Shitshitshit-”

I pulled myself onto it and jumped forward off of it. Landing at the top of the stairs, I turned around to make sure she’d gotten out okay. Rather than follow my lead, she’d used her magic to slow the falling of the instrument and jumped out of the way. Thankfully she’d been close enough to the bottom to jump and land okay.

SMASH!

The piano hit the landing at the bottom and tipped on its side completely, with enough force to splinter it into pieces. The music slowed to a stop and died away with a jangle of broken strings and a horrible screeching noise. Well, there went my fight music. At least Lost was safe.

I turned toward the walkway, just in time for a glass bottle to smash into my face from below. I screamed; the alcohol burned. Clenching one eye shut tight, I charged down the walkway and at the mare who’d flung the booze at me. Behind me, and to the side, I could hear several more bottles smashing against the wall and in the air. I caught a glance of Lost intercepting them by hurling bottles of her own.

I leapt off the staircase and landed on the mare. She squealed, until I crushed her throat. Really, being able to actually grab her neck would have been nice, but I made do with what I had. Hooves were good for stomping. Or kicking. I stepped behind her neck with one hoof and kicked her head with the other, and was rewarded with a satisfying SNAP.

Looking up, I saw the three doors, the closest of which still hung open. Past it was a hallway lined with more doorways. Behind another, I could hear the sounds of a ponies moving frantically. Pushing myself up from the dead mare, I bolted past the open door.

Stopping at the first room in the hallway, I bucked the door open. Inside was an empty room; no ponies, only a filthy bed and a rotting desk. Cursing, I moved to the next and found the same furniture, instead of emptiness though, the pink mare huddled behind another mare, an earth pony with a fuchsia coat. Her red and pink mane hung over one of her eyes and she looked almost like she didn’t quite know what was going on. The tear stains down her face gave me pause, but I recognized her.

“Battu,” I whispered. She’d been one of the mares from Skirt, who’d been in the pen with me. I ran in and grabbed her with my forehooves. Throwing her to the side, I grabbed the pink unicorn and slammed my forehead into hers. Battu didn’t seem fazed when I threw her, aside from a quiet groan, she crumpled to the floor.

The unicorn met my headbutt halfway, showing far more resistance than the rest had so far. I hit her with my steel hoof as hard as I could. I had something special in store for her. I threw her down to the opposite side of the room, then jumped down on top of her, landing on her chest and pinning her down. She struggled, hitting me with her hooves and throwing trash from the desk. I ignored it and pulled one of the grenades from my saddlebag. I’d never been good with the little apple-shaped explosives, but I didn’t need to be good for this.

I stomped on her and she gasped. The second she opened her mouth I slammed the grenade in. This would be absolutely wonderful. I kicked her once more and made for the exit. I stopped just long enough to grab the dazed Battu, and drag her out of the room with me. I threw her down the hallway toward the door and screamed, “Run!”

She hobbled away down the hallway, and I jumped away from the doorway.

An ear-splitting boom followed me. Gore and fire erupted from the doorway.

I flew through the air and slammed into the far wall, as did Battu across from me. I’d expected something smaller, after what happened with Wirepony. Without any armor to muffle the explosion, it was much bigger. And louder. If it weren’t for the horrific ringing in my ears, I’d have expected to be deaf. The room burned, flames slowly spreading into the hallway.

As the ringing quieted, I could hear muffled screams. The door next to me opened and two ponies ran out. I recognized one as another one of the mares from Skirt, but in the post-explosion haze, I couldn’t think of her name. A stallion ran out with her, still covered in sweat from... I shuddered. Both were covered in blood and bits of wood from where the wall exploded.

I looked at myself to check the damage. A shard of wood stuck through my back leg, just above my ankle. Twisting, I reached down and pulled it out with my teeth, grinding them against the wood to deal with the pain. I tossed it away and dug a syringe of Med-X out of my saddlebags. Pulling myself away from the slowly spreading flames, I stabbed myself with it and groaned happily. I gave it a second to work, then pushed myself back onto my hooves.

Two hallways left. I ran as fast as I could down the hall, spun, and moved to the next one. As I pushed the door open, I saw a single room at the far end, and galloped toward it. The door was locked, but I smashed the handle with my steel hoof until the door shattered and let me in. Inside I found a beautifully-decorated room, with an actual clean bed, with real sheets, and a lamp on a nightstand next to it. On the other side of the room sat a dresser that looked completely unused. No pink mares. I turned and ran.

The final hallway looked like a mirror version of the first, with three doors on the far side. The closest door lurched with a thunk, somepony on the far side was pounding a hoof against it and sobbing. I bucked the door with both rear hooves and let them out. Fouetté stared at me, her two-toned mane a complete mess and tears running from her bright eyes.

“Go,” I ordered, pointing my hoof to the door. That made three of the mares from Skirt that I’d seen, which left only one I’d know. The rest of the room was empty aside from the same furniture. I thanked the Goddesses that I hadn’t seen any collars on the mares.

The next door held another of the pink ponies alone in the room. She had a revolver held in the haze of her magic. Before I could move, she unloaded all six bullets at me. One tore through my ear, again. Another hit me in the neck, two slammed into my armor. The other two missed.

I yelped in pain and fell back. She’d die for that one. Well, she was going to die anyway. But still. I forced myself back up on my hooves, thankful for the Med-X dulling everything. It didn’t work as well as Buck would. With Buck I’d let somepony else deal, while I felt stronger. Med-X just held the agony off enough that I could move. Still, even without the drug coursing through my veins, all I wanted to do was smash this mare’s pretty little face into pulp.

Not bothering to reload the gun, she turned to run. The wall behind her gave her nowhere to go. I just tackled her as hard as I could. With all my weight behind me, I heard a snap as her ribs gave. Really, I liked not having ammo. It was so much more satisfying to kill ponies with my bare hooves.

I grabbed her flailing body with my teeth and dragged her to the ground. With a good stomp to the face, I ended the struggling. She’d screamed something, but I wasn’t listening. I didn’t care what they had to say. They weren’t real anyway. One last spot to check...

I could hear hooves still, the frantic pacing of somepony inside. It didn’t sound like the slaves, not like the ones I’d heard earlier. No sobbing either. This pony sounded mad. I kicked the door open and backed away.

She squeaked and bolted. Not seeing me, she ran from the room. Before she got out, I backed myself into the room I’d just left.

The pink mare ran past, down the hallways and out into the chandelier room.

The moment she passed, I spun and gave chase. This had to be the last one. The one I could question. The one I could torture until she told me what I wanted to know. Somewhere deep down, I wondered if fake ponies felt real pain?

No matter. I chased her.

She scrambled down the stairs, and I followed. I could see Lost and Xeno standing with the slave mares, Lost’s horn glowing as she patched up Battu’s wounds from the grenade. Neither saw the pink unicorn run down the stairs, nor me following her.

I didn’t bother yelling a warning. I wanted this to be personal.

She made it to the bottom and jumped over the wreckage of the piano that’d fallen. She made for the door. I jumped too, I wouldn’t let her get away. No, I was having far too much fun to let it end.

The door chimed as she ripped it open with her magic and ran through. I made it to the door a step and a half behind her. The bright day greeted me. The perfect sort of day for interrogation and murder. I tackled her to the ground.

With a scream she fell on her side and looked back at me. She begged, “No, don’t I’m not-”

“I don’t care,” I said, standing on her hind leg to keep her down. “Just tell me every little thing you-”

The bang of a gunshot cut the air.

Blood drained from the hole in her head, onto the street.

The Glowing One waved to me, sliding her gun into its holster. “Looked like you were having some trouble.”
_________________________________________________________________________________________
Footnote: Level Progress: 50%

Lost Art:
Quest Perk: Pony Sutra – You are experienced in the art of giving and receiving physical pleasure. You are more likely to have sexual encounters with specific characters.

“What? We didn’t do enough to get a new level?”
“Well, it said we needed a ton more for the next level. Looks like I got a Quest Perk though!”
“I know, that’s not fair! I worked my flanks off this chapter trying to get everything done. What’d you do to earn one?”
“About the same thing, actually.”
“AH! Don’t tell me that!”
“Would you like me to get a rulebook for you, Hiddenpony?”
“This isn’t a game Xeno, it’s our lives!”
“You have a character sheet, how is this not a game?”
“ARGH!”

Author's Note:

(A massive thank you to Kkat for creating, and everypony else who has helped to flesh out the universe of Fallout Equestria. And to everypony who has/will help with with editing and making this more palatable... Big hearts to Dimestream, Sabsy, SugarCube, Moth, and everypony else who helped with ideas, editing, and brushies. And of course everything is copyright their respective owners. ~Hnetu)

Comments

[Jaygryphon]

Wat? No comments??

Ovo

Edit: First then

Umm what am I suppose to put here again?

Oh well, Interesting enough as it is. Wonder if the Ghoul pony's the real one in charge

[Deathpony]

What's with all those clones? Also liked it again

[MetalGearSamus]

“Xenophobia.”
*flips a table*

You planned that from the very beginning, didn't you?

[IamaUnicorn6]

I was hoping to see Mistress Amble this chapter. I also like seeing Hidden being all bad ass near the end.

[Third Wind]

I'd like to thank Hnetu for an awesome story, which i covered in about a week, somewhat neglecting my job, though.. I especially liked ch.10-11 as they were utterly monumental and totally magnificent. So far so good. can't wait to get more!

[Hnetu]

3195055
She's an interesting character, we'll just have to see how she fits in.

3196423
All in time.

3201867
Surprisingly no. Xeno's name was chosen for its meaning, since she is based on a friend of mine who speaks in a way that is strange and alien to me. I actually initially put in 'racism,' but changed it to Xenophobia to keep in line with FOE's way of refering to it.

3228822
You're welcome. I'm glad you're enjoying it.

3208427>>3229104
I'm with regolit on this one. I like Amble as a villain, but I have other plans and don't want the entirety of the story to simply be about her chasing Hidden. She will have a return, and her presence will be a constant 'always looking over my shoulder' thing, but I have other plans. One of the things about the story is its not so much a 'Heroes go save the world' as it is 'These are characters and these are their lives,' which accounts for the fact that some of the stuff in it is fairly mundane. It might get 'epic' near the end, I can't say.

3246561
I put them out as quickly as I can, though there might be a delay before 16 due to some traveling on my part. (Also some depression, bleh. I'm sorry.) I'll do my best to have the next chapter out ASAP. I'm glad you're enjoying it!

[Nevarius]

gosh... this chapter made me so tense!
All the time when Hidden was running after the pink pony I was afraid that she would be captured again!

By the way... I think that Lost is starting to have a problem with drugs addiction... Hidden seems to be under control but I don't feel the same about Lost...

Anyway...
MOAR PLZ!!!

[EbonyBrotherhood]

Surprised nobody mentioned just how god-damned cold Hidden is becoming, the stuff she did in this chapter was bad, and we don't even know if the pink mare deserved it.

Still good though. Also drugs, everybody be taking drugs now.

[sk2150ad]

3253160
Everypony is getting wound up and cracking under pressure... Hidden is breaking down
Lost is coping badly
and Xeno... she looks like she's getting fed up with the sisters...

Guess getting caught by Amble isn't that easy to get over and its not so easy playing hero either...

[sk2150ad]

3279717
The trigger warning details are at the end of the chapter so that if a reader has sensitivities they are worried about they can go see what the nature of the content is and choose to avoid/not avoid it, and those without sensitivities remain unspoiled.

Previously we had put the trigger warning information at the top and readers felt spoiled knowing what was going to happen that chapter. So we moved it to the endnotes and left a non revealing marker at the top so those who want to know more can, and those that don't wont.

[ChaosDX1]

Finally caught up!

Is it bad that I really like bare-hoof killing-spree Hidden? I'm a bad person.

[Hnetu]

3298115

I'm really glad you've been enjoying the story. It's amazing to get the feedback you've given. I wish every reader commetned as much as you!

3340902

Hehe, yeah, I figured going with something that has multiple meanings and fits his character would be better than some random nonsense that sounded dark or edgy. And yes, I have helped work on a few chapters of Project Horizons, but I'm not a full time editor for him, I just chip in occasionally when she needs help with significant plot-related things under FoE because I'm good at researching and finding what she needs from the main story.

[ChaosDX1]

3342527
I really don't post that much. Only when I think I have something worth saying. Might be worth taking a moment to see if I can think of anything when I don't have anything to say. I know how nice it is to get comments.

[StormyVenture]

I'm sad that the ghoul pony just murdered the pony in question before she could ask her any questions. if I were her I'd be strongly considering dismembering that walking nuisance. Also, I sure hope she wasn't doing this because of mental compulsion and that mare wasn't just another escapee from the camp.

[otherunicorn]

Hmm... did the Glowing One just dispose of one of her own projections, I wonder. I must read on....!

[S3rb4n]

Good old Lost keeps being a free spirit... no matter how much it pisses Hidden. Hehehe. And Fine Tune can deliver some serious damage as a portable pony-drainer! I wouldn't like to cross him/her/it/whatever. Nice chapter... that Glowing One is a funny individual indeed!

[Need More Gore]

Hiddens killing spree was fun. In guessing ms ghoul has a reason for killing the pinned pony. This should be good to read

[Doctor Ham]

This chapter... This chapter got outta control fast. I started off here feeling uncomfortable with Lost ordering Fine to go slit throats, but then things got worse and worse. And then even worse.

It's a shame about the Glowing One, I was hoping she'd be a nice breath of fresh air. To be honest, between her history lessons and her nostalgia over pre-war Equestria, I let myself forget that she was paying Hidden & Co. to help her transport drugs. My assumption is that she's the slaver, after that... disturbing massacre of Hidden's. Those clone ponies, even if they were clones, cowering like they did made it horrifying, but the jaw-dropping moment for me was Hidden stuffing the fucking grenade into the clone's mouth. Hidden letting herself off the leash and going completely crazy scares me. The worst part is, I know she's been this brutal with the raiders before, first the ones near her Home, and then the raider ghouls. But these ones weren't spitting and cursing and threatening her, they were screaming and begging. And one of them was probably the real one, is the worst part.

I want to excuse Hidden's actions as a result of her exhaustion and frustration. The former leading into the latter, causing a minor breakdown about magic certainly was effective, and I felt just as goddamn angry as Hidden did over finding L.A. drunk at the bar. I certainly wasn't in an exhausted state mixed with emotional turmoil the way Hidden was, but replacing that was my own frustration with Lost has been building over the last couple chapters already, leaving me with the same reaction that Hidden had. It was an effective scene, well done.

And speaking of effective! Fine Tune's love-draining was very disturbing. I would have been more horrified if it'd been anyone but Fine Tune, but even with him it was disturbing to experience from Hidden's point of view. But looking back, that sorta paled by comparison to the end of the chapter. Overall, another good chapter, I just hope that Hidden can get herself a good night's sleep soon.