Clipped Wings

by Desrium

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Eighteen

Even the purest of heart can become monsters for the sake of good. They wade in a river of blood from their fallen foes. There is little peace to be made with this fact.

Alana gave each now dead pony a look of disgust as she passed them. She had no such reservations as Falcon Wing and did what he refused to, stomping onto their skulls and throats. The red colt turned away each time her hooves went down but the sounds were preserved in his memory, vivid and harsh. Breaking bones and the squishing of flesh, they were not good sounds.

This mare perplexed Falcon. She was handling her grief in a way he hadn’t seen since… himself, actually, after news of his parents reached him. He had his outpouring of grief but that was only the beginning of a long road of emotional -- and eventually physical -- pain. He knew what she was going through in ways she couldn’t even imagine; knew that she was doing her best to keep strong in this world that devours the weak. It’s why he avoided the subject of Fogchaser, so she would not have to expose her sadness, so that she can put on her cheery ruse and go on with her life until she was ready to open up about the matter.

Her brutality on the other hoof was something he worried about… but could not object to. A raider shot her mother and tried to force her into a life of depravity, it was understandable that she felt the need to bring retribution. But then again, he knew killing another pony was not an easy decision to make; so for her to do so four times in rapid succession after her initial execution of the gray raider in the street was troubling to say the least. Was she being consumed by blood lust?

As if she read his mind, she said lowly “I’m not doing it because I lost my mother. I’m doing it because if you don’t kill them then they are going to kill you, and you knocking them out will only make them more ruthless.”

Falcon Wing sighed, begrudgingly admitting to himself she had a point. There was no resolution to the moral dilemma. He objected to killing, the raiders did not. In fact they reveled in the blackest depths of a pony’s nature. It was inevitable that one day soon, stealth and nonlethal incapacitation would not suffice. It was inevitable that one day soon he would have to draw Klaxon’s gun and take another’s life to keep his own.

“How do you manage?” Falcon inquired as the two walked down the hall, trying to keep his gaze from falling on the small smear of red on Alana’s left hoof.

“Manage what?” she asked.

“I don’t need to explain,” Falcon wing replied, a hint of impatience in his voice. The issue was eating at him, the anticipation of that preordained event set in stone, when or where irrelevant.

“I think about all the things raiders as a whole have done. Carving ponies up, desecrating everything they touch, there are things in the Everfree Forest that are less monstrous than raiders. Then I think about all the ponies I am saving by putting them down,” Alana said sternly.

“…But they’re still ponies” Falcon Wing said meekly.

“Did you think that you could sneak into a slaver camp and do your fancy shadow tricks? Pick them off one by one without them getting suspicious and coming after you?” Alana asked, giving the red colt a critical gaze. In the back of Falcon’s mind, he answered yes, be it from arrogance or wishful thinking. ”Crouching doesn’t make you invisible and once they find a body, they won’t just write it off as the wind or their eyes playing tricks on them. They will hunt you and if they find you, they will gut you,” she continued, her voice taking on a cold edge. Falcon nodded.

“I’m not prepared for what we’re about to do. I’m not prepared to murder for the greater good… but I’m not backing out now. Too much is at stake. More innocent lives will be destroyed if I don’t end a few bad ones,” Falcon said, more to himself than his companion. It was a sad truth.

They came up to the room where the raider with their high powered rifle sat scouring the street for their next victim. Their location was betrayed by a soft muttering that trailed down the hall, an unsettling murmur as if from a phantom. But there was no specter at work in what remained of the factory. Just the mad rambling of a mangy stallion with a very dangerous toy. The door to the room he sat in was missing its door, allowing the somber gray light of the Wasteland day to shine in, and his shadow was sprawling out of the room and across the hall where it climbed up the wall. The color of his pelt was black. Not his natural coat color, he was just a very filthy pony.

Falcon gave Alana a look, an almost pleading one. He was begging her with his sad orange eyes for another way. She looked away from him and put her bent hoof to her face. The red colt’s expression immediately flashed to worry and he reached out for her, stopping just short of her coat. This was neither the time nor the place to deal with this.

He whispered: “Stay out of sight. I’ll be quick about it,” and before she could reply he was slinking off into the room.

Alana wept for the colt. Wept for his innocence. The way he carried himself showed that he was not well versed with the true tragedy of the Wasteland. She assumed the skills he had already were the work of Klaxon and Steiner. Because of this, she thought he was from a stable. Another pony who wished to do good and would end up losing the things that made them decent for a cause far greater than themselves.

She was pulled from her silent sorrow at the sound of his voice.

“Uh…hi,” he had said. Alana immediately tensed. Wasn’t this the pony all about sticking to the darkness and staying quiet!? She drew the Peashooter and jumped into the doorway as the maddened mantra of the raider turned into a tirade of obscenities.

The raider spun around, the long black rifle on the right side of his battle saddle unwieldy for such rapid movements. Falcon was already cutting across the room in a wide arc, closing in from the raider’s left. Alana was surprised by his speed.

Spin. Buck. The momentum behind the red colt translated to a staggering blow that knocked the filthy earth pony off of his hooves and onto his battle saddle, the weapon going off on impact. Alana yelped, the wall just off to her side having a hole punched through it but her grip on the Peashooter remained firm. Falcon’s ears were ringing from the loud blast.

One shot to the head kept the raider from getting up.

“What were you thinking!?” Alana scolded Falcon as they left the factory some time after. She was clad in her sniper battle saddle, ammo looted from the previous owner and elsewhere in the building.

“I was thinking I’d do the one thing I haven’t yet. I was thinking I could talk to him, but I didn’t even get a sentence out before he was trying to blow me apart!” Falcon replied with a suppressed rage. Alana’s own anger relented at that, a horrid realization occurring to her. “There really is no helping it. It’s killed or be killed. And that is so fucking stupid,” Falcon muttered. He hoped to let his fury boil away on the way to the compound. By then, the Wasteland would be darkening with the coming night. The perfect time to strike against the slavers occupying it.

Comments

[blue skys]

“Did you think that you could sneak into a slaver camp and do your fancy shadow tricks? Pick them off one by one without them getting suspicious and coming after you?” Alana asked, giving the red colt a critical gaze. In the back of Falcon’s mind, he answered yes, be it from arrogance or wishful thinking. ”Crouching doesn’t make you invisible and once they find a body, they won’t just write it off as the wind or their eyes playing tricks on them. They will hunt you and if they find you, they will gut you,” she continued, her voice taking on a cold edge. Falcon nodded.

love the reference to stealth games.