Equestria

Calm Before The Storm
Chapter 1: Equestria

Authors:
Doctor Fluffy-while it was my idea, I can’t say I used it well. With that said, thanks to everyone here. As Biting Elbows once said in One Night in 99: “This goes out to everyone who helped us out along the way/Thank you!”
Kizuna Tallis, who’s always eager for some writing. Also, go read her story after this, it is awesome! Without her, this story would be… to put it bluntly, kinda screwed. She was just wonderful at this!

Editors:
Drawdex. That man is like a machine…
ProudToBe: I literally cannot imagine where the Spectrum ‘verse would be without his work.
Rush: He made some edits that I would probably be lost without.
Redskin122004, the man that started it all.

“Marcus, Cheerilee, Stephan and Trixie were truly larger than life. They were not merely cogs in a machine, four dogfaced soldiers among many, or the faceless masses that die in war. They were something leagues beyond that, they were... they were heroes, that’s as best I can put it. They fought at some of the most pivotal battles of the War, they were present alongside great heroes... their heroism will forever be engrained in the history of humanity. However, it’s easy to forget the trials and travails that happened on the way to their devastating victory in Canterlot. It was not easy to adjust to life in Equestria for six months; I know that my good friend, the infamous Viktor Kraber, wouldn’t have reacted well...”
Caught Between Hells, Verdant Tract. Published 2024

1: Shining Armor

Two weeks after Marcus’ arrival

I’d passed the exams in the Royal Guard with flying colors. Shown great aptitude at shield spells. Fought off wild, barbaric and carnivorous beasts in the strangely abundant badlands, rumored to be caused by wild chaos magic or Nightmare Moon’s ascension.

I thought it would be like Shadowtrot when I went after whatever it was that tried to kill my sister and the Elements. I thought it would be a quick smash and grab, another monster of the week taken, commendation from Celestia, go home, drink tea with my wife, wonderful mare that she is.

I want to be perfectly clear on one thing. I’m not a coward. I’m not a weak-willed “prancy” as we call those cadets that wash out the first week of boot camp.

I was just... caught round-hoofed. Or flat-footed as a human might say. This being Equestria, where we can in all seriousness say “monster of the week,” I think everyone in the guard knew that something would go apocalyptically wrong someday. And thought we wanted to kick flank, we would all hope that the apocalyptic thing would not come tomorrow. Day after day after day, until one day two weeks ago we ran out of tomorrows.

“Canterlot Castle,” one of those humans said, whistling. “Never thought I’d see this and still walk on two legs.”

And that said it all, really. For the humans, it had been a symbol of oppression, the Fortress of Doom, an evil; a vile place where humanity’s downfall was being planned, where the Tyrant Sun sat on her throne. And yet they were walking (and in some cases, trotting) through the halls among nearly two hundred and fifty soldiers, fifty of them royal guard were there to escort them or prevent them from doing something stupid. Well, ten of them were my royal guardsponies - Marcus had insisted on using Luna’s bat-winged Night Guard for the other forty. We’d insisted to see these new warriors from this other world.

It had quite the effect on humans and ponies alike. Both of them stared in wonder at the Night Guard, who were something of a rare breed in their Equestria. Very few had fled to Earth to find themselves in high ranking military positions or becoming highly decorated soldiers that took to the Assault Yoke (the Pegasus’ equivalent of an Assault Saddle) like a fish to water. The majority had either been slaughtered by Celestia on the night of Luna’s escape, or disappeared into secretive Equestrian insurgencies and resistance cells. They were, to put it lightly, heroes.

While I was apparently one of the villains, having tried to drag my wife to Queen Celestia with a smile on my face thanks to a Geis. That sort of thing had been outlawed and declared to be the province of paranoid imbeciles centuries ago, and it did far more harm than good. The best soldier was one that could think straight, not a tin soldier.

“I hoped it’d be on fire, and that there’d be a lot more screaming,” said one soldier.

“You think that about everything!” complained one brown unicorn stallion.

“Very funny, Verdant.” The soldier sighed.

Verdant? As in Verdant Tract? Wasn’t he... let me see if I remember... “A forester from the Everfree, well-known for his papers and theories on uncontrolled ecosystems on mythical predators. Such as wolves, (No, not the timberwolves, actual flesh-and-blood wolves) the theorized ancestors of both the common canine and the Diamond Dogs. And can I have some of your ice cream, Shiny? Please!” Aha! I’m impressed that after being repeated that for about a thousand times by Twily years ago I still have that actually imprinted in my memory. Good times.

But in all seriousness, I never would have expected him to be in the military. Though him being allied with the humans made perfect sense, he would have jumped at the chance to visit a planet with weather unregulated by Pegasus magic even if he had to take a hoof for it. I could practically see him imitating my little sister, jumping around with a smile on his face: “Yes yes yes yes yes! Yes yes yes, yes yes, YESSSSS!” Ugh... being her BBBFF was hard. And huge pressure on the memory.

But now that I think about it, that was the odd thing about this fighting force Marcus had brought in, and the other human and pony workers who had appeared not too much earlier. I recognized some of them. A lot of them. Some were ponies you could walk past without noticing, but others were... Tartarus, some were celebrities! One of the ponies in the crowd of soldiers was actually rumored to be my distant cousin for years back in the day, or was it the rumor saying I was her... I forget the unimportant stuff. Her name was... Vinyl Scratch, yeah.

Don’t look at me like that, it’s not that unbelievable. We have similar mane colors. And I was skinny back then.

And she didn’t help either, didn’t carry herself like a DJ or fixture of Equestria’s party circuit or somepony who could keep pace with Pinkie Pie’s train of thought, though she still had that smile on her face. Now, she carried herself like a soldier. Impossible to confuse now, am I right? She marched like all of them did. On top of that, she had what was almost certainly a gun on her back. She could probably kill my entire squad with the thing-or, some part of me thought, maybe she has already in that other Equestria. She’d probably seen worse things in the last five years than I had in most of my time in the guard.

I’m one of the best in the guard. I can proudly say that without bragging. But when Vinyl Scratch, Equestria’s most hard-drinking, hard-partying DJ outclasses you, well… in the parlance of my friends back in high school, I forgot to level up with everyone.

But back to me. I groaned inwardly, still watching the group. Most of them hadn’t been to Canterlot, and the few that had were unlikely to know that this wing of the castle existed. The ponies here had likely been ordinary Equestrian citizens till Lyra Heartstrings had rallied them to the PHL.

If I was going to survive in the coming war, ponies like this would be training me, not the other way around. I’d have to unlearn so much, adjust to new tactics, learn new weapons... my first instinct when I’d been told that we had a lot to learn for the coming war was “Alright, I look forward to training new recruits.”

Right up until Marcus had said what we’d be up against, and how very effective spears were against an army with assault rifles would be. The average soldier, with enough well-aimed shots, could completely gut our favored tactic of charging at the enemy with spears. On top of that, humans had bigger machine guns, like the F3-Thunderlord or the MG2019, and they were the bane of many a charge even before the humans figured out enchantments and runic enhancement. It had been like the floor just fell out under me right then and there.

We were still stuck on whether or not to use Griffin flintlock infantry weapons, with military theorists claiming that they would never supercede our raw magical force…. that, and the bulk of our army was not composed of unicorns, so we had a large contingent of ponies who couldn’t reload. And the Griffins were slow to reload them, so we could easily deflect the bullets with a short-duration shield, then rush at them.

If we ever came to blows of course.

Apparently, the other Equestria tried that on the humans, thinking dismissively of guns thanks to how ineffective the Griffin Empire’s weapons were against them. They then found out just how inconceivably far ahead the humans were, letting loose on them with the other 29 rounds in the magazines of what the griffins called “repeaters.” Though apparently almost every human weapon was a repeater, enough that humans stopped caring about the term at least 140 earth years ago. They had a staggering advantage in ballistics over anything in Equestria-according to Marcus, 70 rounds in a minute, an unheard of speed with flintlocks, was a laughable speed compared to human rifles, which were typically measured with something well into the hundreds. Thats not including the heavier weapons that went into the thousands. There was another thing I wasn’t looking forward to, though. In all of Equestria’s somewhat limited military history, there were always those generals who resisted innovation.

It’s a good question why. Personally, I think it’s just different from what they’re used to, and they think that retraining ponies to use an innovation will be too much work or too expensive. The humans, however, were bringing centuries worth of ballistic advancement and other technologies to us. I’ll say it again, I had so much to unlearn. I’d probably lose a lot of my best stallions and mares to the march of technology, and maybe gain a few in the process.

Which wasn’t counting how many ponies would be unprepared for war on the scale that Marcus had described. He’d told me personally, and I still couldn’t believe it. They had things we could only dream of, and the Tyrant they fought had several million newfoals on her side, which she simply threw at the humans to overwhelm them. Granted, a lot of them were probably malnourished due to Equestria being highly unprepared to support that kind of population, but… several million?! I might be ashamed and sickened by the tactic, if you could call it that, but with numbers like that, it had to be effective.

The closest we had to wars rarely had more than three hundred on the opposing side, and they’d usually quit before things got worse.

It was not going to be fun. It was going to a bloody, brutal slog.

2: Octavia
Two weeks later

Right now, you are asking yourself: What is War? War is a legend to some of you. War is a skirmish on the border. Some of you simply don’t know the word, or have simply forgotten it.
We have visitors who have not forgotten. One is here with me, sharing this typewriter with me, and his name is Photo Credit.
“But you are Photo Credit!” I can hear you saying. Exactly. We are both Photo Credits - one born and raised in this Equestria, one almost seven years older, an escapee of that vile other Equestria. In the parlance of a set of novels set in the human year of 1632, he has decided that he and all of his compatriots shall be called an “Uptimer,” which seems rather catchy. He has decided to collaborate with me out of nostalgia for his job in Canterlot.
And to help me explain something about our new visitors.
Many Canterlot residents are curious about the insular bipeds that have taken up residence in the castle, and have received numerous peculiar orders of food.
They are refugees of a world wholly unlike our own. Devoid of magic, where the sun orbits earth on its own like tightly wound clockwork, where they are the sole sentient species. A world at war, where they face extinction every day.
By no fault of their own, I must add.
One human says she remembers a quote: “We have met the enemy and he is us.“ She can’t remember what it’s from, but she said it would fit, for it is us that attack her species.
Not our Equestria. Not at the behest of Princess Celestia.
No, it is a different Equestria, a twisted nightmarish mockery of ours that has perverted the tenets our great nation was founded upon. A dystopic, oppressive mirror to ours ruled by Queen Celestia. A nation ruled by a terrible… 'perfect'... smiling goddess.
Look inside yourself. Celestia.
Look around. Celestia.
Go to sleep. Celestia.
This is how my future self described the omnipresence of Celestia in that world, though I suspect he cribbed that from somewhere else. Either way, he is right; from all I have heard, he may not be exaggerating.
The atrocities she has committed are numerous. She has taken their world, through a great magical working that sweeps across their planet, disintegrating everything made by human hands.
Whether created through the means of their advanced science or shaped nature to suit their needs, their works will be wiped away as if they were never there. The barrier leaves no mercy for the humans themselves, either. When they touch it, they simply become un. Molecule by molecule, atom by atom.
The only way to escape is to force them to become mockeries of ponies with no mind at all, no drive, no will, no souls, no desire but to further Equestria. Newfoals, the humans call them. They are abominations before sentience itself - even the simplest child ranks higher than them as a being, for they can at least talk. They can at least determine things for themselves. To be a newfoal is to give up all that makes you sentient, even that. To simply surrender and become one interchangeable with millions, with no soul between any of them. It’s a construct made from a human, using all the mass to create a pony but none of the mind.
She must be stopped.
So, remember, Equestria. Remember. If you ask why we prepare for war, why we ready ourselves for what might seem to be senseless killing, this is why.
The future me would like to issue a warning about our guests though. They may be scary. They may be brutal. You may be horrified by what they have brought to our doorstep, for they are a race with tools that put much of our advancement to shame. Rifles that fire further than any of our cannons and make flintlocks of the griffon empire seem as useful as a thrown rock, devices roughly the size of a hoof that can hold hundreds of books and songs, magics that would make them nigh invulnerable on our battlefields.
But remember: they have been fighting us in a different universe for three years. They’ve grown to hate, and while they are eager for the help, they are unused to the good that our Equestria can do, an Equestria that stands for its values instead of claiming they apply only for ponies while stamping them out. Even the uptimers of the dark Equestria are scared; they shiver in the sun’s light, clinging to shadows, their eyes darting nervously when they are on the street.
To lose, by a traitor’s hoof or by military defeat is to lose everything. No reward will be given. Even if you go straight to the abomination that calls itself Queen Celestia, you will not be rewarded because it simply will not be you who comes back from her reward. It will not even be Equestria in which you receive your bits or estate, if you’re even given that. She may simply consider blasting the self out of you, turning you into a newfoal, to be a sufficient reward. You won’t complain, anyway, because there won’t be enough of you left to disagree with her.
It will be worse than death if the humans lose. Equestrians will all pretend to be alive, walking and talking, but we will all be dead through and through.
Remember, Equestria. Remember.
As you sleep, remember who we are. As you sleep, be grateful that you cannot remember who your double has become.
Be grateful that you have not become them yet, and that you have been spared the misfortune.
Photo Credit & Photo Credit (Uptime) Canterlot Times

You try to read headlines of today's newspaper, information about the bipeds living in the castle coming to light for the first time in weeks since their arrival. All for trying in vain to distract yourself from the fact that you are dead. It explains so much, and yet far too little. You look up from the paper, too confused not to do so, and examine your living room, where a tall biped in strangely familiar clothes sits on your couch, vaguely uncomfortably. Next to him is that little brown earth pony colt that Vinyl’s ex (and surprisingly enough, good friend) Neon Lights seems fond of, and on the couch is Vinyl Scratch, your best friend. Next to her is another Vinyl Scratch, leaner, with flat hard muscle. One of Vinyl is quite the task. Two? Sweet Celestia, there will be too much bass to get anything done in the house!

You are Octavia Philharmonica, and you are used to a Vinyl Scratch that has no indoor voice, who coasts through life with a huge smile on her face. No, she doesn’t quite coast. She rolls with life, so perhaps surfing is more apt. Your Vinyl Scratch, who was happy at meeting her doppelganger for whatever reason (you suppose that she’s just the kind of pony who would be happy about that, not too much unlike Pinkie Pie) is slowly easing away, inch by inch.

You are not used to the Vinyl Scratch that the biped and the small earth pony that accompanied her to Ponyville. While her muscles put your own to shame, and she’s in better shape than your Vinyl Scratch, she’s just so broken inside.

She’s happy to see you, but you have to agree with the sentiment of the biped, who has the rather odd name of Isaac Acevedo. Who, as it turns out, is a great fan of your compositions, so you may very well be friends with him at some point in the future. He had said, very clearly before this other Vinyl knocked on the door, “Is this for the best? What does it accomplish, and does it satisfy anyone?”

You think you will remember that moment clearly for quite some time. There was a knock on your door, and you were too tired, bleary-eyed, and hungover from all that scotch last night to really comprehend the fact that Vinyl Scratch (your Vinyl) is upstairs, still snoring in the guest room. It’s not a shared house, of course-Ponyville would be completely unsuited to her temperament. She’s more of a city mare, though she does love to visit her friends in the country like you and Pinkie Pie.

You’re used to her though. She’s loud, crude, uncultured, somewhat insensitive, but not to the point of being boorish.

Then, to your shock, Vinyl jumped out from behind the door, hugging you as she cried her eyes out. She was sadder than you’ve ever seen her, as if she’d had the worst day in her life.

What?

“Vinyl,” you’d sighed, “It’s only been nine hours since we were out drinking, you-”

You stopped cold. She’s in bed upstairs, so how did she-

Is she a changeling?! Someone in disguise?! WHAT?!

“This was a really bad idea,” someone said, and you stare up to see a tall biped in unfamiliar green and yellow armor, though it is made of strange materials that you have never seen. He smells like chemicals, rotting things, and some kind of sickly sweet burnt scent. Merciful Celestia, another human?! You staggered backwards. While you remember that the humans aren’t here to harm you, you can’t help but remember the rampage a couple weeks ago by that other human. You rear up, remembering the moves that had been so effective the day of the Canterlot Wedding, hooves out, ready to punch h-

“Whoa! Tavi, calm down!” said the other Vinyl. “This human’s name is Isaac Acevedo-he’s a friend. Or at least, a friend of a friend… specifically Button Mash here.” She points to a brown colt with an orange mane, well into being a teenager. He looks strangely familiar. That can’t be Button Mash, though-He’s only about eleven! Or was he nine? It was so difficult to tell with Ponyville colts and fillies...

“Are you changelings? Are you… who are you people?!”

“Well, I’m the guy sent here to keep her from doing something stupid,” Acevedo says, pointing on of his fingers at Vinyl. “And Button’s here to call us both off if one of us goes loco. Standard protocol.”

Sweet Celestia, he’s so tall!you think, still evaluating how dangerous he might be. You’ve heard that they’re friendly, and that they have good intentions, and yet… and yet, there’s so much regulation aimed just at them. He has the advantage in pure muscle mass, but you’re likely too small for him to hit...

“...Mrmm… Tavi?” Vinyl asked, having dragged herself out of the guest bed and managed to get down stairs. She rubbed her eyes as she gave a small yawn. “What’s going on?”

“I have no idea,” you said.

“Bitchin! Another me!” Vinyl blinked in surprise before she gave a loud belch and laughed, bumping hooves with her double in what will forever be called a high-five, in spite of the fact that Equestrians don’t actually have fingers.

“...B… b-but,” you stammered, looking from Vinyl to Vinyl. “Which of you is the real one?!”

“Does it have to matter?” the Vinyl with bedmane asked. “Whichever of us is real, I’m awesome the way I am!”

“Actually,” said the Vinyl hugging you, “We’re both real. I think.”

“Well,” said the brown earth pony (he looks strangely similar to Vinyl’s friend Neon’s friend Button Mash, but older). He lifted the newspaper in his mouth, and you have to admit he’s a good-looking colt. Far too young, but he’ll be very handsome when he grows up. “This might explain some things.”

And that’s how you got here. Trying to read the old yellowed newspaper, distracting yourself from the fact that in the other Equestria, you are dead.

"I’m… dead?" you ask, still not quite believing it.

"Yeah..." Uptime Vinyl whispers, looking away from you. "I..."

"What happened? This newspaper says that the Royal Guards attacked a birthday party?" you look to the other Vinyl, who flinches at your words.

“Are you sure you want to know?” Uptime Vinyl asks.

"Not really... but... it’s here in black and white." You point at the newspaper with your hoof, making sure that its edge is right on the headline that you mean. Uptime Vinyl sighs as she leans back on the couch, staring at the ceiling while your Vinyl looks at her counterpart with worry.

“There’s no way of avoiding it, is there?” uptime Vinyl asks as she closed her eyes. You shake your head no as you stare at her. "Right. Here's the thing. Before the war even started, things were rough as it is. We just got out of war with King Sombra, trust me, you'll find out in a couple days who that is once Celestia announces the return of the Crystal Kingdom."

"Things were... wrong," Vinyl mutters as she starts her tale, to which the brown earth pony you know to be an uptime Button Mash only snorts.

“I could never put my hoof on how wrong,” he says. “But it was like… you know how Celestia’s sun always makes everything feel warm and rejuvenated, even if it’s winter?”

“Like a hot summer day at the beach?” Acevedo suggests.

“Yeah. Like that. It was like no matter what time of day it was, no matter whether it was a snow day or a real scorcher in the summer that makes you curse the pegasus weather team, the light just felt cold. Same with everyone else… Ponies that I thought were my friends just became… off. Like a glitch in a videogame. They’d suddenly get angry and impassioned for no reason, then claim they didn’t remember it. We’d all get headaches, though I never seemed to get any. I had the worst dreams, though-” he and Acevedo shiver, remembering some incident of years past, “it was like the night air had gone bad. Gone rancid, even.”

"Then we contacted Earth and several months later, the freak shows began to show up," Uptime Vinyl growls, her horn glowing brightly. “And it just got so much worse!”

“...Does it strike you that they appeared way too early? Considering how there were some new foals during the grand opening of the Conversion Bureaus… some of them would have had to have been ponified before the Bureaus were instituted,” Button muses. “Never could figure out how that worked.”

“Now that you mention it, that always did bug me,” Vinyl says. “So many goddamn questions about the testing-potion just doesn’t come out of nowhere! But, much as that always confused me, we’re getting off track. Those bug-eyed zombie bastards had the gall to say my music was corrupted by human taint! I’ll have you know that my music had nothing to do with humans! But they began to drive me out of business because there were so many of them, and soon, the most die-hard fans I had just started dropping off. Sometimes I could barely tell the difference between them and newfoals. So, I decided to check out human music, see why everyone could have possibly hated it. It was friggin hard, considering the Queen put an…” she struggles for a moment. “What’s the word?”

“Embargo?” Acevedo suggests.

“Yeah, that’s it. The music on Earth was blocked, nopony could bring anything back, even recordings, and we just kept getting the most godawful explanations of why that was for the best, even with the barrier! I had to leave Equus just to hear it, you... I mean, my Tavi came too. She wanted to hear the humans’ music. That, and she was getting rather peeved at the ‘suggestions’ she kept on getting. All just limp-hooved propaganda with no… no soul in it, you know? Something that most of her regulars hated, but the Newfoals ate up like free ice cream."

You couldn't help but smile a little when you saw Uptime Vinyl give a bright and warm smile as she thought back on fonder memories.

"Skrillex, Daft Punk, Deadmau5, Markus Schulz, Dirtyphonics, Seven Lions, Piano Guys, Lindsey Stirling, Trans-Siberian Orchestra and some 28-year old Czech guy we met online. The works!” Vinyl gives a bright smile. "We traveled the world for 3 months, seeing famous DJs, singers, bands, and orchestras. We got to see so much talent, we were blown away by what the humans were able to do with music. You got to listen to ancient musicals made by Beethoven and Bach, you loved how they still play their music, even the revamped versions didn’t bother you that much."

“Don’t forget rock n’ roll,” Acevedo points out. “What about Biting Elbows?”

“Heh, yeah, that’s pretty sick,” the uptime Vinyl agrees. “Loved that movie the frontman made awhile back.”

“It was like a movie made from a videogame,” Button says. “Man, Sharlto Copley was awesome in that… I wonder what his next role will be. He says he got a script from some ex-HLF guy that interested him…”

You and your Vinyl look at each other quizzically, not understanding a word of what the two ponies and the human mean.

"Anyways, my Tavi wanted to try her luck with her own music. You know, see if 'true' Equestrian music would take with the humans." The uptime Vinyl gives a beaming smile. "The humans ate it up. They wanted more!"

“I was that popular?" you ask. You never imagined you could be that beloved.

"Don’t put down orchestral music," Button Mash says with a smile. "Most movies and videogames have them in abundance and they win awards if given the chance." You can tell he’s trying hard not to make a reference to some video game that you won’t understand. After all, you have less than no context for anything he could say on the subject.

"It is also very soothing as well," Acevedo says quietly, causing a small blush to form on your face.

"Still... things were getting bad." Uptime Vinyl sighs as she looked around the room. "The Tyrant, the bitch, was throwing out more and more propaganda everyday. PER and HLF fights were spilling out into the streets, and we kept on seeing the weirdest graffiti about the potion. We began to receive letters from our home to return to Equestria immediately before the 'brutal and vicious' humans turned on us. Fuck her, they were throwing money at us to do what we love. I even got an invite from Bruno Mars to help him compose several songs, he even wanted you on board as well."

“I have no idea what any of you’re referencing means, but I assume it’s pretty impressive,” your Vinyl says.

"Dude’s famous, he makes good music and he’s an awesome dancer." Vinyl waves her hoof. "Then, on the day of my birthday, Tavi invited me to a private gathering in France. She managed to buy out an entire floor for us. And you invited every musician we knew personally and any ponies that were friends with us on Earth."

“No, I mean I don’t understand any of it at all,” your Vinyl says.

“It would take too long to explain, and I suspect that our Vinyl brought all of it on CD,” Acevedo says, and the uptime Vinyl gives a quick nod.

“Course I do,” the uptime Vinyl says. “You two… listen to it when we leave, awright?”

At this point, it’s almost impossible to say that you won’t.

“Anyway it was a lot of people,” Acevedo continues. “And I do mean a lot, it was the talk of the news that day. It was so good to hear some good news for once! I just remember thinking ‘You know, maybe if we can throw this party, maybe we can all get along!’” And here, his voice took a sharp turn into sarcasm, “Maybe all the tensions will just magically evaporate! God, I was a fucking idiot.”

"Then... came that conference with the Queen Bitch," Uptime Vinyl glares darkly at nothing. "Here we all were, laughing and smiling when Neon said that she was on the news. The next thing we know, she declares war on our friends and insults their whole race, and everything they’ve ever done! I was furious! I couldn't believe her! Then the Royal Guard shows up and tries to ponify MY guests at MY birthday party! They kept spewing shit about how they were there to ‘liberate the kidnapped ponies,’ or alternatively ‘thank us for gathering so many humans in one place to be ponified.’ They’re fucking sociopaths, it’s like they couldn’t comprehend why we wouldn’t like the Queen Bitch!”

“Or just aren’t allowed to,” Acevedo suggests, but he goes unheeded.

You and your Vinyl back away slightly as she jumps off your comfy couch and began to rant, her horn glowing as she seethed. "They were OUR friends! We liked them the way they were! How dare they do such a thing?! Tavi showed them though! She beat the closest guards down before they could even react. The rest of us ponies, all our friends, we were so enraged at her threatening our human friends that we just went nuts."

“I’m suddenly very glad they didn’t let her bring the minigun,” Acevedo whispers to your Vinyl.

“That doesn’t sound too threatening,” your Vinyl whispers.

"Yeah, no." Button leans in close, his eyes trained on Uptime Vinyl. "Think of it like Pinkie’s party cannon, except it can fire 6000 times a minute and shoots supersonic metal slugs instead of confetti."

"O-oh."

"Urgh!" Vinyl stomps her hoof before laying down. "It was a massacre for them. They weren't even prepared for us to be able to disagree with them, let alone fight. But..."

You swallow nervously as she gives you a devastated look.

"During the fighting, one of our friends, Steven Nelson, he was pinned down and the bastard was going to change him. But Tavi tackled the guard off of him, but she ended up being thrown off and hit the window..." Vinyl gives a small shudder as she recounted the event. "I remember watching Tavi getting up... just in time to for the guard to throw the heavy recliner at her."

“And that’s…” your voice trails off, unsure on how to continue. Vinyl gave a choked sob as she buried her face in her hooves.

“She never had a chance, she couldn’t have gotten out of the way. She might very well have been crushed under the thing as she flew out the window… she landed on a car, too. Ten stories… d-down!” she cries, tears streaming from her eyes. “I... I lost it. I just watched my closest and oldest friend die before my eyes. I... killed them all. I shoved the vials of potion into that fucking guard’s eyes! I ripped wings off and threw those assholes out the windows, I did...I… I did terrible things. And they said I was as bad as the humans for it, even as I levitated a knife into one guard pony’s face. And that just made me angrier!"

You stare as the mare before you begins to cry, sobbing as she continues.

"Well... I didn't care anymore! They wanted to label me a human, they're welcome to it! If their definition of being Equestrian is to be a xenophobic wanktoaster that takes joy in turning other species into zombies, so be it! I’m proud to be human in that case!" Vinyl scowls as she wipes her eyes. "When I heard of Lyra's PHL group, I jumped at the chance to do something. It took awhile but it was worth it. Now look at me! I'm in charge of a small company of hardened ponies willing to stick their hooves down the fat bitch's throat if they had the chance. I also make designs for sonic weapons, in fact they already made the Dub Grenade! And my Bass Cannon is already functioning and proven to work! I made it and used it in Boston!"

“I like that grenade,” Acevedo puts in. “It’s like a flashbang on steroids! I’d also like to get my hands on a bass cannon sometime..”

“Might not work; you need some kind of magic for that,” Uptime Vinyl says.

“Well…. with all the magically charged resources that we have to pay small fortunes for that are practically all over the ground here…” Acevedo suggests. “Let’s just say a whole lot of things suddenly became more practical. Can you make dubstep warheads for metal storm grenades? Or an underbarrel attachment or…”

“Ever played Saints Row 4?” Button suggests. “How about… explosive wubs.”

Uptime Vinyl gives him a quick kiss and he reels back, blushing like a firecracker, eyes wide. He hasn’t been kissed by anyone other than his mother in quite some time. “You’re a genius! Oh, Kraber will have so much fun with that...”

"I’m scared of me," your Vinyl whispers.

“Don’t be, she’s one badass mare,” Button says. “Just… we’ve had a rough couple years.”

“Why’d you come here anyway?” your Vinyl asks.

“To see both of you, obviously,” uptime Vinyl says. “And… just cherish what the two of you have, alright?”

“Well, we certainly will now,” you say. Oh, Celestia, that is an understatement. There is no way in Tartarus that you’ll let your best friend end up like uptime Vinyl. “There anything we can do to help the war effort, though?”

“Hmm,” Button Mash says. “Two musicians with an immense amount of pull in Equestrian society, who routinely play sold-out concerts. Gee,” he says, a smile on his face. “I wonder what that could possibly do…”

“But… I hated the Equestrian propaganda,” uptime Vinyl says.

“Nonsense! It’s for a good cause, and it’s not as brain-numbing as that shit!” Button says. “Hell, you could join in too!”
“I could?” uptime Vinyl asks.

“Duet between two Vinyl Scratches,” Acevedo says. “I’d definitely see that.”

“Merciful Luna, it’s brilliant!” uptime Vinyl says. “Come on guys…. we have work to do. And, uh… if you want to do another collaboration with Pinkie, you do it. I don’t think I’m ready to be in the same room as her for awhile.”

She, Acevedo, and Button walk out. As Button walks out, you can see one of the neighborhood children (Rarity’s sister, you think) looking at him, and saying “who’s that handsome stallion?”

“It’s… been nice to see you, Octavia,” Acevedo says. “I’m a big fan of your music. And your tea, now… way better than coffee.”

While your visit with the alternate Vinyl was tumultuous and subtly existentially terrifying, it’s nice to know that you’re well liked in another universe.

“So Button grows up to look like that?!” Rarity’s sister gasps.

You can’t help but let a smile cross your face. It’s going to be a hell of an experience during the war effort, but you know that you can make it work.

Acevedo pokes his head through the door. “Oh, and my friend Isaac - yes, I know, but I’m not responsible for his favorite alias or anything - has a surprise planned. You might want to come to Canterlot tomorrow.”

It has been only a few hours since the trio left, and Vinyl has been staring at the CD for the past hour.

"What's wrong Vinyl?" you ask, making tea while you prepare for a quiet lunch. "You have been staring at that disk for awhile now."

"I don't know... Scared? Confused?"

And you don’t need to ask why. A better question would be what wouldn’t have scared her.

"Its a simple disk. From the sound from your 'Uptime' counterpart, its just music."

"Yeah... a disk that has music we made. Together." Vinyl points out, and you realize the crux of her problem.

You really don’t know what to make of such music. Both of you possess a sense of music as different as night and day.

Your classical composure of refine musical instruments to the wild beats and deafening tones of her electronics.

'What in Celestia’s name did we create together?' You wonder before gently taking the disk and placing it in her player. "We won't find out by simply standing there, wouldn't we?"

"Yeah, lets start her up!" Vinyl pressed play, only to hear what sounded like a small discussion happening.

"Are you sure Steven? I don't want to impose-"

"Its fine, Octavia. Me and Jon here have been going through a rut lately. This... these songs here are perfect. Vinyl, you ready to get the beat going?"

"I was born ready!"

"Ms. Shores, you ready to sing?"

"Sugar, do you even need to ask? The girls are ready to sing too~."

"See?"

"Okay then. Now, this first song is called 'My Roommate is a 'Bassist'. Vinyl insisted on the silly name."

"Its not silly!"

"Why do you insist on using pieces of the Canterlot Wedding song?"

"Because it is the only song I know all the words to! You know I always forget lyrics... Besides, I want this version out and not the one sung by the Queen's pet nerd."

"Let it go, Vinyl."

"If you say so, Sharp."

*Cough*

"Sorry, Tavi."

" Alright, ladies! From the top"

3: Exhibition
Two Weeks after Sombra’s defeat

“If you asked when my heart would stop weeping, I would say never. Not in the foreseeable future, not today, perhaps even forever. I’ve seen humans at their best and worst-I did not know what to feel, at least at first. Though now I just feel anger-I know now that we must fight Equestria’s dark doppelganger. Under the pretense of giving unneeded aid, they take the world, leave it unmade. The world has become full of many hells, and to escape, the Empire says: “Become pony… or else!” We must not rest as countless die or worse-to become newfoal is an unspeakably evil curse. It leaves them with no soul, leaving only an empty hole. It is not something I can say calmly, though hear me when I say that a newfoal is a damned zombie! I have seen the works of each and I despair, of a world stripped of humans and left bare. I want to leave not a single thing in doubt, for that is what this new war unifying our tribes is about. Not prosperity, and not quite an invasion of a foreign shore, it is instead a fight far above what has been seen before. We cannot sit by as humanity is annexed, for both here and in this other world, we are next. The exhibition is for all to see, as war is now a certainty. Only then will you truly understand why fighting this war is so urgent a demand.
Uptime Ambassador Zecora’s Letter to the Zebrican Tribes, urging its residents to view the Exhibition of Human Achievement and fight in the Conversion War.

Some pessimistic yet properly paranoid ponies had expected the humans and alternate ponies to react similarly to Marcus Renee upon contact with what everyone had quickly decided to call “True Equestria.” Nobody, least of all the PHL ponies, saw issue with the nickname.

Though they had something he didn’t have: Prior warning.

As a result, some fortunate few (such as the two men and the earth pony stallion from Brazil) had managed to adjust within a day. Others weren’t so adaptable, simply staying in the wing of Canterlot Castle that had been set aside for them until other residences could be found. Out of completely justified paranoia, Celestia, Luna, Marcus, Stephan, and anyone else of sufficiently high rank were trying their damnedest to make sure the taskforce and the Equestrians got along. All of them had ran over more scenarios in their minds than it would be practical to list, but they had to be careful.

First impressions were everything, after all. Marcus didn’t expect one of his men in the taskforce to go mad as a HLF member and go on a rampage, but they had to be prepared nonetheless.

And the Princesses didn’t expect a sizable contingent of ponies and other races of Equestria to suddenly decide to follow Catseye’s contemptible crap theories, the ones based on the historical equivalent of what some ponies called fanclop, which stated that humans were evil. Again, they had to be prepared nonetheless.

And then, out of nowhere while Acevedo, Button and Vinyl were off in Ponyville with to see their counterparts (with Acevedo lazily playing guard with his .44 revolver), Grimnebulin had strode in with a proposal.

He had been very convincing.

“I don’t think we should use this as a glorified training exercise,” Grimnebulin had laughed. He’d somehow pulled an immaculate suit out of nowhere.

“Glorified training exercise?” Marcus asked as he stared at his hand, small metal balls floating above it. Grimnebulin had been in regular contact with him ever since his adventure to the Crystal Empire with Stephan, Luna, and Celestia, doing tests, overseeing physical therapy and otherwise helping Marcus adjust to his new body. Physically, Marcus was healthier than he had any right to be, but Grimnebulin was a little concerned that he was throwing himself into his magical training a bit too much.

He was not ignoring his duties, but he hardly seemed as able to connect with the military personnel he’d brought to Equestria. Which left Grimnebulin worried, likely due to Marcus’ growing obsession with making sure their interaction with Equestria was ‘perfect’. He wasn’t exactly that kind of doctor, but that didn’t seem healthy.

Hence the plan he was pitching to two goddesses and the two most important men in this world.

“The exact words we were given were, and I quote, ‘ensure the safety of humanity by creating new devices and fostering cooperation with the true Equestria,’” Grimnebulin said. “Our plan, and Mr. Crowe’s, I might add, that fosters cooperation. That’s a loophole, sir.”

“I like the idea,” Princess Luna said. “I am very curious to see human art. That-” she gazed at her sister. “And I suspect that Marcus is not exactly a connoisseur of fine arts.” Marcus only snorted and flipped the finger at Luna, knowing the meaning behind it was lost to her.

“Believe me, the portal makes one hell of a strategic advantage for the greatest deep-strike in the history of mankind since the…” the irony abruptly washed over Grimnebulin, and he had to restrain himself from bursting into uncharacteristic giggles, “Trojan horse. But there’s another advantage. If we all die, then all the things we smuggled go to waste. So here’s what I suggest. Despite the fact that I don’t know how long it will be till we have wireless in Equestria, or even if we do, I know that a lot of humans and unicorns brought their computers.”

Non-unicorn ponies had not, as it was incredibly hard for them to use computers without hands. There were companies working on them, though, but the smallest interface involved either several large pedals or arcane things of questionable reliability that tapped into whatever force ponies used to allow things to simply stick to their hooves.

“Along with a lot of books,” Grimnebulin continued. “So here’s what I think we should do. You all say that first impressions are the most important thing here, right? Well… Art is damn good at influencing people. But propaganda? That’s like over-seasoning food and making it go rancid, or something. So I figured ‘Why go to propaganda?’ Why not just be honest? Why not show them what that fucking zombie apocalypse that calls itself the Solar Empire plans to stamp out underhoof?’ Once Equestria has seen this artwork, they’ll be jumping to support us. They’ll be appalled that anyone would think such things of a species which has created such wonders.”

“Why didn’t you suggest this earlier?” Princess Celestia asked. “This is… this is brilliant!”
Grimnebulin staggered back, ever so slightly. Though he had been in the same room as the Princess in the last two weeks, as she asked him a question about human ballistics, history, anatomy, or whatever other question came to mind, he still couldn’t get quite used to the fact that she was the same as the Queen in all but personality. As a result, the sight of her happy still unnerved him somewhat. “What?”

“A brilliant idea,” Princess Celestia said, beaming. “I… It’s alright. I know how I must still seem. Not just to you, but to all of you.”

“They’re getting better,” Grimnebulin said. “Slowly but surely.”

“I see. Are the assigned psychologists and psychiatrists helping?”

“Doing wonders,” Grimnebulin agreed. “Apparently I’ve been called in as a consultant, never mind that I’m not that kind of doctor. Still, I try.”

Rarity had never expected to be a soldier. The thought had literally never crossed her mind. She understood that as a Bearer of the Element of Generosity, she would have to face mind-blowing weirdness, perform tasks of great importance to the government (and according to Pinkie and Twilight on two separate occasions, all existence, and they really hated how right they were) and generally experience a level of importance far beyond that of a simple fashion designer.

Which was why she was enjoying her leave so much. She understood that she had to do this or there would be doom on a scale that no pony in Equestria could dream of, and yet… well, the armor she was expected to wear was so very drab and uncomfortable (she had spent some time negotiating with that large human doctor with the brownish hide to help design better, comfier armor), and she had never suffered quite as much as she had there.

So when she heard of the Exhibition coming soon, she had jumped at the chance.

“There’s still more to do!” Stephan had said. “So much that you don’t know!”

“Major Bauer,” she protested, “We know what we have to fight for. Marcus showed us what’s at stake, but this is the first time we could really get a sense of how big it is. That, and…”

“I think you still see us the same as the ponies that are committing… what’d Trixie call it?” Applejack asked. “Xenocide?” She struggled with the unfamiliar word. “She was right. There really are things in your world that we don’t have names for.”

“That, and I think that Twi is gonna joysplode at the prospect of going,” Pinkie Pie pointed out. She reached over to Twilight, opening her friend’s mouth with both hooves.

Almost immediately, Twilight let out a high-pitched squeal of, “Ohmygoshohmygoshohmygosh!” then looked around wildly, saw Pinkie, and just shrugged.

“Ya see?” she asked.

“Don’t question it,” Rainbow Dash sighed, having noticed Stephan’s raised eyebrow.

“We’ve been told what we’re fighting for,” Rarity said. “We just haven’t seen enough of it. Please, let us visit the exhibition. If anything, it’ll prove to you that we aren’t those poor imitations found in your Equestria.”

“And there’s a lot of things Marcus couldn’t explain about humanity,” Lyra added.

“Come to think of it… I think I need some R&R too,” Stephan agreed. “Been pushing myself pretty hard lately. In which case… we’re all taking a trip to the exhibition. There’s a lot of things there that I think we all need to see.”

And so he had let them go, leading to what would have been the happiest, most culture-filled day (for Rarity, the two were almost synonymous) of her life. She had happily trotted, almost skipped through the streets of Canterlot, finding her way to the Exhibition. But only with the condition that they could tell him what they learned from it upon their return, rather like the friendship letters that they used to send. The seven of them had paid little attention to that condition-they simply figured it would come effortlessly.

Beneath the noses of every authority figure, the Crowe personnel appeared to have commandeered a warehouse too high in Canterlot low-town to truly be considered “seedy” and too low in Canterlot to truly be considered higher-class, and packed it with artwork as far as the eye could see, art that most humans assumed had been disintegrated or atomized or whatever by the Barrier. It had overflowed into the streets within minutes. Ponies from all over Equestria marveled at the humans’ artwork, which (at Acevedo’s request) also included more modern things, and art composed in reaction to the barrier.

Pinkie Pie had simply disappeared when they weren’t looking, Rainbow Dash and Applejack had meandered off with Twilight while hoping for an explanation, Lyra had (in Pinkie Pie’s peculiar parlance) been about to “joysplode,” Fluttershy had looked for paintings of Earth’s landscapes and animals, and Rarity (predictably) had headed for the section that had to do with human fashion. It had been a long, twisty path that made her feel like she was going in circles, but the map assured her that she was going the right way.

Unsurprisingly, the section on human fashion was rather anemic compared to the rest of the exhibition. Much of the “exhibits” were life-size photos of humans in a wide variety of clothes - which, to Rarity’s shock, were surprisingly similar to Equestrian clothes. Why were ponies so similar to humans, anyway?

If she added more fabric to the front of one of her dresses, it would work surprisingly well as a human female’s dress. She assumed it was the females wearing dresses. Those were mammaries so far up on their barrels, weren’t they? Still, she’d have to rework the proportions quite a bit. And human suits and tuxedos were just breathtaking!

She stared at the suits, taking in every stitch, attempting to gain an impression of a human’s proportions.

‘So many differences from humans… and yet so much alike!’ Rarity thought, levitating a small notepad from her saddlebags and taking notes. ‘There’s so much to do! Ah, this will be so much help when I design that new armor… I can’t add gems, that’d probably be too conspicuous. Hmm… never done any utilitarian fashion before, though I suppose there can be a certain beauty in that!’

Never mind the beauty in all the other dresses and suits that had come to Equus through the portal. Many examples of human clothing were nothing special, much of it clearly designed with comfort and utility in mind, in a clear case of quantity over quality. Humans obviously were not comfortable with going out without some cover-up; ponies didn’t really need clothes, which were more of a status symbol, decorative, or something to be used during special occasions. Some ponies in Ponyville didn’t even own one set of clothes.

But extravagant outfits, such as royal dresses, wedding outfits, and those costumes for a group of characters called “the Disney Princesses” were a sight to behold. And that didn’t even get to the traditional garb of other cultures - the Korean hanboks, Japanese kimonos (which reminded Rarity much of the fashions of Neighpon’s feudal era), and Indian saris and churidaars were so beautifully detailed and well made, that Rarity nearly felt herself hyperventilate. So many ideas for possible designs! She’d heard that kimonos might be coming into fashion again… and this exhibition wouldn’t merely breathe life into the fashion world of Equestria… it would feed it an entire medicine cabinet of drugs. Already, she was quite certain that somepony else had seen this and was busily sketching ideas as well.

‘Who could destroy a species that makes things like this?’ Rarity thought to herself, still half-trotting, half-bouncing through the exhibition. It was rather selfish of her, she had to admit, but she knew then and there that the other Equestria had to be evil. There was so much that the humans could create, particularly such fine clothes (she wished that she could have some that would fit her) and yet the other Equestria saw nothing in them?

How disgusting. Not aesthetically so, though she couldn’t help but think of that. No, it was morally disgusting that they would be so singlemindedly devoted to killing humanity.

She would prove to her Equestria that humans were worth as much as them - through fashion shows, through design, through whatever crossed her mind. And, when the war was won, she would give back to Earth as much as she could.

And then, towards the edge of the fashion exhibition, she saw the painting.

It was almost ten feet tall, simply entitled “Miasma.” It looked like a normal scene in Ponyville, but as she looked closer, it began to change. Not in the sense that it moved, that was a cheap gimmick for Equestrian painters, but in that she began to see it differently. The thatch roofs bore an uncanny resemblance to yellow bones, every window looked like eyes, and accusatory faces appeared to be everywhere around the small colt at the center of the painting.

“This painting is one of the few surviving examples of the Post-Barrier Surrealist movement, as most of the great masters inexplicably turned to propaganda, disappeared, or were forced to flee, their previous paintings either hidden or burned. This was made by the Ponyville artist Brush Nib, to, in his words, ‘Ask if anyone else could hear the voices in [his] head. It represents the inner turmoil and paranoia of prewar Equestrians…” she read, looking at the small plaque. Huh. what an extraordinarily unnerving painting.

Meanwhile, where Rarity had felt subtle, visceral horror, Lyra’s feelings were somewhat more… complex. She was elated and amazed, yes… but so shocked that while her current emotional state could only superficially be called happiness.

She had studied humans, trying desperately to refute Catseye, but there was only so much that had made its way into Equestria. Only so many things ponies knew about them, or could extrapolate from the limited evidence. She’d headed for the section on human history, which was predictably limited and threadbare (there was only so much that they could have brought to Equestria, after all) and sighed at the mention of wars. Already, she could hear that smug old nag Catseye crowing about her theories on humans and war, but she ignored those to focus on the exhibits.

Lyra knew that Catseye was an ignorant idiot, considering that Earth was a harsh, far more unforgiving world than their Equus, with all its; natural disasters, droughts and deadly diseases, such as bubonic plague, which killed millions. Unlike ponies, the humans had no direct control over their weather and vital resources, such as food and clean water, which were not always available. Which meant sometimes they almost had to have war in order to survive. Lyra thought if Catseye could somehow sympathize what Queen Celestia has planned for humanity, then she might as well help in not just wiping out humanity, but every other sapient race that committed the same crimes as humans. By that ‘morally righteous’ flawless ‘logic’, you would have to wipe out countless sapient species. Because they are all supposedly ‘inherently evil’ and not just trying to survive their inhospitable environment. Following this supposed ‘logic’ you’d become a hypocritical idiot, that can’t see they’ve become worse than the species they are destroying.

It would take her too long to explain what she’d learned, but in between their wars, they’d done so many wonderful things! Art, culture, exploration… they’d clawed out their place in an inhospitable world that was essentially a giant Everfree Forest. Oh, she couldn’t wait to read more on human history!

It really picked up around the 19th century, though, in which they began to advance to the same level of Equestria, but at a blinding rate that showed no signs of slowing. They were at once destructive, warring with each other… and creative, showing the most impressive kindness soon afterwards. If the human equipment was anything to go by, Lyra reflected, war seemed to stimulate humans in a way. For example, the human’s “second world war,” which even the current Conversion War utterly dwarfed. They had come up with rockets, jet engines, and even atomic power in that time… which had lead to the unique concept of the “Cold War,” a period of fierce, mostly non-military aggression between Marcus’ homeland and the Communist (sort of like Stalliongrad, she wondered) Soviet Union. And somehow, after sending a dog into space, and then a man, they’d accomplished a feat that most ponies thought to be impossible.

They visited the Moon.

Ponies had derided lunar landings as impossible, and yet, there the humans were, doing the equivalent of building a skyscraper with only bricks and mortar.

“Incredible,” Lyra whispered, staring at the picture of the human in the bulky white suit which the picture claimed protected him from radiation and lack of oxygen. “Just… incredible.” They’d solved one of the greatest engineering and thaumaturgical conundrums in the history of exploration, and they did it without magic. They’d done everything without magic, letting higher technology that Equestria could only dream of into the lives of every human, and they seemed to be better off for it.

They’d built infrastructure up there, maintaining communications and leaving a belt of satellites and metal orbiting their planet.

It was a race that had survived without a nigh-omnipotent goddess guiding them, without any special powers to control their environment, and that twisted mockery of the other Equestria had simply written them off?

No.

Lyra could never live up to the uptime version of herself. She could never bring two worlds together single-hoofedly, but by Celestia she was going to try.

“Well, hello, Lyra!” Twilight said, trotting up to her, Applejack and Rarity close behind.

“Twilight! How nice to see you!” Lyra said. “I trust you were impressed with what you saw?”

Applejack nodded, a huge smile on her face. “Hoo-wee, the stuff that humans can make! Their farming tools are just… Wow! They could do so much for Sweet Apple Acres, when you consider the population that humans support...”

“Extremely!” Twilight cried, nodding her head frantically. “It’s… it’s just so wonderful! I’ve dreamed of a moment like this my whole life, getting to see the artifacts and history of a new species! I just…” she sighed, looking down at the ground, somehow limp with sadness. “I wish we’d seen it under better circumstances. And that it wasn’t… you know,” she sighed, pointing to a poster featuring Rainbow Dash diving for a child, a vial of the purple potion (presumably the ponification potion) in her mouth.

“Where’s Rainbow Dash?” Rarity asked, desperately trying to change the subject. “Wasn’t she with you?”

“She and Pinkie are watching something called anime with Spike,” Twilight explained. “Pinkie said she found something called… Kill La Kill? Whatever it is, she’s hooked on the first episode.”

“Don’t lose your waaaaaaay!” Pinkie Pie said, half-humming, half-singing as she bounced over to the two of them. “Human TV shows are amazing! I just saw this thing called Kill La Kill, and it has this girl who’s totally me, and there’s a giant scissor blade… And then she gets these weird clothes forced on her, and they talk! It’s so awesome!”

Lyra mentally facehoofed for not checking on human cartoons. She still had so much to learn!

Spike however said, “Dude, I liked Avatar: The Last Airbender! It was just excellent in every way! Uncle Iroh was like a human dragon, breathing fire and shooting fire from his hands!" Spike proceeded to try and copy the moves he saw, only to lose his balance and fall over. “Ow… maybe it doesn’t work that way.”

“I don’t know, I think I like Gurren Lagann more!” Rainbow Dash replied.

“Yeah… that is pretty good! I wonder if we can use some of that in the speeches later?” Pinkie asked. “I just love that! Don’t believe in yourself… believe in the me that believes in you!”

“That doesn’t make much sense,” Twilight responded.

“Who cares?!” Pinkie laughed. “Nothing made sense in what we watched!”

“And that’s why it’s so fun!” Spike agreed. “I even found something you’d love, Twilight! It’s called Sailor Moon! The Sailor Senshi really remind me of you six!”

“And I was watching human dances and plays,” Fluttershy said, walking up to the five of them. “They were wonderful!”

Somewhere along the line, they’d questioned how they met each other there. Whether or not they’d somehow been guided to the beginning of this exhibit. But, somehow, they found themselves drawn to the stalls that followed the painting Rarity had looked at.

There was a sign hanging over the street that had the words “Dispatches from a Dying World” written on it.

“What’s that?” Fluttershy asked.

“I think it’s… an exhibition on art during the Barrier?” Rainbow Dash asked, flying upwards and staring down at the stalls that crowded the street. The ponies and others (human, griffon, minotaur, whatever race happened to be there at the time) were oddly subdued as they browsed its exhibits, moving slowly.

“Well… I see,” Fluttershy said. “We told Major Bauer that we’d try and get a sense of what we were fighting for. We might as well.”

Nopony could argue with her, so the seven of them walked under the sign, to see Earth during the Barrier. They’d only seen it before the Barrier had manifested, Earth in its heyday.

They were not prepared, and by the end of it all they’d be torn between being glad they got it out of the way and regretting it all.

There were photographs of famous, beautiful prewar cities from all around earth on the walls, with exotic names like Paris or Venice or Berlin or Moscow, with relatively short plaques on their histories. And there were also photographs of those same cities in ruin and on fire due to the war. Even worse there were photographs of the pink sphere of death known as the barrier approaching the cities, that were now little more than a memory. The series of photographs showed a time lapse of cities slowly being consumed by the barrier, until there was nothing left but featureless grass fields and forests behind the barrier. It was a good question how that had even gotten outside the Barrier, given that something told Twilight that the other Equestria’s Princess, no, Queen Celestia wouldn’t take kindly to possible criticism. Even if Twilight hadn’t known where all that nature had come from, she wouldn’t have thought it could ever be beautiful.

The cities were gone, of course, and the thought of a field full of wheat and toiling newfoals in the former location of Paris sickened her on a level that she hadn’t known existed. But the fields and forests that had replaced other cities and human habitation just looked wrong somehow. The branches were too regular, and they just seemed dead somehow. No sign that anything had ever been in those woods, animal or human, other than cellar holes and rampant flooding.

A miasma of crushing loneliness radiated from the photographs. It had grounded Rainbow Dash, who often seemed to forget to use her hooves, rendered Pinkie Pie unable to smile as her hair went dark and flat, and reduced all of them to silence.

All but Lyra.

She couldn’t help it at all as she stared at the pictures, at the forests and fields where there had allegedly once been a human city. The barrier didn’t even leave cellar holes, and that both infuriated her and saddened her. How… in the name of all that was holy… could the other Equestria do this with smiles on their faces?!

It was nothing short of horrifying and heartbreaking in equal measure. Many of those cities were beautiful (and it wasn’t lost on Twilight how odd it was some of them shared similar names as Equestrian cities), and were likely home to more people than the largest cities of Equestria had ever housed. Monuments and old structures that would’ve put even Canterlot Castle to shame were now gone forever. These places, steeped in centuries’ worth of history, were now lost and forgotten, destroyed so thoroughly that not even dust remained. Only in books and art would the history of those places be kept alive, and that strange thing called the Internet she had heard about… and even then, they’d be corrupted through years of hearsay and myth. Some tears fell down her cheeks as the thought of the horrible abuse of magic known as the ‘barrier’ and what it meant for even humanity’s dead. For it destroyed everything the human race ever created, even the bones and remains of humanity’s ancestors in their graves, both recent and long ago. The pain humans must feel of not being able to visit those that they loved at their graves, even if the barrier was to be shut down. Tens of thousands of years of history, and all of it gone…

And there were the pictures of the news, of humans as they coped with the war. Refugees being loaded into those odd vehicles called cars and busses, as well as trains far more advanced than any in Equestria; though, in very rare photos, steam engines without thaumaturgic enhancement had been taken, used by people desperate for any way to survive the advancing pink wall. Twilight wasn’t exactly an expert on the amount of space that a human needed, but Streets were littered with trash, discarded possessions like clothes, toys, books and family heirlooms lost in the frenzied evacuations.

Photographs of humans from all different walks of life walking about confused and wondering where to go what with their homes vaporized into nothing. People mourning those they lost; anyone that didn’t get out in time, and were now either dead or ponified. Their faces were wet from hours of crying; others looked like they had emotionally shut down. There was a collage of photos full of Equestrian fugitives and humans alike, showing their slums and poor living conditions. According to the plaque, the images used were located all across the Pacific, even to the east coast of North and South America.

One particular picture stuck out to Fluttershy - of a woman wearing some kind of scarf wrapped around her hair, carrying two small children and they were sitting at what appeared to be a tent in a refugee camp. The woman’s face appeared haunted almost, her eyes drifting off into what looked like a thousand yard stare, while her children were looking around, confused and crying. They had only the clothes on their backs and a few small bags of possessions, and little idea of where to go next. The photographer named it “The Migrant Mother of the 21st Century.”

There was was a photograph that Twilight just wanted to jump inside and stop it from happening. The photograph was of newfoals throwing books into a bonfire in the middle of a street, which looked set to consume the surrounding houses, and possibly the entire town. This deliberate destruction of history, knowledge and stories infuriated her.

Rainbow Dash glared angrily at a PHL propaganda photograph of her Uptime self in the middle of wartorn street, yet she smiled broadly while cradling a baby in her hooves and force feeding the child the potion, underneath it said in bright red ‘Baby Murderer!’. Despite her tomboyish nature, she could not hold back tears that fell down her cheeks as she stared in anger at the poster. ‘For that alone, humanity deserves its revenge,’ she simply thought.

One picture confused Twilight; it appeared to show masses of humans that were running toward the barrier. When she pondered why the humans would do that, a chill went down her spine. These humans appeared to be suicidal, she theorized they were left behind during a desperate, rushed evacuation from a heavily populated area. And now since there was no escape from either death or becoming a newfoal; they were trying to atomize themselves against its magic. She sighed, realizing it was still better than becoming one of those horrible abominations known as newfoals.

Her eyes widened in shock when she saw black and white CCTV photographs of what appeared to be a birthing ward in a hospital. What she saw made her nearly vomit her breakfast. She saw defenseless, newborn human children being forced fed the potion, by what she deemed to be the foulest of monsters in pony form. Yet, these ponies thought without any moral ambiguity whatsoever that they were doing ‘morally’ the ‘right thing’ to ‘save’ humanity. ‘Save’ as in murdering innocent babies… converting them into stupid pony newfoals and essentially enslaving their minds? In her mind there was no doubt that these ponies were either insane maniacs or brainwashed, by perhaps some sort of mind control spell.

“I think I’m gonna be sick,” Lyra said, in a weak, wavering voice that wasn’t so much a whisper as it was simply drained of emotion.

"What... what kind of pony would do that?" Applejack asked lowering her hat, as tears began falling down her cheeks. "They are monsters. How sick in the head…. how heartless does a pony have to be in order to murder children happily without thinking it’s wrong?"

"Applejack, I think they would have to be either insane or a mind controlled slave," Twilight answered her question in a low voice.

There was also a poem, next to two pictures - one of a blond adolescent human girl wearing what the humans called a “cheerleader uniform” and another of a newfoal with a magenta coat and blue mane and tail. Like all other newfoals, she lacked a cutie mark, and she was smiling far too wide for it to look natural. Her eyes were also open too large, looking more like glass orbs than actual eyes, and they looked strangely frozen.

Not A Smile
A poem by Reverend James Thomas
Here stands my daughter Harriet, on four hooves
Her new form? Oh, she approves.
Joy etched on her new pony face,
How happy she is to have left the human race!
Listen to her, it’s the best thing she could have done,
to become a pony, and praise the Tyrant Sun
I once knew a man who found himself to be a girl,
Few like that one proselytize, they’re rare in this world,
Yet here she is, urging, pleading me
I don’t want to, can’t she see?
Nothing’s right with her, since she changed she has always grinned,
But her eyes, like glass orbs, are dead with no glint.
She claims to be full of joy, all the while,
Look into her eyes, glassy and dead! No, that is not a smile!
Something has been made from the remains of my daughter,
It wonders if I am to join it, or be sent to the slaughter,
She stares unthinking, no emotions to call her own,
No drive but to bow before that tyrant’s throne!
Something has taken all that made my daughter Harriet,
Given her hooves and reduced her to some grotesque marionette
In future’s time, she’ll trot at our machine guns, one in death-bound waves,
Just one among thousands of brainwashed slaves
She’s not the only one who’ll do it, there’s too many more,
It is for certain she isn’t, never will be, the daughter I cared for.”

Twilight tried, but failed to suppress a shiver as she read the poem. It didn’t matter how many times she heard the descriptions, the very concept of the newfoals chilled her right to the bones. There were already soldiers telling the Royal Guards the horror stories about them; how sometimes you could kill them with one hit to the center of mass, but they would completely ignore limb shots and incineration. Electrocution had proven promising, though.

And they never stopped smiling. Never stopped looking at you with their too wide-open eyes, and no matter what they were doing, they were always happy. It was as if they could not feel any other emotions whatsoever, other than rage at the audacity of humans to simply exist in the same universe as them or that ponies went against the wishes of their mad leader. No matter what native Equestrians did to them, they wouldn’t mind… because they barely had anything that could be called a mind. According to a poster nailed to the wall of one building, there’d be a documentary on an interrogation of a captured newfoal.

There was little information on it, but Pinkie Pie had steadfastly refused to even look at the poster. “They’re not smiling!” she’d cried. “Whatever that face they’re making is, it’s not a smile!”

“It… sure looks like one,” Applejack had said.

“You have to be happy for it to be a smile!” Pinkie Pie disagreed. “They’re not happy! They just have the happiness lodged inside them, and they can’t get it out!”

Twilight sighed and parroted Marcus’ words from days ago. “The potion rewrites a person into a pony... changes their body, their mind, binds their soul in chains... takes them away from you.”

“Screw it,” Pinkie Pie said, a most un-Pinkie Pie turn of phrase. “I don’t care how hard it is. I don’t care if I collapse, I’m going to do something to save humanity from turning into those…. things. They’re not happy - the other versions of us are taking away everything from the humans, including all this awesomely amazing stuff here! They’re ironing out the wrinkles so everyone thinks it’s smooth! And without all those… can you really be happy?”

The other mares and young dragon were quiet for a moment, letting it sink in.

Spike replied, “No. That isn’t real happiness. They’re just…”

He really couldn’t find the words to describe it.

“Dead?” Applejack suggested. “If you can’t feel anything, really, that’s kind of like being dead. Maybe worse.”

“No, no,” Twilight said. “He was very insistent that they were still alive, so…”

“How about zombies?” Rainbow Dash suggested. “I keep hearing PHL soldiers calling them that.”

“Like hollow shells; mindless pony-shaped drones that just worship their queen and carry her will out…” Fluttershy elaborated, half-whispering.

Everyone stared at her. Like Pinkie Pie’s proclamation of ‘screw it,’ it was also a rather out-of-character moment for the butter-yellow pegasus. Though it was rather impressive she’d gotten this far in the exhibit of art at the time of the Barrier. She steadfastly ignored the music and protest songs, though. Not that anyone could blame her; that music was terrifying on a level beyond what any of them had ever felt.

“I think Fluttershy put it best,” Rarity said, shivering. “Now… please. Let’s go somewhere else, this is just…” the descriptor eluded the white fashionista mare, though she realized that was excusable, because Equestria had never had need of anything to describe this. With luck, they wouldn’t have to ever again.

“I… don’t think that’s a… um… good idea,” Fluttershy said.

“What?” Rarity asked.

“We’re going to try and understand what we’re fighting for,” Fluttershy said with a determined tone. It was so rare to see her like this, but at the same time, it wasn’t shocking. Fluttershy was nicknamed “the friend to all living creatures” and to see such an affront against all life like the barrier and the newfoals would no doubt bring out that angry side of her. “If we have to suffer bad dreams, so be it! We need to know! How can we fight for them if we don’t know enough?”

“I… I can’t believe I’m saying it,” Lyra said. “I can barely take any more of this. But she’s right; we need to know.”

She was right, of course. Nopony (or dragon) could find a reason not to listen to Fluttershy’s argument. Even ponies who weren’t actually in the Elements, and curiously found themselves listening to the adorable butter-yellow pegasus with the pink mane.

They’d decided she had a point. She was right - they couldn’t understand. But if they saw the photos, if they listened to the music (no matter how painful it was emotionally), they would come close to understanding the true suffering of the human race thanks to the other Equestria.

By the end of it, nopony would have considered isolationism. No matter their occupation, they resolved that they would Do Something Important. Whether it was manufacturing, support, maintenance of communication networks, or fighting on the frontlines with the new modular assault yokes and saddles that they saw at Isaac Dan Der Grimnebulin’s stall, (“Is that really the scruffy little Earth Pony that liked Sweetie Belle there, the one wearing the assault saddle?” Rarity had asked herself. He’d grown up to be a very handsome stallion!) they would not quietly sit in their homes as war raged on.

They would make absolutely sure that Earth won its fight.

In the coming weeks, as griffons, minotaurs, buffalo, and all the other races of Equus flocked to see the exhibition, the newspapers went wild. Not a day went by without a mention of the Exhibition, even in far-off places like Saddle Arabia and Zebrica, though one thing seemed to capture everyone’s minds. It overshadowed even the live music talent, featuring Octavia, Vinyl Scratches from both Equestrias, and even the non-PHL Vinyl’s good friend Pinkie Pie.

“Dispatches from a Dying World.” Nobody yet knew the place that the particular section of the exhibition would occupy in history, though Grimnebulin would frequently be cited as the one that had truly brought Earth and Equestria together. “Marcus Renee and Stephan Bauer might have built the armies up,” one book by a distant descendant of Twilight Sparkle’s would claim, “But it was the exhibition funded by Crowe Labs, and organized by Isaac Dan Der Grimnebulin, Isaac Acevedo, and Uptime Button Mash that truly unified the two worlds. While Marcus and Stephan were phenomenal in the field of battle, it was those three that allowed Equus to truly understand their new visitors.”

“So… I hope you enjoyed that one day’s leave I gave you,” Stephan said. “Did it give you perspective? Helped you learn anything?”

The seven mares standing in front of him didn’t interrupt, even Pinkie Pie. That was… unexpected.

“Yes sir,” Twilight answered firmly. “We know what we have to do. For all of Earth, for our Equestria… for all of existence. We might complain, but we know you can make us into the soldiers Equestria needs.”

“We’ve been lucky,” Rarity added. “Lucky enough that we’ve fought enemies that were, to put it lightly… easy. But that won’t work here.”

“She’s right. This isn’t something we can deus ex machina our way out of,” Pinkie said. “I know you can mold us into better soldiers to fight those… things… pretending to be us.”

“They deserve to suffer,” Rainbow Dash said, staring at the ground. “They deserve the greatest smackdown in the history of Equestria for what they’ve done to you!”

“They’re both right - I can’t stand by and let them suffer, while expecting everything to work out. We’d just get trampled under the stampede or worse,” Applejack declared.

“We have to,” Fluttershy agreed simply. “You won’t even have to say please, this is what we have to do.”

“I’m not an Element,” Lyra admitted. “I don’t even know what I’d be if I had one. But there is no way I can sit by while billions of humans are suffering a fate worse than death every day!”

A smile crept over Stephan’s face. ’Well well well,’ he thought. ’How about that?’ “So!” he called out. “You mares ready for round two?!”

They nodded, all of them replying in unison, “YES, SIR!”

“Whatever it takes!” Pinkie Pie yelled.

’There might just be some hope here after all,’ Stephan thought. He got back into drill instructor mode and said, “Alright, everyone - today we’ll be reviewing speed and agility. Dodging attacks and quick thinking are vital skills to use on the battlefield. One second can be the difference between life and death. Are you ready?”

“Sir yes sir!” they all yelled.

“Well then, training begins now! I expect nothing less than the best from all of you!” Stephan smirked as he and Trixie held up several rocks in their grasp. "If you can dodge these rocks, you can dodge lethal spells."

"What?!" Twilight shouted.

Stephan paused for a moment before he and Trixie laughed. “No, no, of course we won’t throw stones at you.” Trixie gave a sad sigh let the stones fall to the ground, rather reluctantly at that, and the six sighed in relief.

“Get your Simulation Battlegear and be back in five minutes. We are going to do a little walk.”

Twilight looked at him confused. “A walk?”

Stephan gave them the smile that made their blood freez. “From Canterlot, to Ponyville and back with some exercises in between.”

Their jaws dropped on the ground. “B-but that is almost two days travel…and we have to go through the Everfree Forest, too…” whispered Rarity.

“Oh, then you should get your tents as well for a little Biwak.” The mares still didn’t move. “What are you waiting for? MOVE IT!”

Author's Notes:

Biwak, by the way, means "military camp" in German. At least, I think that's what it means. If you're wondering about the writing style, in which I switch from first person, to second, to third person, that's actually a reference to Veniss Underground by my friend Jeff Vandermeer, in which he did that same thing. Speaking of Veniss Underground, there's this one story in there (Balzac's War) that is eerily similar to a Conversion Bureau war fic. And, as I said in a blog post earlier, I'm going to exploit the hell out of that. So look forward to that in chapter 3, which will center on Earth.
And before you even ask-yes, this is canon to The Other Side of The Spectrum. It came to mind after I figured there was so much potential for a first contact story that would go unused... But don't worry about that. Again, thanks to everyone that edited this-I'd be nothing without you guys. I mean that for realsies. An author may come up with a story, but it's the editing crew of Spectrum that truly make its stories truly great. In the next chapter... we see some more of TCB!Equestria. And I promise it'll be horrifying. UNTIL NEXT TIME!

The Empire

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Editors/Co-authors:
Redskin122004

Kizuna Tallis

Rush

1: The Peculiar Loneliness of Macintosh “Big Mac” Apple

“Citizens of Equestria… we understand that the recent shortages of food, magic, and resources is trying. Do not fret. Prosperity is around the corner, and when the human world is purified, when they have been consigned to our nightmares, eradicated to the last molecule of DNA and grain of dust, there shall be a second magical renaissance. Our magic shall be as never before, and we shall enter a new glorious era. These are trying times but we will have a great bounty of magic and new friends to show for our efforts.”
Common radio propaganda, narrated by Rarity

“Crushing Blow from the Betrayers in Boston
Impossibly, horrifyingly, the humans have won. This paper does not mean to suggest that they have fought a battle where they have murdered, tortured, and raped hundreds of ponies, only to flee when the Barrier ultimately purifies the ground they have desecrated with their technology.
The Barrier has been brought to a standstill, delayed through some new magic that they have stolen. The Great Equestrian was shot down with an impossible weapon, a ‘missile’ of such great power that it sundered the heavens, creating a thaumaturgic hurricane that threw the skyliner into a human skyscraper, destroying countless ponies that only wanted to help. The potion simply does not affect the armor of new human soldiers, some of whom have even stolen magic for themselves. Thousands of Equestrians from the Rescue Fleet and Salvation Army are dead, our casualties far outweighing those of the Betrayers and humans.
How dare they. How dare they resist the gift of ponydom. How dare they have the audacity to fight the Queen, the One True Monarch and win! With the aid of the Barrier, and the Queen’s proclamation that she shall personally fight and purify every last Betrayer of their corruption, we shall certainly win. When she sets out to destroy the Betrayers and take back their stolen magics, we expect them to fall within a month. Their weapons shall be no match for our military and magical might. Moderate-to-low resistance. After all, the Barrier has purified most of their homelands, surely morale is at an all-time low. They can do nothing to stop us.”
Canterlot Times.

Eenope.

Buck the propaganda. Buck my sister. Buck my job. Buck my life. Buck everything. I feel... I just… I’m tired of it all, tired of whatever it is that’s happened to Equestria. I’ve seen too much happen to Equestria to call it the same land I grew up in, and it’s hollowed me out like an old Nightmare Night pumpkin.

I can’t do this. I just can’t. For too long, I sat back and watched my sister turn into a monster before mine and Bloom's eyes. We both sat by while she ranted about the humans, all the while we sent little messages to our contacts within Ponyville, who would relay them to PHL spies. It’s risky business, but Applejack is possibly the worst pony to put in charge of whatever important position she and the Elements occupy because she cannot for the life of her obfuscate the truth. What is she and what her friends, anyway? Terrorists, diplomats, I don’t even know anymore.

I want to smack Applejack, smack the sense back into her. But it won't do. It won't work. I want to cast her out of the family for her warmongering ways, but I can't. I want my sister back and all I have is a monster with her face, a damn caricature that looks for all the world like her but has none of her soul inside. I want to tell her how I feel but I cower away like a foal away from her eyes. Eyes that no longer have that stubborn but warm love and care; just hatred and wrath for anything that goes against Queen Celestia and the so-called ‘greater family and herd’.

Darn it, aren’t we Apples? Aren’t we the largest, most honest, dependable, loving family in Equestria? Do Apples really come to blows enough that they have to say things like that?! When that brat Diamond Tiara said Applebloom was the product of incest, I gave that pink little pig food poisoning. When I broke my ribs right before Applebucking Season, Applejack took over and worked herself to the bone. Whenever she was off the farm for whatever assignment Celestia needed her for, I covered for her.

But one day, Twilight shows up and whisks her away to Canterlot to meet with the Queen, and what comes back isn't my sister.

Granny knew though. Took one look at her and she knew something wasn’t right. Always kept herself at a foreleg's length away from her, never ventured closer than necessary, and always seemed to find chores for us when Applejack was in the same room as the two of us. I think Granny had some kind of sensitivity to the land, a bond that only the oldest Earth Ponies can boast - maybe that’s how she knew. Maybe she sensed something in Equestria, whatever it was that infected the land. She didn't say a word to any of us... but she knew.

Then came Earth and Granny knew things were going downhill faster than a runaway cart. Granny refused to have any newfoals on the farm when she was still alive, called them wind-up toys with painted smiles.

Her death came hard and Applejack had the farm placed under my care, though that didn’t matter as she made the Apple Farm open to newfoals and kept it that way. I agreed on the spot, of course - I was afraid of how she might make me agree.

War came to Equestria and half of Ponyville found themselves harboring monsters. Those first few weeks were horrible, Applejack constantly growling about the humans and cursing the names of ponies that left Ponyville to escape the Tyrant. As if that was the worst thing they ever could have done, so terrible that even ignoring your family and forgetting your grandmother's funeral didn't matter. And worse, their madness spread. I saw ponies who had been uneasy about newfoals and ponification make complete 180s overnight, turning into monsters bent on destroying all humanity with smiles on their faces. And sometimes, I'd get the most terrible thoughts… thoughts that I knew were not mine sometimes just slipping in. I do my best to ignore them. But every day it gets harder, and I’m putting myself at greater and greater risk trying to funnel info to humanity. Every day, I worry that I’ll wake up, and I won’t be me.

Ponydom's noble battle to save earth from itself?

Give me a bucking break. I saw what we were becoming and I saw how the growing PHL became a name that Applejack spat at every instance. So I asked around, discreetly of course; didn't want Applejack, the guards, nor the newfoals to know. I didn't know what'd happen, but I didn't like it.

Found out what they do and what they fought for and I felt my heart line up with their cause. I wanted an escape and they offered it to me. I needed it not just for myself, but for Applebloom as well. So I joined, I had Bloom join as well to be on the safe side. But whatever magic that was spreading over the land began to target her as well.

It began to infect Bloom, made her forget her friends and her real responsibilities. I'll be honest, I was truly afraid of what she could’ve become if she stayed here any longer.

Thankfully, she left with Sweetie Belle before she fell to the dark magic that covers this land. Heard they even managed to get their cutie marks.

Looking out to the farm and seeing those newfoals running about and doing farm work with apparent 'happiness'. They will happily work themselves to death unless I tell them to stop. Granny’s description of them is all too accurate.

You know. I think it’s time I follow Granny's advice and leave too. Applejack and her “friends” won’t be back for some time. Off ‘saving’ more humanity, I suppose.

I know for a fact she will be mighty unhappy to find a grove full of corpses. They’re already mentally dead, so letting them physically die might as well be doing them a favor. Maybe what’s left of them can find peace that way. But that’s not my problem anymore. This isn’t an Apple Family farm, it’s a darn slave plantation. We can rail at humanity for practicing slavery in their past, but this isn’t anywhere near different. At least they didn’t lobotomize their slaves.

"Hey Big Mac! Where you going?" a newfoal panted out as he pulled a wagon full of apples. I chewed my wheat stalk for a moment before giving my answer.

"To town."

"Oh! Do you want any help?"

"Eenope. Ah reckon Ah can do my own business." I turn to leave before I stopped for a moment. I looked back to see all those eyes looking back at me. It was like looking down a bottomless pit, or into a gaping void, made worse by the knowledge that something should have been there. There was no spark of intelligence, humor, or personality at all in those eyes. "You know what. How about you lot take care of the entire Apple fields? I know you can do it."

"That will take several days, but we will be very happy to do it."

"Get to it then." I waved my hoof at them. "Applejack will be mighty proud of you if this entire farm is finished."

"Thank you sir!" He turned to run off before I stopped him.

"Oh. And no slackin’ off until Ah get back," I told him as I trot off.

“That’s okay!” the newfoal says joyfully. “All for the glory of Equestria! We must embrace our full productive potential, after all!”

As I made off the farm, I couldn’t help but take one last look at the farm that was my home for my entire life. Sweet Apple Acres was gone now. I closed my eyes to remember all the good times before making a turn and heading to Granny's headstone.

I must have sat before her grave for an entire hour before placing a hoof on her head stone.

"Nice talking to you Granny. Maybe one day the farm will be back. Maybe we’ll be Apples once more." It was a beautiful dream, wasn’t it? We could buck apples without the slave labor, and go back to being the finest farming family in Equestria. Applebloom would look up at me after breakfast, have a smile on her face as I gave her a ponyback ride to school, Applejack would be one of the most honest, loyal dependable mares I knew, and she’d… she’d just be herself again.

It wouldn’t be that easy though. No matter what’d happen, well…. if Equestria won, we might be that way, but just moving like decorations on some Neighponese clock. We’d be forced in, nowhere to go. If the humans won, by some miracle, well… I don’t know what’d happen. I know that Applebloom’s had enough of Equestria and Ponyville, so she probably won’t go back. Might be nice to start a farm somewhere else, too, cause I’ve had durned near all my happy memories crapped on here in the past couple years. And Applejack… if whatever happened to her is somehow reversible, she’ll be a broken mare, probably hated by everyone. Including herself, maybe. Come to think of it, that might very well happen to everypony that isn’t in the PHL.

No matter what happens, Equestria - the Equestria I grew up in, and I feel sorry for those foals that grew up in the Empire - will be dead.

"Time to go Big Mac." I turn to see Carrot Top standing behind me, a warm smile on her face.

"You look happy." I said quietly.

"I only stayed because of you and Bloom. Now that she’s gone, and I saw you leaving the farm to Granny's grave, I think we know what to do. You told me if I ever saw you heading here, it was your signal to leave," Carrot whispered as she nuzzled me, wrapping her forelegs around my barrel. "Its time for some of us to leave too."

I looked up to the setting sun, enjoying the warmth Carrot gave to me, cause the sun isn't quite up to the task. Hasn’t been for a long time.

"Ready to go?"

"Eeyup."

I can safely say I won’t be missing this place. If I was leaving the Equestria I grew up in, the Equestria I was raised to believe in, I might miss it. But now?

I would be surprised if it doesn’t fit Granny’s description at this point. A poisoned land that died and came back as nothing but a walking corpse, going about as if it were alive, but dead through and through. It looks like Equestria, it talks like Equestria, it walks like it… but underneath, nothing of it remains.

"Goodbye, Granny," I whisper, taking one last look back at her headstone before I turn to go with Carrot, meet up with Caramel and get out of here.

I can’t say for certain what I’ll find on the other side of the Barrier.

I know it’ll be better than this.

2: The Worst Day Of Your Life

I urge you, citizens of Equestria - do NOT abuse the kindness of the newfoal. As most humans are handicapped, having great difficulty at expressing true friendship like us ponies, the newfoals are eager to please, afraid of rejection. Their eagerness to please may lead them to be near-perfect workers, but that does not entitle us to turn them into virtual slaves.
Fleur De Lis, Minister of Newfoal Affairs.

“I did not expect to love a newfoal. I did not expect Stalwart Heart to be the pony he is - for, in his newer, better state as a pony, he is two things. An invaluable asset to the Empire, and perhaps a better pony than some stallions I have known. He is always ready to help, generous and kind. He is always smiling, always ready to laugh. He is loyal to me and the Empire. He will never tell a lie, and he is a friend to all that meet him. Can all of you ponies out there claim to embody the Elements of Harmony so well?”
Twilight Sparkle

It is the early morning, as Celestia’s holy sun ascends over the horizon. A particular pony in the city of Hoofington does not feel rejuvenated, as usual, but you suppose that is normal. His nation is at war, after all.

Imagine you are this pony. A young somewhat portly unicorn stallion, recently graduated, hailing from a comfortable life. A Canterlot unicorn to be precise. Degrees in journalism and law, not a magical heavyweight by any means. His name is Inkwell.

His instructions from PETN were very clear.

Imagine yourself as him. Imagine yourself following these instructions.

This pony, the one you are currently being, was in Hoofington that night. It’s not a bad city, or a big one. It’s... somehow not an Equestrian city, though. It’s a great black cancerous tumor growing on the verdant forests where it was built. Where mountains are blown apart for coal and gems, ponies toil endlessly, and crystals and gems from nopony-knows-where are assembled.

The gold, brass, copper, and precious metals of the city are covered by the grime from the smokestacks for half the day. The other half of which, they are polished by a cleaning crew of newfoals, all so the city can put on a brave face. At least, on the streets that are meant to impress and appease.

You hate its barely-concealed grime.

It’s too... dirty? No.

Too... pretentious? No.

Too human. That’s the word.

How sad. That this city, hailed as a beacon of hope for newfoals to shed what vestiges of humanity they had left, should hold the largest newfoal population in Equestria, and should be so much like those dirty, pollution-choked human cities.

Newfoals toil here every day, building weapons of war for the Solar Empire. They churn out potion vials by the hundreds, and it’s rumored that they have more new devices designed in response to those human weapons made with magic stolen by the PHL. They make chariots, crossbows, arrows, skyliners of a class expected to bring Celestia’s grace to Earth - and, it is rumored, other worlds untouched by the joy of being pony.

There’s one skyliner that intrigues you, though. The mammoth zeppelin Celestia’s Beneficence, larger than even the old Great Equestrian. Armed with new potion mortars, and large enough for Celestia herself to travel on and personally deliver grace to the world, it is going to be a monster of a skyliner... when it’s finished, anyway. You’ve seen the posters, advertising how many newfoals it can convert, house, and drop, and, most amazingly, it has a new-generation magic engine, made to house a power source developed by the Queen herself.

“Extra, extra!” a newfoal yelled. Likely a human child when he’d been ponified, he had a large cart full of newspapers. “Two weeks till the final assault! Humanity expected to fall - their new weapons will be no match for our imperial might!”

Much as you’d like to believe that, you have to wonder. The humans, while still having lost ground, have actually managed to somehow fight to a standstill. And while two weeks isn’t long, you know that they’re not going to be sitting on their flanks. They’re probably pulling all-nighters, overdosing on coffee creating new weapons, right this very minute. Unbeknownst to this pony, yet known to you, that is exactly what is happening. Right at the very second he is thinking this, there is a human, slumped over against his keyboard after 42 hours of calculations to create better magically enhanced munitions, who fought in the Battle of Boston, and is going to make the most of what may very well be his last two weeks as a sentient being.

And, though this is traitorous PHL talk, you’re worried. There have been rumors that Celestia’s clone had not retreated. Rumors that she’d suffered a humiliating battle at the hands of a former teacher, the Knight of Germania and, most improbably, Discord and the traitor Princess Luna.

Which shouldn’t be possible, of course. Humans shouldn’t have weapons that effective, Cheerilee was an earth pony with no training, and the last two shouldn’t have been able to fight! Discord had been banished after his escape, and Luna was petrified as a traitor! Nopony should have been able to free her! There was just no way that...! But that wasn’t your place to question.

No, what was your place to question was the state of the newfoals, as you trot down this street. They are thin, emaciated almost, and yet they still smile. In a way, you admire their determination.

“Pardon me,” says a mare, almost middle-aged, sitting in a rocking chair. “But don’t be on this street at night. The newfoals get... weird at night.”

“They’re peaceful,” you say. “I wouldn’t worry.”

“Clearly you haven’t been in Hoofington long enough,”

“But…” you insist. “They’re newfoals!”

“Your point?” she asks. “They may look like ponies, but there’s something else inside.”

“Humanity?” you ask, shocked. “The potion washes all of that out of them! It-”

“Not that,” the mare says. “Something else.” She refuses to speak another word, no matter how much you ask and plead.

No matter, though. There’s plenty of other things to do here. For starters, there is a certain alleyway, created more as an accident than out of genuine civic planning, sandwiched in between two great factories employing hundreds of newfoals.

An alleyway where you are sure to find the answers. It is between Golden Spike and Oiled Spoke’s locomotive and chariot factories, great ugly buildings that pump raw thaumic radiation and smoke into the air.

That’s what the directives from PETN said, anyway. They were simple - investigate rumors of poor treatment of newfoals in Hoofington. Make a report on the general state of newfoals. Come back. If you took a report on that alleyway, though, it would be a great success for newfoal rights.

‘There it is,’ you think, rounding the corner, jostling through the intense crowds of ponies and narrowly avoiding a carriage, taking note of the shabby conditions of the shops and apartments across from the factories. ‘Wait, shabby?’ you ask. ‘This truly is too human. We were giving them the ponification serum and offering them a better life here in Equestria, where they would have jobs and nice homes, and yet they live in these shabby conditions? Next, I’m going to see slums or something like that!’

Perhaps, in the fullness of time as humans become a footnote on history books, the wooden sign nailed to the narrow corridor between the factories will become a curiosity to historians. “No-man’s alley.”

Well, what does that mean?

As you trot down the alleyway, it is as if you are walking into some magical pocket dimension where most laws of the natural world are moot. Drips to the ground become louder. You swear you hear a river rushing underneath. Pipes snake overhead into each factory, carrying the rockmilk that superconducts magic, momentarily blocking out the sun.

At the end, you can see hundreds of newfoals. Thousands, maybe, all crammed into a wide street between tall concrete tenements. They sleep in cardboard boxes on the cobblestones, under lumpy trash-covered constructions that are not quite sleeping bags or tents. There are stalls with ponies in ragged ensembles, such as fine, patched bowler hats, a poorly-fastened tie, a wool jacket over a white worker’s undershirt. These outfits fall just short of respectability by virtue of being just so ragged, selling what looks to be either overripe fruit, limp vegetables well past the point of being edible, rusty appliances, or whatever else could be found. An elevated trolley covers the street, blocking it off from the sky.

The smiles on the faces of the newfoals have fallen, ever so slightly.

Such poverty! Such… humanity!

With what may or may not be a smile, knowing what injustices you’re going to uncover, you levitate a camera from your saddlebags, and you begin to take pictures.

The pony that forced them into this is going to pay.

You push through the crowd, though it is surprisingly easy. The ponies - all newfoals, you realize - part around you like water. They are so polite and courteous. Too polite and courteous in fact...

There is not much to say about what happens on your journey down the street. Everywhere, it is much the same. The “preacher” newfoals, railing about the One True Monarch and how much better life is. More destitute newfoals sleeping in garbage. And not even minding their situations.

You keep taking photos. The newfoals are eager to help you, of course. They practically throw themselves at your forehooves, saying that they would do anything for you. But they just don’t question anything.

It’s hard not to notice how many of them look like they haven’t gotten a decent meal, or a shower, in weeks. Maybe even months…

Could life on Earth really have been so bad that this right here was an improvement?

You try to ignore the nagging little voice in the back of your mind saying no. Thoughts like that are what got your cousin arrested. Thoughts like that are why seemingly every pony from Ponyville other than the Elements and a few scant others left without a trace, and became enemies of the state; murderers, outlaws, thieves.

Thoughts like that can get a pony in trouble. Or worse. Still, that is only necessary to the War Effort. The Great Solar Empire cannot tolerate such Dissent in Wartime. Dissent leads to Disharmony. In Disharmony, we are little better than those Filthy Apes.

And like that, the thoughts are gone.

...For all of 14.5 seconds, as you walk by the facade of what might have once been a wealthy department store. A sense of inexplicable dread washes over you. Its sign has been painted over, and replaced with neon stolen from signs all over the city. It is in numerous shades of pink, blue, and purple, stark and bright even in the early morning.

The Skye Engine, the jury-rigged neon sign proclaims. You try not to look at it. You cannot look at it. The Skye Engine does not exist. The rumors are just that. They have been exaggerated through hearsay, you say, reassuring yourself, slowly, shakily trotting away from it.

You are not going in there.

Even though you totally are. There! See? Right there. You’re turning around ever so slightly, no matter how much you don’t want to see. But curiosity is a fickle beast, and you need to know. It has inveigled its way into your mind, and you cannot stop.

Newfoals of many ages, most of them adults but some that look to be still in foalhood, mill about its doorways. Many are female, but there’s a decent number of males too. They are clad in outfits that - no, their garments cannot be dignified by calling them outfits. They are more like costumes, imitations of Miss Rarity’s designs that foals might wear, only aged up and cut to pieces. For one thing, they show too much fur. Even skin, in some places. Many of them have scarves, or bizarre leather constructions that conceal the mouth. Some of them are wearing costumes that you do not have words to describe. There are many that have been to the bio-thaumaturge, modified to in-equine extents. They are in the windows of course, but what little you see of them shakes you to the core, your heart pounding within your barrel like a runaway locomotive.

This is wrong.

This is wrong beyond belief.

You mind rebels against this travesty. Surely the newfoals disagree with this! Surely, they-

You stare, trembling. You have heard from Dowsing Rod, your old cantankerous grandfather, that the newfoals seem too happy. That they smile too much, too wide, for it to look natural. You cannot report him though, as he is your grandfather and you love him very much.

You had protested that they are happy with their new state, happier than they had ever been, no, than they ever could be as humans. And he had said one word:

“Constantly?”

His eyes told you more than that one word could.

Now you see what he meant as one pony’s scarf comes loose.

They’re smiling. Not just any smile. The one that newfoals always wear, too wide, too toothy, too much of something to truly mean anything.

“Ugh,” says one mare, clad in a wool coat doing a poor imitation of a suitcoat, a ragged tie that had surely been taken from a garbage dump, and an incongruously polished bowler hat. She isn’t a newfoal. “I hate it when that slips.”

You are happy to find one that expresses disgust, then disheartened about why.

“Ruins the whole experience, it does…”

“Is that all you can say?!” you gasp. “ALL YOU CAN SAY?! These poor newfoals have come from a world that’s essentially a giant Everfree Forest, and this is what we give them?! Are you devoid of compassion?! Are you hu-”

“Don’t call me that!” she yells. “I may disagree with you in a lot of ways. I can see that. But tell me something - have you ever seen a newfoal say no to anything you ask of it?”

Your mind draws a blank.

“I… I can’t say I have...”

“I thought so. Do you know why the farmers of Equestria, or Golden Spike, Oiled Spoke, most of the industrialists making machines for this war like the Beneficence are so stringent about giving their workers breaks?”

Of course you do! Even if it’s an out of context question. “Labor laws,” you say confidently.

“No. It’s not,” the mare says, taking a long drag on her cigarette. “Because the newfoals will work themselves to death if nopony tells them to stop. They’re little better than automatons or golems.”

“Of course they are!” you protest weakly. “They have to be! Earth took everything from them, they have to work because they believe that it’ll all be taken from them! They-”

“Oh, you poor thing. You don’t even believe what you’re saying, do you? Then how do you explain that?” she asked, pointing a hoof at the Skye Engine. You noticed a large window with one newfoal mare standing on her hind legs, gyrating her plot around in a titillating motion. A trio of stallions, not newfoals, are egging her on before they drag her away to somewhere more secluded, clearly intending to have sex with her. They’re yelling rather exuberantly, and their language is so filthy, it makes you cringe and blush at the same time.

“Remember. Newfoals can’t say no. That extends to, well… that,” the mare says, as she walks into the building. “Why do you think so many ponies are getting married to newfoals? Like this friend of mine… Oh, poor Claw Hammer, his wife was horrible! Bet she’d get on real well with my old husband.”

Well buck.

Now you don’t know what to think.

You stumble into a bar just off the side from that street full of newfoals.

You need…

What do you need, anyway? It is as if everything you know is wrong. As if Equestria has dropped out from under your hooves.

As a member of PETN who has personally dined with Fleur-De-Lis and Fancy Pants (who, despite the name, was not actually wearing pants at the time), you were told by both of them that somepony had to speak up for the newfoals. As former humans, they’re likely to get abused.

Yes, speak up for the oppressed. Which is noble and all. But with all you’ve just seen today, how is that supposed to mean anything when they can’t speak up for themselves? Not out of fear, but…

Your train of thought derails.

Why can’t they think for themselves, anyway? Why are they always so polite, smiling despite clearly starving and living in poverty and squalor? They… Alright. You’ve seen photos of Earth. You get that. Polluted wastelands, overpopulated slums in places like India and China, impoverished people, complicated politics, famine in places like Africa, but… what if not everywhere on earth was like that? And maybe the humans weren’t all a bunch of savages and violent brutes. It would be a ridiculous world if every single place was like that, if every single inhabitant of the place was just nothing but a thoughtless beast. The humans would have all destroyed themselves centuries ago! No, Earth can’t have been that bad, because the ponies running away from the Barrier have survived. Somehow. And there were the ones fighting alongside humans...

The report sits half-written on your table. No matter what, you cannot get past that. Clearly the newfoals have been subject to abuse, but from what you’ve seen, it’s nigh-impossible for them not to be abused.

But you can’t write that. Fleur would be sad and disgusted, as would everyone else, and then you would… Well, that didn’t bear thinking on. Tired, sickened, and not sure what to do, you lie on the bed, levitating up PETN’s weekly magazine.

“I was a PHL member!” screams the heading of one page. You’ve heard of this stallion, a former PHL member before he was captured and he saw Celestia’s Light, immediately becoming a die-hard PETN, and then PER member.

What are you missing in all this?

You investigate, of course. Even if the newfoals are desperate to the point of being unable to say no, there has to be some great abuse that is keeping them down!

You talk to the new manager of a struggling grocery store, an inexperienced young stallion who frequently mutters about how it was better when his old supervisor Green Grocer was running the show. He has this to say.

“Ever tried to buy food during the lunch rush?” the young stallion asks. “Now, imagine that your favorite store or restaurant has two billion new customers now, all trying to buy food. That’s what it’s like for every grocery store and restaurant in Equestria. We struggle just trying to stock up for the next day! I don’t know how the humans fed such a huge population, but the Barrier reverts their farmland to forest and plains, so we’ll never know. I’ve heard something about them having ‘high-yield strains’ but we’ll never know cause the Barrier destroyed them.”

When you protested about all the jobless newfoals, he simply said, “Do I need to repeat myself? We have too many newfoals and not enough job openings. It’s the same everywhere! We have to make colonies and farms just to have living space!”

“So who supplies the food?” you ask.

“Sweet Apple Acres and some of their extended family’s farms,” he says. “The Apple family and their closest friends and relatives in the agriculture business manage a lot of farms in the colonies in New Equestria. Along with transporting goods. I think they have an office over by the railroad station?”

“Thanks,” you say. “I’ll talk to them. I’ll try and change things-”

“You have no idea at all what you’re talking about, do you?” he sighed. “Anyway, I need to get back to work. Nobody can figure out what system Green Grocer used to organize all this, and it’s driving us mad!”

“It can’t have been that great!” you protest.

“You don’t even know what-”

“I know, I know,” you sigh. “I’ve been getting that a lot. But humans made it, so-”

“Listen,” the mare says. Half of her bloodstream is probably caffeine at this point. She looks like she considers sleep a luxury or a treat, like chocolate. “I don’t care what you have to say on that. But humans had trains that could travel 320 kilometers per hour, and the Barrier atomized them! Guess what we have. Go on. Guess.”

“We have trains too, don’t we?” you ask.

“Well, yeah, but compared to what humans made, they’re obsolete and inefficient. We don’t have continent-spanning railroad systems! Even if we don’t have engines as efficient as human locomotives, we’ve destroyed all the infrastructure! We have to build everything from scratch because the Barrier won’t even let us take human steel, so colonies are forced to build from the ground up! Sure, we have bountiful land, but we can barely use it!”

“Why not use skyliners?”

“Because all the magic and resources they take up are needed for the war effort, and they… look. They just don’t work for transporting freight. You’d need something bigger than the Beneficence for that, and that’s already taking enough resources to establish several colonies.”

“...It is a huge project,” you admit. After what you’ve seen, it’s hard to argue with her. “I… have to admit, I haven’t seen the Beneficence’s construction site, but it’s said that it’ll even dwarf the Great Equestrian.”

“And that was destroyed by some human superweapon. Nopony knows what it was, and Twilight Sparkle is still trying to work out how that was even possible!”

It is getting late. Celestia is easing the sun down, and soon she will raise the moon. It is good that she is so used to doing that - who would have thought that Luna would have been on the verge of another traitorous outburst?

It’s clear, very clear that she had never really stopped being Nightmare Moon, for-

Your train of thought derails. Is she? Is she, really? Really? You heard the impossible reports from Boston, but the petrified statue of Luna is still there.

Your notepad sits blank in your saddlebags. It’s blank, so it doesn’t actually say anything, but you feel as if it is mocking you.

Really.

You just…. it’s like somepony cut the strings of your bow. You had a perfect shot lined up, something that’d be close to a work of art. And now, that just doesn’t work. You were prepared to write about an uncaring city, prepared to try and galvanize everypony into action to bring newfoals better conditions…

But can you? And is it worth it? Sure, newfoals don’t deserve to be abused, or kept in squalor. But how do you try and prevent horrible conditions when your nation is so clearly overstretched and in hindsight, completely unprepared to support them? Or prevent the abuse when newfoals can’t say no, or are little better than automatons?

They can’t think you realize, to your shock. They… they weren’t this way. They can’t have been.

That’s right! Perhaps you can argue for a more humane use of the potion. Clearly, in removing that 'human nature' that kept them greedy and selfish, making them more carefree and friendly, something went wrong. It made them too docile. It made them too-

Huh?

There is a crowd of newfoals up ahead, trotting down a narrow passage between two buildings hammered together from whatever scrap wood could be found in the city. It is altogether too narrow to really be called an alleyway.

You wait, curious. It is not the sick, nauseating fascination that you felt in front of the Skye Engine. It seems healthy enough. This is the closest thing you’ve seen to a large group of newfoals acting on their own, so, naturally, you’re curious.

Adjusting your saddlebags so nopony can see your cutie mark, you follow them between the two buildings. The shanties. The newfoals appear to be heading down a hole caused by a broken pipe shattering the cobblestones, each with single-minded drive and efficiency.

You keep far behind them as you climb into the hole, down the sewers.

And sweet mother of Celestia, it is even worse down there than it was on No Man’s Alley. The newfoals are simply packed against one another in tight shanties, and… Sweet Celestia, how can it be this bad?! How?!

But even that pales in comparison to what you are about to see next. The procession of newfoals travels through a narrow pipe, through what feels like miles of identical tunnels, though you tell yourself that it cannot be that long.

Finally, the newfoals come to a massive room in the sewers. A cavernous space that could easily fit a house, and seems to be… there are objects on the walls. Photographs, clearly cut and pasted from magazines, some of which you have clearly seen in PETN newsletters, are all over the walls. There are crude, brutalized bipedal statues lining every alcove.

It has an aspect of… what humans call a church? One of the places of worship where humans, or Zebras, or any other Enemies of Equestria worship their false gods instead of the One True Monarch, Celestia, the smiling goddess.

The newfoals are gathered there, in front of a statue of Celestia that was either stolen from somewhere or carved by newfoals. It is standing atop somepony’s crude approximation of a human skeleton, a smile on its face. You cannot fault it for that, but… still, there is something wrong with the image. You cannot tell what, though.

You crawl through a nearby pipe, heading upwards.

“Celestia has saved us from our humanity, from greed, from all the vices that made us human,” says one newfoal mare, standing before the statue. She looks like some sort of leader. “We are unworthy. We are pathetic-”

Well, this is unexpectedly worse and yet somehow better than you had expected. The newfoals are usually proud to be ponies… what is going on here? You make your way to a solitary pipe hanging over the cavernous room, a stream of noxious water dripping downwards.

“-and unworthy of feeling. Unworthy to truly feel. As ponies, absorbed into the Empire, we can be nothing. But only by serving the Empire can we truly be allowed to feel, to be alive,” he says. “By crushing those that would go against her harmony. Rainy Daze…” and she points toward a newfoal stallion. “What say you at this moment?”

“Can’t stand it,” he says. “We deserve this for once being human. For our very existence as them, but… I can’t...I NEED TO FEEL IT!” the newfoal stallion screams, a high piercing note that could shatter glass.

...Well, that can’t be a good sign. Newfoals are supposed to be peaceful! Even if the latest batch of potion is flawed, you know that this can't be right.

“Bring out the effigy,” the mare commands, taking out a large scarecrow, roughly human-sized. The newfoal stares down at it, and… is that a smile? The one he is wearing, the one that all newfoals wear, it deepens. It is like a pencil and paper drawing immediately becoming a painting. He stomps on the hideous effigy of a human.

Red paint splatters out, all over his face. “YES YES YES YES!”

What in Celestia’s name are they doing?!

“Rainy Daze, how do you feel?” yells the newfoal mare that appears to be leading this strange church.

“ALIVE!” the stallion yells, laughing, his eyes deep, crazy, bloodshot red. “I can feel it! I FEEL EVERYTHING!”

It is as if stomping on the human’s effigy has revitalized him in some way. As if some unholy vigor has been infused through him. The smile on his face, which has seemed increasingly unlike a smile all day, is, to your horror, an actual smile. The emotion is plain on his face, at a level of expression that most newfoals just don’t or can’t display.

“Oh, this… I’m alive!” the stallion says, practically weeping in joy as he stares at the ketchup-splattered dummy of a human. “Though I am filthy, undeserving of such mercy, I am happy!”

“You of the Salvation Army,” says the mare leading this perverse service, “What did you find? Did you experience the new Joy that Celestia has given us?”

The newfoals that step forward are ragged, missing eyes and great patches of fur. They have odd, awkwardly fixed peg legs. These ponies have to be war heroes or something! To have gotten home from the Salvation Army, well…

You have heard Things from the battlefields that the newspapers won’t talk about. Stories of humans and ponies (you instinctively suppress the revulsion) who are able to slaughter newfoals and native Equestrians in droves. Humans and ponies alike have taken up particular fighting styles and enhanced weaponry that make them infinitely more effective than the average “grunt,” as they call their basic soldiers, leading attacks against our forces. Not just the ones that somehow managed to win the Battle of Boston, but all over the world. It’s rapidly becoming a darned deathtrap for Ponykind’s righteous battle. Human guns now pierce through shields, and almost all Potion-based weaponry save for gas has become impractical. Newfoal rushes have become simply untenable. And in the few countries the Barrier hasn’t purified of human influence, there is a firearm behind every tree, behind every dune, around every corner.

Though you wonder if it is righteous anymore. Even though you are not supposed to think like that.

“We were… we managed to get out of Boston, avoiding the charge,” one says. “But we found a Betrayer, and we beat her for hours.” Her smile does that inexplicable deepening as well. “Jammed our hooves into her eyes, left her screaming on the floor, and we just stomped on her till she bled. Ripped off her horn, too.”

Torture?! That’s… that’s a human thing. Only humans do that, right? Only humans are so violent, right?! That has to be, it has to be, that you know for the Queen told you so-

Stop.

The denial has become less pronounced, though you can still hear some voice in the back of your mind, protesting that you have to be right, that Equestria has to be right! And yet...

And yet…

It is as if a switch has been flipped. You are wrong, you realize. This whole war is wrong. If you’ve made ponies resort to torture and worse, enjoy it, then you cannot be right. Before the war, Hoofington did not have such vast poverty. It did not have a food crisis, it did not have any of the scars that have certainly come from war. There were not horrific workplace accidents or slums dedicated entirely to newfoals.

And ponies were… they… how can it be right for newfoals to be this way?! They’re caricatures of ponies! Black and white caricatures with no depth! Twilight Sparkle said that her newfoal husband embodied the Elements better than most ponies, but that…

Was pretty hypocritical and sickening now that you thought about it. Newfoals were just humans molded into ponies, so why were they better ponies than you? Did that mean smiling constantly with few visible other emotions, working yourself to death just because somepony forgot to tell you to stop, not having enough of yourself to hide, save for this monstrosity, helping everypony so fervently that you wasted away, and making more humans into ponies so they could come to our horribly overstretched empire made you a better pony?! Because this was just doing so much more harm than good! You’d seen the photos that ponies would take of captured cities and towns, of humans in the worst of conditions who had escaped the Barrier, but… for the majority of them, it seemed that the Barrier was what actually caused their terrible living conditions. And by pressing the Barrier onward, Equestria has made them more overpopulated, creating more terrible conditions to use as propaganda fodder. Which is even worse because Equestria keeps scaring them off with the threat of ponification, which would likely make them more brutally violent, more scared, more liable to torture...

And…

‘Oh sweet Celestia, we’re the bad guys! They were brutal and monstrous before, but we’ve made them worse.’

You cannot write an article that supports the war or newfoals now. You cannot do anything that is pro-war. You have seen too much suffering, too much destruction of innocence to ever truly support the war.

Trembling, you stand up, and attempt to turn around. The pipe echoes with your movement, and-

Oh no.

As if they only have one mind, all the newfoals stare up at you, far too alert, far too synchronized.

You run, trying not to scream, as the newfoals - those not pony things, aliens molded into an equine likeness, chase you. You try to stave off thoughts of them assuming you’re a PHL betrayer, then torturing you. Of them somehow making you like them, a terrible “perfect” smiling pony, as they smile, using their magic and-

That doesn’t happen.

What happens is far worse.

They smile and wave, happy as if this was the most natural thing in the world.

“Can we help you down?” asks a pegasus, floating up to you. “That looks so hard to turn around in. I don’t even know if you can!”

“So sorry you couldn’t get out,” says another pegasus. “That pipe looks awfully cramped.”

They’re… they’re so helpful. So kind. To a fault even, but they’d been keeping almost the same tone when talking about torture and murder.

This is just so wrong that you do not even have words.

Oh, Celestia, no!

“What… what are you doing?” you ask, your mouth dry.

“Why, celebrating the glory of Equestria, of course!” says the newfoal who had trampled the effigy of the human.

You stare at him, almost sick, trying to stave off nausea. “This? How is this a celebration?!” you ask, trying to keep yourself from sounding too disgusted. You don’t want them to think you’re a Betrayer, after all. “Torture! You’re celebrating the torture of-”

“Why shouldn’t we?” one yellow newfoal unicorn asks, cocking her head to the side. “They’re just Betrayers and…” she speaks the word as if it is the most vile, hateful insult she can muster, and considering that newfoals can’t swear and are obsessively, fanatically, singlemindedly patriotic, it just might well be. “Un-Equestrians.”

You are going to say something. Argue not on behalf of humans, but on behalf of the decency that humans have so little of, though they are starting to seem almost sane compared to the singlemindedness of newfoals.

“Why, you are not advocating for them being afforded any of the rights of ponies, are you?” another newfoal asks. It’s the pegasus that had carried you down to the floor, and you are eerily sure that if you are to say something about Equestria that they don’t like, the pegasus could just fly up and drop you to the ground, or they could drown you.... “Because the humans have no souls and they aren’t sentient, and the Betrayers have just sold themselves into barbarism.”

“No, n… no,” you say, trying desperately to keep yourself sounding like you at least mostly agree with them. “I… just think… you hear all those stories about the HLF, right? Torturing, murdering, stuff like that? I just don’t want to sink to their level is all.”

“Oh, we couldn’t possibly sink that far,” said one newfoal, and you realize that her eyes almost glow with belief. Absolute conviction, no room for doubt, no room to question morality. Or even to want to question it. “We’re ponies. We love and care for one another. We are perfect, as we have killed our imperfect selves. We are better than them.”

It was easy to convince the newfoals you did not want to stay. You told them you were sick, that you were curious, and you didn’t have the stomach to watch things like that.

Eyes darting from side to side, you crawled up, up and out of the sewers, and found your way to an inn on the outskirts of Hoofington. At first, you had wanted to look for a ‘perfect’ inn and dinner, a ‘perfect’ view, all kinds of characteristics for which you cannot find that perfect balance.

As you ran out of town, you passed the same mare, still in her rocking chair. You clearly heard her as you passed her by.

"Told you not stay out at night." She called out as you blazed past. You were not sure if she was giving off a cackle of laughter at your foolishness.

You are so far outside of Hoofington that you are practically in the mountains, in this old wooden inn that creaks in the cold night winds. It was upon reaching the inn, after taking a streetcar and trotting miles, you realized what you were truly looking for.

You just wanted out, didn’t you? You wanted to be away from the newfoals, away from the city crumbling and choking under the weight of its own population, away from the war, away from this new Equestria that is mostly newfoals, to some peaceful place that for a few fleeting moments you can pretend you’re in an Equestria from before the war. Before… actually, the change has been so gradual that you cannot point to any single event. The Crystal Empire seems slightly too late, even Nightmare Moon’s return seems too late. There has to be some event that made Equestria lose its way, some event where-

No.

Focus.

You are sitting in your room, staring forlornly at the blank piece of paper in front of you, on your desk.

The instructions were clear - write an expose on Hoofington’s abuse of newfoals. If anything, it seems like the newfoals are abusing it. Not abusing it, actually - more like draining it. And yet, it didn’t seem to be by any fault of their own; Equestria was simply unprepared to care for such a huge, massive number of new inhabitants.

You catch yourself before you write that out. You’ve found the opposite of seemingly everything you need to write a positive story.

You cannot write this in Equestria. But you have to. Because in Equestria, you can always fix mistakes. Celestia has… she has made a mistake. That has to be it.

And this needs to end before more suffer because of it.

With renewed vigor, you sit and write.

It’s almost predictable how quickly it happened.

You passed out drafts of your article to the PETN members. Fleur De Lis’ husband Fancy Pants was there, the old fop. As were a mare and her filly from Ponyville, and countless others. You had been sitting around a table, eating a cake allegedly made from a human recipe before the Barrier atomized it.

They had been eager to hear you talk to them. Eager to hear you give your report on how cruel Hoofington was for newfoals. You don’t know what they expected - cruel industrialists that treated their workers like replaceable machines they didn’t have to pay money for, discrimination, businesses refusing to sell their services to newfoals? - but you most certainly didn’t have it.

No, what you told them was far worse.

You told them the truth. You told them about the brothel of newfoals, the starvation, the poverty, how there were just not enough jobs or goods to go around. The almost cult-like group of newfoals who took far too much joy in the prospect of hurting so called 'Betrayers' and humans, enough to make you uneasy. How they had become almost revitalized by the prospect of making humans suffer, with casual, gleeful sociopathy.

At first, there was silence. Fancy Pants’ eyes had darted across the room. The Ponyville mare, Berry Punch, if you remember correctly, had stared at you in anger, and started screaming bloody murder at you.

All of them but Fancy Pants. who was in the middle of some emotion that could perhaps be called quiet disgust, given his silence and bowed head, had been angry. You had argued, of course. Pleaded. Told them it was the truth, begged for them to listen.

They didn’t. As soon as you showed yourself as even slightly disagreeing with the Empire, they had pounced on you like the hungry predators of Earth or the Everfree, or one of the zones of New Equestria that hadn’t been culled by hunters and was still plagued by predation.

You had protested that you had never been against the empire. You merely thought that perhaps the war was wrong, that maybe the humans did not have it that badly on earth and maybe humans were not all savages for that matter, that maybe this wasn’t the right way to help them. That the war had been poorly planned and your nation was steadily destroying itself.

The PETN had looked at you with fear, then pity. You had been knocked out by the Royal guards, and, in the current parlance of the public, Disappeared. Or, in the parlance of the Empire, Detained to Prevent Further Destabilization of Wartime Morale.

You’d been hit with a sedative spell of some kind from a unicorn, then he and a mare had dragged you outside, using magic to force your limbs to walk. You were dragged into a civilian wagon, as if you were their drunk friend, then forced in.

The ride had taken what felt like hours, and your limbs would not move. You’d been dragged by that puppeteer spell through Canterlot Castle, marched against your will then brought into a dark room, where your hooves are shackled and the place smells of mildew and rust.

How did things go so wrong for you? No, how did they go so badly for Equestria?

Finally, after who knows how long, you are brought before Queen Celestia. You aren’t allowed to walk, of course.

Just forced to walk by that puppet spell. And worst of all, it’s Twilight Sparkle doing it, forcing you to walk.

You don’t want this. You’re not even allowed to throw up, or scream, or say anything. The bile is building up at the back of your mouth. If only there was some way to escape, some way to run! But no, you are inexorably marched toward the Queen, down the hallways of the castle as the terrible purple mare smiles. You try to look at her, to give a questioning look, but even as you try, her hold over your neck tightens.

You want to run, but you can’t! It’s… it has to be a nightmare. It has to be. There is no other way at all, no way you could be made so helpless, so powerless.

You are brought around a corner and are marched onto the red carpet.

As soon as you feel the control released, you fall to the floor, your legs wobbly from lack of use.

You take a look at your surroundings. The sun streams in through the stained glass windows of the Elements and various militaries of Equestria in various actions. Vanquishing Nightmare Moon, taking over human cities, bestowing the gift of ponification.

It is warm. The white marble that makes up the floor and ceiling are cool, the light is just that perfect shade to keep you from being burnt, and relax you at the same time. Being before your glorious ruler should fill you with a sense of peace, but now? Here?

All you can fill is fear. Deep, pounding fear from the bottom of your heart as, to your horror, the Elements stand by her. Twilight is at the feet of the throne, an anticipatory smile on her face. You have only rarely seen Celestia in all her majesty. More power than any unicorn can dream of, immortal, fur whiter than snow, a mane all the colors of the sky. She is so radiant that she makes every color in the vicinity seem grayer and duller.

But it is the eyes that worry you. Cold, dark, hard purple. There is no mercy in those eyes.

What has happened to her?!

“Mighty Queen,” Twilight says, bowing her head before Queen Celestia, touching her horn to the floor and them giving her mentor a nuzzle. “We have the Betrayer.”

“Betrayer?!” you protest. “I’m not a PHL member!”

“You were going to destabilize wartime morale. Make ponies question our noble battle to save humanity from itself,” Queen Celestia says. “That is betrayal. And I can’t have that.”

All the while, she is smiling as if it is the most natural thing in the world. Not too much like a newfoal, now that you think about it. But there is intelligence behind her eyes.

“I didn’t want to do any of that!” you protest, taking care not to dig yourself deeper. “I just wanted to tell everyone that there are things in this war that we aren’t doing right. Maybe it wo-” you catch yourself, just barely.

Everypony’s eyes narrow, and you shrink back.

“Explain,” Celestia whispers. “What did you mean by ‘Maybe’ ?”

“Maybe we shouldn’t have gone through it,” you say, and you plunge into your argument before you can make things worse. “We’ve overstretched our infrastructure by destroying human infrastructure, and we can’t feed ponies with human high-yield strains because the Barrier somehow destroys them as well. We’ve taken in more newfoals than we were prepared to support, so we don’t have enough jobs or living space, and we’ve gutted the economy. The humans had continent-spanning railroad systems, and we haven’t managed to make enough transport to cover the lands we’ve… purified.”

You actually have them interested now, maybe. Their faces are unreadable.

“We’re so eager to destroy humanity that we’re destroying ourselves!” you say. “And… you may need to rework the potion.”

“Rework?” Rarity asks. “Most Betrayers don’t talk that way.”

“The ponification potion isn’t… I think it makes them too concerned with being ponies. They have little, if any will of their own, they hate humanity to the extent that they take joy in stomping on effigies of themselves. They outright said that they could barely feel anything when they weren’t trying-”

None of them are dismayed or anything. They show no signs of disappointment. If anything, they are smiling wider.

Oh, Celes-

No.

If you are going to say it, you are not going to swear by her.

“It was on purpose,” you breathe in realization. “You made the newfoals this way on purpose. They have no hopes, dreams, thoughts, anything for themselves! They’re blank! They’re… they’re smiling nzambi!”

“You too?” Queen Celestia sighs, and her words are sweet. Not the sweet of candy, but of something rotten. Of something too sweet, enough that it makes you want to throw up just smelling it. “I will never understand why everyone compares them to zombies. Aren’t they happier? Aren’t they better even than humans?”

“NO!” you gasp. “No they bucking aren’t! You’ve made them constantly happy without any negative emotions! So, they…. after awhile, they just don’t feel anything! How… how could anything have possibly justified this?!”

“Awww, come on!” Pinkie Pie says, laughing. “Everypony wants to be happy, don’t they? So we made them that way. Look how happy they all are! They just smile smile, fill your heart with sunshine sunshine!

“They are human!” she protests. “They deserve to be made perfect! Look what they’ve made! Look what they’ve done! They do not respect one another, they do not care for each other, they are-”

“No. I won’t accept that,” you say. “I don’t. We’re not perfect. Nopony is. Even you aren’t! I don’t know why you’re ponifying them, maybe you’re jealous of them or something, but-”

“NEVER INTERRUPT ME,” Queen Celestia says. Though her voice is quiet, and she might as well have been whispering, her voice reverberates through the throne room, with almost enough force in those words to crack the stained-glass windows. “I offer you a choice now. You can either submit to me, and none of this ever happened. Or you can disappear to one of the work camps.”

Work yourself to death, or die without a mind.

So you stare at her, and say: “Give me a pickaxe.”

Celestia stares at you.

“I am going to die as myself,” you say. “Nopony will take that away from me.”

"Take him away." You feel the guards drag you away, listening as she talks to Twilight and the others. "I need you for a very important project later. All of you.”

'What have I done..."

3: Horrible Truths and Thin Facades

"Every part goes to support our war effort - keep them in our hooves, out of enemy hands! You never know what the Betrayers could be planning with it..."
Propaganda poster featuring Applejack, intended to keep PHL ponies from finding “misplaced” spare parts. Found in numerous mines, factories, places of manufacture, and work camps.

“Dear Queen Molestia: NUTS! Sincerely, Viktor M. Kraber
Found carved into a Royal Guardspony returning to Equestria.

It would be something of a stretch to say Fleur De Lis was a bad pony. She merely had that unique combination of social connections, ignorance of the world at large, and good intentions that made her position more an unfortunate quirk of circumstance than genuine villainy.

She sipped her tea, and sighed, reading a newspaper article about how a rather high-placed executive at Barnyard Bargains had been found with leaflets and pamphlets containing anti-Newfoal rhetoric. Why did ponies refuse to accept newfoals? Ponification was a necessity, and yet so many ponies treated newfoals as if the potion had not purified them.

Well, okay, sure, maybe the newfoals sometimes acted funny, but after having shed away their old nature, what made them greedy and cruel and seeing how much better it was, why wouldn’t they be in such marvel of everything around them?

She had started the Ponies for the Ethical Treatment of Newfoals to protect incoming newfoals. They’d likely face plenty of discrimination for what they had been, or be treated as if they still had that nasty nature that made them human in the first place. Ponies leaving graffiti or throwing things at their door, throwing crude cutouts of hands at them, or saying “You’ll never be ponies, just filthy, disgusting, bloodthirsty humans!”

Somepony had to step up for the newfoals.

So she did.

It had seemed laughable. HER? A model, rumored to be a trophy wife? She was just going with it because it was fashionable!

It soon became clear that she was serious.

Her husband, Fancy Pants, trotted into her new office. She was an important pony now, so she was given an office with white stucco walls, dark hardwood floors, thaumoelectric lights, and modern amenities to befit a princess. And they had - this office was in a manor that had belonged to the disgraced Princess Cadance. Though nopony would have guessed it belonged to a disgraced princess, particularly her - her ex-husband Shining Armor, claiming that she had sex with a human as so many mares were wont to do these days, had destroyed every statue, painting, or sculpture containing her likeness.

She was happy to see so much of Fancy around their home. When she had been busy at PETN before her promotion to the Newfoal Affairs department of the Equestrian government, Fancy had been off at what he described as a ‘rather secretive club in Canterlot low-town. A rather… scandalous place!’ And he had then given her a wink, assuring her that it was not a newfoal brothel, claiming that the idea sickened him. Which had kept Fleur relieved, knowing that whatever her husband was doing, it wasn’t too depraved. The foppish stallion had few mean bones in his body.

Now, however, he appeared to have cut back on his visits to that club, whatever it was, and appeared to be doing much of the paperwork to help her cause. She’d never asked what he’d been doing, and he’d never told. Too much could slip out at Canterlot nobility parties, and cause a debilitating scandal. Besides, she trusted him.

“So,” Fleur asked, “how goes our struggle against the paperwork monster?”

“Poorly,” Fancy groaned, his waxed mustache and elegantly styled mane drooping. “While Inkwell did lose his way-” The poor, unsubtle moron! he thought. Just a pony whose good intentions hurt him. “-He did raise good points. I’m already trying to get those brothels shut down.”

“Good, good,” Fleur said, shivering. “Those places sicken me!”

‘And turning them into newfoals doesn’t?!’ Fancy thought inwardly, getting slightly angry. Nevertheless, he pushed those thoughts out of the way. It was the closest she could get to being kind in the Empire, and they were doing some good, anyway. He had to admire her generosity to newfoals who had given up everything and found themselves destitute. She was doing better than even the actual element of Generosity was nowadays, probably…

“You and me both,” he agreed.

Fleur added, “Though we did get a letter. We, and several important functionaries, are required for the christening of the Celestia’s Beneficence.”

“The Beneficence?” Fancy asked. And, before he could stop himself, “Isn’t that the new assault skyliner that’s being developed?” His flower shop, and numerous loosely-connected PHL cells he only knew through dead drops had been trying to find information on the thing for a while, but he knew precious little about the thing. Apparently, it was some kind of massive skyliner, bigger even than the Great Equestrian, but he knew nothing about it. Perhaps he could-

Stop. Trade Secret was dead. Killed in the fire. And if he suddenly came back, he’d put Fleur in danger. Everything that the two of them had worked to create for each other.

“How do you know about it?” Fleur asked, raising an eyebrow.

Calling upon some distant reservoir of gentlestallionly poise, he simply arched an eyebrow and said, “It’s not exactly a well-kept secret.”

“Ah, I see,” Fleur said. “Did you learn about it at that oh-so-exclusive club you visited?”

“In a manner of speaking,” he said. “The stallions there… are exclusive, connected ponies. They wouldn’t like to be revealed.” Technically, this was true. There were stallions in the few PHL holdouts of Equestria who would care not to be revealed, all of whom had done their business wearing unremarkable garments with inverted Want-It Need-It spells. Though considering how untalkative one was, and how enormous he was, Fancy suspected that one was Big Macintosh Apple. Perhaps the most productive yet dangerous position to be in, the brother of an Element Bearer who could not lie or even obscure the truth to save her life. Besides, there were numerous mares involved who would also not care to be involved. Particularly a certain easily-frightened group of flower sellers…

“So,” he said. “To Hoofington we’re going, aren’t we?”

“We certainly are,” Fleur says. “I do hope it’s not as horrible as I’ve heard.”

It’s worse.

As a young stallion with more money than attention span, Fancy had traveled Equus, to places that were unlikely to exist anymore, seeing slums, badlands, industrial wastes, alongside areas that were so beautiful he wondered why nopony seemed to talk about them. Not counting the more adventurous trek through the Griffon Kingdom and his odd 'hobby' he gained while living there.

Possibly as a result of his travels, when the train exited a long tunnel, he was at least slightly prepared for the pure dirtiness of the city.

Fleur, however, was not.

Unpredictable thaumaturgic compounds had leaked into the surrounding landscape, twisting the flora and fauna of the Hoofington Range into strange, unlikely forms. Trees were gnarled and twisted, statues were overgrown, and bizarre vines crawled up trees and strangled them. Yet, at the same time, runoff from factories not powered by thaumic machinery had caused massive die-offs of riverside plants, with dead fish bobbing in the river. It was a myriad of ugly, unnatural colors, thanks to the pollution of Hoofington’s rapid unrestrained industrialization.

From their first-class railway wagon, which was possibly one of the few railway wagons in Equestria that actually qualified as a passenger car, as much of Equestria’s passenger rolling stock had been converted from obsolete boxcars, to save materials during the War and support increased rail usage, Fleur stared at the ecological devastation.

It got worse as the train neared the city, passing through Spatters, a housing project that had been taken over by newfoals. It had originally been made as affordable housing for newfoal workers, but it had quickly become a ghetto as newfoal squatters with no place to go other than the clouds above Hoofington had flooded in, taking over even the skeletons of skyscrapers-in-progress.

“It’s so terrible that newfoals are forced to live like this,” Fleur sighed. “Perhaps Inkwell was at least partly right.”

For a moment, Fancy thought she might actually say something prohuman.

“We could have slowed the Barrier and given ourselves time to build our forces,” she said. “But if we’d done that, the war would have been even more brutal. It’s a terrible necessity, I suppose…”

“Not much we can do about all of that, though,” Fancy said. “Not instantly, anyway…” he looked at the ground soberly. “Fleur, there’s something I want you to know.”

She looked at him, nuzzling him gently. “Yes?”

“You’re a good mare, Fleur,” Fancy said. “For all that you do, I can’t help but love you more. I just feel ashamed that I haven’t done enough. To stop any of-” he swept his foreleg out in a wide gesture, “This.”

“Oh, Fancy,” Fleur said gently, “You’ve done plenty.”

“Have I?” Fancy asked. “I’ve donated money to pro-newfoal causes. I’ve been at rallies. I’ve been braver than most of the inbred fools in Canterlot, and I haven’t stopped any of this!”

Fleur looked at him, alarmed. She’d never guessed he had that in him.

“The newfoals, the social injustice, the food prices, the feeling that Inkwell was right. It’s this war, Fleur. The feeling that it’s all unavoidable. It makes me feel so powerless. So impotent.”

“I wouldn’t say that you’re-” Fleur started, looking away from him as he spoke.

“No! Not like that. Like no matter what I do, I won’t make a difference to Equestria. I won’t do something that matters to even one pony,” he sighed. “I’ve tried so much, and so little has changed.”

“Fancy, you’ve done plenty of good! All those things you mentioned, I know that they’ve helped somepony!” Fleur protested.

“Have I?” Fancy asked. “We’re still at war, Fleur. We still have this. We still have ponies suffering because of the war. I haven’t done enough.”

“Equestria was not built in a day, Fancy,” Fleur said. “We will be able to help in time, and one day, you will have created something wonderful. I promise.”

“I hope so,” Fancy sighed. “I really hope so.”

Trade Secret was dead.

He had to be.

Somewhere in Fancy Pant’s mind, Trade Secret was still there. Not as an actual split personality, or the bold, dashing rogue he hadn’t been for years, but as a quiet, nagging urge. He wanted to write on the injustice of Hoofington. He wanted to pat Inkwell on the back with his forehoof and say, “Son, you were right.”

But he couldn’t, and Inkwell was likely in a work camp in one of the colony zones, possibly on the downright terrifying remains of the African Front, where even venturing into purified land was a death sentence.

Even if there was no humans to fight, Africa had its own perils that seemingly made the Everfree look like a joke in some comparison. Strangely, reports he received indicated that it was only newfoals that had gotten killed by the dozens of predators, in a foolhardy attempt to ‘domesticate’ them. Natives were left alone or ignored entirely by the predators. Many suspected that it was the zebra’s doing, using their subtle, natural magic to create a curse that would make the already dangerous continent even more so. Though there was also a theory that predators simply didn’t like something in the newfoals, and attacked them. Personally, Fancy liked the first one more.

His cover would be blown. And, though he would, in his own way, be doing good things, Fleur would be ashamed of his work to protect the humans. Because, after all, he was supporting them, making him a Betrayer. When Fleur found out, it would not be pretty. In the event that Equestria consumed Earth, he’d likely be treated the same way humans had treated escaped Nazi war criminals. Optimistically, if the humans won, she… might leave him in disgust, for facilitating the downfall of her nation.

Oh, how it tore him up inside to lie to her, to play up his foppish nature so much! To keep from screaming as they walked past homeless and destitute newfoals, restrain his disgust not at them but the process they’d been made from. To keep himself from crying at the sight of them, and drown his sorrows in expensive alcohol.

He had to be careful with the second thing. A loose tongue could lead to the brainwashing of his colleagues. The destruction of untold millions. PHL spies being lead into traps, soon to have their minds laid bare before Queen Celestia or Twilight Sparkle, their psyches unraveled till they became little more than newfoals with cutie marks.

Those were thoughts that kept him up at night. Even after long, happy nights in the expensive Hoofington hotel they had stayed at, eating delicacies that must have cost exorbitant amounts as farmland was used more and more to feed Equestria’s growing newfoal population.

Fleur De Lis stared at her husband with nothing but concern. Fancy Pants clearly had not slept well. There were dark circles under his eyes, and his fur was strangely matted, but it was nothing that she couldn’t fix. She was a model, she had plenty of experience with makeup, and making sure somepony looked pretty for any occasion.

Was he still saddened about not being able to do enough? Either way, now didn’t feel like a good time to discuss.

The two of them ate breakfast in the hotel lobby in comparative silence.

'Poor Fancy,' Fleur thought. 'I never thought it would have gotten to him so much!'

As soon as he finished his last bite of apple butterscotch pancakes, he sighed. “So then, where is this site we’ll be visiting?”

Fleur checked her invitation. “Stormdancer yards, apparently. We’ll know it when we see it.”

And of course, they did. Stormdancer Yards was a rough, ugly part of the city, a line of huge warehouses that looked for all the world like a wharf at the edge of the sea, with the dirty cobblestones, wooden buildings between warehouses, great shipping terminals, heavily-muscled stallions trotting to and fro with huge loads in their carts, and massive hulls being assembled…

Except it was at the edge of a large field of scrubby yellow grass that nopony dared eat.

This was the skyliner construction district. As soon as the two of them got off the train, a smiling brown newfoal in a purple vest and pillbox hat had directed them to a cab, and hitched herself to it, driving the two of them down a wide street between several warehouses, bustling with workers. Anti-union posters lined the walls - not that newfoals had enough free will between them to ask for that, Fancy reflected.

The newfoal had taken them onto a street blocked by royal guards brandishing what looked like new spears, and up to a large, fancifully painted doorway that appeared to have been erected just for the occasion. She then led them through, into a large crowd where they saw…

They saw…

By Luna, it was the most massive skyliner they had ever seen!

Fancy struggled to restrain his fears as he and his wife marveled at the leviathan supership. It was even bigger than the Great Equestrian, and he had little doubt that it could hold enough newfoals to swarm even the largest position. Despicable, stupid tactic, that was.

“Fancy, look!” Fleur hissed. “It’s Queen Celestia!”

Fancy looked in the direction she was pointing with her forehooves, and saw her. The great enemy.

Queen Celestia herself had appeared to grace them all with her presence and glorify the massive ship. It was undeniable to anyone that the Beneficence was a marvel of a skyliner, the most magnificent that ever was or would be. It was done up in white and gold. It’s probably paint, even though Celestia must have insisted on actual gold to the protests of the engineers.

And it was massive on a level rivaling even human aircraft carriers. It was so enormous that a staging area had to be created above several warehouses. Newfoals swarmed to and fro, putting on last-minute touches.

It was longer than a skyscraper dropped on it's side, and far wider than that description suggested. Wide enough that the Great Equestrian would look like a small civilian aerostat in comparison. It even had a figurehead, a great gold-painted statue of Celestia striding forward in front of the gasbag. It had multiple decks, each one bristling with-

“Gun ports?!” gasped one stallion, clearly a pony of money. “Have we sunk so low as to include human weapons on our purifying-”

“No,” Celestia interrupted as she looked down to them. “Those are Ponification Mortars. Enchanted explosive canisters where the gas ponifies any humans in the area. Designed by Twilight Sparkle herself.”

Those were not the Beneficence’s only armaments. There were massive ballistas mounted at regular intervals between the mortars, and, just under the four gun decks, Fancy could see massive bays below, clearly meant to launch something. But what? There were also huge brass trumpet-like machines nearby, clearly meant to do something important.

“As it happens, the Beneficence is also equipped with launch bays for pegasi, whether they be charioteers, lone fighters, or anything. There’s also a new generation of thaumic cloud-seeders embedded nearby, so pegasi will be able to shape clouds even in the dead, magicless void of Earth!”

'Oh, NO,' Fancy Pants thought with utter dread. Thankfully, no pony noticed this, but this was utterly frightening.

He was the only PHL member watching this, he had to be. All the other PHL-affiliated nobles had been purged, nopony else had access to anything remotely like this.

Something had to be done. It couldn’t be him, it couldn’t be him, it couldn’t…

“Your majesty?” asked one newfoal, a sea-green pegasus with a blue mane. “We’d been thinking that it was for the best if you did the honors in naming the ship.” She reached into her saddlebag, pulling out a large bottle of champagne. “Simply smash it against the hull to do so.”

“Very well, my little pony,” Celestia smiled, telekinetically lifting it, her gold aura visible around the bottle. With a grin on her face, something that almost reminded Fancy of the old Celestia, she threw it at the ship.

The bottle did not break, and simply bounced off the hull. Onlookers stared in amazement, shock on their faces as they watched the bottle drop… and then land on one of the ports for ponification mortars, finally shattering.

Though to Fancy, it looked as if the bottle had shattered in midair, right before it hit the port.

To Fancy, it was an incredibly obvious sign. A sign for him to give up and do his duty. But fear of discovery and the fallout stayed in his mind. He needed to think on this and what it would mean in the future.

‘Buck it all. This has to be done. I might not like it, but I have to do this.

That night, upon returning to the house that had once belonged to Cadance, Fancy Pants woke up in a cold sweat.

Somepony had to do something.

Officially, Trade Secret was dead. He’d had an obituary, a fake body, and everything. But something needed to be done. The humans could have been winning, but the Beneficence was almost indescribably massive, a small city unto itself. It could ponify cities, turn the HLF and possibly even the UN/PHL taskforce into distant memories.

It was a dreadnought to end a war. While he didn’t doubt the firepower his human allies could bring on the beast, the ship wouldn’t be by itself. It would bring every ship to cover itself from the fire and by the time they got to it, they would have wasted everything they had short of their most devastating weapons. And it was that power that Fancy feared of being unleashed while there were still people fighting on the ground. And if the PHL caused that much destruction, possibly annhilating even their troops to stop the skyliner, a move that would destroy their reputation… they might just fall, become crippled by both public opinion, infighting, and lack of numbers. And when that happened, humanity would be doomed. It could fall to the HLF, who would gladly throw away any long-term solutions for the chance to kill more ponies in the present.

Or worse, the humans could use their most devastating weapons on the scouting forces, and, in their parlance, be “tapped out.”

It was so long since he’d done it, but he had to. So, with little trepidation, Fancy Pants trotted out of the bedroom, and headed for his study. He didn’t have the light on, as he didn't want to draw attention to himself from any house servants still awake. It was unlikely, given the hour of night, but he could not afford to take any chances.

Trotting quiet as could be, he made his way to a small closet and began writing. He used his mouth, however. It was incredibly undignified, and considered a poor habit among grown unicorns, but it was far less noticeable than using a horn.

To whoever reads this,
I have seen the Celestia’s Beneficence. Whatever you do, make sure this letter gets to any of us left. It’s a ship to end a war-there’s so much weaponry on it that it could ponify every stronghold we have. It possesses ponification mortars, ballistas, it can generate its own clouds, perhaps its own weather systems. It wouldn’t surprise me if somepony figures out how.
It is an enormous skyliner to put the Great Equestrian to shame. And unlike that one, it’s not built for an attack. It’s built to invade, continuously. It’ll ponify a city and move on, like some kind of gigantic cancerous mass. Worst of all, it’s made to personally convey the Qu-

Fancy Pants stopped cold, with the sense someone was watching him. There was a blade nearby, one he received in his travels through Prance, he levitated it quietly, only to find-

“Fancy?” Fleur asked, standing in the door. “What are you writing?”

Oh sweet Luna no. He might have actually been less worried if a Royal Guardspony had walked in on him.

“I’ve known you were depressed, but-” Fleur started, and saw the note he was writing, and the knife he had levitated. “Are you trying to kill yourself?!” she gasped. “I knew you’d been depressed, I knew you had been sad, but I didn’t think it was that terrible!”

“No! I’m not killing myself!” Fancy argued. “I just wanted to write a letter!”

“At 3 AM, in your study, while levitating a knife?” Fleur asked.

“I thought you were a burglar or something!”

“Then why did you have this?” Fleur asked as she read the note over his shoulder. “Why are you writing that, and-Oh my Celestia!”

Fancy set the knife down and said, "Fleur, I know what you're thinking and I can explain-"

"Explain?!" She cried out. "How? When I said I wanted to start the PETN, you had my back completely! You donated untold amounts of money to support laws for better treatment of newfoals. How could you aid the betrayers?!"

"Listen to me!" Fancy held Fleur close, even as she struggled against him. "This war has killed us all. Please, you know I wouldn't do this without reason!"

"Without reason?! The humans have slaughtered millions of their own without rhyme or reason! We do this for their sake as our right-" Whatever she was going to say next died on a whimper as she saw Fancy pull himself to full height.

Fancy was not quite a foppish noble - he merely played the part because it was easy. Nopony expected much of a fop, so there were numerous things he could keep under the mask. His family taught the scions to work for their efforts and do what they could to survive in not only business, but at whatever the world can throw at them. Something that Fleur had forgotten when she first met the rogue noble as he fought off several robbers to protect her. And now having him bearing over her reminded her, she remembered all too well of what he was capable of. "And we’ve destroyed their homes, their history, families, lives, economy, and virtually everything that belongs to them! We’ve taken their children from them in hospitals, herded them into Bureaus as if they were less than cattle, and called it justice! What right do we have to demand such things?! We would be no better than Sombra himself! My darling wife, as much as I love you so, you can be so short sighted!"

"Fancy?"

"I joined the PHL in hopes of ending this madness. But I realized how much harm it would put on you if they found out about my dealings." Fancy stepped away, his eyes closed as he looked away in shame. "I had to drop the ruse in order to protect you. Everything I do is for you. It was my burden to bear, but one you would no doubt suffer for."

Fleur was nervously pacing, a hoof against her forehead as she tried to make sense of this. "Fancy, I don't know what's happened. I can bring you to the mind healers or something, clearly something has corrupted you-"

"Nothing has corrupted me, Fleur," Fancy said. “I am doing this of my own free will.”

“But… why?!”

"Because it is the right thing to do."

Fleur stepped away at the answer, her world crashing around her head as her own husband turned out to be a Betrayer.

“I-I can talk to Queen Celestia,” Fleur pleaded as she tried to figure out a way to keep him safe, her train of thought quickly derailing as the situation became too much to handle. “I can make sure you’re safe. I can work out deals, I can reason-”

“NO!” Fancy hissed. “You… You can’t! She’s beyond reasoning! Whatever has taken hold of her… it’s made her into something that isn’t Celestia. It looks like her, talks like her, acts like her, but it isn’t her. Tell me, do you think that ten years ago, Celestia would have supported this, when she sought nothing but peace with other nations?”

“But that’s different!” Fleur protested. “Humans are carnivores! They-”

“So? The griffons are too, but she acted like the humans had no redeeming qualities whatsoever. As if they were the scum of their world. How is any of this even remotely in-character?! It’s like something derailed her character, and forced her to become some evil tyrant!”

Neither Fancy nor Fleur knew how right he was.

"Please, Fleur... I want all of us to survive. Join me or stay silent, I have to finish this letter. I'm sorry."

"No... no-no-no!" Fleur cried out, throwing herself onto his back. Only for Fancy to gently pick her up and place her on the ground while he continued to finish the letter.

"Trade Secret has one last letter to deliver." Fancy whispered out loud as he penned his cover name. "Then you can send for the guards once I leave-"

“Wait. You’re Trade Secret?!” Fleur gasped out loud. “I heard of him! He was-”

There was a crash as the door flew open.

Fancy and Fleur both looked to the doorway, a stunned newfoal servant that had been paid handsomely by Fleur standing at the door with eyes wide open and looking angry. Or at least the closest to angry a newfoal could muster.

“Oh no,” Fancy said, bearing that particularly dreadful calm of a stallion who knows everything is going to go downhill, and there’s nothing he can do to stop it.

"BETRAYER!" The newfoal charged at Fancy, looking like it was going to assault him.

"No!" Fleur managed to grab him before he was halfway across the room. "He is only sick in the mind! Work has addled his brain and he is simply gone mad from the stress! Please ignore him!"

"Mistress Fleur! How could you protect a Betrayer?!" The newfoal growled, glaring daggers at Fancy. Fancy's eyes narrowed at the newfoal's words, his magic glowing as he leveled his dagger at him.

"Release me so I can drag him to the glorious Queen!” the newfoal ranted, his mind caught somewhere between a newfoal’s compulsive happiness and compulsive anger at anti-Equestrian sentiments, making it look as if he was in a fit of sadistic glee. “She will decide his fate, I doubt he will live long. Trade Secret is a hated Betrayer and he will die in our Queen’s grace."

"You can't!"

"Why not Mistress? What possible reason is to deny Harmony of all?"

"He is the father of our foal!" Fleur held on the newfoal tighter, all but begging him to listen.

The dagger dropped from Fancy's grip, his eyes wide in shock. "W-what?"

Fleur stammered, "I only just found out yesterday. I was planning to keep it a surprise and deliver the news after we win this war... double the good news..."

“Fleur, I’m happy and all, but the prospect of raising a foal in what this world has become terrifies me.” Fancy managed out before a low growl gain their attention.

The newfoal growled at Fleur, staring at her face then to her barrel. He gave a chilling smile as he raised his hoof and took aim at her barrel. "The disease of Betrayers should not be spread."

"NO!" Fancy roared as he tackled the newfoal off Fleur, slamming his hooves into his side before blasting him out of his study. Fleur stood shocked, shaking like a leaf, terror spreading throughout her mind as the image of the newfoal standing over her and denouncing her foal like it was a plague, or it had succumbed to some ever-nebulous “corruption”.

Fancy took the knife and then quickly stabbed the newfoal repeatedly. Blood splattered all over the floor and the walls, as he was running on nothing but boiling rage at how this monstrosity tried to harm his wife and their unborn baby.

"BETRAYER!" Fancy turned to see several more servants in the hall, all of them rushing at him.

"Fleur! Run!" Fancy sent out a telekinetic blast of pure concussive force that knocked the newfoals back several meters backwards, dazing them, knocking one down a set of stairs. "To the Trophy Room!"

"Sound the alarm!" yelled a newfoal from somewhere else in the house.

"Betrayers within the Manor!"

"Send for the Royal Guards!"

"Stop them!"

Fleur and Fancy ran through the halls, the sounds of hooves and calls for their capture echoing all around her. Fancy could see that Fleur was in full panic mode, something he had gotten too used to seeing in ponies that realized they were well above the normal amount of trouble. But by Luna, he’d never seen this level of trouble. The two rushed inside, Fancy slamming the door shut and locking it with his magic, then barricading it with a heavy oak table before going up to his wife.

Fleur was in a state of panic, even more so now that she was in her husband's 'Trophy Room', her eyes darting all over the place to see his trophies.

Swords. Dozens upon dozens of blades of every sort. Crude Diamond Dog Short swords, Prench rapiers, Minoan great swords, Reindeer long swords, Griffon forged katanas, Royal Guard gladii, spears, and broadswords, obsidian cutlasses from who-knew-where, daggers of every make, and even Zebrican spears carved from ivory.

"Fleur. Listen to me." Fancy cupped his wife's face, staring into her eyes. "There is a secret passage within this room. Found it when we first moved in. I want you to take it and go to Ponyville. Find Big Macintosh Apple; if he is not there, there is a trio of flower sellers named Roseluck, Lily, and Daisy. Take this letter and go with them out of Equestria. And for the love of Luna, raise our foal right! Raise him or her to love all species, to find the best in all of them! Raise her to tell stories about the good in both of them, and teach ponies and humans to follow the values that Equestria only claims to respect!”

"M-maybe I can plead-" Fleur stammered out only for Fancy to grab her and held her tightly against himself.

"You know what will happen to me. To you. She will not be merciful. She hasn’t been in a long time,” Fancy said. “Like I said, she’s beyond the point of pleading. We are living in an age where a worse madness than that which gripped Luna and turned her into Nightmare Moon has seized Celestia, only she’s been far more subtle - turning us into her so slowly we couldn’t realize. If you try and ask her to show mercy, you will be lucky if she only kills you. Do you understand?”

Quietly, the whole time, Fancy had been lifting a Zebrican tribal shield, a priceless antique. He had then slowly taken off several boards, revealing a small space that lead to a stairway. “Had to keep it quiet. They can’t know you’re going to escape. Least of all where you’ll escape to. This leads to a small shed on the outskirts of the town nearby. Nopony will see you there.”

“But Fancy! I-”

“Dammit, Fleur! You have to!” Fancy pleaded. There were tears in his eyes. “For our foal. For humanity. For the freedom of every sentient being left on this planet. You wanted to do good, go through the crawlspace and make sure the PHL know!”

Fleur stared at him, eyes wide open, begging and pleading inarticulately.

“It has to be this way,” Fancy said. “You’re a philanthropist, I’m a Betrayer. They will never let me out of this land as long as I live.”

“We can do something! There has to be a way out!” Fleur yelled.

“We can’t,” Fancy sighed. “If Celestia was still the same pony she was, if we were living in the same Equestria where problems could be solved within thirty minutes and capped off with a speech, we wouldn’t have newfoals trying to kill our foal simply because I am the father.”

‘Oh Celestia, he’s right!’ Fleur thought. ‘And if he’s right about that, then how much else could have gone wrong?!’

“You have done good, protecting newfoals,” Fancy said. “No matter what you may fear, you can at least live knowing that. Though personally, I always thought it was more moral to ensure that fewer were even created. You made a point to protect the newfoals, ensure that they were accepted and lived well, and for that I couldn’t help but love you more.”

Fleur stared at him as he lightly tapped a wooden panel, causing a false wall to appear and slide closed. “You can debate the morality of it with humans. They do seem to love their moralistic speeches,” he said. “Just remember. Above all else, I trust you to do the right thing.” With that said, he cast a soundproofing spell over the wall.

Fancy closed his eyes as the passage closed shut, his wife's tear-stained face looking back at him before it vanished. The doors behind him banging as the new foals slammed themselves against it.

"Well old friends. It appears we have one last tourney to go through," Fancy said out loud as his horn glowed, a Dog short sword and Prench rapier floating out of their respective sheaths. "For too long you sat here, your initial purpose forgotten and laid to collect dust. But now it appears we will have one last fight together."

He rose up on his hindlegs, his mass centered and balanced as he used the uncertain magic of hooves to grip his swords with his forehooves. Three more rose from their places. Two Minoan greatswords floating beside him and a Griffon Tsumerai katana floating over head.

"I only ever used you all in my youth, joked around that you all was just a passing..." Fancy gave a rueful smile, "'fancy', I acquired growing up."

The doors groaned as they held back the assault. He swung the rapier in a rapid motion, the blade singing at his motion. He gave a quiet sigh as he looked at the blade, seeing his reflection.

"But if I am to die here and now, I might as well take up the name I once used before." Fancy looked to the door as it burst open, a newfoal skidding across the ground while another rushed at him.

“Oh, you poor sad cannon-fodder bastards,” Fancy sighed. “I bet you all had families, that you once defended your country, honorable humans once before. I don’t know that of course - just made it up. But if there’s any of the men and women you once were left in there, I want you to know: I don’t hold you accountable.”

Neither newfoal acknowledged having heard his speech. The first only had time to see him before his rapier slammed through his chest, piercing his heart. He barely had time to look at his chest before he was magically thrown into the other newfoal that rushed in. The second had just got back on his hooves when one of the great swords slammed through him and pinned him to the wall before he was violently ripped in half by the blade.

Fancy watched as the blood ran across the floor, the sounds of hooves racing towards his position. "Know this. I grant you freedom from your sad fragments of lives. Five Blade Fancy will give you that much."

A unicorn newfoal charged up a spell, and the katana flew across the room, beheading her. The newfoal’s head practically jumped off his body, lazily flipping through the air and spraying blood, as blood gushed from the neck-stump.

‘Perhaps I should take an axe,’ Fancy thought. ‘Rather more suitable for beheading.’

There were almost twenty newfoals in the manor at all times, as paid servants, guests, PETN or ministry employees. He’d already taken care of three. The rest, who would be compelled to attack him by the hideous lattice of spellwork that governed their minds wouldn’t be a problem. He wasn’t exaggerating when he’d used the word ‘hideous’ there, though such a descriptor rarely applied to magic. A unicorn had once shown him a newfoal’s mind using a bastardized Mind Delve spell, and Fancy had vomited and suffered nightmares for the better part of a week after seeing it. Even though they had families to look after, they would charge at him without regard for their own safety.

‘You can’t even keep that promise anymore, can you, Celestia?’ Fancy thought, sidestepping and bisecting a red newfoal pegasus with his short sword. The poor pony had simply charged at him, howling and screaming - he would have been cannon fodder in the average invasion. ‘Come to Equestria where we guarantee a more peaceful life, only to turn around and use you as zombie shock troops.’

“BETRAYER!” yelled one orange earth pony newfoal maid, clutching a knife in her mouth. Fancy knew her - he’d helped her dust the blackwood chamber, she had a foal, and he’d already killed her husband in the trophy room.

The other Minoan greatsword swept across the floor under her, so low it could have shaved both the carpet and maybe part of her hoof, and sliced off her right foreleg.

Blood spurted from the artery he’d just cut through, spraying against the wall. Surely that would stop her, that was a very important artery, so-

“Be… tra…” she wheezed, blood dripping in great gouts from her jagged stump. She would die of blood loss soon, and yet she kept coming.

‘Shit,’ Fancy thought, and stabbed her in the brain with the rapier. “She’ll probably guilt me for that, of course. Oh no, I’ve killed a kind and loving mommy, how could I! But, judging by the foal she left, she was probably converted just after giving birth. You’d already killed her worse than I ever could have, you Tyrant Sun.” He spat on the rug, a ludicrously expensive thing that could perhaps be hung in Canterlot in an art museum. It felt so good to say that out loud. Tyrant.

“YOU HAVE HINDERED CELESTIA’S LIGHT!” screamed one unicorn newfoal, this one white, with a red and black mane. “That makes you as bad as any of those human beasts! Those animals! Those-”

Using both the katana and the greatsword floating above him, Fancy maneuvered them to the side, and, as if using a giant pair of scissors, simply cut through her legs above the joints. Her barrel, still in motion as it was separated from her legs, tumbled over the carpet, joints spraying blood everywhere as she bounced.

She was a unicorn, though, so she’d likely try to throw a bust of an alicorn at him. ‘Better safe than sorry,’ he thought as he thrust the rapier into her eye, killing her instantly. He probably could have accidentally lobotomized her, but it wasn’t as if there was much he would have changed.

It didn’t matter where he was going. The important thing was to kill enough ponies for Fleur and his foal to escape the ensuing madness. ‘I will probably never even know their name. Would it be a colt? A filly? Will they grow to be a strapping young stallion like myself, or a vision of beauty like my wife? Will Fleur even mention me to them or keep me as some horrid example of ponykind? Hm. Perhaps it will be best if they didn’t know me, if we lose of course.. Maybe he’d live, maybe he wouldn’t, but he had a sinking feeling he knew how this had to end.

He walked down the stairs, one newfoal screaming down. “He walks like a human! Truly he must have been corrup-”

The griffon katana abruptly pierced through his throat, its bright blade sticking through the pony’s mane like some absurd accessory that Rarity or Fleur might have liked.

“You’re one to talk,” Fancy sighed, removing his fashionable spectacles. They’d become so covered in blood that they were essentially useless. Shame, too. He’d liked those spectacles.

A Royal Guard pony burst in through a window, this one a pegasus. He had unicorn backup as well, and an earth pony as well. He had no idea how they’d gotten to his house so quickly, but in the end it didn’t matter. They’d be leaving just as fast.

"Cease your fight Betrayer! You are outnumbered! There is no place for your kind!" the unicorn Royal Guard roared as he raised his shield around him as he charged. Fancy jumped back, both great swords swinging at the guard from opposite sides. Fancy raised an eyebrow as the swords shattered the shield and eviscerated the guard. While jumping backward, he telekinetically threw one greatsword at the pegasus, shearing off a wing.

“YOU MEANIE-PANTS!” the pegasus shrieked, leaping at Fancy. Fancy snorted at the childish, profoundly silly insult, then thrust his shortsword into the pegasus’ throat.

At the same time, Fancy threw the katana forward in a wide spinning arc, its blade destroying the earth pony’s eyes. The earth pony sputtered in anger and pain, roaring out the babytalk that passed for curses for them. Even as he had lost an eye, and roughly a quarter of his face was drenched in blood, all he could yell were inanities such as “crab apples!” and “poopbrain!”

Fancy was honestly unsure whether it was funny or disturbing. Either way, he didn’t want to see any more of it because of how uneasy it made him, so he strengthened his telekinetic grip and sliced apart the newfoal’s head.

"Hm. Pity. It appears the Royal Guards have newfoals within their ranks." Fancy ducked from a spell, launching a greatsword at the guard, punching through him and the guard behind him. He swung corpses off and slammed it into another guard, only for it to shatter.

"Damn. Back to the Trophy Room." Fancy muttered as he raised the former blade to his eye. He looked to the rushing tide with a frown. "One down. Many more to go."

-Thirty minutes later-

Queen Celestia quietly walked up the stairs, a river of blood slowly dripping down its steps while she passed several corpses hanging on the rail or on the stairs themselves. She shook her head at the report, unable to believe that a single pony caused this amount of death and destruction. Several royal guard followed her cautiously, swords and spears readied to defend their Queen.

"To think, you of all ponies were a Betrayer," Celestia muttered out loud, a group of guards holding position at door. "You were possibly the most notorious of all of them. I never would have guessed you had this in you..."

She walked inside, bodies of newfoals littered the floor. Body parts and organs were strewn across the once luxurious carpet, broken weapons lodged into them or broken armor. She ignored them, possibly banished its very existence within her mind. "Fancy Pants."

Fancy gave a rueful smile, slick with blood covering his once pristine coat, a concerning lack of wounds visible on his body. He gave her a mock bow, three swords floating behind him while he still had two remaining in his hooves. "Ah! If it isn't my tyrannical leader herself! Excuse the mess, I just had to fight for my right to think my own thoughts. They were awfully sure your 'Light' would give them strength to overcome me. Rather malnourished, they were… what do you feed them on, revolutionary spirit? That doesn’t exactly make a good meal.”

"Where is Fleur De Lis?" Celestia asked, her eyes narrowing.

“None of your concerns." Fancy replied with some happiness. "Far enough away from your hooves."

Celestia scowled at his answer, eyeing his blades before looking back at him. She stalked towards him, unconcerned for whatever he might be about to do. "So. You decided to gain my attention by slaughtering an entire company of guards with nothing but a sword?"

"Several swords in fact. Most of them I gained during my youthful adventures. But I digress, I prefer the term ‘distraction’. I would have gotten your attention even if I didn't do it. The same would have happened if I made a social slip while drunk at a party," Fancy pointed his sword at her, backing away. "I wanted you here so I can take you down myself."

“Benevolent Queen!” protested one royal guard. “Let us defeat him! He is beneath you!”

“Nonsense,” she said, a smile on her face. “He needs to learn his place. And who better to teach him but me?”

“And who better to teach you than me?” Fancy asked. “With luck, tonight I’ll be the pony that kills you.”

Celestia gave a cackle of laughter at his declaration, as Fancy backed through the mansion with care and sure footing. "Taken up the mantle of Five Blade Fancy once more? Poor fool, you believe you can win with skill alone."

"I say I have just much of a chance of killing you as any other being. Specifically a human with a rather impressive blade." Fancy gave a grin when she scowled at his answer. His horn flared to life, the broken blades floating off the ground and corpses. "Come, Mad Queen! Let us end this tonight!"

“You’re more of a fool than I thought,” Queen Celestia laughed.

Fancy threw every broken blade at her in one shove, Celestia giving off a bark of condescending laughter as she caught every blade, even the great sword aimed at her eyes. "Is it my turn to..."

Her eyes widened as Fancy slammed the last blade, a decorative Griffon forged katana, into the ground. His magic spiraled down its blade into the floor. Every blade dropped from her grasp as the magic drained from her, she felt her legs weaken as she slowly lost her strength. She turned to see the Royal Guards dropping like flies as their magic was ripped from them.

“I thank the Maker that whatever it is that has possessed you is incredibly overconfident,” Fancy coughed out as he fell onto his side.

"What have you done?" She croaked out as runes glowed brightly and spread throughout the house, through the very grain of the wood. The house glowed, quaking under the weight of so much thaumic energy so violently that it felt it would shake itself apart.

"A little insurance in case I was ever found out," Fancy coughed out. "I only intended it to incinerate the house and all the documents that incriminate the PHL, but this seems like as good a time to use it as any. Not sure if it will kill you, but it will ruin your day."

Celestia’s eyes widened as the runes flared brightly, absorbing enough magic to execute their spell.

"Long live True Harmony between all species. Without you," Fancy gasped out and the runes activated. “Goodbye Fleur… I’m so sorry.”

It had been extraordinarily lucky that Fleur was far enough into the tunnel that the house’s collapse didn’t hurt her, but rather unlucky that from even the small, dingy shed, she could see the conflagration.

No onomatopoeia could adequately describe the sound it made, however. Guardsponies who had been posted outside looking for Fleur, claimed that the windows had glowed a warm blue, then the glow had rapidly darkened and changed to a bright red as the house shook as if caught in the throes of an earthquake. Then, for one terrible moment, nothing happened. It was if the leaves on the trees had stopped, the wind had stopped, everything was simply frozen.

Then the house exploded in a great multicolored cloud in the shape of a mushroom, rainbow-colored lightning arcing through the thaumically dense cloud. A thaumoemotive indicator, in one unicorn’s arsenal of various magic accoutrements, had predictably gone nuts. He idly wondered why there weren’t thaumoemotive indicators built to handle larger amounts of thaumic pressure.

Somewhere, deep inside, Fleur knew that Queen Celestia had survived. Some part of her wanted to find Celestia and tell her, to serve her Empire. And yet, it had been Fancy’s dying wish that she leave for Ponyville and help the PHL. The Betrayers, the ones that had gone against her empire…

But when had it been an Empire? Hadn’t it just been a diarchy until a few years ago? Empire did not have good implications. But if she gave it to the humans, they’d destroy Equestria. Ravage it. Burn every inch of it and kill thousands, if not millions. And yet, if she went to Celestia, she’d lose her foal. She’d be beaten, treated like a collaborator to the Betrayers, possibly thrown into one of those prisoner camps for “enemies of the state” up north in the Crystal Empire. And if she’d get thrown in there for trying to help, was that really a nation worth fighting for? Yet… this was where she’d been raised. A kind place. But a kind place where a newfoal would attempt to injure her and abort her foal? Were newfoals as kind as she had preached, if they were willing to do that so gleefully?

“Ah, what do I do?!” Fleur sobbed, in this dark, desolate shed, such an unlikely environment for a pony like her.

‘I trust you to do the right thing,’ Fancy seemed to whisper in her ear.

Thu-thump

Roseluck groaned, bleary-eyed, woken up from a rather nice dream. A beautiful dream, of the way things used to be, then how they could have been. Of a world where humanity and ponies joined hooves and hands to explore the stars and create wonders of technology and magic, a world where they learned from each other. A world without Celestia.

It had been something that many a pony dreamed of, a beautiful dr-

Thu-thu-thu-thump

A beautiful dr-

Thu-thu-thu-thump

Oh for Luna’s sake!

Roseluck rolled out of bed, trotting angrily down her stairs, and opened the door to her home, irritated at being woken up well before Celestia had raised the sun. Not just because of the sleep she’d lose, but because she hated sunrises on Equestria. They… gave her a slightly sickly feel in her stomach.

"Listen you idiots! Just because you want to deliver the newspaper so early in the...!" Roseluck growled out before she stood frozen in shock at seeing a traumatized and distraught Fleur De Lis standing before her. "Mrs. Pants? What are-"

"My husband is dead... He... he..." Fleur broke down, Roseluck immediately grabbing her into a hug and pulling her into the house, as the now former socialite cried her heart out at the memory of losing her husband.

“What?! Fancy Pants is dead?!” Roseluck asked in horror, tears coming to her own eyes. “How did he die?”

“He blew up the house!” Fleur sobbed. “With him and… and Queen Celestia still inside!”

Roseluck stared at her for a moment. While it was a serious moment, losing one’s husband to an explosion was somewhat out of left field. “...What?!”

“Put me down a secret passage, after killing the newfoals… and then blew it all up! He… the last thing he told me before he told me to run, he said… I should contact you. And give you this,” she choked out before taking the note Fancy had written earlier out of her coat pocket.

“Fleur,” Roseluck breathed, “Do you know what this is? Do… do you know why he said to visit me?”

Fleur nodded and said, “Because you know ponies… and humans that would know what to do with this information.”

Dread came over Roseluck, who instinctively looked from side to side, expecting an attack or some kind of betrayal. “You can stay here,” she hissed. “You need to stay hidden, and we need to keep quiet. I know you’re normally a poised, talkative pony, but we have to keep quiet. The empire has spies everywhere.”

Fancy Pants had miscalculated. It wasn’t his fault, however. He couldn’t have imagined that his Queen had enough magic power that it beggared belief, enough that thaumic classifications were useless and would, in all likelihood, reduce ponies to grasping thaumoemotive indicators in their mouths or telekinetic fields, screaming madly about the impossibly high readings while crushing their instruments.

Besides, it was never that easy. Much as everypony would have hoped otherwise.

Battered and dazed from the loss of her power and the shock of the explosion, Celestia staggered out of the cellar hole, to the cheers of her subjects.

As with the last time this had happened, she made a point to appear poised and calm, as always. Because that was what her subjects expected, and it simply wouldn’t do to show weakness before them.

They cheered for her, happy smiles on their faces, ecstatic that the Betrayer was dead, rotting in Tartarus, unconcerned about the dead guards.

A newspony, wearing the brown hat common to them, strode up to her. “Benevolent Queen, what have you to say about this… this… Betrayer?” he spat out the last word.

“That I have a message for all of them,” she said, with barely restrained rage. “Know this, Betrayers, you “Ponies for Human Life” who have sold your souls for those brutes. I am displeased with you… though when you inevitably come to Equestria, crying and broken as the last human stronghold is destroyed, I will show you the mercy that you withhold from our noble troops. Because that is what heroes do. Look at yourselves, Betrayers! You are reduced to this?! Suicide attacks bound to fail, to killing children, to killing ponies who only want to save humanity! If you are listening to this, Betrayers, know that you are failures! You are scum! And yet, even in your broken states… I can forgive you if you just return to Equestria and submit yourself to me.”

A pleasant speech, she thought. But she really had to be off - the Machine awaited. And so did the Bag.

Author's Notes:

Well. That was fun! =D And, owing to my not having Finals this time (which was not fun) it was much easier posting this. First off - this'd be nothing without Red. He wrote the first story featuring Big Mac, and gave out the third story idea. I think I remember him saying that this was the best place to put the third one, because he had a hard time fitting it into the main story. Fun fact about the first story featuring Big Mac - I told him he could only edit it as long as he left in that line about Diamond Tiara getting food poisoning. Ah, memories... :P
Also, more notes on Spectrum. There is another side-story coming, but not from me... this time :P . We're moving into the final act of this THREE-PART MEAT PLAY, AND I... may not win best supporting actor, actually. There's some really talented people here. But regardless - the third act of this meat play will be brilliant, badass, beautiful and, bloody. Look forward to the last chapter of this - I have some fun things planned.

Shout out to Heather from Portcon over in Portland. You know who you are, and you are awesome.
And, because I can, dedicated to Miranda. You also know who you are. I don't know what you're doing or where you are, but I hope you're alright and having fun :)

Earth (part 1)

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Chapter 3: Earth (Part One)

Co-Authors / editors
Redskin122004: Without him…. we wouldn’t be doing any of this. And though I may have fucked up more times than I care to admit… I’m always gonna be grateful. This is a pretty fuckin fun project.
Kizuna Tallis: Special thanks for the worldbuilding.
Rush: He definitely helped clean this up. I still say we’re going with thaumaturgons though.
Beyond the Horizon: It was really fun pointing out possible PHL weaponry with him. Though we may not have done that in this doc. I can’t remember, but I definitely had fun. I mean, he thought adding in a version of the Miter from Warframe was a cool idea! I wonder if I can do that in chapter 4...
Drawdex: Special thanks for pointing out all the problems created by randomly deciding Enitan Adebayo was the narrator instead of Obayana, and keeping me from saying unintentionally offensive things about Brazil.
Jed R: Writer of With Dignity, and our new guy. Extend a warm welcome to him! =D
Thanks to everyone for putting up with me. As that one lyric from One Night in ‘99 goes… well, you know =D
TB3: you know, it’s funny. I joined Team Spectrum round the time he left, so I never really worked with him… but somehow, it feels as if an old friend has returned. Welcome back! =D

Special Thanks To:
VoxAdam, for editing the tvtropes page and making separate folders for each individual story. That was awesome!
Jeff Vandermeer, for being generally hilarious, letting me try a certain… secret thing… for his book that got me a free copy of Annihilation, and starting the camp where I learned to write… Also, he owns Veniss Underground, the book on which I based part of the plot of A Story About Them. I don't own that. Just so we're clear.

Chapter 1:
Who Am I to Stand Still: The Diary of Coal Embers

"‘Your survival lies offworld?' Bullshit. Total bullshit. Leaving Earth is a nice dream, but I'll believe it when someone shows we can terraform. When we can build ships big enough. When we have anything resembling a plan, or some earthlike planet that just drops into our laps, and some way to feed everyone, radiation shielding that actually works, some way to prevent the medical problems that arise from space travel, let me know. On top of that, the Queen Bitch would find us, and it would take a miracle to make us even remotely competent in the numbers we'd be able to get offworld. It'd just be making the inevitable even more painful. This is what we have left, and by God, we will use it well. On top of that, the ponies and zebras I've employed have been rather creative with magic and human tech. Who knows what the future holds if we trust them and the PHL? Admittedly, it's not much, but it's a hell of a lot more than what awaits us if we throw away everything we've worked for and go out there. Besides… diverting that many resources to a space launch means taking support away from our troops. Meaning more newfoals. Meaning we get more overwhelmed, meaning more newfoals… meaning we get more overstretched... On top of that, we’d be sacrificing everything to get off-planet, and even if we did live, we wouldn’t have enough people to even remotely threaten the Queen Bitch if she followed, consigning those oh so brave, heroic few to kill billions. You can just smell the hope, can’t you? While it’s a cool idea, fulfilling everyone’s childhood dreams of conquering the stars, it just doesn’t work!"
Thaddeus "Rusty" Crowe, CEO of Crowe Laboratories, responding to a controversial ad campaign by the FKA (Russian Federal Space Administration).

“...Go down to the store, buy some viagra, and go! Fuck! Yourself! There is no home for me to go back to. Sure, there’s a farm that looks like the one I grew up on. There’s a town, maybe some mountains, even a few surrounding cities that look like them. But the Solar Empire isn’t home, because it sure as hell isn’t the Equestria I grew up in. There’s mind healers that’ll cure you of doubting Celestia, slave labor, paranoia… and the newfoals! Every goddamn thing about newfoals! It’s turned into a nightmare, half my family isn’t on speaking terms with each other! Half of them left for earth, almost none of them want to talk to Applejack, a quarter of them can barely work the farms they grew up on or meet any of the quotas, they use slave labor, and they’re actively celebrating turning people into unthinking zombies! There is nothing for me to go back to. And what little there is that could make me nostalgic just dries up and shrivels more by the day. Mark. My. Words. Just a couple years from now, the place will be an unrecognizable shithole. And if Celestia’s been planning this atrocity long as I think she has… good bucking riddance.”
Fiddlesticks Apple, PHL mare, responding to an HLF member jeering at her and telling her to go back to Equestria in 2020.

Rio De Janeiro

It was midday in Brazil, in the fourth year of the war for humanity’s existence, in what would almost certainly be the last year for the city if not for some new breakthrough that could destroy the Barrier.

The sun was beating down on the city. Clouds passed sluggishly overhead, graffiti and propaganda were plastered on almost every wall almost an inch thick, billboards flickered, and those few unicorns that had any skill at food transfiguration were making a killing making ice cream and cold drinks. Earth ponies (though of course, not all of them) worked in the vertical farms that had been constructed in the late 2010s, or alongside human construction workers, either building new homes for refugees from Africa or carefully disassembling them as they moved southeast. There was not much coordination between them.

There were surprisingly few gas-powered cars, as most of the fuel was being rationed - militaries needed every ounce to evacuate citizens and kill off Imperial forces, most of which were newfoals. Or, if there was potion involved, kill off civilians that had been turned into newfoals, regardless of who they might have been before they’d suddenly been twisted and bound into pony form.

Nonetheless, it was a busy day, as most days of the War were. It would be nigh-impossible to find someone or somepony who wasn’t working to bring a human victory to Celestia, or at least to ensure the survival of the species in what time there was left. Target practice, food production, weapons tests, manufacture, recruiting, logistics, coordinating evacuation routes, engaged in heated video conferences with the PHL/UN taskforce about new equipment and asking, in a particular emotion that blended anger and confusion, “What in God’s name are we spending so much money on, because wouldn’t a last stand be suicide?”

Thaddeus Crowe, CEO of Crowe Labs, a premier supplier to the PHL, had just gotten back from one of those, forcing himself to keep from answering that question. It was, after all, a secret. So, upon making his way back to his office, tired from the weight of the world on his shoulders, he’d collapsed into his comfy chair. He missed Acevedo, and that back-alley doctor friend of his, and those ponies they lived with in that apartment.

But they’d all left for Equestria - an email to Crowe had claimed that Acevedo snuck a couple of his roommates along inside of some of the supply crates. Either way, they were certainly gone… he sighed. Acevedo had been a good friend… and even better in bed, sometimes.

So, with that in mind, and utterly emotionally drained from his meeting and from carrying at least a portion of the weight of the world on his shoulders, he decided to sit back and watch videos on youtube.

Unfortunately, a certain ad from the Russian Federal Space Administration (or FKA) distracted him. It was almost obnoxiously retro, and far too optimistic for the current situation - namely, they had only a few years to live.

...That fucking space station ad, Thaddeus Crowe fumed. That was something that should have taken decades to build. He should know. He had been working on plans for a space colony before Equestria manifested, and it had taken him years to make even slightly practical radiation shielding. He’d been hoping that ponies could help him with that, but he’d quickly diverted anything from that project to coming up with defenses against Equestrian ‘magic’. He didn’t really think of it as magic, thinking of it more as the manipulation of charged particles (or ‘thaumaturgons’) through the use of special tissues able to interact with said particles.

He actually had a very large fridge full of the thaumaturgon-interactive tissue (or alicornal tissue, as the ponies called it) that he had harvested from newfoals. He had planned on examining it himself, trying to work out ways to implant it or create barrier-resistant materials. He’d realized the instant that he came up with them that there was no way he could use them on every settlement, so he had settled for trying to coat nuclear missiles with th-

“Thad?” asked a unicorn stallion trotting into his office. This was Sum Runner - Thaddeus Crowe’s secretary, best friend, favorite accountant, and all-around inseparable best buddy. He was telekinetically levitating a tall iced coffee with his horn. He passed it over to Thaddeus, who eagerly drank it down.

“Yeah?” Thaddeus asked, frantically typing up a rant about the current implausibility of space colonization. ’Your survival lies offworld?' Bullshit. Total bullshit. Leaving Earth is a nice dream…

“We received all the recordings from the Accu-Vox program you mentioned,” Sum Runner said. “There’s this one mare that did them all as a diary - you might want to listen to them.”

“There aren’t more?” Thaddeus asked. Accu-Vox had been a pet project of his, recently - to record the experiences of people and ponies on earth, and send them into space in the hopes that someone might hear.

“You said you’d do only about one or two of these a day,” Sum Runner explained. “And, to be honest…”

“What? They’re depressing?”

“Well, yeah. And a lot of them are kind of like Acevedo’s entry,” he sighed. “...Besides being depressing. So I don’t blame you.”

“Long, rambling, loaded with tangents and references?” Thaddeus asked. “OH MY GOD!”

“What? What is it?” Sum Runner gasped.

“I just realized the worst reason that space colonization wouldn’t work,” Thaddeus explained. “Tell me - if Celestia can pierce between universes, who’s to say she wouldn’t be able to go from planet to planet? Now, think about it. There’s no way we could get billions off of Earth to wherever. We’d be lucky to get… a hundred thousand, I think. Especially considering what resources we have now. She has billions. So… we would practically need to arm every human with a Graviton Beam Emitter to be even remotely effective. We wouldn’t be - chances are, after making planetfall, we’d dismantle the ship for settlement, using the metal for everything, building refineries, making almost every fokking thing from scratch if they didn't end up relying on the ship's machines… there is no way we could build a civilization capable of opposing her in what little time we have. Besides, we wouldn’t save anywhere near enough if we just tried to-”

“...Thaddeus, what are you doing?” Sum Runner sighed.

“I can’t help it! Someone’s wrong on the internet!” Thaddeus protested. “The Russian Federal Space Administration just posted something about trying to make a colonization ship with cryosleep and everything, and I think it’s bullshit!” he typed in his realization, before abruptly typing how resource-intensive the process would be.

“I think we have more important things to worry about,” Sum Runner said, levitating a flash drive with all of the recordings on it. “Here. Play this.”

Dammit. That was just what Thaddeus had been trying not to do - not to think about impending doom.

Entry 1: November 14, 2023

Okay. Is this… is this working?

Testing… testing… Okay, Good. This is Coal Embers… (judging by their tone of voice, subject appears to be looking down at a guide of some sort) unicorn mare. Coat is… kind of bluish black, same with my mane and tail, though those have red highlights. Not much more than a filly. But don’t call me a damn filly. I’ve seen shit you would not believe. I’ve caught rides on trains, I’ve outrun Wonderbolts, I’ve met the Dragons of the East. I ran away from my parents when the war started.

Anyway, I’m one of many that were chosen to participate in the Crowe Labs broadcast program. I am speaking into an Accu-Vox recorder, mailed to me straight from Brazil! Along with a supply of coupons for rations, and… (puzzledly) ‘From the oven of Dr. Thaddeus Crowe: CUPCAKES!’
...Well. That’s… that’s weird. Still, I haven’t had cupcakes in awhile…

(There was the sound of Coal Embers telekinetically lifting something)

MMM! It’s got mint in it!

Oh…. oh, that’s so good… yum. Anyway, I’m one of those lucky few that are going to be broadcasting their life on Earth into the cold emptiness of space in the hope that someone or something will listen to us. And I’m broadcasting it over the internet because apparently I’m getting a bonus for that.

Hopeful, right?

Oh. Apparently, I’m…. supposed to describe where I live. Huh.

Well, I live in what’s called a Dead End. Inspires all the confidence in the world, doesn’t it? That’s what we call the housing built for refugees. Though the Portland Dead End isn’t that bad. We don’t have walls enclosing it, it’s not a solid block of concrete with rooms inside, and it’s not crawling with people.

...Yet. But when that happens, we’ll be fucked anyway. So whatever. It’s still pretty crowded and oppressively dirty. The government figured they might as well put us all to work, so now here I am, making guns in a munitions plant. I'm also employed for making explosives and…. ah, hell. Might as well tell you. The PHL have a certain… project… that makes human weaponry all-around more effective. And it requires unicorns. It is not, as the HLF would have you believe, all staged to make the PHL look good.

Why would that even make any sense? At all? At that point, you’re not just paranoid, you’re stupid.

The job pays well. I get decent amounts of rations, sometimes even cash. Once, I even… I even got some cinnamon! That’s been so hard to find lately.

“Huh,” Thaddeus said. “She liked the cupcake!”

“Why did you even pack that?!” Sum Runner asked.

“Thought she’d be hungry,” Thaddeus said.

Sum Runner sighed. Thaddeus was, to put it lightly… an odd man.

“Wonder what happened in her past though to get her here so young?” Thaddeus asked.

“Good question,” Sum Runner said. “She might reveal it later, though. We’ll have to wait and see.”

Entry 2: November 16, 2023

A lot of people lately seem to be calling the HLF ‘idiots who think they can go all Mad Max’. It might be overused, but… it’s not far off the mark. Also, I saw the movie after the last entry, and suddenly it all makes sense. I swear, I saw someone that looked like Lord Humongous.

He tried to drive a car full of explosives into a PHL building in Vancouver, just diving out after dropping a brick on the accelerator.

Another of them tried to… I swear to Luna this really happened… sabotage the creation of magic gear, as they were under the impression it could turn people into newfoals. Which is stupid, and, as we all beat him up, in between my stomps to his gut with hooves, he swore he was HLF. Now… that’s a special kind of stupid. I swear, those bastards wonder why nobody takes them seriously. The PHL is aligned with the few governments that still exist. The PHL assisted with the evacuation of countless cities. The PHL R&D is the reason that America still has power - yeah, hold on a sec.

Seriously. The Middle East is gone, and the country’s overpopulated… we had to do something to power the country. So… the HLF are trying to destroy the people that keep the infrastructure running.

Stupid, huh?

Can’t we just… can’t we just agree to hate the PER? Nobody likes them. I mean, you have them try and potion bomb a place, and everyone in the immediate area tries to rip them to-

Hold on, there’s… there’s a news report on Boston.

By Luna’s mane!

Okay. I don’t know who you are or who’s listening to this, but… the biggest battle of the war is happening right now. It’s in Boston. And…. and… Oh Luna oh Luna oh Luna! That’s… that’s the biggest skyliner I’ve ever seen! The missiles are just flying at the thing, and they’re not doing shit!

Oh shit, oh hell, oh mother of Luna I’ve never been more scared than I am right now. Marcus Renee is in that city. The Elements are in the city. If he’s ponified… well… we’re fucked. He knows things about the PHL, about the things we’re making here, about prisoners, military secrets… they ponify him and we’re fucked! If that ship leaves the eastern seaboard, we’re gonna be worse than dead!

If they find any PHL ponies or those few hermits that just want to keep to themselves, they’ll be picked up. Rescued from earth, even as they scream and scream, kicking and biting. Then, they’ll be turned into what are essentially newfoals with cutie marks, and you’ll be-

*there is a pause*

Sorry. I threw up in my mouth there.

It’s on the other end of the continent… so I should be fine. I hope.

“Can’t blame her for throwing up in her mouth,” Sum Runner sighed. “Hell, I know I did when a newfoal told some human friends of mine how much better it was as a pony…”

“I just kicked the newfoal in the face when I got that speech,” Thaddeus sighed.

Sum Runner looked up at him in shock. “Really?!”

“Broke my toe, but it was totally worth it,” Thaddeus added. “She’s right about the HLF. I hope that turns into a meme - ‘IT’S NOT MAD MAX YET YOU MOFOS!’” he paused. “Wonder if I can tweet that?”

“You’re going to do it even if I tell you to listen, aren’t you?” Sum Runner sighed.

“Absolutely!” Thaddeus said, looking to find a suitably humiliating picture of the HLF. “She’s… kinda expository. Just like we're paying her for. But how else will any listeners know what’s going on? Or… the aliens? It’s not like we can just send information to them without context.”

“I still say that’s silly, though,” Sum Runner said.

“Sum,” Thaddeus said, “You’re technically an alien to us. You’re a magical unicorn from another universe, the leader of which is currently trying to turn us all into horse zombies. What’s so silly about aliens from beyond our solar system?”

“....Carry on,” Sum Runner sighed.

entry 3, November 18, 2023

Well…

...I’m confused. Officially, this is the story:

The Elements came, Marcus Renee’s runic enhancements let him survive…. something, there was a PHL superweapon that imploded the Great Equestrian and decapitated their Salvation Army - damn, I wish I could do air-quotes! - and then Princess Celestia cloned herself (with the old legendary Mirror Pool, if my memory is right) and there…. there was a sniper rifle, and someone shot out her spine….

But there’s shit I don’t get. There’s hundreds of people talking about a dome of night covering the city, spontaneous storms, Princess Luna appearing… and Discord…

I don’t know what happened, but Celestia nearly leveled the city. She came… the PHL stood…. and they stopped her. Killed her, even. It turned out to be a clone of her, and she wasn’t really there because she was afraid the humans might have some trump card.

The day before yesterday was the Battle of Boston, and let me tell you, nobody could look away. There weren’t any “official” feeds from there, so we had to deal with speculation, scraps of footage that were transmitted somehow, rumors from people that had managed to escape the city… we’d been hooked to footage, eating up rumors like free pizza.

And then the news about Celestia attacking in two weeks came in. There were rumors of a letter, but nobody could confirm them.
We didn’t know what to make of that… other than pants-shitting or just flank-shitting terror. Those were popular. I had to go patrol the Dead End where I live with thousands of refugees, looking for people or ponies that were going to kill themselves.

You… don’t want to know about that.

Now, here’s the thing. I’ve been running for years. I’ve had the HLF at my flanks, spraying out so much lead at me that I still don’t know how I’m alive. Also, here’s something I bet you didn’t know: The HLF do not have poor aim. They just like making their targets suffer. I had the PER chasing me. And they’re that kind of smarmy, self-absorbed, can-do-no-wrong sweetness that practically begs you to cave their fucking faces in, or burn them up from the inside. And I have.

I’ve run through Asia, across the Pacific, and finally here, to Portland Oregon. I’ve seen civilization just wither up and die, I’ve seen everything go to hell as humans started burning things, rioting, killing and stealing, hoarding supplies to outrun the barrier. Civilians thrown out of trucks or trains or even because there just wasn’t enough room. Families walking barefoot, practically running, desperately trying to outrun the Barrier when there was just no time left.

People scrabbling in the dirt or foraging in the forest, for something to eat, covered in mud, having lost so much that they’re beyond tears. I’ve talked people out of suicide… Sometimes, I failed. I watched the war turn into a damn nightmare. I was there when China turned into an oppressive nightmare, made worse by the fact that they needed it to keep all the HLF movements pushed back from Europe and the Middle East from destroying what civilization was left. I met the Dragons of the East and Captain Kleiner, I saw everyone go from riches to rags, and I still don’t know how I lived through it. I have seen anarchy. But…

If the Tyrant Sun came…

Nobody should think on that shit. It would make everything I’ve seen look like paradise. But now I had something better to think on. Fighting… and winning. The Queen Bitch has destroyed most of the world… a third, or half. Depends on who you ask. The Barrier’s proven indestructible. She has seemingly endless ponypower, she’s…. she’s a goddess! And there we were, killing her.

That bitch ruined my life. She killed all that was good about Equestria. She destroyed my dad’s business. Left us to fend for ourselves. Performed honest-to-God xenocide and had no regard for non-pony life, made the newfoals... If we were going to be able to kill her, I wanted a piece.

Besides, I was sick of running, and the thought of the Barrier eating up the Americas scared the shit out of me. So why not join the PHL?

“She went through Asia?!” Sum Runner asked. He and Thaddeus winced at the pain she must have gone through. Not a day went by without news of some unpleasantness in Asia, be it the Fu’an riots, news of the police in black, yellow, and white riot armor and potion-blocking PHL gas masks raiding HLF or PER strongholds in warehouses or Cold War-era fallout shelters, executions, some great HLF atrocity in the uncontrollable shrinking badland that was rural China, or plagues caused by the cramped conditions refugees were forced to live in.

“Evidently,” Thaddeus said. “So many stories she probably has to tell!”

Entry 4: November 20, 2023

Worked up the courage to head off to a recruitment station over in Vancouver.
They accepted me after a bit of verity-gauging to see if I was a PER member, a short physical, and a magic evaluation. They gave me a ticket, and I headed off to Union Station.

You know, it’s funny.

If I looked at the train station in very specific places I think it could be mistaken for thinking that maybe it was before the war. I’d have to look hard. Find a little island of space in the station, away from the potion sensors made by the PHL. Away from the men and women with wetsuits or rasping, sawing gas masks. Away from the openly carried firearms that are immaculately maintained, ancient, or have been made ancient by the things they’ve seen. Away from the dirt and grime, and the unicorns in gas masks that are superheating the floor to sterilize it of potion biohazard. To somewhere with fluorescent lights that are still on, because power has been unreliable thanks to the Barrier eating most of the Middle East, even with the power plants that Macroburst the pegasus is making. And most of all, away from the newspapers.

Oh damn, I just realized how hard that would be.

Maybe, for a short bit, I could sit and dream of whatever the pre-war was like here in Portland, Oregon. A place without the huge, walled Dead Ends packed full of refugees. The one that I was stuck in. A place where maybe, just maybe, ponies weren’t second-class citizens.

Now, I could tell you what was on TV. Another massacre… another mass ponification. Another military victory. A short spot about how the previous announcer committed suicide, and another debunking of the footage containing Princess Luna and Discord. A conspiracy theorist, possibly handpicked for the purpose of looking nuts, saying that they were just covering it up because it would break humanity into thousands of pieces if they didn’t. News about a Nigerian radiowoman named Enitan Adebayo.

Anyway, the train’s picking up speed as it leaves Portland.

I think I’ll be fine, though. Got a milkshake, a tablet with a hoof-mounted stylus, lots of human literature, and every episode of Welcome To Night Vale, which should tell you how easily I can keep myself occupied. I don’t need the stylus - I can just use magic to levitate and animate pair of gloves and use them to control the tablet - but sometimes, you just got tired of using so much magic. And if I got tired, or lazy, things could get… incineration-y.

Speaking of which… *yawns* I’m getting tired. Coal Embers out.

“Well,” Thaddeus said. “That’s good. Very atmospheric… shows how low that Queen Bitch has forced us,” he said, practically snarling. He’d hired hundreds of refugees, building up his company and creating new jobs just for them. He’d heard every kind of story almost a hundred times over, seen men, women, and children of all races and creeds go from riches to rags, just barely eking out a living in Rio. He actually employed a lot of them.

On top of that, his building had a very good view of the city, so he’d seen the slums grow, friends becoming destitute, and, more often than he’d like, he’d been able to see potion bombings, and PER and HLF attacks. He’d seen his beloved city fall apart before his eyes.

So his rage was genuine.

Entry 4.25, November 20, 2023

I… have a confession. I know the train trip was quicker and safer than a bus trip or hitchhiking, and air travel was incredibly hard thanks to anti-Equestrian fear, but… I can’t shake the feeling it wasn’t a good idea. See, I haven’t had good luck with trains.

I left my hometown by train. Well, I hitched a ride, and a guard threw me off as the train drove by the Everfree Forest, and I had to dodge Royal Guard trying to “save the lost, innocent simple little filly.” You... don’t… call me… SIMPLE! Those bastards!

I hitched a ride on another train, heading into a country where the government had decided to back the HLF instead of the PHL. I took one train from there into China - and before you ask, I paid for this one. It went through the territory of an HLF warlord desperate for supplies, he stopped it, robbed it, and left me to his friends.

The Dragons of the East came by before I lost my horn, but that was… well, way too close. Then I left on another train, heading for the coast of China, and that was… actually, nothing bad happened there, but China under its current rule is… well… I’m glad I got out when I did.

Then, in the Philippines (yes, the ship was attacked by PER, but that doesn’t go with the metaphor, just roll with it) I took a train, it was attacked by PER, there was a huge battle between them and partisans with hundred year old weaponry and homemade guns. Then, last time I took a train, well… it landed me in Portland around that Dead End.

And, well, it wasn’t bad, but it was just so depressing there!

“I don’t blame her,” Thaddeus said. “It’s pretty depressing in the average Dead End.”

“Least it’s not like Asia. Or Africa,” Sum Runner said, shivering. He’d been part of a PHL delegation that was delivering new assault saddles and enhanced weapons to units that would be sympathetic to the PHL cause. What he’d seen there had been, in a word, horrifying.

“Yet,” Thaddeus added.

Entry 5.5, November 20

I’m just doing this because I’ve gotten… bored. And depressed. I need to talk it out. See, I have a little radio. I know I have a tablet, but I like radios. They’re just… they’re just fun! I felt like listening to some tunes, so I got… well… hold on, I’m gonna pull up the recorder app on my tablet.

This shit.

“-Food riots in New Orleans, as grocery stores are stocked at half capacity. There’s… there’s a man with a ‘send em back!’ sign being beaten to a pulp, as humans kick him into the ground, though whether this means ponies or human refugees, I am uncertain. I sincerely hope he does not mean immigrant humans…”

I just wanted to find that smug anchor and beat the shit out of him. Anyone that advocates sending ponies back to Equestria deserves to get smacked in the face. They’re worse than a murderer - do they think the Queen Bitch is going to welcome them with open forelegs?! Hell no! Being on Earth without trying to potion anyone, that’s betrayal to the Queen. And you wouldn’t be welcomed till she’s turned you into what’s essentially a newfoal with a cutie mark. Of course, I wasn’t going to have much luck, so I twist the dial again.

“You see… it’s all a big plot between them!” says a man. Despite myself, I giggle. He said ‘plot’. Which can make for some awkward sentences that translate to ‘SO THAT WAS YOUR BUTT ALL ALONG!’

And then I stop laughing because I know that it’s one of those annoying cockholes. He’s so angry, so convinced he has to be right,, that I know it’s gonna suck and I have to “Think about it. The ponies have shown that they don’t value anything of ours… why would they want to help?”

He sounds like he just can’t comprehend it. I mean, sure, everypony thinks your race is a plague on existence, that all your music and artwork is shit and everyone’s better off without it! Dick. I know… I know. Human paranoia’s understandable here. But this man just… CAN’T understand!

“Now, see… the most damning evidence of this is the Battle of Boston a couple days ago!” this man rants. “I got the most bizarre footage and rumors from hackers. Now, I can’t say how much is true…”

I snorted slightly. Oh Luna, he is about to tank his credibility. This guy. This GUY!

“But there were reports of…. just, whatever energy they use, it was off the scale! A dome of night formed over Boston! Some people are even saying Celestia herself appeared, there’s people saying some…” there was the sound of this guy looking at a script of some kind. “Princess Luna and Discord reappeared. Huh. And yet the government tells us nothing! They tell us nothing about how they killed the alleged ‘clone of Celestia!' And Colonel Renee's disappearance is rather suspect as well! This was negotiated between our traitorous government and the-”

I switched it again. No need to listen to that.

“News of an uprising in North Dakota over food… supposedly HLF-backed… one of many food riots, though the PHL assures us they are doing their best to provide food using the new magical means. ‘It’s like looking into the gates of hell,’ claimed an anonymous National Guardsman. ‘These people are only a meal away from rioting. Can’t really blame em.’”

Oh God DAMMIT!

“Ich sitze im Zug nach Hamburg...”

There. Much better. I TK’d some headphones, custom-made for ponies (we don’t have ears on the sides of our heads, so they have to be big. And we don’t have the dexterity for earbuds.

It seemed like a good song to listen to on a train trip.

Entry 6, November 21, 2023

Just woke up… the train’s not moving. We’re in the middle of the nowhere, and something doesn’t feel right…

I can hear someone walking through the train… or somepony, judging by the hooves.

Unknown pony: “Come on out! It’s so much better as a pony! You won’t even know why you resisted, clung to that human nature that makes you greedy, disgusting, violent...

I can hear… clinking… glass.. vials… Oh no.

Oh God! The PER are here! They'll... They'll drag me back screaming-

No. No more running. No more leaving problems. I'm gonna be PHL someday. I. Ain’t. Moving.

(As she is saying this, Coal Embers warms up a spell)

PER member: "There's a pony here! She's a filly! Don't worry, I'll take you ba-"

Coal Embers: "DON'T. CALL. ME. A. FILLY!"

PER member:"DEAR CELESTIA IN EQUESTRIA, I CAN TASTE MY OWN MELTING FLESH!"

Coal Embers: "....Right. If I come back... That means we won. Luna help me."

Entry 6.5

(Appears that the Accu-Vox somehow turned on while Coal Embers was fighting, as she had kept it in a saddlebag)

PER member: -Only want to hel-

Unidentified passenger: “SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP!” (fires pistol)

PER member: “Taste the-”

Unidentified passenger: “POTION GREN-”

Coal Embers “-got it!”

PER member:" OH SWEET CELESTIA, EVERYTHING'S ON FIRE! ESPECIALLY THE PARTS THAT CAN'T BURN!"

Unidentified male passenger: “Should we help him?”

Coal Embers: “No, let the fucker burn!”

Unidentified female passenger: “Crap! Pegasi coming through the windows!”

(there is the sound of something pounding against the glass windows of the train)

Coal Embers: “Don’t worry bout me! Just go!

Unidentified passenger: “But-”

Coal Embers: “Don’t worry! They’ll do worse to you if you’re in here! NOW MOVE YOUR A-”

(Glass shatters)

Unidentified passenger: “SHIT, THEY’RE-”

Unidentified passenger: “Potion-”

Unidentified passenger: “COME ON! JUST RUN!”

Newfoal: “You should all envy us, you know. Humans… and natural-borns alike.”

Coal Embers: “Excuse me?”

Newfoal: “All your worries just float away once you drink the potion! Come on… join us! Don’t you think you’ll be happier? All those little things I wanted… all is better before the One True Monarch and her radiant sun. There’s no more uncertainty, no more pain!”

Coal Embers: “And I won’t be able to be anything else.”

Newfoal: “Exactly! And isn’t that wonderful?”

Coal Embers: “NO.”

Newfoal: “Wait. Why are you taking that vial if you don’t - hey! Be careful! Stop! Don’t! NO NO PLEASE! - AIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! OH SWEET CELESTIA, MY EYES! I CAN’T SEE MY EYES!”

Coal Embers: “Nobody… on this train… IS GOING TO BE ONE OF YOU FUCKING ZOMBIES!”

(Coal Embers warms up a spell)

Coal Embers: “FUEGO, PYROFUEGO! BURN!”

The newfoals and PER began screaming.

“And then what happened?” Thaddeus asked, curious.

“Check the date,” Sum Runner said.

“Hmmm, November 21st ,“ Thaddeus mused. “Huh. So if I check the location, and-” he stopped. “Oh my god,” he whispered.

PER attack train!

I remember this old quote: It’s not the end of the world, but you can see it from here. That certainly applies in this case. In return for the psychopath Jacqueline Dionna Reitman, PER members armed with potion-throwers and grenades full of ponification potion held an entire train hostage. Unicorns came to defend against any ponies that might fight them - and, if necessary, capture them and send them back to Equestria.

The passengers barricaded themselves in one car with overturned tables, covering themselves in thick bedsheets to keep themselves from being ponified. Word is that several ponies on the train were a great help to the passengers, with one unicorn pony creating shields and lighting PER agents on fire…

Entry 7, November 21:

Okay. I’m… I’m fine. A bit bruised and battered, but I’m fine.

The PER attacked. They’d used a fake light and a lot of magic to convince us to stop the train in the middle of nowhere, making us think that there was a train heading at us. Soon as it stopped, the PER jumped on. I heard somebody… or somepony... say that they could use it as leverage to get Doctor Reitman out of whatever hole they put that horse-fetishizing bitch in.

Yes, I can call her that. We ain’t a perfect race, and newfoals are damn near braindead. That ain’t perfection.

Anyway, they burst in with body armor and, I swear I’m not making this up, super soakers full of the Potion. It doesn’t have much effect on natural-born ponies… or so I’ve heard. Still spent a lot of time being used as a shield, when I couldn’t muster up an actual magical shield.

I showered for about an hour after that. Nobody could blame me. I don’t like that goddamn potion... makes me sick whenever I’m near it, and there’s just… something is very wrong with it. You know how you can wash all you like, but it feels like the smell never goes away? It’s like that. Anyway, that battle… it was horrible. Absolutely horrible. I saw people get ponified… some of the passengers had to execute them.

I’m very thankful everyone had weaponry. In peacetime, having that many guns would be a terrible idea, but… I saw… I saw so much! Unicorns tried to lift guns and turn them on the wielders… we had to stab them to death sometimes!

And what did I do?

I found as many of those PER bastards I could, and lit them on fire. I just burnt through all of them, screaming. I’ve seen enough of them turn good people into zombies. I got no sympathy for them, and you don’t either. So, when we took down the last one (I focused a flame spell into a laser and cut through a pony) we beat her for hours.

I stomped on him with all the other ponies in the train, even as she said we were ponies, and we were above that. Yeah, sure.

When it comes to being beneath things, the only way from the Empire’s practices is down.

Huh? What’s… Oh. The engineer says they’re getting the train back running again.

I hope to Luna this doesn’t happen again! The U.S has a lot of crazy people in the wilderness now… you have HLF that are doing their best to destroy civilization, PER, survivalists… people you just don’t want to fuck with.

Entry 8, November 23, 2023:

Finally! CHICAGO! It’s amazing how much being on your ass for all of two days, then fighting for your life can make ya tired. Thanks to yesterday’s… delay… I have a layover for the night. There’s a train in the morning, so I’m going to a hotel. Eh, whatevs. I need some sleep. And food.

So… I am going out to get it. Even with the apocalypse, humans do so love their meat. I… could eat it. I guess. It’d take a lot of convincing me to give it a try. Animals from Earth are stupider than newfoals (and that is really saying something) but… it still doesn’t feel right. Besides, the griffons do it. Wait. I just thought of something. If animals in Equestria are sentient and animals in the griffon kingdoms are… uh…

You know, I’m better off not thinking about that.

I found a place that serves pasta! It’s… it says they cater to ponies, and they have a menu for us! And, uh… Oooh. It’s got butternut squash ravioli and mushroom ravioli! I could tell you about Chicago, like the Accu-Vox manual says I have to, but I am friggin hungry! Equestria has nowhere near as much pasta as Earth…

Entry 8.5, November 23, 2023

So…. much… pasta… and cream... and then there was ice cream… I regret nothing. Anyway, it’s surprisingly normal here in Chicago. I’m at a hotel near a train station - the most I’m gonna be doing is watching TV. Besides, if I tried to go and look around the city for this project, I think I’d get mugged or worse, so that’s out.

It’s… a hell of a better room than most of what I’ve used. The bed is comfy, the TV is huge, the pillows are soft and they gave my chocolate.

TV, I think, is going to be suitably depressing.

(There is the sound of Coal Embers telekinetically lifting a TV remote.)

Reporter: “HLF-backed riots in the city of Fu’an. There’s protesters out… they have guns! Molotov cocktails even, they’re holding placards! They say ‘send em back to Equestria!’ in Chinese, of course… but there’s hundreds of other languages! There’s effigies, and… I don’t know how to describe this! This isn’t a riot, this is war!”

I can, though. Fu’an looks terrible! The streets are so full of protesters that I can’t even see the pavement, they’re on every rooftop, out every window. It’s an overpopulated nightmare… Oh, Luna, how and why did Celestia find the cruelty in her to do this, or decide this qualified as a kindness?! She railed on and on about how terrible the human world was, then she made it worse, then used evidence

Oh my God, they’re throwing a police car over… there’s… there’s a pony. I think I know that pony from somewhere! We... I… I can’t watch. I can’t. I’m switching the channel…

Reporter: "Seven dead, fifteen injured in suicide bomber attack at a PHL headquarters in San Francisco. Witnesses say the man shouted ‘for the HLF and humanity’ before he blew himself up. This is only the most recent in a series of suicide bombings on PHL buildings and facilities..."

How stupid are the HLF that they think these things are a good idea? They’re wasting their lives, dying pointlessly just like newfoals. I don’t think we even see them as a fighting force anymore. More something like hostile weather. They hurt both sides alike, they leave destruction in their wake…

I have bad feeling that the more the barrier draws closer, the crazier things will get. Changing the channel.

Reporter: “-PER attack in a Yakutsk refugee camp…”

What.

By Luna’s hooves, that’s a nightmare! I can see men and women with Kalashnikovs, ponies with PKMs in their saddles, trying to suppress the madness as newfoals pour out of shelters made from shipping containers offloaded by train, past walls with makeshift guardtowers that are easy to pack up, so people can repeat this cycle until we are pushed up against the sea.

The newfoals are pouring out, and the armed forces that might be either PHL or just Russian Military are cutting through them. One of them is holding a boxy looking machine, aiming it at the newfoals coming from the town, and fires. He’s not aiming at them, so how does -

Holy shit! Something just… I don’t know what it did, it’s like for a second, it was brighter than the sun where the newfoals were charging, in a huge mushroom-shaped cloud. Which is interesting and all (I wonder if I can do that?) but…. God damn the PER. They’re worse than vultures or the HLF. They pick off stragglers and those that can’t fend for themselves, they attack refugees, they use the worst tactics… I’ve lost too many friends to them. Nobody’s going to care that I found one and set his testicles on fire…. what? Really, I did!

The PER have no shame. There is no low they won’t sink to... And considering they make people into newfoals and "rescue" refugee ponies by taking them back to the Empire, that's pretty fucking low.

Switching the channel again.

Reporter: “-Captain Kleiner has finally arrived to liberate the Marshall Islands. There’s… there’s men, women, and ponies pouring out of the ships onto the beaches, and they’re just bombarding a city that’s become a newfoal stronghold. They’re-!”

That reporter was drowned out by a large chatter of weapon fire, shocked as he just saw a PHL-enhanced gun cut an Equestrian zep in half.

Reporter: “Oh, the humanity, right?”

You know… I’d be disgusted at the joke, but… fuck it, it was probably full of newfoals. And they’re not really alive anyway. However they’d react to something like that, I’d be disgusted.

Reporter: “Anyway, they’re just pouring out, under cover of artillery, and they’re heading into the city. Kleiner is staying behind with Thunderwing, guarding the ship and manning the guns.”

The camera’s swinging towards the horizon, and… she just brought three down in one shot! OH! Damn, that woman has good aim.

Rebecca Kleiner: “PUT DOWN THAT DAMN CAMERA AND HELP! You want to broadcast your own death, or do you want to save some lives?!”

Reporter: “I know what I’m doing, then. Everyone… they need every hand they can get. Don’t worry - I’ve used a SCAR before.”

Oh… he just… he just pelted off in the distance of two of the Blitzer railguns. And - goddamit! I just got some good news, and the signal cuts out?! I’m gonna switch the channel. Maybe watch some cartoons and flick back if I get a gut feeling bout it coming back.

You know what the best thing about the PHL is? They make good news.

Entry 9, November 24, 2023

Well. Another train trip. Yay. Between burning newfoals alive, sleeping in Chicago, and stuff… there’s not much to report into the accu-vox.

I think I’m near the coast now, and it’s a gray, rainy day that would have you telling the pegasi weather teams to fuck right off. But the further east we go, the more everything looks beat to hell. When we pass trains, they’re full of people, packed so tight I wonder if they can breathe. Highway lanes heading west are backed up for miles. I can see drivers that are…. they’re reading books in there. Which might sound silly, but the train’s been traveling along this highway for ten minutes, and the cars stretch far off into the horizon.

I’ve passed through God knows how many abandoned towns so far. Some look like they were taken over by newfoals. A lot look like they’ve been through the HLF/PER war, bombarded, burnt and beaten into dust by newfoals, and either gone to squatters or abandoned by people who realized they were doomed anyway.

A lot of them look to have been taken over by squatters from other countries. Defiant, battered flags from Europe and Africa sprout everywhere, in the ruins of houses and buildings, in town squares. Old, battered clothes swing on clotheslines. I’ve been in places like this back in Asia - there’s likely rooms full of artifacts from their old country, so immaculately (yes, I know the word immaculate) polished that they gleam. Stations that we pass by are full of people and ponies wearing heavy clothes, with everything they can carry. They’re staggering under the weight.

Most of them don’t look run ragged yet. They’ve still got something.

Not for long.

And yet.. on the coast… it all looks kind of uncertain. There are cannons pointed in the direction of the sea, some of which are swivelling, aiming right at us. I can’t blame them - the PER and the Empire haven't exactly made trust easy to come by.

The train stops frequently. Men and women, sometimes ponies get on. Sometimes, it’s an inspection. Sometimes people get taken off.

We’re heading for one of the satellite towns of Boston. And… I just realized something.

I don’t care that Crowe’s paying me more on this accu-vox to describe the surroundings. Or what the instructions say. But… this is the last place we can fight. There’s manpower, there’s industry, thousands of old mills producing weapons. Some of the largest cities, there’s land that can support people…. but when the Barrier swallows up the east seaboard, we’re fucked.

There’s only so much America can do to hold all those millions, or feed them with what little land we have left. When everyone on the east coast is pushed into the fields, into the mountains, against the coast, and the cities in China get more and more overpopulated, the police get tougher just to keep the HLF from turning it into a slaughterhouse, when we’re pushed into the sea… we’ll be doomed. The war will be over, and not in the good way.

I’ve just realized this, as my fur rises (and, if I was human, I’d be getting goosebumps): we are running out of time. We’re… not at a point where if the barrier advances further, everything’s going to collapse. HLF going mad, riots, people crammed into rooms so tight they can barely breathe. But give us a week? A month? It’s not a question of whether we’re at the point that everything’s gonna slide into total anarchy, unless the PHL pull a miracle out of their flanks and asses.

It’s a question of when.

We’re coming up on Boston, and…

And...

Mother of God. Actually, the part of the city I’m in… looks alright. The battle was mostly in northern Boston, but you can see the scars - broken windows, bloodstains on walls, graffiti, wrecked cars, broken buildings.

Still, better than what I thought. The train pulls into Boston South Station, through a tangle of sidings and spurs, now empty of everything but passenger trains and a couple halfhearted freight trains in the yard.

It’s coming to a stop… and…. it appears most of the people on the train are heading to the PHL, judging by the homemade body armor and weaponry. The station looks like the one in Oregon, but worse.

There’s dirt everywhere, the vending machines are cracked and empty, and the walls are plastered with propaganda, HLF and PHL alike, that they are almost furry. But in that special, disgusting way you get when it’s been raining on them, the posters stick to the walls, practically bleeding into others. I can see what was probably a machinegun nest only days ago, with a heavy Browning M2 overlooking the entrance to the station, another one aimed, almost speculatively, up at the ceiling. As if pegasi newfoals could come through. A PHL soldier with a prosthetic arm derived from one of Lyra’s designs sits behind the machinegun, a Tavor assault rifle at his side.

It doesn’t exactly inspire confidence, but we’re not dealing with the HLF. I’m going to turn this off for a bit. Gotta get to a PHL headquarters, then.

Entry 9.5, November 24, 2023

Alright. I think I’m on the right track...

I found a taxi. The driver was willing enough to accept giving a ride to a unicorn, saying that the PHL saved his family, so he at least owed them the benefit of the doubt.

I… I really like human cars. I know ponies are often beasts of burden and they pull carts, in Equestria and Earth, but it’s so fun riding in them! The seats, the view, the speed… it’s just comfy! Plus, the taxi had a little TV in it! TV while riding a car, that’s just…. that’s just fun!

The ride through Boston, though, was a bit less so as I looked through the window.

I know, saying it looks like a warzone was the easy way, but it is. Half the city looks like rubble, storefronts were unrecognizable, and exploded cars dot the streets. I can even see dead bodies, pony and human alike. There’s buildings that have been ripped apart, one skyscraper leaning into another, all its windows shattered. Planes lie in the street. I don’t think there’s glass anywhere that isn’t broken. The rain is just pounding down on the city, overflowing in gutters and making waterfalls in the ruins of collapsed buildings.

And yet… somehow… life went on.

Still, though, I’m passing through some kind of devastation every ten seconds. Luna, what happened here?! What did they do?!

Finally, the cab let me off in front of the PHL headquarters. It stood, triumphant, bruised and battered.

I’m…. I’m going to turn it off. They’re going to think this is a security risk.

“And?” Thaddeus asked. “Then what happened?”

“She... didn’t tell say anything about it,” Sum Runner said. “I mean, I’m assuming she got accepted in.”

“Pity,” Thaddeus said. Admittedly, as a trusted supplier to the PHL, he had been let in on some of the news from Boston. Namely, that Princess Luna and Discord were very real (which was a hell of a surprise) and that they had saved Boston, if only to stop his pestering to reproduce whatever highly experimental weapon they had used. Still, he’d wanted to see the look on her face. “Sum… I just thought of something. What am I doing?”

“Listening to the Accu-vox,” Sum Runner said.

“No… I feel like I’m doing nothing,” Thaddeus sighed. “Just… listening to people and ponies being doomed. It’s depressing as hell.”

“Well, yeah!” Sum Runner snarked.

“...Wait, then why did you…”

“You’ve been busy lately,” Sum Runner said. “I just… I got lonely today, and I missed you.”

“...Sorry,” Thaddeus sighed. “Next tape? This looks like the last one.”

Entry 10, November 25, 2023

You know, it’d be easy to assume this was stupid, that it turned me into a newfoal and brainwashed me cause of how happy I am, even though we’re kind of in the middle of an apocalypse. But, for those of you that think I’m a newfoal with a cutie mark, CELESTIA IS A COCK-LOVING, SOCIOPATHIC, HORMONAL BITCHWHORE WITH NO DESIRE OTHER THAN TO-

Thaddeus and Sum Runner looked at each other, wincing under the torrent of profanity. Nope. Definitely not a newfoal.

They waited about two minutes. It still didn’t let up.

And now, here I am. From Portland to New York, through HLF and PER, across the country.

They breathed a sigh of relief.

They needed a pony to help, and I’m doing a good job at the thing I was assigned to - which is to say, welding ships. They made a special welder’s mask for me so my horn pokes out, so I can weld to my heart’s content. It’s… nice, not using magic to burn things alive. The welding seems pretty nice. There’s a guy nearby, this huge Irishman who boxes under the name Colossus O’Connor.

He seems nice enough, but he’s as in the dark as I am about what happens in two weeks. Still, he’s confident that we can fight. “We can survive Boston,” he shrugs whenever anyone brings up the topic, “Why can’t we do that again?”

I don’t know how to think about that. But it’s a hell of a lot better way to think of it than ”We’re fucked.”

“...You know…” Thaddeus sighed, “I’m actually not all that depressed now. She’s got a point.” He sat up. “How are our contracts with the PHL going?”

“Well… the MG2023 that Ernst Kasparek helped design?” Sum Runner asked. “The man that’s using it says it’s working well for him, though he wishes the experimental tesla module was easier to recharge. Its effectiveness against shields has been promising. But he says it can also…”

“Yes?” Thaddeus asked.

“Liquefy newfoals,” Sum Runner said. “He’s way too happy about that.”

“Wait, it does?! That’s great news!” Thaddeus said, practically beaming. “Anything else?”

“They want more of those crystal rounds. They’re also experimenting with other enchanted munitions, and we need to keep up with Ogunleye Futuristics over in Africa,” Sum Runner said. “We have some comparable designs.. oh, and we’ve received orders for Fujin missiles. They’re also… trying to make flak cannons?”

“I think it’s cause pegasi get in real close to ships,” Thaddeus added.

“Ah, okay. And… Okay, We’ve been contracted to help built runically enhanced ships. That was before the battle, and since then, we’ve stepped up production. We’re sending the parts up by train,” Sum Runner said. “There’s also… uh… Oh my. You have how many projects in the works?”

“A lot,” Thaddeus sighed. “So - how about we work on them together? After dinner, I mean.”

“Dinner?” Sum Runner asked, blushing slightly.

“Yes,” Thaddeus said. “You, me… tonight. Then we try and save the world. How bout it?” he held out a hand.

“That sounds wonderful,” Sum Runner said, placing his hoof in Thaddeus’ hand. “We’ll just-”

Thaddeus’ phone started ringing. He picked it up. “Sorry,” he whispered to Sum Runner. “Who is thi-”

He paused.

“Cheerilee?!” he asked.

“Yes,” she said, her voice quivering. “Tell me - what do you know about anti-skyliner weaponry?”

“That if they didn’t have shields, they’d be kindling?” Sum Runner suggested. “And that incendiary or explosive shells work well against them?”

“Well, yes. But there’s a new skyliner they have in the works - we just found out about it today, and it makes the Great Equestrian look like a little kid’s balloon,” Cheerilee said.

“How?!”

“I can’t explain it over the phone,” Cheerilee said. “But… we have a little over a week to make enough weapons to take the thing down.”

“Would another Blitzer work?” Thaddeus asked. “I have a couple others. Figured you’d need a few more, considering the one we have in...” he paused. “That training facility.”

“Whatever you have,” Cheerilee said, “Send it to us. We’ll pay as much as-”

“Don’t worry about pay,” Sum Runner put in.

“Yeah, continued survival is better than cash in this case,” Thaddeus agreed. “I am NOT extorting the guys that are saving the human race.”

“I... see,” Cheerilee said. “If there’s anything you have that might be useful, make sure it gets to us! I don’t care what it is, so long as we can use it to win.”

“Alright,” Thaddeus said. “We can do that.”

“Do you have any more of those tesla weapons designed by Dr. Kasparek?” Cheerilee asked.

“Not many,” Thaddeus said. “It’s hard integrating the alicornal tissue into them, but we’re stepping up production.”

“Wait, that’s what you used?” Cheerilee asked. “Where did you get that!?”

“Newfoals,” Thaddeus said. “Harvested by my own men. I’m also keeping it secret, cause I am not letting HLF members get into that business.” He shivered. “I am not using refugees as material for experiments. Besides… they’re newfoals. And, to be honest, it doesn’t use that much of the stuff.”

“I…. see,” Cheerilee said. “You’ll be pleased to know the things are working well. Granted, we don’t like the soldier that got ahold of the one attached to an MG2023… but it’s undeniably effective.”

“Good,” Thaddeus said. “Very good.”

“Goodbye then,” Cheerilee said. “I’ll be calling you again.”

“Goodbye then,” Thaddeus said, disconnecting. “So - should we put off dinner then?” he asked Sum Runner.

“Well, I’m going to be honest… we have a lot of inventory to go through,” Sum Runner said. “A lot.”

“What the hell, it can’t be too hard,” Thaddeus said. “Long as we do it together.”

2: A Story About Them
Somewhere in Africa, 2023

Dr. Erika Kraber: “I’ve double checked. Triple checked. I’ve run so many tests, and you can cart me off to jail if you want. My husband and I did kidnap several newfoals. But here’s the thing about them… some of you might still think that they’re your friends and family. They aren’t.
Last night, my son… he asked me a question. He was calling from a phone booth, plainly drunk. I don’t know why. But he had a question. ‘How do we get their minds back? The ones who’ve been taken.’ I don’t know what he was doing, and whether his location has any connection to the bombing of a bureau not too long ago, not that I could bring myself to ask.
I didn’t know the answer. I was baffled, I told him I had no idea… but even then, I…” Dr. Kraber gasps “...I think I know. They have been drunk. Their thoughts have been taken, their dreams—their conscious and subconscious—have been drowned under the potion. There is nothing left to save. There is nothing to get back.”
Study on Newfoals by Erika Kraber, entry 19

"Shut your fucking face, old man! We haven't been worth shit for years! How goddamn delusional do you have to be to think the public actually like us?! The PHL have evacuated civilians. The PHL can use 5.56 rifles while we have to use these stupid fucking .50 Beowulf rounds! The PHL saved Boston! The PHL have secret superweapons when all we have are homebrewed cannons and pipe guns! The PHL help power America, and we've probably used something from them! What in the fuck are we compared to that?! They're calling us terrorists and murderers, rapists and torturers, bandits that… I swear to God I’m not kidding, bandits that are destroying civilization! Crazy, right? EXCEPT DAMN NEAR NONE OF YOU HAVE DONE ANYTHING TO PROVE THEM WRONG! I'm not asking any of you to have sex with the merry-go-round toys, but at least the PHL is doing something. We're all yammer and no hammer now, the war’s passed us by! We're a laughingstock, and if the PHL wins the war, we’re not gonna be heroes. We’ll be the guys that everyone laughs at. We’re not heroic partisans like in Poland, or anything of the sort, we’re just a bunch of assholes with guns pointed at everything that isn’t us, because fuck you, it’s the apocalypse, we’ve got ours! We’re outlaws! We’re…. you! MacPherson! Is this what you signed up for? Stealing from people that don’t have anything left to steal? And you, Clancy?! Killing people that I’m convinced just wanted a better life because their home is a despotic shithole?! Morhaim, did you sign up to oversee gang-rapes and eat people?! Anyone in this HLF brigade that wants to do something good... Follow me, We're going to the PHL! If Viktor Kraber can quit and do the right thing, we can outdo that bastard!”
Angus Reid, HLF militiaman, 2022

This is not a story about you.

Though to be honest, you could be an interesting person. There is a good chance you could be a certain German man fond of heavy revolvers and MG2019 LMGs, who was raised Jewish in South Africa, moved to Germany later in life, went to college in America, got his girlfriend pregnant there, and… well, you know the rest. You could be him. He does know enough Swahili to be in this story, and he is a frequent listener of Enitan Adebayo’s broadcasts.

But, thankfully, you are not him. He is not a man to aspire to be. You are, of course, in Africa, which is interesting enough. Who are you, though?

You could be anyone, anyzebra or whatever that plural is, or anypony.

So it doesn’t matter who you are. You could be one of the Zebras that managed to get out of Zebrica, one of the rare ponies that fled to Africa, or one of the millions of humans that have been forced down into the far south continent and are considering moving outward as the barrier threatens to push you and millions of others into the sea. Or you could simply have been born in one of the few countries of Africa that the Barrier has not consumed. Yet.

The whole of Africa, with its contrast of soaring cities, rich and poor, desert and jungle, had it far worse than much of the rest of the world. Reduced to five countries (if that) where there had once been many, every culture of the world’s second most populous continent crammed into a landmass not even the size of Australia. Thanks to the Barrier, soldiers and citizens were forced to use ancient and profoundly unreliable under-maintained rail lines to escape the might of the Solar Empire. The common, rugged Beyer-Garratt steam locomotives that migrated across the continent had routinely beaten the rails as they traveled further and further, pounding the steel into submission. Of course, they were used more by diesel locomotives, but ancient steam engines taking refugees further south into Africa is simply an unforgettable image. You may have used one of these trains to escape the barrier, leaving your house and precious memories to be atomized, watching from a train car, just lucky enough to have a seat, or crammed into ancient rolling stock, so ancient you could see through the holes in the floor, desperately aware of the moment this reminded you of yet forced to acknowledge that being herded into railroad cars which would take you so far south is necessary, and a far better option than being herded into a Bureau. You may have watched that happen, the barrier swallowing some town or city or village that was either your newfound home or birthplace, anywhere between Libya and Zambia, as you cried and cried. Or perhaps you did not cry, the devastation of life and property and the rape of innocence so far beyond anything you had ever seen that you were beyond tears, beyond understanding, the destruction hollowing you like a gourd. You may have been allowed only a suitcase to carry all your belongings, depending on how much money you had.

And you may simply be native to South Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, or Botswana, and you may just want to make an honest living in your home for as long as you can. If you are from these countries, you dread the inevitable day that you will be pushed into the sea or forced southward. South Africa in particular is too overpopulated - you have heard that they are pushing refugees away, towards Asia or South America.

You have certainly cursed Equestria at one point. If you are a Zebra, you might have cursed them for oppressing your homeland in Zebrica, not outright conquering it but casting a long shadow so dark that it was nigh-impossible for any zebra to leave and help an impoverished, thirsting, lonely, paranoid place where the sun has become cold and pallid. If you hail from the Middle East, you could have cursed them for destroying Jerusalem or Mecca (so this is how the Jews feel about being driven from the temple, you may have thought, if you are a Muslim) and uprooting your religion. You could have cursed them for destroying livelihoods, reducing rich men and women and stallions and mares to paupers as enterprises that they or their families had worked decades to build were atomized. Hell, you could be one of those rich men and women. Human, Zebra, or Pony, you may have cursed Equestria with either hateful words or promises of revenge, or, most literally, by participating in the zebra ritual that tapped into the magic of Africa, wreaking a great and terrible spell that incited the predators and herds of the land to hate the newfoals with all their being, forcing the land itself to be a blight upon whatever empire Celestia carves out of Earth.

Because, you know, small victories.

You may be a scared refugee, male or female, who does not wish to fight, and yet does their best to survive, in spite of the electricity and food shortages that are, at this point, some of the worst in the world. Though the exodus of immigrants to South America (you are certainly considering this) is changing that. And not for the better.

Or you may be a soldier on leave. Or a factory worker, making missiles, ammunition, armor, or any supplies needed for war, according to the odd specifications of the PHL. You could have received a custom commission for an NTW-20 from Helen Pretorius, which is going to go to her deranged, alcoholic cousin in the PHL. You are tired by your job. Tired by the gun you carry in case of newfoals.

In your place of residence, which is similarly contextual but very likely a slum, as Africa has plenty of those thanks to the Barrier, you turn on your radio.

The woman on the radio is named Enitan Adebayo. You know her by reputation. She is as tough as nails, surviving every battle from Lagos to Namibia with an old Beretta ARX160 and a shotgun, and broadcasting it all over the radio. You have heard her time and time again, broadcasting from combat, defiant and unconquered, urging you all to resist. And you may have listened to her. You have certainly fought. In a world like this, it is hard not to have fought, taking up some kind of weapon against the newfoals.

She is rather stoic and dispassionate, though no one would accuse her of not caring. She certainly cares for the news, frequently live broadcasting from combat zones. And you have heard she cares for her brother Obayana, his wife Esosa and his missing daughter Yekemi. You are neither of these people, of course. She is telling a story that is not about his family, though. It is about two people be knew from the front. Perhaps more than two.

She admits they remind him of a certain book, so she may not be using their real names, but she assures all the people you could be that the story is true.

This story is not about you.

It is a story about them, Enitan said. As always, she is speaking Swahili. Of course, there is a good chance you are also speaking Swahili.

Not long ago during the war, there were two lovers, a man and a woman. One was possibly named Jamie, another with the unfortunate surname of Balzac. Unrelatedly, Balzac’s first name was ‘Marcel’. Both, through bad luck, good intention, and a myriad of unpredictable factors, found themselves fighting in Africa. Perhaps, Enitan admitted, These were not their names. Perhaps this simply reminds me of a story.

They had fought together for years, growing together on the field of battle from boy and girl, to man and woman made ancient as the oldest soldier through their experience.

Then there came the day that they made a mistake. It was a little over two years ago, and it was not long after the evacuation of Nigeria, a day which to this day leaves me waking up screaming. Memories of being torn from Yekemi, the almost unbreakable bond between father and daughter broken as two trucks already filled to the brim sped away from the Barrier. Lagos had been cleaned out of the most valuable things it had. Food had been carted away by train, every gun in the city belonged to a resistance fighter or those who would become resistance fighters, gas had been loaded into railroad tankers that refugees would cluster on top of. Heirlooms had rarely been given precedence, and as a result, much of Lagos’ history was not even dust on the wind.

The Nigerian government had in fact done this massive undertaking days before the Barrier came upon them, and detonated a nuclear weapon there, leaving it a radioactive wasteland that would be of no use to Celestia. While the Barrier would atomize nuclear weaponry, there was simply nothing it could do about fallout.

On a day not long afterwards, the man and woman ventured into one of the forbidden zones. To a city which was not Lagos, of course. Carrying Kalashnikovs, they strode into a city that they did not own, and never could own.

Perhaps they were looking through there for valuables. For artwork. For some supplies or lost nibble of food that they could have taken for themselves. While they were teenagers who were in love, this was an immensely stupid idea.

They combed the city, looking for something. Anything. The city they had found was massive to them, the only two people left that weren’t ponies.

They made their way down a highway, checking for whatever caught their eyes. Their sacks grew full with computer equipment, cords, and those few items that were important enough to bring back, yet not enough to take on the first go. The guns of the city had been taken, so it would be unlikely for them to find weaponry.

Then they saw it.

A hoofprint in the sand, tinged with purple. Though the potion had no effect on a human who wasn’t in direct contact, they shied away from it. They’d seen too much. They knew the risks.

“Ponies,” Marcel whisper-hissed. While he could not be said to be an HLF member (some members of their unit were) and the PHL was slowly proving its dedication to humanity’s continued survival, the words “pony,” “Solar Empire,” and whatever adjectives you could ascribe to potioning were interchangeable. Especially for people as isolated as them. Perhaps Lyra was a good pony or simply a spy, perhaps the PHL was a passing fad… the opinion varied from day to day.

You can remember those days, which were, in a way, better. Or perhaps they were simply a different kind of terrible. In those days, food was scarce, but today, you would dream, you would beg for that so-called scarcity as children go hungry, as rumors of cannibalism and newfoal-eating spread across the city. In those days, cities were overpopulated, but not as overpopulated as they are now, often with at least two families to a single room, in self-imposed ghettoes. In those days, however, there were still some things that seemed that they could work, perhaps the forced de-orbiting of space stations, bombardment with asteroids, even the nuclear option. There were people, who lived at the other end of deserts and oceans, and some of these people may have been you, who had thought or perhaps merely told themselves that it couldn’t happen to them, and it was too far away that it could destroy them. If you were one of those people, you might have thought that nuclear bombardment could work, that sustained bombardment could destroy the Barrier, then thought that that perhaps “radiation bombardment to destabilize the thaumaturgons,” (As a nervous, Brazilian-accented unicorn from Crowe Labs put it) could work as well. That after enough weaponry and Cold War-era arsenals thrown at the Barrier, it would crack and fall, and under the threat of constant, 24-hour bombardment, a hurricane of missiles that could be seen from space, Equestria would disappear and the surrounding countries would find them and devastate them, and you would be left with a couple thousand stranded ponies. Perhaps, as a PHL member or PHL sympathizer, or simply a man who took in lost ponies when nobody else would, you would try and learn from them and rebuild. Perhaps, if you were an HLF member, you’d probably just kill them. In which case, you’re a total dick.

That didn’t happen. The Barrier was fueled by magic on a scale that most ponies thought impossible, and what little weakening the radiation caused was small enough that it barely mattered.

And so, whoever you are, you sympathize with these two in memory of those days, not quite better (only seemingly so) and not quite worse, merely a different kind of bad.

The woman who may have been Jamie, or perhaps the person whose name I have substituted, it has to be said, was rather lacking in common sense. Where Marcel had said it was dangerous and suggested scouting back, Jamie decided to forge on ahead and find it. Or I could just be assuming that of her because I know how this ends. Who am I to assume that doing a smart thing in a story is the right thing?

I know that as the two of them tracked the hoofprint, it could have ended in disaster. Following the hoofprints, they had traveled to a stadium, and, at the center there lay a newfoal.

Before Jamie could touch it. Before some great and terrible transformation we have all seen too much of…

My brother Obayana came, holding that huge shotgun he is so fond of. Staring down at them, angrily.

...

The two of them, so madly in love… those are some of the things they did. Poor decisions were made, yet the two of them stayed together, effective as a pair, for almost a year and a half after that.

At the end of that year, the man saw his love for the last time. It was on the forty-eighth day of the battle to evacuate what little remained of Malawi, and Obayana sat on the porch of a huge warehouse, in an abandoned industrial complex where our troops were resting. The valuable machinery had been cannibalized for materials or spare parts or moved further south, so there was little left other than skeletons of ironwork, imprints in carpets, or areas where there was either too much or too little dust. He had an old glass bottle of HLF rotgut on the table. I was in one of the offices, broadcasting, of course.

And, if you were listening to the radio, you remember that as well. Enitan had been tired of a day of directing the stragglers south or east, for boats or trains, and was collapsed on an ancient couch, exhausted enough that moving felt like an unnecessary indulgence, yet energetic enough that she could describe to you the particular horror of directing people from their doomed homes, unsure whether the horror came from the inevitable fate or the terrible, deadened routine of it all. She had, of course, been talking about a mare she had befriended, a Zebra with a perfect mane who was named Bayyina.

He had been sitting, contemplating as the Barrier drew near. A heavy 7.62x39mm rifle he jokingly referred to as the AK-FU, one of innumerable frankengun inspired by the Kalashnikov sat nearby. It had a homemade balanced recoil system he’d made by looking at a diagram on the internet, and a 60-round quadstack magazine, homemade and taken from a cache of HLF weaponry. He’d loaded it with as many of the 7.62x39mm HEI rounds he could find in that HLF cache, priceless in the desert They had been the dregs of the HLF, those that were paranoid enough that they would purposefully throw away advantages the PHL could give, more like bandits than resistance fighters.

No, not even bandits.

His wife Esosa sat nearby, sharing the rotgut. And, in one of those twists that would leave one’s past self reeling or possibly screaming, a pony lay nearby, her fur glistening with sweat in the desert sun. She and at least four other ponies assigned to Obayana’s were from the PHL. They’d been tasked with improving existing equipment, as opposed to creating new weaponry. Supplies were low down in Africa, after all. That, and the PHL was understandably worried about bringing any enhanced weaponry overseas.

The man Marcel, who so reminds me of Balzac from that story, had become like a son to them in the absence of his parents and the absence of Yekemi.

It was likely that Marcel would consider that apt, as his parents had died in the war. They were in a PHL outpost - and, as an outsider to Africa, they were far away. Very far away, in fact. In attempting to maintain the overflowing sewers in the underground sections of one Chinese city, they were drowned.

To his own disgust and sadness, that didn’t bother him. At least they weren’t newfoals, he told himself. And yet… they’re dead! His lack of feeling, his possible sociopathy, it scared him. Especially with the disappearance of his love.

Am I a bad person? Marcel wondered. For not caring that my parents are gone? For wishing more for the woman I love?

He would not get an answer.

…

Dawn approached. As did the Barrier, but its advance had become slightly unreliable. Gerard Mkumbi’s thoroughly pessimistic smartphone app that tracked the Barrier’s progress had registered that just yesterday, it had been four feet off.

If you were from Malawi, or one of the innumerable refugees that were funneled down through there, you remembered this day. There is a good chance that one day, men with guns told you to take whatever you could carry, thrust a weapon into your hands, and waited outside impatiently as you took food, as earth ponies and unicorns commandeered your refrigerator and pantry and set to bringing it far south into Africa. If you were lucky enough to own a refrigerator.

If you were one of the lucky ones, you’d run as soon as you could, knowing that to stay in your home one more day would be madness. If you were slightly less lucky, you’d been ferried out on a convoy of trucks or in a friend’s car, or had taken a boat across Lake Malawi to Mozambique, where you then had a somewhat more relaxing evacuation.

But if you weren’t lucky, you were evacuated on one of the trains. Forced into an overcrowded station for your own good, then squeezed into a train so tightly that it was nigh-impossible to breathe. Not helped if it was a steam engine. But you got out.

If you were phenomenally unlucky, you were forced into the unfortunate situation that Enitan was describing at the moment. Brought to factories with loading docks or freight yards, as the stations were packed far beyond capacity, and then herded into trains that would have been for freight in another life.

From the northwest, Enitan continued, closer to the Barrier on the horizon and near a steadily shortening railroad line, there came the sound of gunfire. Explosions rang out, artillery bombarded the position, and potion clouds drifted lazily by. Obayana could only hope that the defenders of that position were wearing full body protection, even more so that their protection came equipped with PHL-standard cooling equipment. He could smell gunpowder - both smokeless and dirty, unreliable, homebrewed HLF propellant.

He’d lost a lot of men who thought that full body protection (in the desert, no less) was simply too hot to keep. They were right on some counts, but not having it around was simply an unacceptable risk.

A risk that most of the men and women had not taken, praise God. They stood by, folding themselves against walls, shotguns ready. Or, in the case of the few ponies with him He held a Neostead shotgun, this one a new NS2018 with the new replaceable magazine tubes and semiauto capability. Across the hall from him stood a stallion named Shuffling Dust and a female Zebra named Bayyina, each wearing new assault saddles. Shuffling Dust had opted for the standard two LMGs, while Bayyina had chosen a minigun. Any other zebras or ponies were in other parts of the complex, guarding the loading dock with their lives.

It was only a matter of time before the newfoals came.

Oh, how Obayana hoped that Yekemi wasn’t one of them! Hundreds, if not thousands had told stories of being forced to kill those they loved, either mid-ponification or… he shuddered. Best not to think about that. For the men and women, stallions and mares that he served with, it was the greatest of all fears, superseding death or even those hundreds of irrational, childish phobias. A truly disgusting, horrific form of psychological warfare by an enemy that considered them unworthy of any sort of mercy, less than… to say ‘dirt’ would be vastly overstating their value to Equestria. Though personally, I suspect that ponies of Equestria do not rank much higher. That Celestia cares for nothing but herself.

Think on it. If Celestia valued ponydom so much, would she send natives and newfoals alike to die by the thousands? If PER are listening to this… think on that, would you? Think about how much Celestia would value your contribution as a newfoal, to send you to murder children’s minds as they sleep in their beds. Think of how very much she values you to send you to die with no weapons besides potion vials. Not even guns of any sort, which open you up for my brother to pick you off with his heavy shotgun and assault rifle! She does not care. She may hate us, she may consign us to living death, but at least she is up front about it.

At least we are not deluded about where we stand.

Refugees of Malawi sat in the warehouse behind them, huddled and shivering not from cold but from the knowledge of what could happen. They were waiting for a train to come, or trucks, or buses - anything to bring in a direction that was not north. Even now they could hear the train coming. It was a diesel engine, judging by the whistle. They were armed with motley assortments of weaponry, some nearly a century old. One refugee, a Libyan veteran of the civil war of about 9 years back, held an ancient STG-44. Its ammo was running dry, but he kept the thing for good luck. On top of that, he’d been promised a magically refurbished version and a new supply of ammo from the PHL - the things were common enough among North Africans that their utility was impossible to ignore. Rifles, shotguns, and pistols poked out every window and doorway in the loading dock. I had been one of those, broadcasting as usual through a headset while clutching the Beretta rifle I had taken all the way from Nigeria - I would have been surprised if anyone could have heard me.

Perhaps you remember that, if you were there. If you were huddling near that loading dock, clutching a gun, as the next couple minutes could be your last. There was a train in the distance, coming for you after it had deposited a load of refugees somewhere, possibly South Africa.

“Are the barricades set?” Esosa called over to an albino named… well, like the man and the woman, there is a character whose name just seems to fit with him. I would like to say his name was Mindle. Except that’s not going to work because that was not his real name, and most of you don’t understand the reference that I’m going with. His name was, in fact, Youssouf.

He was little more than a child compared to everyone, one of the rare child soldiers who had not been pressganged into the war - rather, he had volunteered. Yet he had seen as much as all of them. If not more. He was a child who had never been a child, voluntarily cut his childhood short to protect those he loved.

Youssouf nodded. He had rigged the stairwells, the air vents and every entryway leading to the refugees that he could find. He had plastered the walls with hidden homemade claymore mines full of odd metal bits and bobs, activated by tripwires. Covered weakened areas of floor likely to collapse. Made sure that any ponies that got through would be in for a bloodbath. Further down the hall, there was a heavy door that looked like it could take a missile, though none of them were willing to test that. A former HLF man named Clinton Mokoena had welded it shut, but not before plastering it with small proximity mines.

“Marcel, my love?” someone asked, whispering.

“...Could it?!” Marcel whispered.

“Whatever you do, stay put!” Obayana hissed, his shotgun not quite pointed at Marcel, not quite pointed in the direction of the voice. “She could be…”

He didn’t have to say it. They all knew. Perhaps Marcel knew, too. Perhaps he was blinded by love.

And yet…

Youssouf and Esosa cursed.

There was the sound of a scuffle off in the distance, and the telltale preprogrammed response of a newfoal reborn as a pony. Goddammit, Obayana groaned. Another one lost. You keeping score, you Queen Bitch?!

There was a whistling noise.

Everyone stood alert in the corridor. Youssouf’s fingers tap-tapped on the grenade launcher he had mounted underneath his rifle. “Soon,” he said. Then, more insistently, “Soon.”

There was a thump. Then another. Everyone stared at the door, trying to convince themselves it was but another one of the factory’s old creaks and groans, another-

“Marcel! Open the door!”

“How’d they get this far?!” Obayana hissed, knowing the answer as soon as the first syllable left his mouth.

“Same way newfoals always do,” Youssouf explained. “Numbers.”

They all knew what he meant. The newfoals had picked a route and cheerfully sacrificed their own numbers to find the explosives, sending scouts ahead to be reduced to red mist and pulped muscle with smiles on their faces.

There was another thump on the door. This one louder, more reverberating. A heavy boom.

“...They stole your explosives,” Marcel whispered, his face paling to white. “They shouldn’t be this smart.”

Another boom.

“Get ready, everyone!” Obayana yelled, holding the NS2018 in one hand, the Kalashnikov with the silly nickname and 60-round magazine in the other. Shuffling Dust staggered back slightly, his mouth closed around the trigger for the assault saddle, though not firing. Not yet.

For the love of Luna, not this again.

Another boom. A moment of silence, then another.

And the door burst open. There was no order to fire, no “wait till you see the whites of their eyes!” order, because if anyone waited that long, they would be dead.

They all opened fire in what would look like unison to an outsider, but, with the slowed perception of those in the heat of battle, felt like eternity.

In most situations, full auto is usually a bad idea unless it’s short, controlled bursts.

This was not one of those situations. Rifles with extended magazines opened up full auto or, if they were semiautomatic, fired in twitching, guttering bursts that would seem impossible to the outside observer, roaring and shredding through newfoals. It was chaos, and the masses of newfoals dying as 5.45x39mm rounds either pierced their insides or 7.62x39mm rounds shredded them.

The newfoals piled up as they barreled through the door.

At this moment, I was downstairs, holding off a crowd of newfoals that were running through a door, firing grenades and bullets alternatingly.

Where is she?! Marcel thought, almost hysterically, desperately trying to keep firing. Obayana’s big Kalashnikov roared nearby, its heavy percussion and the clattering of its shells on the floor deafening in the confined space, as the HEI rounds punched through up to three newfoals at once, burning them from the inside and scorching their insides. Unlike some of the lighter assault rifles of their unit (If one could call them that anymore) it didn’t leave neat little holes in newfoals. It shredded them.

“SONS! OF! PIGS!” Obayana roared, firing a grenade, watching it detonate against eight newfoals that were running through the door.

It was madness. Utter madness. And, to Shuffling Dust, it was such a terrible waste.

He’d told Obayana about it over glasses of HLF rotgut, and as they fired madly, screaming not in fear but in challenge, his mind went back to that day. There were so many smarter ways it could have been done, and he thanked Luna that the Queen Bitch hadn’t used any of them. She didn’t use tactics. She didn’t display any kind of battlefield smarts, an odd note considering that she had led military operations in the distant past.

She simply threw newfoals and potion at a problem, just so she could drown it. To Obayana, who grew weary of watching young men, women, stallions, and mares cut down in their prime under the onslaught, and considered wasting manpower to be a sin as terrible as wasting water, he considered it appalling. To Shuffling Dust, it spoke of a deep, uncharacteristic sadism.

The LMGs fired in short bursts, almost impossibly disciplined compared to everyone’s panic fire. Due to a pony’s rather unique hardships when it came to reloading, burning through ammo was a common problem. Alongside him, Bayyina’s minigun buzzed, cutting through the newfoals like a chainsaw.

“Oh God oh hell oh fuck no,” Marcel whispered, not sure whether to be happy as he possibly cut down a newfoal that could have been Jamie, unsure of whether he was doing a mercy, but certain he needed to keep firing.

Nearby, Obayana reloaded his Kalashnikov and fired again, ripping through more newfoals. “YOU THINK YOU CAN TAKE MY FAMILY?! YOU THINK YOU CAN TAKE THESE MEN AND WOMEN?!” he roared. “BRING IT ON! BEND OVER AND TAKE IT, BITCH!”

And beside him, Shuffling Dust roared too.

The floor had become so littered in shell casings and bloody corpses of newfoals that it was nearly impossible to see the concrete beneath their feet. Or, as it happened, hooves.

The diesel engine whistled behind them.

“Could that damn train get here any slower?!” Esosa yelled.

Back in the loading dock, we’d all been wondering the same thing. We were emptying magazines at the charging newfoals as well, rounds of every description piling up more newfoal corpses in the hallways. A Zebra with two FN MAGs on his back watched the windows, pacing and perforating any newfoal that got close enough. I fired a grenade from the Metal Storm 3GL under my rifle, firing it at the ceiling, near pegasi that were trying to fly over the mass of dead ponies in the middle. They were ripped to shreds as the grenade exploded, turning them into scraps of bloody meat.

Maybe we were just caught up in the heat of battle, but it felt like that train took its sweet time.

If you were from Malawi or passed through there on the way south, you likely remember that train. You may feel the stirrings of memory, half-remembered nightmares of not being able to get on the train, and desperately firing your gun at any newfoals that came close.

That train did take a damn long time to get to the loading dock, you may agree.

Finally, Enitan continued, The fire drew to a close. The train had appeared. We would have been using a train station to get out, but they were all heavily occupied and under fire from newfoals.

If you were there, you remember the stampede to get on the train. Some pegasi carried men, women, children up to the handholds on top of the train, screaming and begging them to hold on for their lives. You would have been almost lucky to have been one of them, as you know from either news or personal experience that it was a mad dash into the railroad cars, all things about orderly lines forgotten in the chaos.

Some were nearly trampled. Perhaps a few were. There were children and foals practically thrown into the train, set adrift across the refugees like Moses in the river.

It was chaos, and if you were there, you count yourself lucky to have survived. Most of the refugees got on the train… you hoped. Oh, by God did you hope. Almost miraculously (The newspapers dubbed it the Miracle of Malawi) there were barely any newfoals created from those hanging onto the sides or the roof. The assault yokes of PHL ponies had made sure of that.

It had been almost a miracle that Obayana, Esosa, Marcel, Youssouf, Bayyina, Shuffling Dust,and Mokoena to escape on the train - they’d all jumped on as it began to move, settling in a boxcar converted to hold refugees.

“The train’s leaving!” Mokoena yelled.

Everyone cursed.

“FALL BACK!” Obayana yelled, running and firing the Neostead behind him as he ran, the Kalashnikov in his other hand. “Fall-”

“Marcel!” Jamie yelled out again. “Where are you! I need help!”

“It’s Jamie!” Marcel cried. “She’s alive! Alive! I knew i-”

The last thing he saw would have been a pegasus newfoal flying at him. In some inexplicable way she reminded him of Jamie, a bandolier of potion around her barrel…

“Would have” being the key word.

Obayana’s shotgun blasted through her flank, obliterating any space where there could have been a cutie mark. Though Newfoals never seemed to earn those. She screamed in pain, in that voice that sounded so much like Jamie’s. Though they had all seen the Kraber Reports. They knew it wasn’t her.

And yet it was so much like her.

“TRAIN!” Shuffling Dust yelled, taking off at a gallop. Bayyina followed close behind. Nobody could blame them.

Marcel picked up the body of the newfoal that had been Jamie, ripped off its bandolier of potion and followed.

The newfoals were ever closer to them, the drumbeat of their hooves growing louder as the resistance fighters dashed to the train.

"Leave her!" Youssouf yelled.

"I can't!l" Marcel yelled. "She's my everything'"

"Not anymore!" Esosa yelled back. "She's one of them!"

"I have to!" Marcel protested. "She must... There has to be..."

They all knew that he answers to whatever he was talking about were "No."

“Less talking, more running!” Obayana panted.

The refugees had all made their way into train cars, whether they were old rolling stock or actual carriages, or flatbeds. Some had been fitted with gun turrets, even ancient flak cannons.

Obayana's group ran to a boxcar, pausing only briefly in their mad dash to turn and shoot.

All but Marcel, who carried the remains of the newfoal that had been his beloved, no matter how everyone begged and screamed at him to drop her, as she wasn't worth it.

Finally, after an eternity of shooting and running, distantly aware of the train moving from the station, they threw open the boxcar's door and jumped in.

A newfoal jumped into the car, but Obayana shot it in the head with his revolver, a heavy hunting piece passed through many hands, finally to be looted from an HLF man who had styled himself a Great White Hunter. Shell casings littered the floor of the boxcar as they fired at the torrent, the avalanche, the… no descriptor could adequately describe the mass of newfoals heading for them.

Even Marcel joined in, firing his heavy Kalashnikov into the newfoals this time, turning slightly as the train picked up speed. The Barrier was just over the horizon, surely to consume the factory within the day.

“CAN’T THIS GODDAMN TRAIN GO FASTER?!” Mokoena yelled.

As a matter of fact, there’d been a minor engine malfunction and one of the engineers was trying to fix it while fending off newfoals with a shotgun. But it could have been much worse.

Finally, after hours that felt like years, and hundreds (if not thousands) of bullets that left Obayana’s unit feeling several pounds lighter, the shooting died down. The train had outrun the ground forces, and it had killed off most of the pegasi newfoals that could have followed them.

With the exception of one, lying on the floor missing much of her hind leg, murmuring gently and coughing blood.

“Would you like me to shoot it?” Youssouf asked, unholstering his pistol.

“Her,” Marcel insisted. “Her.”

The story becomes different here. In another world, another time, another place, perhaps Jamie would say half-delirious things. Perhaps she’d say she was cold. Or she would dwell on moments in the past, skipping and looping, descending into a state that could not by any means be called consciousness.

To Marcel’s tattered and torn psyche, that would have been a kindness compared to what happened next.

In the pause that comes next, you run through what few possibilities you can think of. You have certainly seen newfoals before, quite likely killed a few. There are people - PHL members, HLF, unaffiliated armed civilians in the wrong place at the right time - who simply kill newfoals at first sight. At first, this seemed cruel.

Until you actually spent a minute with the newfoal that had been someone dear to your heart. They would guilt you. They would bring up every wrong they remembered you did as a human. They would try and make humanity seem like the worst thing one could be, all while going on about how wonderful it was to be a pony.

”...M...Marcel?” the newfoal that had been Jamie asked. “Why…”

“Oh, Jamie,” Marcel sighed, hugging her. “It is so wonderful to see you again.”

“We all know how this story has to end,” Enitan said, and maybe, just maybe, her voice cracked a little. “Humans and ponies can live with one another. Newfoals should not with either.”

He hugged her ever so tightly.

“Why didn’t you take the potion?” she whispered. “We could have been... happy…”

“But we were, Jamie!” Marcel protested, still hugging her. “We were in love. We were always together, we-”

“Don’t…” Jamie coughed. “You know it wasn’t. It’s nothing compared to how I feel now, embraced by the One True Monarch. I was scared when I was hit with the potion, but I do know that I couldn’t stop smiling. None of us could! And our smiles seemed better, fuller, wider.” Jamie smiled. “You could live forever like that, if you’d only submit.”

“I can’t!” Marcel pleaded. “Please, Jamie! We can find a hospital, PHL mages, zebras, doctors, I can make you better!”

“...Can I shoot her?” Youssouf asked.

“Not now,” Obayana said. “He needs to get it out.”

“Kindness to newfoals,” Youssouf sighed. “We’ve no need of it. Never ends well,” he said bitterly, spitting on the floor of the boxcar.

“I don’t need to be better. I’m a pony after all… and we are perfected. As a newfoal… they’re always calling to you. You are always happy,” she said, and the smile on her face grew wider and wider. “You can be pretty just like me. I know you wanted that,” she said, and Marcel jerked upwards as she revealed his secret. “All your worries, your secrets, your fears, your hate, all that human nature that makes you greedy and selfish-”

“Sir… let me kill her…” Youssouf whispered.

“And it’s all stripped away. Everything becomes transparent, and the sun never seems to set. Or maybe it’s thanks to Celestia’s kinder… brighter light. Wouldn’t you say it would be nice to be that happy?” her voice was sweet, now. Like fruit that had gone to rot. “Please, Marcel. Join me in ponydom.”

“Jamie, please…” Marcel whispered.

“That’s not my name,” Jamie said. “I’m Mist Rider now. And I have to say… I’m better than Jamie ever was. You could be, too.”

“I love you, Jamie,” Marcel said. “I love you more than anyone left on this planet.”

“If you had loved me, you would have taken up the potion with me!” Mist Rider spat.

“No,” Marcel said, tears in his eyes. “You’re right. I’ve made a mistake. And that mistake is not doing this when I first saw you as a newfoal,” he reached for his handgun. “Goodbye.”

“NO!” Mist Rider howled, trying to float upward, in spite of her mangled wing and missing leg. “DESTROY AND CONVERT-”

As it happens, newfoals make terrible soldiers. I can almost understand why Celestia uses them in meatshield rushes - soldiers with no minds, no dreams, no hopes, no higher thought, and, as that broadcast from Brazil said, ‘no higher brain function’ make for terrible soldiers.

Had whatever magic turns them into newfoals given them even rudimentary intelligence, the newfoal that had been Jamie would not have so blatantly tried to ponify him then and there.

She gagged, tongue behind one tooth, trying to fling what was presumably a capsule of potion into his mouth-

Only for Obayana, Mokoena, Youssouf, Bayyina, Shuffling Dust, and Esosa to down her with a bullet each.

“You could… have been so much happier…” Mist Rider whispered.

“I’ll be right there with you,” Marcel said in a low voice whilst his body trembled as tears fell from his eyes, before finally pulling out his pistol and putting it to his chin. “I-”

“Dammit, Marcel,” Obayana whispered. “Wherever Jamie is… whatever Jamie is… she wouldn’t want you to go out like that. You want to do right by her? Avenge her.”

“Like Yekemi,” Esosa added. “We’re fighting for her memory.”

“She could still be alive!” Obayana protested.

“We don’t know that!” Esosa protested. “We haven’t seen her since Lagos!”

Marcel stared into the barrel of his gun, then to his friends The men and women, the stallion and the mare he had been fighting alongside for years.

He did not kill himself. At least, not that day, not any day between now and today that I know of. Yet, as we are pushed back further and further, I worry for him. As he could be any of you. All of you have almost certainly experienced or will experience a similar trauma. A loss of a loved one, the ponification of a friend, the loss of your homes.

As a result, I worry for all of us. As the Barrier closes in, a miracle could not come soon enough. We are ponified each day, and though the news from Boston has been promising, we need our miracle. I was not actually in Boston, and at least one frequent listener of mine has refused on the basis of it being “classified information.”

You can practically hear her glaring, or at least sense it through her indignant silence. Though that doesn’t carry well over the radio.

Regardless, I’ve heard good things. Anti-alicorn bullets, the Fujin missile, whatever the secret weapon they used to defeat Celestia was… I don’t know what that was, but I’ve been hearing downright bizarre rumors. Cloned alicorns, magic disruptors, a ‘Thaumic Absorbent Runic Missile’ or TARM, and most absurdly, Princess Luna and Discord coming back from the dead and laying a smackdown on her. And there’s even people saying Luna turned into Nightmare Moon! Regardless…. that day, we had a miracle, and I have little doubt it will return in two weeks.

While it may be too late, it is certainly not too soon. It is never too soon for a miracle. We have delayed the Barrier, we stopped Celestia and destroyed the Great Equestrian, so who knows what the future holds? In light of that, I urge you not to give up hope. Somewhere, my brother may find my niece. As a human, not as a newfoal. Somewhere, humans and ponies are banding together to fight off Imperial Forces. Perhaps in the Pacific, perhaps in Mindanao in the Philippines. Somewhere in Asia, there is an elite human-pony unit defeating HLF warlords, PER upshoots, and upholding justice and human life. Somewhere, a PHL sniper is trading out his borrowed DSR. 50 for a twenty-millimeter rifle, practicing his shots on an effigy of Celestia, and loading himself up to take on armies of newfoals and win, taking up a hand cannon of a revolver and a new light machinegun.

And, somewhere in the middle of it all, the PHL lives on.

Do not give up. Do not run. Do not cower and atomize yourself and submit yourself to the living death that is ponification, turning yourself into a grotesque parody of the ponies I have grown to know and befriend! We have more to live for now than we have in the last four years, and I want to live to see it with you. I want you to take up your spade and do your part to make sure that in two weeks, Celestia has the worst day of her life!

I want you to live so we can take this planet back. I don’t know how the PHL can bring us the tools to do so, but I know they can.

We may be burdened by our own insecurities, by our loss, by our desperation, and a sense of inevitability. Yet, even with all that weight on our shoulders, I know we can rise up.

I trust all of you, human, pony, zebra, or whatever else you may be. I trust you to resist and rise up on the side of the PHL, for without them, we would be dead. Without them, we would be beneath even bandits.

The PHL have made a hopeless war bearable, perhaps having even brought hope. Well, they’ve brought rifles and grenades that make newfoals explode and bring new meaning to your life, which is sort of the same thing as hope.

The PHL have saved civilians time and time again, rising miles above the HLF. The PHL saved us from becoming those nzambi newfoals, those slaves to Celestia.

I know who I trust in this war.

Think about it. Think about fighting alongside ponies who want nothing more than to save you from the madness of a goddess they have sworn off. Think of the sweet, beautiful explosions.

And as always, Goodnight, Africa.

Goodnight.

Chapter 3:Short Change Hero

[note: The entire exchange below is in Swahili.]
Viktor M. Kraber: “Why do I fight those fokking zombies?! It’s a simple story. I already did an interview about it a couple days ago.”
Enitan Adebayo: “Yes, but you’re not doing that with your favorite radio show host.”
Kraber: “Right. It’s… I never thought I’d be doing this! Always looked up to you… you probably wouldn’t like me back in the HLF.
Enitan: I read about you. Of course I wouldn't.
Kraber: *sighs* I know. I was an awful v-
Enitan: And I know what you've done in the recent past. You’ve tried to do the right thing, you went after the Elements… and you shot out Celestia’s spine. Anyone that can do those things is alright in my book. So: Why do you fight?
Kraber:It’s for my family. Or at least… *sighs* for their memories. I know a lot of your listeners are much the same.”
Enitan: “I heard that interview. You barely mentioned your wife in there.”
Kraber: “Yeah…. that’s been something of a problem. I was gesuip and angry… I even forgot my best bru till the end, can you fokking believe that?! Awful. Just awful. Shame, too… Kate was a kiff woman. I know it was a mistake how it all happened, but she was a kiff wife.”
Enitan: “What was she like?”
Kraber: “She… could have left me anytime. But she didn’t. Making me either a really convincing trilkop, or her really forgiving. Personally, I think it’s the first one. But… here’s something that sums up how Kate was. One week, I’d been overworking the fok out of myself. We didn’t have much crown, so I needed all the shifts I could get. I think half my bloodstream was caffeine and amphetamines, Adderall mostly, so one day, I just… I just fokking crash. I can’t get up, I feel woozy, I fall down with every step. Just fokking awful. Kate cared for me all day there… left me in bed, took on all the responsibilities, and made me breakfast in bed while I was just lying there, then she called me in sick. But what I didn’t know was that she’d said I was contagiously sick the day after too. So I’m just lying there, still feeling like hell, and then she tells me she ‘forgot’ to set my alarm. And then, here’s the best part: She makes me breakfast in bed again.”
Enitan: “You must really like breakfast.”
Kraber: “No, no. Breakfast in bed. She just… you know, we didn’t do anything special. Or whatever. We just had a relaxing day together, watched the kids play around...”
Enitan: “My wife never did anything like that for me… What… what happened to your kids though?”
Kraber: quietly “Pinkie Pie got ‘em.”
Enitan: “Oh my God! How did-”
Kraber: “...Didn’t you hear this on the fokking interview? I don’t think I want to talk about it…. It was the worst day of my life!”
Enitan: “You said I’m your favorite host… maybe we can talk it out. Maybe you can explain it better to me. To everyone in my audience that doesn’t speak English. Which is… a lot.”
Kraber: “Right. So, I’m the angriest I’ve ever been, stuck in traffic after I have to fix up this gesuip teenager, on my children’s birthday no less, so I’d be breaking every speed limit to get home if the traffic wasn’t godawful… and then the day gets worse...”
“Why We Fight” segment, Enitan Adebayo.

“Yeah. There’s ponies that think we’d be happier as lobotomized zombies, yeah, they’re xenocidal sons of bitches! I’m not denying that, and I’m not being like that bitchwore Reitman who sold out her species to the Tyrant… while, I might add, not taking the potion! BUT! There’s ponies out there like Lyra, ponies with a definition of help that doesn’t involve the Potion or simply wiping everything about us off the face of the earth, and Thunderwing sure as hell isn’t the first kind! Secondly, he’s my best friend! He’s done nothing but help the ship, forecasting weather, deflecting storms, destroying a submarine, and he’s got nothing but disgust for his homeland at this point. Third… you come after him, after any pony that comes to us without potion, willing to help, beating PER agents and newfoals to save children… and you’re screwing with me. There will be no vigilante justice on my friend, no sailors thinking that beating a pony and ripping off his wings then tying him to a chair makes you a badass. Is that clear?!”
Captain Rebecca Kleiner, officially allying herself with the PHL

It had been said that it would be a stretch to call Fleur De Lis a bad pony, though at this point in time she wondered about the distinction.

She’d betrayed her empire. Her friends. Her beliefs. To Equestria, that made her “bad.” That meant that she’d turned her back on Harmony, on the great friendship of her homeland.

But, for the ponies and humans she was going to join with, that made her “good.” Even though she’d thought they were evil.

They’d gone far, far north into Equestria, making their way through a forest of tall pine trees that reminded Roseluck uncomfortably of the Everfree. Yet they seemed… calmer, somehow.

“When do we meet them?” Fleur asked, realizing, to her shock, that she was curious. She had seen pictures of humans, of course. She wasn’t like those ponies that had seen so many propaganda posters that they thought humans looked like deformed and hideous apes.

And yet… she’d never seen any in person. Or gotten to know any.

“I’m sorry,” Fleur said. “I… didn’t mean to offend.”

“It’s not you,” Roseluck said. “It’s.... Fancy told us to trust you with everything that wasn’t PHL-related, that you were a good mare… but there’s some things I just can’t stand to be reminded of.”

“I see,” Fleur said, hanging her head.

“Anyway - we should be at the camp soon,” Roseluck said. “It won’t be a fancy manor, but… you’ll have to make do.”

“I understand,” Fleur said. “Fancy… did take me camping once before. Though I understand it’s… not the right comparison.”

“That’s an understatement,” Roseluck muttered.

“Well, pardon me for trying to cope, what with my husband being dead, my house burnt to the ground, my life in tatters, being labeled a traitor, and having searches organized for me as we speak!” Fleur hissed. “I understand it. I know we’re at the end of our ropes. But I’ve lost everything!”

Roseluck just responded with a curt, “So have a lot of others, pony and human alike.”

The two of them did not talk for some time.

Finally, after walking for longer than Fleur remembered ever having walked, they came to a camp. It was a small thing - there were crude tents, a small campfire lined with stones, and boxes of what must have been the few worldly possessions of its inhabitants.

“Who’s here?” Fleur asked.

“Other PHL ponies,” Roseluck explained. “Big Macintosh, Carrot Top-”

“Wait, Applejack’s brother is in the PHL?!” Fleur gasped.

Roseluck nodded. “Surprising, isn’t it? But… he’s lost a lot in the past few years. His grandmother, most of his family, his sister… she didn’t even come to Granny Smith’s funeral, and started acting as if she felt nothing for her family, and alienated damn near all of them. I think the words he used were ‘like making newfoals is the only thing that makes her feel anything anymore!’”

“Must have been quite the source for them,” Fleur said.

“Applejack is honest to a fault,” Roseluck said. “So yes.”

‘So that’s who you were visiting all this time, Fancy,’ Fleur said. Somewhere, deep inside, she almost cursed his name for keeping so many things secret… but there was so much he’d done for her. And if she’d known, it would have been catastrophic.

Not much unlike the last night she saw him, come to think about it.

“So… why did you leave?” Fleur asked. “Surely you’d have been more use to the PHL starting there.”

“Equestria is a giant fucking cognitohazard,” Roseluck explained, the human cursewords shocked Fleur ever so slightly. “It was damned risky getting the information back to humanity. Or just living there. We lived in constant fear of just waking up and not being us.”

“...What do you mean?” Fleur asked.

“She means,” said a deep, drawling voice, “That the Queen’s constantly trying to brainwash ya there. Well, ‘cept for newfoals. They’re already brainwashed... don’t think it’d have much effect.”

“She’s… I don’t… what?” Fleur asked, realizing that the voice belonged to Big Macintosh, Applejack’s brother. “I mean, I know what she did to the newfoals now. But that’s…”

“Do you really think anyone in Equestria is the same pony they were before?” asked an unfamiliar yellow and orange earth pony. Judging by the carrot cutie mark, Fleur assumed this was Carrot Top. “Look at… look at Berry Punch! She’s sober now, but can you ever remember her being that rabid about anything when she wasn’t drunk?”

“I didn’t know her before she went dry,” Fleur said.

“Bad example,” Big Macintosh said. “How about… Rarity? You knew her, didn’ ya?”

Fleur nodded. “Yes,” she said.

“How was she before the…” Big Macintosh paused. “Crystal War? I’m never all that sure when everything went to pig crap.”

“She was, well… a little vain,” Fleur said. “But generous, almost to a fault. She was elegant, she… honestly, all the culturedness she had seemed to be an affectation. I’ve seen ponies that failed at that, but she wore it well. She was inventive, she cared for virtually everpony that came her way, and… she loved her adorable little sister more than anything. Even dressmaking.”

“And how is she now?”

“I’ve… barely seen her, she seemed to be always busy. Come to think of it, she’s barely made dresses at all,” Fleur said. “There was this psychiatrist I knew. He said that while it’s fine to do something else, ignoring your cutie mark is bad for your mind.”

“I also doubt that’d have a noticeable effect, what with her busy being a soulless monster that takes joy in wiping out an entire sapient species."

"I find that hard to believe-- “

"Fleur, how couldn’t ya see the horrible place Equestria has become?!" he said with his voice slightly raised in anger. "Don’t ya realize Celestia uses humanity’s own former children as a weapon against them?"

"Wh….what?!" she gasped.

"Ever hear of a machine gun?" Roseluck asked. “It fires hundreds of metal slugs faster than the speed of sound. They shred organs, can blow off limbs… and newfoals just run into it. They get chopped up. Even worse, the humans have bullets that practically explode inside newfoals now."

"No… she can’t…. she would never..." Fleur said now shaking like a loose leaf. “I mean, I know Fancy said she was beyond reasoning-” (There was an ‘eeeyup’ from Big Macintosh) -“But I never would have dreamed…”

"Maybe once… but not anymore,” Roseluck said. “She uses them as a form of psychological warfare. And… and they just tell their former friends and family how happy they are, how much better it feels as their minds and bodies get pounded into a bloody paste."

"Why?" she said with tears forming in her eyes.

"It is an attempt to break humanity’s will to resist and possibly make a soldier hesitate to pull the trigger. And of course, she’s overpopulated Equestria, so she needs to do something with all those numbers, and there’s so many newfoals, it’d be expensive to train..." Carrot Top said. “Honestly, I’m not sure. If she’d even tried for assault saddles, or something to make ponies competent at long range, then it might make sense, but she’s just throwing newfoals at a problem and drowning it."

"You… you were right. I was on the wrong side," she said in a low voice as she looked down at the ground, strewn with pine needles, tears falling down her face.

“Let’s… quit being so hard on her,” Big Macintosh said. “She’s been through a lot, alright?”

"I… I thank you for enlightening me, but please spare me the details of Celestia’s savage cruelty, I’ve heard enough for the moment. And I’ll hear far more "

“I… think I can understand,” Roseluck said, yawning. “Anyway, it’s late, I’m tired and we all need to go to bed.”

They all woke to an unfamiliar warbling, grinding noise like keys scraping on piano wire in the distance.

“What’s that?” Fleur asked, eyes wide open, ears perked up.

“Our ride,” Big Macintosh said nearby, eating from a small bag.

“That’s a… a human machine?” Fleur asked, trying to ignore everything she might have thought about them thanks to the propaganda.

“Not… exactly,” Carrot Top said, a grin on her face.

“What? What do you mean, not exactly?” Fleur asked.

“It would take too long to explain,” Rose said. “Just… when you meet them, keep quiet. They know your reputation.”

“Ah, I see,” Fleur said. “They won’t like me, will they?”

“It depends on how you act,” Roseluck said. “But…”

“I probably seem as bad to them as Queen Celestia, don’t I?” Fleur sighed, scuffing one hoof against her. “Some stupid old trophy wife that couldn’t tell if she was doing wrong…”

The warbling noise drew nearer.

“What is it?” Fleur asked.

A box covered in metal sheets, barely large enough for anypony to comfortably fit inside appeared outside the clearing, and a brown stallion with 3D glasses and an hourglass cutie mark stumbled out.

“Like Big Mac said, our ride out,” Carrot Top said.

“Carrot Top!” the stallion cried, hugging both of them. “Good to see you!”

“Doctor Whooves?!” Fleur gasped.

“Fleur De Lis!” the stallion responded, a goofy smile on his face, as if he was just playing along. “I need you all not to question what’s going on and follow me into the box!”

“...But it’s…” Fleur said. Oh, how she hated being caught so off-guard, so unaware of what was going on!

“I know, and you’ll have to trust me,” Doctor Whooves said.

Fleur shivered at the thought of being in the same room as Stallion Enemy No.1, but…

“You’re fine to go back to Canterlot if you don’t trust it,” he said cryptically, as if he had read her mind.

Nopony seemed to question it.

“Fine,” Fleur said, following her fellow ponies into the box, to find it was a lot larger on the inside. “How is…”

Doctor Whooves looked at her, an expectant smile on his face. Then, in perfect time with her protests: “Yes, it’s bigger on the inside than the outside!”

Fleur had heard about Doctor Whooves. He was a mystery to all - there were no records of his birth or cuteceneara, he displayed knowledge of magic and technology alike that dwarfed everypony’s understanding. He was, it was whispered, even more brilliant than Twilight Sparkle, and worth an entire Canterlot University graduating class.

Fleur had never believed the rumors, but upon stepping into his bizarre machine that could somehow pass the Barrier and between worlds, so much bigger on the inside than the outside, she almost believed it.

Almost.

She believed it, however, as soon as the machine appeared above the Barrier in the middle of the night, thousands upon thousands of feet in the sky, gracefully floating towards the landmass known as North America. Part of her wanted to emphasise the “mare” part of its name, as was custom for “reclaimed” areas of Earth, but something told her not to.

She was on thin ice with humanity already.

“How…”

“Don’t question it,” Carrot Top said.

“Agreed. It will only give you heartburn,” Doctor Whooves said absentmindedly.

“Is… is it magic? Technology?” Fleur asked.

“Maybe!” Doctor Whooves replied enthusiastically.

Fleur shook her head, deciding it was better not to question this. Her head was still reeling from everything that just happened over the last 24 hours.

There was a great city below, one that dwarfed Canterlot, full of wrecked towers and spires, a vast cityscape of rubble that must have once, in its own way, been magnificent. Wrecked potioneer ships and human machines dotted the landscape, often having crashed into buildings. There were massive scorch marks from incendiary spells, broken glass littered the streets, and it was almost deserted.

"That's Boston, then," Doctor Whooves said.

Fleur knew what happened, knew the Empire's role in the tragedy, had seen the newspapers.

But nothing did the battlefield justice. This was a million times beyond anything from the Crystal War, thanks to the human weaponry and the scale of the battle.

The Crystal War had not been even a warm up compared to this. Buildings lay wrecked and shattered, and it looked to have experienced a simultaneous hurricane, earthquake, and artillery bombardment. There were almost no lights on though, and somehow, that unnerved Fleur more than anything before she realized: Most humans, save for military personnel, had abandoned it long ago. They’d realized it was doomed to be wiped off the face of their planet, so they’d headed east until…

Oh, Ce… no, Oh, Luna, what happened if the Barrier pushed the last remaining humans into a corner? Would they become some sort of freak show? Escape into space? Commit mass suicide?

It was one thing to champion the ethical treatment of newfoals, or question why humanity wouldn’t jump at the chance to be ponified, and thus support the war.

It was entirely another to see why they refused so, and what had been caused in the name of ‘more perfect peace’ and ‘harmony’. To see what you’d supported, reducing a human city little more than a massive ruin. Especially after seeing firsthoof what newfoals really were.

"We call ourselves peaceful," Fleur heard herself say. "And then we do this."

"Eeeyup," Big Macintosh said. "Mah granny said Equestria was dying... Not sure I believed her at first, but I do now."

"I... Think you're right," Fleur said, to everyone’s shock. “It’s just… Equestria isn’t the same place where I grew up.”

“Jus’ like cousin Fiddly said,” Big Macintosh agreed. Then, after some stares: “Fiddlesticks is kind of a mouthful.”

"You don't know the half of it," Carrot Top sighed.

“We’ll be making groundfall soon on Boston Common,” Doctor Whooves said, pointing with one hoof to an oasis of greenery within the city, between a long row of older brick buildings and a row of taller buildings that put many of the skyscrapers of Equestria to shame. Though they looked more… solid, somehow.

There were ponies in the area they were descending into, and some of them appeared to be snacking on grass. It was a smattering of ragged-looking mares and stallions with odd contraptions on their back. But behind them….

She could see them.

They didn’t look as horrific or ugly as some of the propaganda made them out to be. She’d heard some ponies describe humans as looking like the result of a minotaur mating with an ape or a pig, with little, unexpressive piggy eyes and ears, and that was one of the less… derogatory descriptions Fleur had heard. They… actually looked kind of like shaved bears as well.

Bears with miniature cannons that could explode anything they were aimed at.

The machine touched down on what appeared to be a sports field of some kind. Immediately, the humans assumed some stance with their weapons that seemed to be more… more ‘ready’ somehow. The human guns looked slightly like griffon firearms, some of which Fancy had tried on a lark, but only in the same way that a modern steam locomotive (At least, by Equestria’s standards of modern) looked like those first clumsy engines with an uncanny resemblance to a bottle of pepper sauce. Were those… were those machineguns? Fancy, while using a griffin weapon, had claimed it had potential, requiring less training than a bow and having longer range than a spear. If only there was some way to reload without unicorn magic, though...

The humans had evidently found it, possessing supremely dexterous hands, and perfecting their weaponry to a peak that the griffons couldn't even dream of, with one of their rifles being worth more than a single volley from griffon firearms.

“That’d be the humans then,” Rose said. “Please…” She was trying to be gentle. Trying desperately to make sure Fleur knew that she had nothing but the best intentions in mind. “Be nice to them.”

They didn’t look like they were in the mood for “nice.” They had all been pushed to their limits and beyond, judging by how much of their world was gone.

A group of ponies, each wearing the curious devices that the ponies called assault saddles, strode up to them.

Fleur noted with extreme discomfort that most of the weapons were pointed at her. They looked small, but those few ponies that returned from Earth had often come back with grisly wounds, sometimes even necessitating amputation.

While they looked happy to see the Doctor, there was a curious mix of emotions on their faces. The Doctor had warned them that he’d be evacuating several informants to protect them from the cognitohazardous enchantment on Equestria, and new ponypower for the PHL was always welcome.

But he’d also warned them that he had terrible news, so they were worried. And rather disgusted at the presence of one Fleur de Lis.

And then, movement. Between the soldiers and various irregulars with guns, something small and yellow shot out, heading for Big Macintosh. Was it an attack, some new weapon, or -

"BLOOM!" Big Macintosh gasped. It had been said by some ponies that Big Mac seemed to be made of stone, judging by his unemotive face and monosyllabic vocabulary.

This moment would have proven them wrong.

Before anyone or anypony knew it, Big Macintosh, biggest, strongest stallion in Ponyville and counties around, was bawling his eyes out, holding his little sister between his forelegs in an embrace that would leave most people or ponies worried about the cracking noises from their ribs that they were hearing.

“I… I missed you, lil’ sis!” he said, his voice slowly giving way to sobs.

“I… I missed you too!” Applebloom cried, still hugging him. “It’s happier here, and I’m with friends-”

Almost to punctuate that sentence, three other young mares jumped on him, a tiny orange earth pony with bandages around her barrel, a brown earth pony with a red-pink mane, and a young unicorn mare that Fleur recognized as Rarity’s adorable little sister.

“You’re… all out,” he said, a smile on his face. “You’re okay! You’re… you!” He squeezed tighter.

“Can’t… feel… spleen!” the brown earth pony mare choked out.

“Now, ain’t that sweet?” said a large and heavily muscled earth pony with a red bandana and goggles, almost sniffling back tears of his own.

“Sure is,” said a the bearded human next to him, heavily armed, carrying a massive gun. There was a smile on his face as he watched the reunion, and Fleur would have been disturbed to know just how uncharacteristic that was.

“I thought I’d lost you!” Big Macintosh’s sister cried. “I thought you wouldn’t be you when you came back, I thought you’d be like - “

“Don’t,” Big Macintosh said, hugging her tighter. “Maybe someday, we can talk about her, but for now….”

“Fleur De Lis?” asked one human quietly, not willing to interrupt the touching moment.

She turned away from the ponies as they gathered around the family and friends and gave a curt nod.

“Kiff,” said the human with a wild beard and almost cannon-like rifle, standing further back, near the road. Everyone looked at him. “Cool,” he explained. “That’s… that’s what it means.”

“Don’t worry about Kraber,” said the first human. “He won’t be in the debriefing.”

“Actually, I will,” the human that was evidently named Kraber said. “Just… not as an…” he mused over his word choice. “Enhanced interrogator. I’m kind of… fokking tired of sinking so low. ‘Sides, she came to us of her own free will. Not really any point to it.”

Everyone stared over at him. Fleur didn’t know why. The stallion with a red bandana and goggles stared up at him, a smile on his face.

“What?” Kraber asked. “Mind if I ask… why the change of heart?”

“Queen Celestia killed my husband,” she said. “Immediately after a newfoal tried to kill my foal, and after he showed me... he showed me what newfoals really were.”

“And that is?”

“Awful,” she said, tears in her eyes. “Caricatures of ponies that only seem happy because they are not allowed to be anything else.”

“Good answer,” said the stallion with the bandana.

“Now,” the first human said, ignoring the two of them, “We’re going to be taking you to a PHL building down south. Secret location,” he explained. “Into the truck.”

The human named Kraber opened the doors of a large human transport, a huge metal thing almost the size of a small house.

“Easy,” Roseluck said. “Easy, Fleur. They’re not going to hurt you if you cooperate. It’s only temporary.”

“You’re sure?” Fleur asked.

Roseluck nodded. “The PHL are reasonable people. You can trust them a hell of a lot more than Celestia, that’s for sure.”

Some part of Fleur wanted to argue. To say you could still reason with her, that she didn’t trust the PHL… but those were quickly overridden by more logical parts of her brain, not clinging to the memories of an Equestria long dead.

If Celestia was reasonable… would she have launched an unprovoked attack? Killed her husband? Created newfoals?

She doubted it at this point. Beside her, Big Macintosh, Roseluck, Carrot Top, and others were clambering into another nearby truck.

“There won’t be torture, will there?” Fleur asked.

“I told you, I’m siek en sat of that,” Kraber said.

“And no,” said the other human, glaring at Kraber. “There won’t be. I won’t ask why you think that.”

But the unanswered question was racing through Fleur’s mind. How did she know? Well, she’d been told that the HLF and PHL weren’t as different from each other as they’d like to pretend, and they had no mercy for captives. They didn’t come back, the reasoning went, so clearly, the humans ate them! Or brainwashed them!

But Fleur doubted that now. She had never quite believed it anyway, and with the destruction of all she had believed in, it simply crumbled away without thought or internal argument.

She stepped into the truck, realizing something odd about the bearded human’s weapon. Most human weaponry was far smaller and more slender than griffin weaponry. The gun he’d been aiming at her, however, had roughly the same bore as a griffin weapon, while still bearing the same modern look as human weaponry.

That worried her.

As they traveled through the city, and as she observed the devastation, a thought came upon Fleur.

“You know what’s stupid?” Fleur asked. “There are… there are bonuses given to pegasus soldiers that take photos of human cities before everyone gets ponified or they get blown to smithereens. It’s shown to colts and fillies all over Equestria, even in some of the colonies, just to make sure they know how to think about Earth. I even… I even participated in some of them. I had this newfoal with me, Shimmering Glass… he must have been a recent convert, considering his accent. He’d go on and on about how horrible life on Earth was, living in a refugee camp. He was….” Fleur broke down sobbing. “We made your world horrible, didn’t we?”

“Yes,” a dark skinned young woman replied with a slightly bitter tone. “I mean, yeah, it wasn’t perfect, but there were good things too, and people were trying to help change the bad things.”

“And Celestia could have actually tried to fokking help,” Kraber added. “Pity we didn’t run into a Celestia that would have been willing to share magic with all of us… one that didn’t have Twi-” He stopped abruptly, then sighed. “I know, I know…”

“That would’ve been silly anyway,” the dark-skinned woman said.

“Wouldn’t it be lekker, though?” Kraber asked.

“We’re here,” the dark-skinned woman said, and the truck drew to a stop.

There was a series of metallic clicks, and the door opened, only for Fleur to find herself staring into the bore of that huge rifle, and a strange piston-like construction immediately under its… barrel? Was that the right word?

Whatever ammunition it used buzzed with magic energy.

“Do you even need that?” asked the earth pony with the bandana and goggles.

“I’m not trying to soek with her. Just, she looks enough like she could be related to Celestia, so this NTW-20 seemed like a safer bet,” Kraber said. “Plus, you’re a high-ranking official in Celestia’s government, so-”

“Pardon me, but any relation we may have… is not really in enough of a concentration to be dangerous,” Fleur explained.

“...Bliksem,” Kraber sighed, lowering the huge rifle. “I’m starting to feel really fokking silly for asking Helen to get this to me.”

She looked at him worriedly.

“He just means… he bought a ludicrously overpowered tool, and he hasn’t found the opportunity to use it,” Aegis explained.

“That doesn’t help much,” Fleur said, trembling slightly.

“Don’t worry about it, I don’t want to fok everything up,” Kraber said. “Either way - I sincerely hope this change of heart is genuine. I can promise you… I won’t be very nice if it isn’t.”

“Stop scaring the prisoner and get her inside!” the dark-skinned woman yelled over.

To Fleur’s immense relief, the PHL had been true to their word, proven not to consider torture to be an acceptable tactic. The room where they were interrogating her had a comfy cushion, and a table with several small chocolates. Unbeknownst to her, the things were rather cheap, but it showed that they were trying to be nice.

The walk to this room, however, had not been as welcoming. There had been ponies and humans alike glaring at her, all with a peculiarly ragged look. It looked oddest on ponies - she usually expected them to look happy, or at least comfortable in whatever they were doing.

They looked like they’d been through Tartarus, or survived one of the numerous uninhabitable areas (the Everfree Forest, the Battlefield of Discord) of Equestria for years on end. In a sense, they had, because Earth didn’t have pegasi weather teams, or regulated weather. And they had predators that ripped other creatures limb from limb and ate them!

Apparently, she hadn’t been well-liked for claiming to help newfoals while still buying into the anti-human warmongering. Still, she supposed it was what she deserved for never noticing.

A magenta colored earth pony entered, Fleur recognizing her as Cheerilee, the current leader of the PHL. Fleur wasn’t entirely clear on where Stephan or Marcus had gone, and she suspected that Cheerilee was in no mood to tell her.

She looked so… normal. Almost too much so. Like an Earth Pony you could just walk into on the street. And that was the mare that had somehow beat up the queen, according to rumors?

“I know you’ve heard a lot about me,” Cheerilee said, looking Fleur over. “Ponies saying that I beat up the Tyrant Sun. And yes. Those rumors are true.”

“How…” Fleur asked.

“We’d prefer to keep that a secret,” Cheerilee said.

Fleur could understand that. A week ago, they would have been mortal enemies, and there was probably no love lost between them. Fleur had been, to her, a mare made all the more vile by her supposed kindness in advocating for good treatment of the newfoals while considering the destruction of humanity to be a service to them, close enough to have gotten it all wrong. And, to Fleur, Cheerilee was a merciless traitor and rebel leader who went against ponykind and her country, had murdered newfoals, refused to ‘save’ humanity through the use of potion…

But given what she’d seen recently, that might not necessarily be a bad thing.

"Why did Fancy stay behind?" Cheerilee asked, causing Fleur to flinch.

"I... I don't know." Fleur whispered, "He could have came with me, I... he just stayed behind to distract them?"

"The newfoals were chasing you, correct? They were on your tail, literally?" Cheerilee asked, gaining a nod from the widow. "The newfoals would have ripped Equestria apart looking for him. He was PHL, so he knew lots of secrets that we’d rather keep, and he’d also committed the worst crime in the Empire… not thinking like the Tyrant. There was no way they’d let him live, especially not if he was taking the Minister of Newfoal affairs with him. We’ve learned that thanks to…” Cheerilee pondered for a moment. “Thanks to some connection to the land, she can find ponies easily if they are within certain distance. Fancy may have stayed to cover you, be the target of all her rage and distract her with the chaos until you were far enough."

"Oh...oh Fancy..." Fleur cried, tears streaming as she hiccuped, "He... he went to his Trophy room and he just said to go..."

Cheerilee sighed before she jumped off her chair, she walked around and wrapped her leg around the mare. "Trust me... just let it out now... it will be better for you."

Fleur sniffed as she gave the mare a long look, tears welling up in her eyes before she threw herself and hugged the former schoolteacher, bawling her heart out. "I’m sorry! I'm sorry for ever doubting all you! I’m sorry for helping that evil conniving hag! Everything was just… they’ll consider me brainwashed for deciding this, but it’s as if every bit of evil she did was in plain sight, and we were made to consider it as normal. Or the right thing!"

Cheerilee closed her eyes and return the hug, gently cooing and nuzzling the devastated mare as she released her pent. She pulled away as Fleur settled down after a few minutes, some inner strength she had pulled from within herself to stop and grieve later for her brave husband. "I... I need to finish... I need to."

"Okay, come on." Cheerilee whispered before she sat back in her seat, "Ready?"

"Yes."

“What…” Cheerilee continued, “What is the Beneficence? Doctor Whooves had been quite clear that you knew about it.”

“It’s a massive skyliner,” Fleur explained. “They’re working on defenses for whatever missile you shot at it even as we speak. They don’t seem to know how the missile works… but you might want to improve it. Just a little.”

“I see,” Cheerilee said, levitating a pencil to -

“You can use telekinesis?!” Fleur gasped.

Cheerilee ignored her. “What else does it have?”

Fleur lifted Fancy’s letter out of her fashionable saddlebag, and passed it to Cheerilee, still reeling at the revelation that an Earth Pony could have telekinesis. How… how was that even possible?!

“How many of these mortars do you think it had?” Cheerilee asked.

Fleur answered. “A lot. Judging by the number I saw on the one side we were looking at… almost a hundred. It’s almost as big as a human battleship, I’m assuming that the only reason it doesn’t have more is to carry troops, hold other systems, and save weight. ”

Cheerilee scrambled to write it down, using telekinesis. She seemed to have very messy hoofwriting… or was it hornwriting? She wasn’t using a horn, anyway...

“But it’s not the mortars you should be worried about,” Fleur added. “It’s not even the cloud-seeders.”

“It has potion cloud systems?” Cheerilee asked.

“Probably,” Fleur said. “It would not surprise me. No. They’re trying to overcome the greatest problem that Pegasus weather control has on earth.” She looked at Cheerilee. “The reason they don’t blow ships back to ports very often, not without employing an entire town’s worth of pegasi.”

“Not enough thaumaturgons in the clouds to manipulate,” Cheerilee answered. It wasn’t a question.

“Exactly,” Fleur said. “It’s also got launch bays for pegasi. I think they’ll be used in tandem with that. But…”

“What else?” Cheerilee asked.

“It’s meant to personally convey Queen Celestia,” Fleur said.

The pencil dropped from Cheerilee’s rather shaky telekinetic field. And she said a word. It was not a swear word, a question, an exclamation, or anything of the sort, and yet it managed to carry the same gravity as all of them.

“What.”

Cheerliee twitched, staring at Fleur. “So… she’s making a damned personal battleship for herself? Knowing her now, she’s probably made it almost obsessively luxurious inside, and insanely deadly.”

‘Oh, Fancy...’ Fleur sighed. ‘What have I gotten myself into?’

“Ms. Cheerilee?” a mare called over, knocking on the door. “There’s a mare named Coal Embers. Says she’s here to talk about PHL recruitment.”

“Tell her it can wait, Cocoa!” Cheerilee replied. “We need to know more about the Beneficence."

And so Fleur told Cheerilee everything she remembered. Its terrible, massive size, its history as a skyliner that had been changed midway through construction. She vaguely remembered Fancy being curious about the Beneficence awhile before the war, though he’d been rather skeptical about it. According to a friend of his, Trans-Equus Lines had been forced to change its name late in production, and he believed it to be the result of a pissing contest between them and Equestrian Air Navigation to build the largest skyliner.

Fleur noted, “I suppose the construction was rather rushed, now that I think about it…”

“So there’s likely some kind of structural weaknesses?” Cheerilee asked. “Hmmm. We have former skyliner workers in the ranks…. I’ll have to consult with them.”

“I thought you didn’t use skyliners,” Fleur remarked.

“We don’t, they’re mostly used to help improve existing aircraft,” Cheerilee explained. “And help us out in times like this, because they know how the Empire makes their skyliners. When will the Beneficence be ready?”

“It left the yards about two days ago,” Fleur said.

Cheerilee cursed under her breath. “I’m going to need to make some calls...”

“Can I help with them at all?”

“Fleur,” Cheerilee said. “You just left Equestria. We don’t know how much your mind could have been warped…. and on top of that, you weren’t in the PHL. You weren’t an informer, you’re the most recent turncoat that we’ve received.”

"But surely--”

"Fleur, there are many humans that will hate you, especially the HLF. Or just about anyone that lost someone to the potion. You need to earn the humans’ trust.”

"What about the HLF?"

"You’ll wish that they shoot you to death if you meet them, it’s likely they will try and capture you and then 'maybe' torture you to death, if even that given your status. They won’t be quick about it either."

“If they hate me so much, then let me at least help somehow! I just learned about the awful things I’ve supported, the things I’ve caused. I’ve treated everything about humanity like it’s an…. an addiction, I’ve thought they were-“

“No, you don’t underst-” started a small red mare with a bob-cut mane in alternating green colors said, as the door creaked open, revealing a unicorn mare with a blue-black coat and red mane poking her head through the door.

She was staring at Fleur angrily, trembling in rage.

“Right. The less said about it, the better,” Fleur said. “But I’m ashamed of myself. I feel sick inside, I must have been blind not to understand why humans would resist becoming newfoals.“

"That, or the Queen had subtle mind control over you. I wouldn't be surprised; there have been a lot of ponies mentioning uncharacteristic thoughts in their heads," Cheerilee said.

"Let me guess, ‘convert all humans’?" the bluish-black mare asked.

"Yes… and as time goes on, she’ll modify them," Cheerilee said, unmindful of the new applicant, or that Cocoa Powder was currently trying to drag said applicant away, with limited success.

"What?"

"If the Queen wins, she will subjugate other worlds outside this universe. Possibly even worlds where humans and ponies like us had coexisted with one another," Cheerilee said. “She’ll move on, consuming everything that resists her, until something stops her, or there is nothing left except newfoals and everyone lives in a false paradise where free thought is nonexistent."

“Or at least, whenever they’re full of that fake fokking happiness that stuffs their snouts up their flanks, they won’t want to think unless they don’t smile,” Kraber said from somewhere. “They won’t want to stop smiling either, thanks to the Smiling Goddess of great and terrible power ironing out all the wrinkles so they all think sm-“

“Do you people ever knock?!” Cheerilee yelled.

“Actually, I was just walking by, and heard someone not referencing Night Vale when describing the Queen. I couldn’t resist,” Kraber said. “Plus… I’m not actually in the room. Be seeing you then.”

The four of them heard him walking away, humming a South African song under his breath. Cheerilee vaguely recognized it as Jan Pierewiet.

"You’re telling me...” Fleur whispered, ignoring the bizarre interruption, “that she’s going to do this again?”

Cheerilee nodded.

“She’s going to turn near-infinite amounts of innocents into newfoals, until she’ll have enough of them that she can just throw them at a problem and have enough to do that hundreds of times more,” Fleur said, the dread creeping up on her. “Which isn’t even going into what she’ll do if the Barrier gets moving again. She’ll become like some sort of… of universal reaper, and she’ll keep doing this till there’s nothing left, after sacrificing and ponifying so many peoples that I’ll need to use exponents or scientific notation to come anywhere near understanding the numbers. After…. after…”

Fleur imagined scenes of humans clutching their children and running, houses (though, as with all imagined versions of places she’d never been, said images looked nothing like the real thing, and more like something near her house) and businesses being atomized, millions outrunning the Barrier as it pushed them further and further to the edge, newfoals ponifying young children…

“Yes,” Cheerilee said.

“I am helping,” Fleur declared with steely determination. “I don’t care what I have to do, but I am helping the PHL, and there’s nothing you can do about that.”

“Welcome aboard, then,” Cheerilee said, hoof held out in the beginning of a hoofshake. “Now… I believe there’s another PHL hopeful that wanted to see me...”

“...What the crap just happened?” Coal Embers asked.

4: With Dignity.

"Better to die a man than live a pastel puppet pony. Or better yet, kill the fuckers trying to turn you into one first."
Unknown.

"Pony or human, surrender to Celestia's empire is only preferable in the way that an amputated leg is preferable to a broken one. It is not life in any sense of the word. It is bathing yourself in a terrible light that even the night itself shies away from in fear. It is surrendering yourself to a smiling goddess of terrible power, with no love for anything other than herself or the acquisition of yet more and more power.
She will not stop with us. If she can pierce whatever lies between universes and lead into ours, perhaps there are other universes. Perhaps there are worlds other than these, peoples other than us that are within the stars.
We, the PHL, and even the HLF in their own way, are the last defense. The last redoubt between the terrible smiling goddess and the unraveling of all things. Not just buildings, not just land as King William said in his speech, not just art and roads and creation. All that makes and has ever made humanity… human. All that makes what are perhaps countless other populations themselves, separating us all from something that is not pony but merely a caricatured image of ‘perfection’. Smiling constantly with none of the bad feelings that make us ourselves, feeling a great and terrible happiness that shall soon mean nothing as they are allowed to feel nothing else.
Listeners, this is not just a fight for land, for money, for resources… this is a fight to exist. To think. To hope and dream! Listeners, it is one of the great moments in our history. And here is our chance to be part of it.
I urge you again, listeners, as there shall never be enough to protect our brothers and sisters - human and pony in cities the world over. And, when the day of reckoning comes in two weeks, when Celestia comes, every weapon from bullets to stones shall be a valued part of the cause.
We shall fight as we have never fought before, and I believe that maybe - just maybe - we can win. And even if we do not, we shall die human, with our human dignity intact.
Enitan Adebayo

Somewhere in Asia…

"Hold that fucking line!"

Screaming was common on the frontline. So common, in fact, that Desert Wind really, really hated it. It wasn't the regular kind of hatred, the kind of thing where you hated something on principle, or because it annoyed you. No, the Earth Pony was very familiar with those kinds of hatred. No, it was the kind of hatred that came with something being so deep-seated and ingrained into your everyday life that you become utterly familiar with it - the kind of familiarity that the word "contempt" was utterly inadequate for.

The situation he was in, however, called for screaming, much as he might have despised it.

He was in the middle of a ruined street, in a city whose name he had long forgotten. On one side was a score of newfoals, most of whom had taken to throwing potion bombs that (mostly) missed. On the other was a group of Royal Guard unicorns who were taking pot shots at the group with their horns. Desert himself was sore, bleeding in five places, and limping. His gun had run out of bullets five hours ago, but frankly he didn't care. He preferred smashing newfoal faces in with his hooves anyway. Half his squad were dead (well, one of the men had gotten splashed with one of the potion bombs - but he was dead now. Only took six stern stamps to the skull), and those who were left were tired and drained.

Their squad leader, a dark skinned Texan man by the name of Alexander Redmond, had a cut above his forehead. However, considering how utterly doomed he and his squad seemed to be, he seemed remarkably determined to keep fighting. He was firing his rifle down the street at the newfoals. More than one fell, pierced by bullets: say what you like about Redmond, he was an excellent shot.

"Redmond! We can't hold here!" Desert yelled at him. "There's too many!"

Redmond looked irritated, but a cloud of dust covering him from an explosion caused by another spell apparently made him rethink holding this position.

"Alright!" he snapped out to the remaining members of his team - Desert himself, as well as a German man called Manfred Stein and another two PHL ponies, one a Pegasus mare by the name of Cloud Ranger and one a grizzled Earth Pony stallion by the name of Iron Gait. There was also their engineer, a woman called Jan Lockett, who was busy trying to get command on the radio. She looked up at Redmond's shout - the man was pointing at a nearby corner-building. "We're too exposed out here. Make for that building, quick!"

Desert didn't need telling twice. With a snarl, he headed for the building, looking over at the unicorn line while he did so and almost daring the stuck-up bastards to hit him with their best.

Turns out that daring Celestia's best troops wasn't such a good idea. A bolt of something (Desert Wind was at least certain that it was purple, though that told him diddly squat about it's properties) hit him, and he stood still for a moment, pain lancing through his entire system. He vaguely heard someone calling his name, and then there was blackness.

***

When he came to, he frowned at the sight of a dusty grey ceiling over his head.

"We dead yet?" he asked, calling out into the room.

"Not quite," came Redmond's grim voice.

Desert Wind sat up, winced in pain, and blinked at the sight. Redmond had taken up a position at a window: judging from the view, they were on the third storey of the building. Iron Gait wasn't present, which made Desert Wind assume that he hadn't made the run (a fact he was too comfortable accepting - damn war). Cloud Ranger sported a damaged wing and Lockett was leaning against a wall. Stein was nowhere to be seen either. There was a faint purple glow coming from outside.

"Ah hell," Desert Wind said, realising what it must be with a sickening feeling of dread. "I thought we were still five hours ahead of that thing!"

"We were," Redmond said heavily. "But that was about four and three quarter hours ago. Since then, the newfoals've flanked us and blocked the only path out of here. We're stuck between the proverbial rock and a hard place."

"Crap," Desert muttered. He tried to stand, only for his limbs to scream in protest and his back to arch in pain. "What hit me?"

"No idea," Cloud Ranger said softly. "None of us are that good with spells. If Sapphire Steel were still here..."

She trailed off at the blank look on Desert's face.

"Sorry," she muttered.

"Don't be," Desert Wind replied. "You didn't kill her."

Sapphire Steel had been a unicorn who had fled Equestria with Desert Wind. When the two of them had joined up, they had always been together. She had died two days ago, the victim of a Royal Guard spear.

There was an awkward pause. Finally, Lockett moved away from her wall.

"So," the Englishwoman said softly. "We're trapped between certain death and certain ponification - which might as well be death." She looked between Redmond and Desert Wind. "One of our squad can't walk. The Pegasus can't fly." She sighed. "What are we doing?"

"Right now?" Redmond replied. "I'd say 'waiting'."

"For what?" Lockett said angrily. "I don't know about you, but I don't fancy sitting here waiting to be incinerated or assimilated!"

"And what will yelling do?" Cloud Ranger said angrily. "We can't change anything!"

Before the group could descend into arguing, Iron Gait walked in, looking haggard. Desert Wind didn't show it, but he was immensely grateful that yet another of his squad had survived.

"Stein?" Redmond asked. Gait shook his head, and Redmond snarled. "Dammit! What's the situation?"

"The little buckers are holding up," Gait said, sounding irritated. "They know all they have to do is wait for you to die here when the Barrier hits."

"I see," Redmond said softly. He leant against a wall, thinking. "And there's no other ways out?"

"All the roads are blocked off," Gait said. "And they've got Pegasi covering the skies."

Everyone and everypony cursed softly. That was it then. There was a pause as they sat for a moment, each in silent contemplation. This was interrupted by a cheerful voice.

"Hello in there! Can you hear me?"

There was a pause as the group exchanged glances. The voice had been female, almost certainly a newfoal.

"A parley?" Redmond asked.

"I'll go," Gait said sourly. He walked over to the nearest window. "What do you buckers want?!" he yelled.

"There's no need to be like that!" the newfoal yelled up. "We know you've got no way out, and your human friends will die if we don't convert them! We'd like to offer you the hoof of friendship. Come down and we'll save you!"

Iron Gait threw a half annoyed, half amused look at Redmond, who grinned. Desert Wind laughed.

"They can't be serious," Lockett said sourly.

"Well it's well known that they're pretty fucking stupid," Redmond reasoned. "Gait, your estimate on the Barrier?"

"Three minutes," the Earth Pony said. "And when it hits..."

"When it hits, this building gets destroyed, you humans get incinerated and we're left to fall three storeys onto whatever rock is left after the Barrier hits," Desert Wind said softly.

"So?" the newfoal yelled up. "What's your answer?!"

There was a pause as Redmond thought about precisely how to answer the newfoal. He picked up his rifle, walked over to the window, and fired twice.

"You... you monster!" another newfoal voice yelled. "You shot her! You shot her right in the -!"

Redmond fired again, and the voice shut up. He walked away from the window and grinned.

"They can't throw very far," he said quietly, giving his squad a thumbs up.

There was a moment's pause. With that, their last chance to step out of this with something resembling life was utterly gone.

"So," Lockett said conversationally, sighing softly. "Three minutes, no way out. What do we do?"

"Three minutes is ages," Gait said. "Coulda done with some books. Or television. Or chess. Or knitting."

"Or all of the above," Cloud Ranger added with a smirk.

"I miss my Mum," Lockett said after a moment. "But she was too old to evacuate when Britain was destroyed."

"I miss Equestria," Gait replied, "the way it used to be, before this bucking war business. I was a tradespony, not a fighter."

"This war's made soldiers of us all, it seems," Desert Wind said quietly. He was thinking back to his home, his family. Two of his cousins had died in the Royal Guard during the war with Sombra, and though he himself had never joined up, Wind felt the loss deeply. They, his mother, his father... so many he had lost. Even his home, now.

There was a moment's pause, and then Redmond sat down and began whistling. A moment later, he started singing.

"#Who's the leader of the club that's made for you and me,
M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E,
Hey there, Hi there, Ho there, you’re as welcome as can be,
M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E,

Mickey Mouse!
Mickey Mouse!
Forever let us hold our banners high,
High, high, high..."

As Redmond sang, Lockett started laughing. A moment later, Iron Gait did too. And then they started humming along, although neither of them knew the words. Even as the purple glow from outside got stronger and stronger, they kept singing and humming. They were afraid - you could see it in their eyes - but this was perhaps the only choice they had left: to go out with terror, or with dignity.

For Desert Wind's part, he was content to close his eyes and think back to green fields, beautiful skies and the promise of friendship - a promise that had been broken.

An eternity later, he opened his eyes.

"Why aren't we dead?" he asked, almost annoyed.

Lockett was at the window, staring over at the Barrier in awe. "Either it's moving glacially slow or..."

"Or?" Gait asked.

"It stopped," Lockett breathed as she looked out the window.

The newfoals themselves had stopped as well, staring at the barrier with shock.

"No! Why did it stop!?" a newfoal cried out in horror. The newfoals began to panic, their once assured victory now seemingly forgotten as they ran about, panicking.

Suddenly, there was a whining sound in the air. Lockett had barely heard the sound before she ducked back and threw herself on top of the others. "Down!"

Dozens of Tomahawk missiles came flying through the air, taking out several pegasi as they slammed into the horde. Their cries for the barrier fell silent in the wake of the explosions that ripped them apart.

"Anyone still out there? This is Victor Kravchenko - I’m with the Spetsnaz. There aren’t many of us left, but the Barrier… seems to have stopped."

Lockett coughed, dusting herself off as she searched for her long forgotten radio. "Guys! There’s someone coming!"

It was a deus ex machina. It was improbable, and they all should have been atomized or newfoals by now. Yet they had survived by the skin of their teeth.

“Hello?” Lockett asked, practically yelling into the radio. “We’re trapped between a three-story drop and the Barrier!”

“I’m on my way,” Kravchenko said. “Let’s see how those newfoals like a Pozhar rocket launcher…”

“What’s a Pozhar?” Gait asked.

“Well,” Desert Wind said. “It’s this new-”

There was a hollow boom off in the distance, and Redmond stared out the window. “It’s just raining explosions down on them,” he breathed, a smile full of almost childlike glee on his face. “From one rocket launcher. So much you can do with runes...”

“We’re coming for you now!” Kravchenko yelled. “Just sit tight and keep the newfoals away!”

“We can do that,” Redmond said, not smiling, but wearing a look of exhausted relief.

“Are we dead?” Desert Wind asked, too tired from coming so near to death.

“What?” Redmond asked.

“This… this makes no sense!” Desert Wind said. “The Barrier suddenly stops, there’s a detachment of PHL nearby…”

“Well, Marcus said that in Boston, they’d ‘draw the line’,” Cloud Ranger said. “His words, not mine. Couldn’t imagine what that meant, but now…” she stared in the direction of the purple glow, wearing a smile full of childlike wonder. “Now, I don’t know what to think. If they can do this, who knows what could happen next?”

She had no idea how right she’d be.

Author's Notes:

To anyone that was waiting awhile for this... I'm really sorry. I felt like it was unfinished, I was practically begging for the okay to get it out... but if I don't get this out tonight, I don't know if I ever will. It's like I got addicted to editing or something. Which might not be surprising, considering how HUEG this is. I was gonna stop with A Story About Them, after Jed ended up writing With Dignity, but then I realized that I felt like Fleur and Big Mac deserved some closure. I'mma be honest... I got kind of tired around there. Still, there's probably scenes that you liked in that.
Other Stuff:
1. Speaking of With Dignity, that originally ended at the line "He only hoped that, in whatever afterlife awaited Pony-kind, he would see his family - and Sapphire Steel - again..." It was bleak, it was dark, it showcased the hopelessness of war, and I loved it! Uuuunfortunately, the Barrier is kind of frozen at the moment, so that created a small continuity error and I had to add the next few lines to make it fit with the "last two weeks of humanity." feel. And it'd be just cruel if I had the Barrier stop right after it atomized them. I mean, that's just evil.
2. Just so we're clear, Coal Embers looks like a ponified version of Ryuko from Kill La Kill. Specifically, Ryuko from this picture. I mean, that just looks awesome.
3. Jan Pierewiet is actually a South African folk song about a couple doing domestic, married-couple things. Consider for a moment that it's Kraber humming that...

Earth (part 2: Eres Veneno)

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Earth: Part 2
Editors/Co-Authors
Redskin122004
TB3-For going over it, editing, and working on those three lines about the ASTOUNDING SECRET ORIGIN OF VERITY CARTER!
Beyond The Horizon-creator of Sebastian Irving. Oh man, you should SEE the backstory he has planned… He helped make a lot of weaponry in here, and he shares my appetite for destruction. He is a true bro.
Rush
TheIdiot-welcome aboard! Hope ya like it here.
Kizuna Tallis-special thanks for working on Kimball’s quote. That was awesome!
And of course, special thanks to YOU for reading, especially if you didn't downvote just for being related to the Conversion Bureau. I promise, I do not advocate the destruction of all you know and love. Hope you like it!

Eres Veneno / You Are Poison

“I never understood all those HLF guys that just look at us like we’re… I don’t know, committing blasphemy, pissing on holy relics or whatever. They just look at us and decide we’ll become newfoals for working with forces beyond our understanding. Still, these are the kinds of people who believe windmills could stop the Earth’s rotation, so take them with a grain of salt. Me, though, I see magic as an opportunity. There are limitless possibilities, and we can use them against newfoals to our hearts content. I say go all-out! Get mad! We have the technology, we have the power, the manufacturing capacity to turn newfoal charges into meatgrinders. Mark my words - we will be forced to slaughter them as she gains a billion more humans. We will call for weapons great and terrible, cross lines we hoped we’d never be in the vicinity of. For anything west of the Barrier to survive as we’re pushed up into America’s heartland against the Rockies, for the Russians to survive as they’re thrown deeper and deeper into Siberia, we’ll need to become armies unto ourselves, each man or woman, mare or stallion capable of staggering a newfoal charge singlehandedly. And I will be happy to oblige the tools of that trade.”
Sebastian Irving - Head of the PHL's R&D Weapon Division, Grail War Branch

"I have the worst job in the world. Being up in space may be the dream of every adventurous child out there, but it’s really not what it’s cracked up to be.”
“The routine is the same everyday - wake up, eat, check for our next shipments, check on the satellites, contact ground control, try to keep ourselves occupied, and rest. Can’t really do much else. Keeping up on the news is just too depressing.”
“The war is only getting worse. Every day, the crew and I can only watch as the Barrier keeps on growing. Another city or town disappears every day, I feel like I'm gonna be sick, and I've soaked up enough radiation that my hair comes out in clumps. Still... the military, the people need these satellites up. There's a good chance this is all that will be left of humanity. Depressing, isn't it?”
“But we made our choice, and we’ll stick by it till the end. And if the PHL wins… well, I'd like to think, we made a difference in the end. Not bad for the daughter of an oil driller and a housewife, huh?”
Doctor Erin Kimball, astronaut maintaining telecommunications satellites

It was the end again. The last day that the people of France could have pretended to have anything remotely similar to a normal life.

The students stood there. One teenager, a boy named Jean Kirchstein, had found a nailgun, god only knew how. They’d stood behind barricades of desks, huddled in classrooms. The windows had the curtains pulled down. “We have to stay until help arrives!” the teacher pleaded, trying to keep Kirchstein away from his nailgun.

Their hooves clip-clopped through the hallway. She didn’t know how, or even why, but they were smiling.

“Dominic!” the teacher yelled. “Help me get this nailgun away from him!”

“I’m not Dominic!” she had said, like a petulant child. “I’m Dominique!”

“I don’t care! He’s gonna do something he regrets with that!”

“Be quiet!” Henri hissed. “They’ll hear us!”

“Teacher’s pet!” someone else yelled.

“Look!” the teacher pleaded. “Just stay put! Just-”

A vial of potion sailed through the open door, splattering on the floor. Everyone recoiled, the teacher jumping back…

...But not quickly enough. Drops of the potion splattered over his leg.

“Don’t touch that!” the teacher screamed. “For the love of God, don’t-MERE D’UN DIEU!” he screamed, collapsing on the leg that had been potioned.

“What’s… what’s…” Dominique stammered.

“MY LEG!” he screamed, choking up blood. “It’s…. OH, DEAR JESUS WHY?!” he tried to stand up, his leg slipping from his battered and overstretched shoe to reveal a hoof. “GET IT OFF! GET IT OFF!” he screamed, frantically batting at the offending leg, now covered in pinkish fur. “NO! PLEASE GOD!”

The noises he made weren’t anything like what a human should make. Terrible, rasping bellows as the potion spread up, his body reshaping. Sickly cracks issued from his legs, then his waist-

“Jean,” he said, mustering the minuscule amounts of calm that he could. “I need you take that nailgun, take that nailgun, and… hold it to my throat...!”

“N… n… no!” Jean stammered, tears in his eyes. “I can’t! I…”

“Jean!” the teacher said. “Please! For-” the potion moved on to his lungs by now, and his face seemed somehow as pliable as clay. “The-” But what he was about to say devolved into scratching, wet wheezing gasps, bloody scraps of his organs issuing issuing forth from his mouth. HIs eyes grew wider than they had any right to be, and he began to smile. It was somehow worse than the rictus of agony that his face had been. It spread like ooze, as his face lengthened into an equine snout, his lips and cheeks splitting apart. For a terrible moment, his bloody upper and lower jaw, red with torn and bleeding muscle, were visible, protruding from the front of his face, before the fur swallowed it up. His eyes grew so huge that they seemed they would explode out his sockets, dangling over his mouth. And yet he kept smiling.

“So good,” he whispered like a mantra. “So good so good so good so good…”

When it was all over, a stallion with unfortunate pink fur stood in front of them. “Come on… take the potion!” he screamed, spittle flying from his mouth. “GO ON, TAKE IT! TAKE YOUR MEDICINE!”

He jumped into the minuscule puddle, attempting to splash it around, that lunatic smile affixed to his face.

“FUCKING PONIES!” Dominique screamed. “You… you monsters!”

“Hold on!” someone screamed. “I’m coming! Just stay put!”

“It’s… it’s a pony!” Jean said. “Not gonna miss this time-”

“Don’t shoot!” she screamed. “I don’t have any vials! I’m going to help!”

“It’s Cheerilee!” Jean gasped. “I trust her!”

“Oooh, more help!” the pink-furred stallion giggled childishly. Goosebumps ran across Dominique’s arms.

“I’ve seen enough of them trying to help,” Dominique said, and ducked out. She slid open a window and landed on the ground, running. She caught a glimpse of the pony who claimed to be rescuing them, a magenta mare with a light pink mane, and three flowers on her flank.

But, as she hit the ground, she heard the phut-phut-phut of a nailgun firing...

She couldn’t remember how long she ran, through the streets of Paris. All around her, cars were crashed, or backed up, turning busy thoroughfares into parking lots, people rushing through alleyways, screaming in horror. Planes flew through the air, cleaving through ponies. Dead bodies littered the streets, and the bodies of the pegasi she had so adored dropped from the sky, bleeding from grievous wounds.

Paris, and her childhood along with it, were in their death throes.

As she dashed through the streets, she saw a rather elderly man extending a hand to a wounded pegasus with glassy eyes, only for him to shrink and twist within his clothes, his eyes expanding, as he collapsed in on himself to form an earth pony. He laughed, almost hysterically, as if he was trying to convince himself he was happy. It sounded like glass shattering.

The glassy-eyed pegasus laughed, even as they coughed up parts of their organs, blood spilling from wounds and the stump of one wing. As if their own life had no meaning if they could ponify even one person.

And yet she still ran, her dress fluttering in the wind as she raced towards her parents house. Off in the distance, she could hear thunderclaps. No, not thunder. Gunshots. Ponies screaming. Was this a nightmare? This couldn’t have been real, it was so sudden! One moment, the city was at peace, the next it had descended into chaos. Buildings exploded into rubble, unicorns fired blasts of force that brought down edifices that had seen centuries of history, and all around her, humans fell, shifting into ponies.

“Mommy and Daddy had to be safe. They had to be! They’d know what to do, they’d know what to do… they could help her escape!” she remembered someone saying, then realizing that she’d been

Finally, she made her way to her house, picking up the key under the dog statue and opening the door.

The house was silent. It seemed clean. Too clean, even. Her parents were never that clean.

She heard them laughing. Giggling, even. What? Had she walked in on something? Had they-

“OhHhHhHHHHH Dominic!” her mother screamed, in a high, piercing falsetto that scratched away at her ears. “You should try this! It feels wonderful!”

“Can you hear it, Signal?” her father asked. “They’re calling to us… it’s beautiful.”

“I don’t even know why I tried to stop them!” an unfamiliar man added. “It’s… it’s so beautiful being a pony!”

No. It couldn’t be. They turned into more of them! The newfoals… she’d seen them. People that had been sick, afraid they were doomed, or just taken in by the siren song of Equestria. As if Celestia had exuded a suggestion spell to make going to the Bureaus more attractive.

“I’m not Dominic,” Dominique said. She was a girl, she hated being a boy… “Not Dominic. Not Dominic,” she repeated crazily. She looked around, seeing a uniform on the floor. A rifle sat on the floor.

A unicorn big enough for a small child to ride stepped out from behind a corner, a vial of something purple in its mouth. No. Not juice. Potion.

“I don’t have to worry about anything ever again!” her father laughed, and Dominique knew that if he threw the potion at her, she’d never be herself again. She’d be worse than dead. The rifle was on the floor there… she had to. She had to.

She remembered. As they advanced, her father ready to potion her with a smile on his face, she picked up the rifle and pulled the trigger.

She was young and small, of course. Unable to control the recoil. At that range, it didn’t matter. The rounds shredded her parents and the unfamiliar man, probably a soldier or policeman, ripping apart their organs in the space of seconds.

She trembled as tears fell from her eyes, clutching the rifle as she collapsed to the ground.

".. I’m sorry." she said in a low voice. “I’m… so… s… s… SORRY!” she burst into tears, curled up on the floor, unwilling to go upstairs. As if the bodies formed a barrier of some kind that prevented her from going upstairs.

There was the sound of foot steps as a dark shadow formed over her.

“... Mother of God, those must be her parents,” she heard someone breathe. “She shot them… after they were ponified.”

“The poor child,” another man sighed. “I’m taking her with us. No way am I leaving her here!”

“We don’t have the resources to evacuate!” someone else protested. “We-”

“Janvier,” the man interrupted, “It’s one little girl. Are we meant to just kill ponies above all else? We’re not to lose our humanity as well! We can’t just leave her here!" he sighed. “Dammit, Janvier. If we don’t do the right thing, if we don’t save people… then what are we? We’ll never be heroes. We’ll never be defenders of humanity. We’ll never get the military backing we need, because we don’t deserve it.”

"All we need to do is find a way to break that barrier and let the nukes fly. This is survival at any cost, we don’t need to save those that can’t fight," someone else said. Their command of French was rather poor. "But if you must, you can take her just this once."

"Thank you."

“Easy now,” said a man, hoisting her over one shoulder. “I’ve got you.”

Dominique’s vision swam before her eyes, growing watery.

“I’m Louissaint,” the man said. “Don’t worry. The HLF will take good care of you…”

She woke up, breathing heavily.

Hands? Still had them. Hooves? Still none. Still human. Not… not in France.

In fact, it was a long distance from France, from that school full of the children that were probably newfoals by now… or worse. Part of the PHL. That made you a newfoal in all but name-everyone in the HLF knew that. Being PHL was like selling your soul.

Hadn’t stopped Louissaint, the ‘Mad Doctors’ Viktor Kraber and Kagan Burakgazi, or Angus Reid.

She lay somewhere along the Great Lakes, near an old copper mine. She lay on a car stripped for parts next to a burnt-out ruin of a house. The woman there, a far cry from the youngish boy she had once been, would be unrecognizable to anyone that remembered her from France.

Rather tall, and rail-thin. Her hair shaved on one side, dyed purple and red. Wearing the castoff clothes common to HLF members, and a crude kevlar vest with visible pieces of metal sat on her chest. Uncomfortable, but it worked. Bizarrely, she was wearing a wetsuit, half-unzipped. But it made sense - Kraber himself had innovated it as a cheap anti-potion measure. And yet, despite the hard look that had found her, despite the onset of male puberty, she’d managed to cultivate an image of femininity.

She sat on the hood of a car, a Kalashnikov made from a truly ridiculous array of spare parts and rechambered for .50 Beowulf next to her. She’d known little but war for most of her adolescence. She knew everything about survival, and she’d been fighting so long it felt as if she knew nothing but war. Nothing but running, the fear of potion-bombing, hiding like rats in abandoned buildings and in wildernesses. She knows near-everything about survival, about growing up...

Save for being a teenager.

She looks off into the wilderness, the hills lined with trees and full of abandoned copper mines that her HLF unit, Taskforce Paris, had taken for their own use.

In the mines, the huge warren of tunnels that had been dug out, you can find ponies strung up. Nailed or riveted to support beams. Graffitos in blood. Bulletholes in the walls. Oversized casings, of a size more commonly found ejected from heavy machineguns or enormous hunter’s rifles. A mongrel armory of weapons, sledgehammers and tools, homemade machine guns made from power drills and metal odds and ends and stolen parts, the rare .50 Beowulf AR, sacrificing magazine capacity for the power so desperately needed to be competent against Equestria’s magically shielded troops, homemade weapons and zipguns more comparable to cannons than personal firearms, milisurp and frankenguns from countries and companies erased by the barrier.

It has gone unnoticed simply because top PHL warriors (The Knight of Germania, the Blue Spy, Viktor Kraber, Cheerilee) and taskforces simply had more pressing worries or had simply sauntered off to hidden PHL operation centers, which, frustratingly enough, the HLF had proven unable to locate. Though there were whispers of a new UN/PHL/U.S initiative, wiping out PER and HLF alike. Safety was doubtful, but the tunnels they had chosen to hide in were a labyrinth-it’d be easy to get lost.

In some hiding places, there are a few working cars made up from a mish-mash of assorted stolen parts. Painted in electric-blues, yellows, reds, and dark brown-gray-blacks. Adorned with trophies of past hunts and purges of ponies, newfoals or not. Driven by rough-looking men and women, boys and girls who have had their chances to be childhood cut short, who have also taken trophies. Cutie marks sewn into jackets. Jackets from hides. Necklaces of horns, collections of oddly diminutive pegasus wings. Unreliable electricity, all the denizens of the town, the scum, hiding in its bunkers, every space repurposed for storehouses, or bunks packed so densely together that it’s a wonder anyone can walk between the things.

Yet, in this town, a great number of the bunks have been… taken. Newcomers, HLF from another unit who are seeking refuge after fleeing from a PHL unit tasked with cleansing the country of HLF and PER alike.

They’d needed new blood, ever since Angus Reid’s defection took half their men. They’d gotten hill folk, crazy survivalists, scared people from outlying towns who never had the displeasure of being in proximity to the Barrier that were downright terrified of ponies, telling rumors that even the most fanatical members had thought to be total bullshit.

It had come as something as a surprise. A year ago, Taskforce Paris’ leader, a French veteran named Janvier, had been talking about liberating a town from the PHL, and how the citizens might be so happy when the HLF liberated them from the oppression, and then, without warning as he was drinking his morning coffee, Angus Reid (a normally rather sedate Scotsman) had burst into a profanity-laden tirade lasting for so long it seemed impossible he hadn’t taken a breath. He had then left, taking his rifle, his claymore, and much of the unit with him. It had ripped a hole in the unit, and other HLF members had joined in. Tamika had nearly joined, but she’d made the right decision and held back.

“Dom!” Tamika called over. “We need you inside - Janvier got another speech in the works! Says he’s got something big planned!”

“Really?!” Dominique said, the corners of her mouth moving up ever so slightly. She headed off, ready for the slaughter.

In another time, a safer, older time, it would have been madness to see a soldier young as Dominique, or to see teenagers armed with rifles such as these, fighting in the streets, fields, and forests of America. Especially one in the HLF militia. And yet… it was necessary.

They had all come from a variety of backgrounds, races, and creeds for one purpose: To find every pony on earth, stop the invasion, and slaughter them all. They hadn’t sold themselves out like the PHL, betraying humanity for that stupid merry-go-round-toy Lyra Heartstrings! And for that, they were pure! They were humanity’s true protectors!

And yet, Dominique found herself doubting that. Angus had raised good points in his speech. Or perhaps it was more of a rant. What had they done? Besides keep guns and shoot up ponies? Bombing headquarters like that idiot in Portland, Oregon, who attacked a munitions plant that could have helped?

The two of them made their way through a hidden entrance into a mine, negotiating through its winding tunnels, passing by the traps, carefully making sure not to step on the tripwires or hidden pressure plates made to dismember intruders. A bit extreme, yes, but the HLF was justifiably paranoid.

And then, they found it. Their hideout, once a silver mine. They walked into the improvised mess hall, its craggy walls lined with posters and propaganda from a thousand places that no longer existed, in languages that now had no place to have originated. Throughout the room, people chattered excitedly in English, Spanish, Portuguese, German, French, every dialect to have come from Europe.

"Just who are these PER fuckers anyway? How fucked up does one have to be to betray their own species?" one Portuguese woman asked.

"Sad, useless traitors," answered an American.

“LOYAL DEFENDERS OF TRUE HUMANITY!” Janvier called, his voice ringing out in the small cave. He always started speeches like that. Everyone fell silent, hanging on his words. “We have found another PER outpost… this one not too far. I realize that Angus Reid’s betrayal has caught us off-guard, and the new men and women we have joined forces with are unfamiliar.”

The new men and women he referred to were the remnants of Glanzon's Gluemakers, widely regarded as one of the first HLF units. The best-trained. The most angry, because, after all, they'd come from Switzerland. They’d been the first to lose their homes, and lost thousands of places they’d come to call home on their exodus from Europe, and they'd been decimated in the last week or so by PHL forces. They’d been unusually persistent in wiping the HLF out, the goddamn Gestapo. Wiping out humanity’s true defenders to serve it up on a platter for Celestia, no doubt.

“They are heroes, though! They have fought longer than any of us, fought on every front from Geneva to Maine! I, for one, welcome them. They’re certainly better at keeping themselves pure and human than those disgusting, horsefucking PHL traitors…”

True. True. But something about it put Dominique on edge. It was an honor to meet them! They were Swiss, they'd seen more of the war than anyone!

And yet... She'd heard something. One of them had said Angus had been hit with a mind control PHL weapon, the same kind they'd nailed Viktor Kraber with while he was hospitalized. Something that subverted him to the side of ponies, eventually making him a newfoal in all but mind. That couldn't be right, could it?! Angus had been... He'd understood her. He knew people that grew up trans and understood her, defending her from those few HLF members that hadn't cast aside their prejudices to fight off ponies.

"Finally! We’ve barely killed any in the last week!" One of the Gluemakers said, almost petulantly.

“And I know that when we find the PER, our new friends will show no mercy!”

They all cheered, the Gluemakers more vocal than anyone.

“Not too long ago, we attacked a PHL convoy,” Janvier said, enjoying the enthused gasps from everyone. “And we found a new PHL weapon!”

“BULLSHIT!” someone from Glanzon’s Gluemakers yelled. “You’ll ponify us all with that thing!”

“The magic that leaks from it isn’t in concentrations that can harm us!” Janvier said. “But… it’s undeniably effective. We’ll use it in the operation planned tonight.”

He paused, then continued, letting everyone’s excitement over a new op grow. “The PER have taken over a Dead End, just last night,” Janvier continued. “However! This one has been… subverted… by the pony-pounders. It’s a PHL outpost, through and through. A goddamned company town.”

He looked in the direction of the Chinese refugees in the mess hall, hoping to anger them. It worked.

“The PHL have barricaded off the factory, but the PER have hostages, and they’re saying that they won’t ponify them if they’re allowed access to the factory’s equipment. The PHL, those goddamned horsefuckers, they’re probably negotiating as we speak. We’re not gonna let that happen, though,” a smile crept across Janvier’s face. “We find them. Kill every pony and horsefucker in there, save it from the PHL for people that deserve it. And we take the weaponry in the factory for ourselves.”

For some HLF members, PHL weaponry, even the lowliest, most primitively enchanted weapon, ere as a commodity.

The Gluemakers cheered, roaring in delight. They had huge smiles on their faces.

Still, something seemed off to Dominique.

The Gluemakers were professional! They'd fought on every front, triumphantly showing the world they were right when the Barrier destroyed Geneva. They'd nearly gotten official military backing, or been military backing if it wasn't for the so-called Knight of Germania. They were the closest they had to-

A proper military unit? Implying that we ourselves are not? That even though we’ve embraced the apocalypse, it doesn’t seem to have hit everyone else as hard? That we are doing Something Wrong?

Meanwhile, in Detroit...

Abraham Svec hated Dead Ends. He hated the ugly concrete walls. He hated the guardtowers. He hated that they were seemingly designed to be evacuated. He hated that it was essentially a quarantine zone, to be sealed off in the event of a mass potion attack and then blown to smithereens.

Most of all, he hated that they seemed to be the future. So bleak, so hopeless… his future. Having to raise his daughter there, living in fear with his wife until the evac order came or they were ponified, or until they were pushed into the sea… Oh lord, what’d happen to his brother Dalibor?

He shook it off. He had to worry about the now.

“What do you think?” asked Yael Ze’ev, an Israeli PHL woman with a customized Galil 7.62mm SAR, fitted with Khvostov 7G-02 and Birdseye enchanted modifications.

A stallion named Touchdown,, a dark red unicorn with a slicked-back black mane and yellow aviator sunglasses, stared through the binoculars, levitating them to his eyes. “The members the PER have manning the guardtowers look pretty ragged. I wish we had the Blue Spy, though...”

“Easy on her. Changeling magic ain’t easy. Besides, Heliotrope’s doing the best she can,” Johnny C said, staring through the reflex scope on his Leshiy rifle, an FN FAL with an AN94’s blowback shifted pulse and hyperburst systems. And experimental runes, of course. A pony poked his way out from behind a rock, off in the distance. Those wide, staring eyes, happily fixed on something none of them could see? Expression of disgust for its surroundings? Definitely a newfoal. “Ja. That’s PER, ne? Can’t tell if the newfoal’s recent or not.”

Gunfire rang out from inside the Dead End, then an explosion.

“Still people there,” Abraham said. “The factory’s still holding out.”

“Nooit, that’s civvies,” Viktor M. Kraber said, looking through the sight of his new LMG, an MG2023 Advanced Individual Support Weapon. AISW for short. He’d regretfully stored his NTW-20 somewhere safe, as Vinyl had suggested - quite rightly - that it would have been ludicrously terrible to maneuver in an environment like this. Granted, the LMG would too, but he’d been scheduled to test it. “Doesn’t sound like PHL-”

There was another explosion in the distance, and the buzz of a minigun. “MY SPLEEN!” a human screamed.

“Okay. That’s the PHL then,” Kraber said.

Yael breathed a sigh of relief. “Good. We’ve still got something to save.”

“Thank God,” Abraham breathed. “Won’t be easy getting them… I don’t like tight spaces that much.”

“That’s normal,” Johnny C said. “Pretty damn claustrophobic. Sarge? What do you have to say?”

“Got bad memories of tight spaces,” Kraber said. “Actually, I just fokking hate having a spiet there in general.”

“Mind telling why?” Yael asked.

“He minds,” Aegis said, as Kraber silenced her with a piercing glare. Nobody (or nopony in this case) wanted to ask what the two of them were hiding.

“So…” Johnny started. “A lot of us have been wondering something. How did you get out of the hospital so fast?”

Kraber and Aegis looked at each other, trying to come up with an excuse, whispering in each other’s ears.

Then, with a completely straight face, Aegis looked over at Yael and said: “Nanomachines, son.”

Kraber looked off to the side, desperately trying and failing not to giggle through the hand over his mouth.

Everyone just stared.

“You’re shitting me,” Yael said bluntly.

“Of fokking course we are!” Kraber laughed. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“Try us,” Yael said wryly.

“No, trust me, there is ‘crazy’, and there is ‘goddammit that did NOT happen I can’t comprehend this what the hell I stopped being able to even a long time ago’,” Aegis said, saying the entire sentence in a quick monotone, with as few commas as he could manage.

“It’s the second one!” Kraber stage-whispered.

A voice crackled over their earpieces. “Coming in hot, everyone.”

“Right then, Heliotrope. Signal us when ready. The ponies Naturals, Zombies or Subverted?” Kraber asked. There were two types of newfoals - the stupid, zombie-like ones suitable only for meatshield rushes and absorbing bullets, or Subverted. Those were the really smart ones, who seemed like they could have almost been normal, healthy ponies… if not for the fact that burning hatred for everything they once were was so ingrained in them that it was as natural as breathing.

“Zombies,” Heliotrope said. “Definitely zombies. PER can’t afford Naturals.”

“Oweh,” Kraber said. “Wait for us. We’ll meet you up there. There’s something very special I need to do when we get there.”

Dominique actually liked Dead Ends. They were a big source of manpower for the HLF, after all. She was convinced (or rather, had convinced herself) the reason America so loved the PHL was that they hadn’t lost enough to see what the ponies truly were.

The mission was a simple exercise to liberate one from the PHL and PER. Kill everyone.

She could get behind that. It was on what had once been the outskirts of a proud coastal city, but had now swelled to terrifying size. It accommodated refugees from America’s east coast, those who were fleeing while the fleeing was good, and, surprisingly enough, Eastern Europeans.

As they had driven up to it, looking for the Dead End, Dominique stared in amazement at how Detroit had grown. From what she’d heard, Detroit had been all but dead before the War, but now, now it was somewhere close to its old glory. There were cars in the streets, old factories were back in operation, and trains were actually returning. Houses had been patched up, and it actually appeared to be somewhat healthy. Though the Dead End, known as Derelict Row, drew her attention the most. It was a city unto itself, crowded with concrete buildings in every area they could muster, with a field to serve as a killing-field in the event of of an inevitable newfoal rush.

It all seemed a little too… permanent. The Dispossessed, as many refugees were called, were an odd folk. They carried little, spread out little, rarely held on to any possessions save for money, firearms and ammunition, clothing, and the rare heirloom. From what she could see of the city, though, as they drove through, the Dispossessed of Detroit had been rather more… spread out. There were actual decorations on the streets, Chinese lanterns swinging in the wind from wires from window to window. A disgusting PHL mural featuring that goddamn merry-go-round toy Lyra, surrounded by other notables of the PHL (Cheerilee, Marcus Renee, Vinyl Scratch, Rebecca Kleiner and Thunderwing) with a setting sun in the background, pointing at a statue of Princess Luna. Someone had even doodled Viktor Kraber and Aegis in, likely within the past week after hearing about their contributions to slaughtering the PER. There was also a series of the Dragons of the East, with each member, including the geldos, looking like they were posing for a movie poster. The irony of seeing their North Korean member protecting crying children alongside the American guy from a swarm of newfoal pegasi wasn’t lost on her.

In another lifetime it might have been inspiring. But… it was celebrating goddamn horsefuckers! Ponies, even!

There were even… there were even houses, parasitic architecture studding the walls of the monolithic Dead End that had once been full of abandoned buildings They looked a bit better constructed than what you’d expect - actual heating! Railings on the scaffolding used to get from place to place! It would be a nightmare to pack up. Materials and space were going at a premium these days. Though there were vague signs of packing up to leave, here and there. The city was buzzing with activity.

As such, it had been hard for the various HLF infiltrators (referred to as ‘Jockeys’ by someone with no sense of irony) to find an area of Detroit’s underground that they could sneak through that wasn’t already occupied by squatters.

As such, they had to cut through particularly disgusting areas of the sewers, past the lowest of the low, crouched in shanties built in whatever alcoves they could find.

They blended in fairly well, though the PHL gun was kept in a duffel bag. It would have drawn too many of the wrong questions from the people in the city.

All of them fanned out, heading for the entrances that their agents had marked for them.

“Today’s the day!” said one man from Glanzon’s Gluemakers that Dominique was with, a man holding what looked like a rusty brazilian open-bolt automatic .50 BMG rifle. “We kill those PHL sonsabitches. We take their weapons. And we finally take our place as humanity’s true protectors.”

A purple-pink pegasus named Heliotrope dropped into the Dead End, wings folded against her body. She was wearing an ancient, out-of-date Equestrian flightsuit, one that she’d smuggled to Brazil on the Mercy Ships. However, it had been modified with layers of protective enchantments, many of which had been inscribed onto tiny belts crisscrossing the suit. She'd designed it herself from the cloaking runes she'd helped install on ships back during the Crystal War. The trained eye could see them, but it wouldn’t be easy.

The Dead End, an ugly concrete mess of a place just across a river from an old, refurbished factory built on an island in the middle of the river, drew closer and closer.

She unfurled her wings slowly, gradually breaking in midair as she made her way to the ground.

She weaved between buildings and improvised bridges, at one point having to clutch her wings tighter to her body than ever before, narrowly squeezing her way through a narrow gap between two bridges. Filthy liquids dripped down from pipes, some newly made, others scavenged from who-knew-where. PER with flashlights patrolled nearby, bandoliers of potion around their barrels. She had to be careful, though-the slightest reflection of her, and she was b… fucked.

The mission parameters were simple-drop in from the clouds, find an entrance.

Without a sound, she touched her hind legs to the ground, folding her wings against her body once more. She spat out the trigger for the silenced 9x32mm rifles on her assault yoke, trading them out for a knife.

“Kraber,” she whispered, “I’m at the manhole on Szpilman Alley. There’s three newfoals guarding it.”

“Go in skop, skiet, and donner,” Kraber whispered back. “Just be quiet with it. We’ll know when you do that.”

“Right.”

She stalked up to them, a shockingly un-equine motion. She wasn’t predatory or anything (though she confessed a certain pleasure at remaining silent and unnoticed) and yet, thanks to years of training, it came naturally.

As did what happened next. She waited for the right moment, when they were looking away from each other, one Newfoal apparently disgusted by a PHL poster nearby, mentally stroking himself off to his own hatred. There were no witty remarks, there were no one-liners… just a splash of blood as she drove her knife into the newfoal unicorn’s head.

“Wha-” one Newfoal whispered, only for Heliotrope to spread her wings, the thin blades she wore on her wings cutting through him. She jumped up, spinning in midair, and cleaved through the other newfoal’s throat.

She took a rag out of the bag she wore on her neck, and wiped the blades down. She knocked lightly on the manhole cover.

There was another set of knocks.

“Kraber,” Heliotrope hissed. “Good to see you and why the hell do you have that BFG?!” she glanced at the unfamiliar LMG on his back, like an MG2019 but bigger and meaner, with an inexplicable addition underbarrel.

“When it all goes to kak, I want more than a good .45 automatic,” Kraber whispered as he pulled himself out, gesturing to the heavy 28-gauge Colt Quetzalcoatl revolver on his hip. “Now-”

The door nearby opened, revealing a newfoal levitating a cup of coffee. He stared in shock.

“Yes, yes he is,” Heliotrope said smoothly, walking up to the newfoal. “A good friend of mine has a question.”

“Have you seen my heliotrope?” Kraber asked, clicking his heel to release the hidden knife in his boot, then kicked the newfoal in the face.

What the knife did to the newfoal's face was better left unsaid.

“Did we have to do that?” Yael asked, annoyed.

“No, but it was funny,” Kraber said. “Always wanted to say that!”

“How the hell do you keep your rank?” Yael sighed.

“Fokked if I know,” Kraber sighed, looking over his team.

“Honestly, it’s a good question,” Touchdown said, teleporting into view in a brief flash of green. He’d been named Touchdown either by his own choosing or by virtue of uncannily prescient parents. In Equestria, it could be either. He’d been a former college hoofball star, well-valued thanks to being so huge he looked almost deformed.

They were a motley unit, formed to exterminate and clear out HLF and PER units. They were formed to kill that would ponify anyone that could fight, rile the Americas up into anarchy where they were more concerned with fighting each other and surviving than winning and living, those that would joyfully embrace becoming newfoals and-

Well. It didn’t bear thinking on. Everyone had lost someone or somepony to them, seen the atrocities.

A variety of backgrounds. Crumbling language barriers. But when it came time to clean out the PER, they worked as one. They’d been tempered by their experiences into cold hard steel, honed to deadly sharpness.

And, by bizarre coincidence, all the humans in the squad happened to be Jewish.

“Alright everyone. Today… we’ve got simple orders. Clean out the PER, protect the factory, secure the scientists, and...” Kraber said, savoring the next words like chocolate, or a fine dessert wine from South Africa like bon courage red mouscadel, “Kill all the PER in sight. Except anyone or anypony they have in line for the potion. Use the new weaponry only when things are go to hell in a handbasket. Which they fokking will.”

He mournfully ran one finger over the MG2023’s stock. He was looking forward to testing that thing. It had a Tracking Point Xactsystem scope capable of tagging targets, and an experimental underbarrel Tesla weapon mounted underneath. Like most thaumic energy weapons, it was heavy, hard to reload, and overly complex, but it was invaluable for piercing shields. It also seemed to fire more rounds than the magazine could hold, but he'd decided not to rely on that. On the subject of the rounds, those were all enchanted in the receiver so the tesla weapon would arc to anything they hit. The applications, Kraber was sure, were near-limitless.

The 28-gauge (or 14mm) Colt Quetzalcoatl revolver had been outfitted with accurization runes and a small onboard spell generator that could fill the shotgun ammo with wax, turning them into slugs… which, combined with the explosive properties of the pellets, made it essentially a miniature cluster bomb launcher. He’d also affixed slugs to the tips of some of the rounds he’d made through this process, and kept them on special speedloaders.

“Don’t be such a pessimist,” Aegis chided him.

“Well, yeah. But PHL factory? Rumors of Big Fokkin’ Guns? PER attack? This don’t feel right,” Kraber said.

They had practiced with all their weaponry, even the most experimental ones. Kraber and Johnny C had become highly familiar with their new guns. By the end of the mission, they would likely be old hands with the things.

“The hell do you work this?” Dominique asked, looking over the bizarre PHL gun. It was, putting it simply… a mess. There were indicators, exposed wires and thick tubes, strange protrusions that she decided were called ‘modules’, and, bizarrely, picatinny rails. The batteries it used, PHL-made cells that held more energy than should be physically possible (At least, that was what Taskforce Paris’ resident ‘scientist’ said) and as such, they were equally opaque. A large red notice on it declared it to be an ‘EM-62 Electrolaser’, though how the PHL had reduced a laser to such a size was beyond her.

“Don’t fiddle with those!” James Millard Oakes (or ‘Overdose Oakes’, as he was known to the HLF) whispered. “You want to melt all of us?”

It was all Dominique could do not to drop the thing like a hot potato. They were entering the Dead End through the water treatment plant to the north.

And so there they found themselves, sneaking through tunnels, crouched down, weapons ready.

Pop culture would have you believe that a silencer is a magic tube that reduces the sound of gunfire to a gentle whisper.

Thankfully, the PHL’s arsenal was magic, so it actually did work like that.

Kraber fired his .45 into a a PER member’s brain. It was unenchanted ammunition, at least at the moment - magic ammunition tended to be anything but subtle. Which was why Kraber had gone for powerball ammo.

Aegis, meanwhile, stabbed the other one, this one a yellow Earth pony newfoal.

“But… we’re both…” the newfoal whispered. Aegis looked down at him and stomped on him with his hooves, crushing his larynx.

“Sick of that speech,” Aegis whispered.

“You and me both,” Kraber said, sighting in another PER member, carefully resisting the urge to mutilate him in the nastiest way possible. That was an HLF tactic- PHL got things done. First and foremost. Another headshot.

“Hey, what’s all the noise?” one PER member asked, stepping out of the door. “Oh, b-”

Kraber didn’t think. He whipped out a knife, throwing it at the man. He’d normally try for the throat, but this was panic throwing, pure and simple.

So instead, the knife embedded itself in the PER man’s balls. For a moment, the pain appeared to silence him, his alarm at Kraber’s intrusion turning into a rictus of agony. That was all Kraber needed, his pistol brought to bear with the man’s head. He fired, crumpling the man against the wall.

“Touchdown,” he whispered, “Any news on the hostages the PER has?”

“There’s a few eighteen levels up, in a building…. seven meters away,” Touchdown said, concentrating his unicorn magic to enhance his senses. “Sarge? You sure this will work? Rescuing hostages, and then getting to a factory?”

“We’ll need manpower,” Kraber explained. “I know Dead Ends. There’s always a weapons locker nearby, and…” he sighed. “Fuck the infiltration if need be. Nobody in here deserves to be dragged off to hell-”

A common euphemism for ‘returned to the Solar Empire’, one that sent shivers running down the respective spines of Touchdown, Aegis, and Heliotrope, inconceivable as it seemed for the last two to be so afraid.

“-Or turned into one of the fokking nzambi.”

“You just want bloodshed, don’t you?” Yael asked.

“‘Course I fokking do,” Kraber said, keeping watch with his silenced .45. “But no way am I letting anyone suffer more than they have to when I could have done something.”

“So it’s your guilt?” Yael asked. “Of all the times you-”

“Shut up, both of you. Keeping him from killing everyone is my job,” Aegis interrupted. “Look. Both of you raise good points, you really do. But if you get into an argument, then… we’re in the middle of a PER den. Do either of you want to get them all ponified?”

Kraber and Yael looked at each other, ashamed.

“Secondly,” Aegis said. “Viktor… you’re my friend. You know that. But if we brought anyone along, well… they’re not infiltration specialists. They might just give us away and get us all ponified, and then Celestia-I mean, the Tyrant-could figure out certain… things.”

“Son of a fok, you’re right,” Kraber sighed.

“What do you mean?” Abraham asked. He, Dalibor, Touchdown, and Johnny C had not been in Boston-rather, they’d been assisting in the evacuation of New England, over in western and southern Vermont, before Kraber had left on that train to go to Boston.They’d heard hundreds of stories about Boston, which had been classified on a level restricted only to soldiers that had been in the area, or the highest echelons of command in the War. Though there were rumors that there was something, some great and terrible secret so world-shaking that it could only be trusted with the highest in command…. and, improbably, Kraber and Aegis.

“You don’t want to know,” Aegis answered. Then, upon seeing the rather predictable looks he was seeing: “No. Really. You don’t want to,” he continued, punctuated by a nauseated, hateful, physically sickened look on Kraber’s face. “Just hearing about it from him was bad enough. And shut up, all of you! You want to bring the PER on us?!”

The water treatment plant was full of strange, arcane machinery. Lights blinked between huge, massive tubes, and the lights flickered overhead.

A light flickered nearby, revealing a logo like a bizarre apple-core shaped cloud.

“Macroburst,” Oakes spat. “That goddamn…”

A lot of America knew of that pegasus-he’d revolutionized seemingly every power plant in America, creating cleaner and more efficient power through pegasus magic.

Something about that didn’t feel right to Dominique. The HLF frequently tapped into local power grids, so they’d probably used something of his… Angus Reid had brought this up when trying to get her to leave with him and various others, last year just before Christmas.

But…

The HLF was human! It was pure and true! Even if you used something from Macroburst, even if there was something on the news about some victory from the governments that sold themselves to the PHL (Like every country that hadn’t been eaten by now) the HLF was the only way to go that didn’t involve being a pony-pounder. They were right, they weren’t selling themselves out...

But was that so good?

“When was the last time we were like that?” Angus had asked a year ago, taking a swig of whiskey and flicking off the portable TV after news of a PER attack on a refugee train in Kazakhstan, one that Russian PHL forces had successfully repelled. “In the news, hailed as heroes? With people looking up to us, wondering if they could ever be so brave?”

Dominique had said that while she couldn’t remember that, she’d pointed out that they shouldn’t worry - the humans in the PHL and anyone that allied with them were horsefuckers, sellouts to the goddamn geldos taking over their world, and they were-

“Stop,” Angus said. Dominique’s reverie had been brought to a screeching halt so suddenly, that single word so sudden that her eyes darted across the room, between the PHL-modified machinery, looking for the source of his voice. But he wasn’t speaking, of course-this was how the memory had gone. “Dominique. Those aren’t your words… they’re Janvier’s. They’re Batshit Birch’s,” he’d said, referring to a famously deranged Thenardier Guard convinced he’d seen ponies kidnapping people before the War. “The HLF’s words. Are you gonna speak your own words, or speak what you’re told?”

He’d been implying he’d go turncoat and join the PHL. But… she had to stay with the HLF. Ponies had destroyed her home and countless other places. Ponies had turned her friends and family into grotesque parodies of themselves.

How could she forgive that?

The pointman, a scrawny, bearded, twitching man with an almost blunderbuss-sized shotgun, opened the door…

Only to find themselves in an old lobby that might have once been sterile at some point. It was decorated in throwaway, cheap furniture, a lot of which might have once been taken from a junkyard. Good furniture was hard to come by these days, being grabbed up under an ever-growing swarm of refugees.

Regardless, it was a fairly large room, full of desks and small cubicles. The terrible, eye-assaultingly, sickeningly bright carpet from the seventies was stained with unidentifiable mess. At the other end, behind a barricade of desks, there crouched a trembling man.

“Should I shoot him?” Oakes muttered.

But that was lost in what was about to happen.

“Oh thank God!” the man gasped, holding the Super V rifle that seemed to be standard for this Dead End. It had the PHL symbol emblazoned on it, alongside numerous odd bits and bobs. The armor he was wearing looked to have been scavenged from someone else, judging by the bloodstains and how loose it hung on him. His helmet hung at an odd, jaunty angle. On top of that, he was wearing a light blue jumpsuit, also covered in blood. “Reinforcements! Wait…” he glanced at the HLF, their rough-looking gear and weaponry. “You’re HLF. I know you’re not in the mood, but the PER are here! We need all the help we can get!”

He might have been PHL, but something about those words struck a chord with Dominique. She motioned forward, ready to help….

“Please!” he yelled. “The lab’s only barely holding out! They’ll run out of ammunition soon, and there’s people getting ponified in here! The longer they hold out, the more people get ponified to serve as reinforcements, and the more they’d need help!”

He was begging. Pleading, even.

“Go to hell, horsefucker!” one of the Glanzon’s Gluemakers men yelled, pulling out a heavy revolver and firing.

Even Dominique got in the action, and before anyone could tell her not to, to undertake all the little rituals that’d come up with to protect themselves from the thaumic radiation, she grabbed the PHL gun and fired.

“Wha… ?! Sixty-two?! How did you-?!” the man gasped out as he dropped down behind the desk, whole and unharmed.

“SHIELDS!” the Gluemaker screamed, and everyone else in the HLF cursed. PHL magic shields had been the bane of many a unit as they changed everything between the two groups.

If magical shields had a rating system and the Solar Tyrant Royal Guards were the standard shield strength, then the PHL took them far beyond that. The bigger varieties could stop antitank rounds dead, even stop an (unenchanted) rocket attack in its flight. They’d been used to devastating effect during the Battle of Defiance, virtually destroying the HLF’s ability to resist the PHL. Even the few stolen PHL weapons the HLF had stowed in Defiance had been stonewalled.

The HLF had reacted to them predictably, by gobbling up more and more high-caliber weapons to use against them, and quietly cursing their use while trying to take pride in the fact that they ‘hadn’t sold their souls to the goddamn kickstands.’

Unfortunately, their pride was not bulletproof or explosion-proof.

“...You know what?!” the man screamed. “FUCK YOU! FUCK ALL THE BIGOTRY YOU SONS OF BITCHES HAVE, YOU’VE DOOMED US ALL!” he ran out a nearby door.

“Should we… follow him?” one HLF member named Haymoss asked.

“No, he’s just one man,” Janvier said. “We got more important things.”

“Saving people from ponification?” Dominique suggested.

“...They’re pony-pounders, they don’t count,” Janvier said dismissively. “No. What we’re looking for…. are those delicious PHL weapons in the factory. The ammunition and guns they somehow use when we’re forced to use…” he hefted his rifle, a .50 Beowulf AR, “These ungainly things. This could be an advantage we might use to win the war… to take America back from those goddamn horsefuckers and show the country the right way to fight the ponies.”

“...I’m telling you, I heard gunshots!” someone said, walking closer. “Look. I remember stealth games from when I was human-”

“That’s disgusting!” said someone else.

“Bear with me,” the first person said. “There’d always be guards that’d say ‘is it the wind?’ or something when monkey-me was sneaking up on them. Now, since when does the wind sound like bullets or humans screaming?!”

No.

They were trotting.

“Oh, shit,” Dominique whispered as the HLF around her held their weapons, ready to fire.

Dalibor opened one of the supply closets, shoving the dead PER members in, as Touchdown focused his horn at the floor, cleaning up the blood. He focused his horn, attempting to listen in on PER communications.

He decided not to tell anyone how many people had been ponified since Yael convinced them to get to the factory and take out the PER on the offense. Kraber and Aegis would never forgive themselves.

Meanwhile, down the hallway, Abraham, Kraber, and Johnny C were shooting newfoals.

“We any closer to the factory?” Kraber asked.

Heliotrope reached into her saddlebags, pulling out a map of the Dead End, almost microscopically detailed. She stared at it for a moment, then pointed to their location with one hoof. They were in one of the new concrete tenements-the bridge to the lab, and the wall where the PER were forming a garrison.

“Let’s hope they’re not making a portal station,” Heliotrope whispered. They knew what that meant- a portal station was certain doom for a city. The whole place would get bombed, and then bombed some more, and then, for variety’s sake, bombed again. Then scoured by PHL cleaners with special flamethrowers or tesla weaponry, then gassed in ‘sensitive’ areas to decontaminate it of the potion.

The next ten minutes passed without incident. The eight of them negotiated the narrow corridors, stabbing and shooting PER until-

Alarms blared. Suddenly, the lights in the corridors were flashing red, and a hijacked PA system burst into life. They all looked around frantically, assault saddles readying, rifles aimed.

“We have been infiltrated!” someone screamed, in what was undoubtedly the high, piercing tones of a newfoal. One of the ‘zombie’ types.

“The fuck?!” Dalibor swore.

“I TOLD you,” Kraber sighed, a weary smile on his face as he unlimbered his MG2023. “Let the good times roll, everyone.”

“An alarm? Already?!” Aegis hissed. “Dammit!”

“But who could have-” Yael started. She sighed, then looked at Kraber.

“How the fok is this my fault?!” Kraber hissed. “I’ve been right here the whole fokking time!”

“They are in the water treatment plant! All hooves are commanded to acquire new resources-”

Dalibor, Johnny C, Abraham, and Yael shared a Look. It was the look of one that had realized they were well and truly screwed, practically part of the uniform for humans and ponies not affiliated with the Solar Empire.

Kraber didn’t have it. “Yael,” he said, shaking in anger, “We all know what that means. Remember when you and Aegis said to get to the lab, take out the defenses on the wall, and kill the PER? Now it’s a rescue mission.”

“Good decision,” Aegis said, sheathing his dagger and activating his assault saddle, letting the twin F3-Thunderlords on his back fold outward. “Let’s do it. Not a moment to lose.”

He heard trotting up ahead. The sound of stampeding. A smile broke out across Kraber’s face. “And I say we go back to the place I wanted to earlier. Seems closer.”

Aegis knew that smile. That was a ‘Let’s kill lots of ponies’ smile.

And for the first time in awhile, he felt like he welcomed that.

“Where the fuck are they coming from?!” Dominique yelled, firing the PHL gun, watching as its beam stabbed through another horde of newfoals. “They’re coming out of the goddamn walls!”

Dominique was so sure that the new foals were not an issue anymore, but then remembered just how much land the Barrier had swallowed up before the ‘Pause’, and a lot of PHL and military forces were spread thin in trying to keep them back.

Of course a few would sneak through, and they targeted any city they deemed worthy of anarchy and they had hit quite a few innocent people on the way to the Motor City.

“Die fuckers!” a Gluemaker screamed as he used his shotgun to blow away several new foals, only for a unicorn to rip apart one of his sleeves and douse it with potion. Dominique froze as she saw the famous HLF soldier grabbed several of his grenades and pulled the pins, fighting through the pain and threw himself into the horde, most of them opening their legs to catch him with their smiling face, only to get blown to bits as the man’s suicidal charge into them.

“Dom! Snap out of it, girl Keep fighting!”

Callery Pear hadn’t understood the plan. He’d wanted to ponify the humans right then and there, save them the trouble and give them enough power to storm that blasphemous PHL facility and destroy the disgusting magic/technology hybrids that were being made there.

But he’d been told that humanity was desperate to keep their own from being ponified, so this would force them into what his commanding officer, a newfoal himself, called a ‘sadistic choice’. They could either risk an outbreak and kill off their population and lose one of their largest cities, or voluntarily cripple their war effort. And if they took too long, they could just ponify everyone and storm it already.

A human, Polish if the Earth Orientation classes he’d taken were correct, was screaming at him from behind her door. Just because he’d ponified her sister Ramona. She was happier, wasn’t she? Sheesh, humans were so narrow-minded about these things. Just like that armed human over there, the one with the… huge… guns...

Oh, bu-

“KABOOM, BABY!” Kraber yelled, firing his revolver into the earth pony with the pear cutie mark. Blood spattered the ceiling, and the bloody remains of the four ponies next to him. Remains of his stomach decorated the wall.

They were in what might have once been a hallway, and was still lined with apartments-but at the other end, there was a narrow homemade bridge leading to another building where, if the sounds of lighter gunfire were any indicator, there were more humans holed up.

“INTRUDERS!” a PER pony screamed. “It’s the HLF, so they shouldn’t be much of a-” He gazed up at Kraber with his heavy revolver and massive LMG, the huge earth pony stallion with the assault saddle behind him, along with the short, stocky man firing off his rifle, and the Israeli woman with the somehow ramshackle-looking rifle. “Oh NO.”

“Well, he’s technically right,” Johnny C said, firing his Leshiy into that pony, a single round beheading him like a tiny guillotine. “I mean, Kraber there is-”

“I quit that fokking kak a year ago!” Kraber said, almost conversationally, firing the Quetzalcoatl again, splitting another PER pony in half, along with the three or so behind him. The wooden door burst into splinters, embedding themselves in a charging horde of newfoals. They screamed, and Kraber fired again into the mass of them, the explosive pellets of the revolver ripping through each of them, awkwardly chopping off limbs, leaving massive holes in the barrels of newfoals, and disorienting the ponies and humans behind them. Like clockwork, Yael, Aegis, and Johnny C fired their weapons semi-automatically, downing them with a bullet or two each. “God DAMN I love this fragnum!” Kraber laughed.

“...Fragnum?” Johnny C asked, scoring a headshot on a PER member taking cover in a doorway. The .308 round punched through the concrete, obliterating the man’s right shoulder blade. The forensics guys would claim ‘it looked like he was attacked with a gun that shot angry wolves.’

“Ja,” Kraber said, “Cause it’s a magnum… and it shoots flak… or frag...” He looked confused for a second, and fired again, nailing a PER man with a shotgun, one that he knew from experience to be loaded with improvised grenades full of ponification potion. The PER man’s chest caved in for a second… then erupted outward into a fountain of gore, the explosive buckshot pellets inside the wax slug punching their way out his stomach, impacting against the walls and at least one unfortunate newfoal.“ The newfoal’s right legs were blown clean off, along with most of his stomach, and he screamed, hopping backward on the stumps, then keeling over. “Huh. Should it be ‘flaknum’ then?”

“Flaknum doesn’t have the same ring to it,” Aegis said, squeezing his mouth down on the trigger for his Thunderlords, the rounds ripping through even more newfoals. “Hey. Wait, you’re German, don’t you call those hand cannons zimmerflak?”

“Don’t we have more important things to worry about?!” Yael asked, as Johnny C kicked a door off its hinges, releasing a polish woman and several other people inside. “Like all the newfoals?” She fired the Galil, headshotting another pony. “Besides. Call it a flaknum, and it throws off the reference to Borderlands.”

Johnny C sighed, kicking open yet another door. “You really aren’t as above it all as you think, are you?”

Yael responded to this by shooting a grenade from her Metal Storm 3GL at one of the supports for improvised neon sign on the building across from them, exploding a pegasus pony and sending the sign plummeting to the ground, pinning at least three unfortunate newfoal pegasi as it fell to the ground… and crushing four earth ponies on the ground, before the sign burst into sparks, electrocuting and immolating several more ponies in the immediate area.

“Gonna take that as no…” Johnny C said.

“Take this!” Kraber yelled, tossing his silenced .45 to the Polish woman. “You know how to use a 1911?”

She frantically nodded yes, holding it in a two-handed grip, and fired two rounds into a newfoal’s head. “Need more ammo! You only threw me one pistol with one mag, you-”

“Sorry, it looked cool at the time!” Kraber apologized, firing the Quetzalcoatl again, literally splitting a pegasus in half. The pellets, held together by the magic wax in the slugs, exploded outward, ripping apart the wall and several newfoals. Within the space of a second, he was standing next to the Polish woman, thrusting the belt for his .45 and the pouch for his magazines onto her waist. “Take good care of this.”

She nodded as Kraber reloaded, slamming the speedloader into the cylinder and flicking the Quetzalcoatl shut. Which was incredibly unsafe, but the runes on the revolver kept the cylinder perfectly aligned. “There’s a locker nearby, full of PHL guns,” she said. “In case of an emergency. I think the newfoals are trying to get in and destroy the guns.”

“That’s what Abraham, Dalibor, Heliotrope, and Touchdown are for,” Kraber explained. “They’re securing it as we speak.”

“...you sure you brought enough men to do that?” a teenager asked.

“Mmm. Good point,” Aegis said.

Meanwhile, Kraber was switching to his shotgun, a Kel-Tec KSG. He fired, aiming at another PER man with a shotgun, this one aiming at them from a high window on the building on top of them.

“I mean, it’s not very fair for the newfoals, is it?” Aegis continued.

The buckshot obliterated the PER man’s left shoulder, sending him twirling around like a drunken ballerina, then suddenly, impossibly, falling out the window, onto the flaming neon sign. “...Or that guy. I mean, fok…” Kraber said, listening to his screams.

“Quick! More humans fighting from the east side of the plant!” A voice called out, Kraber and the others stared at one another, frowning as the new foals continued onwards passed below them.

“Other humans?” Yael asked, dread on her face, listening as she heard the sound of gunfire in the distance. Kraber frown as he listened in as well.

“Well fok.” Kraber growled, “I know those kak sounding zipguns.” he paused, listening carefully. “.50 BMG, firing that slowly… FOK! Those are the-”

“HUMAN LIBERATION FRONT, BITCHES!” Oakes screamed out as he shot a new foal in the face.

“We have to fall back!” Dominique cried out as the PHL gun began to glow brightly in her hands. She froze up, recognizing the tactic of a gun being ripped from her hands, only for the glow to vanish and hear a cry of a new foal as his horn exploded in a gory mess. Dominique stared at the gun in shock, then the newfoal clutching a hole in his head where she could see his brains. There a smile on her face before she leveled the gun on the new foal and killed him, splattering him all over the floor. “Never mind. Say what you will about the PHL, they know guns.”

“Yeah, fucking glue! Keep running into our bullets you useless pricks!” an HLF woman laughed.

“Not so fucking useless now, are we?!” a turkish man yelled.

“Silence human!” a unicorn cried out as she threw up a potion vial into the air, but instead of letting it drop, she hit it with a spell that caused it to explode.

“Watch out! Scatter!” Oakes cried out as he took cover, while a majority of them had protection a few of them had that ripped off. He roared in anger as several of the Gluemakers began to wither on the ground, their cries of pain as they changed against their will. Several shots later and their cries stopped.

Dominique blinked at the shift of mood, they were winning and now they were struggling to survive as a new wave came rushing forward. She stared as they flowed in, their smiles on their faces causing her to think back to being a little girl.

They rushed forward, intent to change them and become slaves to their mad queen.

“No…” Dominique raised her gun and began to fire, only to hear a familiar click. She stared at the gun, she fumbled to reload with one of the strange batteries as the horde got closer. She looked to the others and saw them taking cover, reloading their weapons as quickly as they can. It was then she realized that she was in front of the group, her weapon being the game changer in the fight.

And she was all alone.

“Well?” she asked, her voice quiet. “Come at me, if you think you’re hard enough,” she whispered, taunting them.

And come they did. They rushed at her as one, and Dominique fired again and again, blue beams of some kind of energy issuing out the muzzle, exploding any newfoal they hit.

But then, as she was turned in one direction, killing a newfoal off to the side, stomping on him just to keep him from potioning her, she twisted, her gun brought to bear...

As she watched an earth pony new foal pull back her leg to throw a potion at her, only for something to hit her in the head and bounce in front of the charging horde.

It was a grenade. Worst of all, it glowed-a clear indicator of…. of…

She didn’t have time to think about it. Dominique threw herself behind cover and clamped her hands over her ears.

*BOOM!*

Dominique slowly pulled herself from cover after a moment, the ringing in her ears dying down as she looked out of her cover. She couldn’t help but gawk at the gory scene before her.

Blood and guts strewn everywhere, painting the machines and walls in red. Several of the new foals were still twitching, others were still moving forward in an attempt to do their duty, coughing up the remains of their innards. “For… Celestia…” one whispered. “Humans… must… convert…”

There was barely anything left of it below the ribcage, and its fur was so stained with red it was impossible to tell what color it was. It looked like bits of somepony’s stomach were stuck to its barrel.

She shot it in the head with her magnum revolver.

She swallowed as the sound of heavy footsteps echo from behind the dead new foals, watching as a burly and bearded man in heavy armor walked into the room. He was loaded up with a shotgun, a large machinegun resembling an MG2019 (and thus resembling an MG42) mounted above an odd weapon of inscrutable purpose that must have doubled the weight, and a heavy revolver.

A very familiar and hated man.

“Well… well… well…” The man said as he stomped on a dying newfoal’s head, crushing it under his boots. “Look at what the fokking lion dragged in. Dominique. We meet again. But this time, who would have thought I would be the one saving you?!”

“Victor Kraber…” Oakes spat in anger as he saw a pony and three more humans fall in behind him, taking cover behind the various machines strewn across the large plant area. “And he brought friends.”

“Overdose Oakes too? Huh. Nice to see you too, pielkop.”

“Give it up traitor.” Janvier growled, many of the HLF members pointing their weapons at him and the others. “You are outnumbered here.”

“Stiffle. When have you ever known that to get a rise out of me? Honestly, I’m just stopping by to say hi. Second, I’m not outgunned!” Kraber said with a smile as he hefted his MG2023. “Wanna see what this big fokkin gun does?”

Oakes only smiled as nodded to Dominique, who quietly finished loading her weapon before hefting it up and pointing at Kraber. “Not quite as big as yours, but just as effective.”

Kraber blinked as he stared at the gun in the teen’s hands, before giving off a bark of laughter. “Ha! I remember that gun! Fun to shoot, but it still has so many fokking issues! Believe me, bakvissie, you don’t want to be holding that gun for much longer unless you know how to purge it.”

“Easy.” Dominique growled as she triggered the ‘EM-62’ gun, hitting Kraber in the chest, only to see a blue shield to appear around him. The handguard seemed a little hotter now.

And all he did was smile, a really condescending one.

“Tell me, you fokking scared little boys and girls… why do you think we don’t use those fokkin District 9 guns in the PHL?” Kraber asked with a laugh, Dominique felt the gun began to shake. “At least… ones not ready for the field.”

Dominique threw the gun away as it began to turn red hot at Kraber, who only kicked the weapon aside and watched with interest as the gun’s plastic and metal furniture literally melted, the electric components sparking and then, all of a sudden, exploding. Kraber only looked back to HLF as they stared at shock at their secret weapon melting before their eyes.

“Shame too, good gun, unstable magic enchantments.” Kraber levelled his own monster gun at them. “Mine doesn’t do that by the way. And it can punch through walls, and electrocute you.”

Janvier gritted his teeth, watching as several of his men began to back away in fear. The most dangerous of them, Viktor Kraber, the man who’d blown up several bureaus on his own, killed most of the ponies in his hometown, slaughtered newfoal rushes on his own with a stolen PHL gun, made impossible shots with his .50 revolver, survived the Battle of Fethiye and Battle of Istanbul, was already deadly in his own right. He had shields to protect himself, he had armor piercing rounds that made their own look like peashooters, he had magic on his side. They’d made a monster worse.

It’s not fair. Dominique felt tears stinging her eyes. We… We suffer for years. We lose good men to this. And the PHL just waltz in and take it over! Is there anything those goddamn geldos won’t steal from us?!

“So. What’s it gonna be?” Kraber asked with smile.

“I’ll die before I join you!” one Gluemaker yelled. “You… you sonsabitches are one and the same with the PER!”

The five PHL members, including the Polish woman, and even a few HLF members, stared at him.

“...What... the... fok?” Kraber breathed.

“So, you were wondering how he was the sane one for the HLF?” Aegis asked Yael, raising an eyebrow.

“I’m sorry for doubting you,” Yael said, staring in shock. Then she looked down to Aegis. “Yeah, yeah, I’ll pay up…”

“Yes! I needed more beer money!” Aegis cheered.

“Yeah, that’s right!” the Gluemaker yelled. “I know what you did to the Carter girl, you goddamn horsefuckers! You turned her into one of those zombies, and-”

“ALRIGHT, SHUT THE FOK UP, STRONT VIR BREINS! GAAN KAK IN JOU MA SE MOER!” Kraber roared at him, Quetzalcoatl revolver in hand, momentarily cowing the Swiss man into silence. “WE… DO NOT… PONIFY PEOPLE, JOU PIELKOP! GET THAT THROUGH YOUR HEAD, WE DO NOT MAKE THEM ZOMBIES, AND IF YOU SAY THAT AGAIN, I WILL FOKKING SHOOT YOUR BALLS OFF AND FEED THEM TO THE NEIGHBORHOOD DOGS! And secondly, Verity Carter is still the same old Thenardier psychobitch she always was! And she was actually-”

He frowned as he looked at the windows. “FOK! Everyone, get down!”

Dominique screamed as the windows exploded as new foals rushed into the plant, everyone pointing to the ceiling as they began to fire on the what could only be the final rush.

A massive white earth pony stallion with a red bandanna and a brownish-black mane, and two humans, a tall woman, a short man with messy golden-brown hair burst in the door, and began firing. Dominique took out her revolver and hid under a desk, watching as the two groups fought off the horde.

It couldn’t be different from night as from day.

The HLF sprayed and prayed, firing their surplus and ugly homebrewed rifles into the newfoals, taking ponification potion, screaming and laughing, pouring bullets into the pegasi. They didn’t do anything to help each other, they sometimes fell back further and further from one another until they found themselves alone and surrounded. Easy pickings.

Kraber and the PHL fought back in silence. Well, everyone but Kraber did. Only talking when they needed to, covering each other when they reloaded. The pony jumped to the humans to take potion hits, even when it was unnecessary. The humans kicked off any new foals that tried to take down that huge pony they worked with in close quarters. Predictably, Kraber would kick them in the face as he fired his heavy LMG. All as a single, effective, military unit. Behind them hiding behind a desk, a redheaded polish woman fired a .45 pistol.

“Kill them!” Janvier screamed in rage, pointing at the PHL. “We can take their weapons from their corpses!”

“ARE YOU TUNING ME KAK?!” Kraber yelled incredulously. “Janvier... Just think for a moment, do the right thing for once in your fokking life before I decide to do to you what I did to Lovikov.”

“...Boss, are you sure?” one woman asked. “You know what he did.”

Normally, this threat worked on HLF members-Captain Lovikov’s disturbing, bloody fate outside that hospital had been a sort of boogeyman to HLF units. Even Verity Carter had been afraid of that when Kraber first discovered her in PHL headquarters, even as terrified and confused as she had been to find herself on four legs...

Unfortunately, Janvier was a particular kind of crazy.

“Fucking bastards!” Johnny growled as his shields flared to life, bullets hitting his shields as he took aim at a HLF and drilled him between the eyes.

“I told you this was a bad idea!” Yael yelled.

“I knew they were crazy, but I didn’t think they were gebore uit jou ma se poephol want haar fokken kont was te besig!” Kraber yelled back, jumping behind a large machine. “Seriously, what the fok! Gan kaak n’ aap, fok jou en jou hele familie, loop naai jou hand, sit jou kop in die koei se kont en wag tot die bul jou kom holnaai! Jou ma naai vir bus-geld en loop steeds, jou bliksems! Jy lyk soos die nageboorte van 'n vark wat deur die hoenderkak gesleep was!”

Aegis’ jaw dropped. That was too much, even by Kraber’s standards. In the crowd of HLF, one woman, presumably one with an understanding of Afrikaans wilted at the tirade.

“What’d he say?” Dominique yelled.

“You don’t want to know!” she yelled back.

“Ignore them!” Kraber shouted as he sprayed the bullets into the bodies overhead. “Their weapons aren’t worth kak, and neither are they!”

“Fuck that shit!” Yael yelled, firing the grenade launcher at them, but the HLF just scattered the moment she pulled it out and aimed at them.

“No, screw this!” yelled the woman that had just understood Kraber. “What are we even doing?! This is stupid, and-”

Janvier shot her in the face, and she fell over. “Another goddamn betray-”

“Staan op jou kop dat ek in jou poes kan kak, jou poes in n vark se gat!” Kraber yelled, and fired the Quetzalcoatl at Janvier’s groin. It was in shotgun mode this time.

Blood, fragments of bone and the crappy metal-lined ‘kevlar’ Janvier wore, and pubic hair exploded out everywhere, splattering the HLF standing nearby and blowing apart anything between his bellybutton and the knees. Janvier’s torso actually flew up a foot or two, even as he screamed in agony, and he landed facefirst on the floor. HLF members beside him were thrown to the floor, their limbs shredded by the shrapnel and the force of the explosion, screaming in agony. A Glock, converted to .50AE, landed on the floor.

Wow, those things really are built tough, Johnny C thought.

“I have been wanting to do that for three years, jou bliksem!” Kraber yelled, even as a new foal threw himself at him, just to get backhanded and blown away with his shotgun.

“...More than you deserve, you prick,” the woman said, hand to her head as she clutched the bloody gash that the bullet had dug as it curved around her skull. Pulling out a heavy pistol, a vaguely Mauser-like gun that PHL referred to as the ‘Lolife’, she shot Oakes in the head as he laid dying on the ground.

She rushed over to the PHL, picking a Brazilian .50 BMG rifle that a ponified Gluemaker had been carrying, and taking cover, firing into the mass of newfoals.

“You working with us now?” Aegis yelled, firing his Thunderlords into several more newfoals.

“Might not like it-” she fired the ungainly, rusty rifle over the table, as it split an unshielded newfoal in half- “But I’m not working with the assholes that shot me in the head for disagreeing with them!”

“They are thinning out! Finish them off!” Kraber roared out, firing off his LMG, everyone in the plant shredding the remaining new foals.

“Join-” one started only for his head to vanish in the mist of blood and bone from the Polish woman’s .45.

Another rushed at Yael, but she dropped it with a .308 round from her Galil.

The MG2023 blazed in Kraber’s hands, its heavy .338 Norma Magnum rounds ripping through newfoals. Then, suddenly, it stopped firing. And Kraber smiled.

“EAT THIS!” he yelled, pulling that odd secondary trigger on the weapon….

And suddenly, a miniature thunderstorm burst out of the bizarre secondary attachment on his LMG, the one that had likely added twice the weight. Lightning crackled all over the room, splattering several newfoals into pink mist, frying any newfoals unfortunate enough to be in the vicinity. Their muscles spasmed, leaving them shaking, stuck in place, and the PHL used this opportunity to rip through them.

The HLF could only stare in shock and horror at the weapon Kraber wielded, before they continue to fight for their survival against the new foals.

And the mess of bodies continued to pile up.

“Think they’re alright?” Abraham asked, as the five of them walked down the silent corridor.

Well, mostly silent. They could hear noises not too far away.

“...You hear that?” Heliotrope asked.

“I smell that,” Dalibor said. “Ozone, blood, burnt fur and flesh….”

“Screaming, don’t forget the screaming…” Heliotrope added.

He and Heliotrope looked at each other. “Yeah, our friends are alright.”

Beside them, Touchdown bucked open a door, releasing a crowd of filthy, trembling residents. They looked down at him, almost instinctively cringing in fear… before realizing that he wore a heavy assault saddle, and he was standing near several humans with weaponry. As an equal.

“Oh thank God!” one man gasped, hugging him around the neck, kissing him in joy. “PHL!”

Touchdown blushed slightly. “Thank ya kindly, sir. We’re looking for the weapons locker.”

“Good luck,” said a girl that looked like a Pacific Islander of some sort, Touchdown wasn’t sure. Not that he was one of those ponies that thought all humans looked alike, he just didn’t know much about the Pacific, which he considered a real shame. “I heard some newfoals were trying to break that door down and destroy the guns…except... one of them was my brother.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Dalibor said, shaking her hand. “Abe and I lost our parents to the Potion.”

“But not my daughter,” Abraham added. “Thankfully.”

“...Daughter? Parents?” asked someone else, a stocky man who looked to be of Nordic descent. “How old are you two?”

“Eighteen,” Abraham said.

“I’m sixteen,” Dalibor added.

“Oh, this war,” the man sighed. “That it brings kids to those levels…”

“And trust me,” Abraham continued, and reached over his back, unlimbering the odd-looking weapon on his back. “I promise you, none of you are going to lose anyone else today.”

“You mean it?” the Pacific Islander asked, watching curiously as Touchdown bucked open yet another door, only to get mobbed and hugged by a crowd of humans… and a few ponies as well.

“I swear on the Torah I brought out of Prague,” Abraham said, raising his shotgun.

“You’re not going to pump it?” another woman asked.

“And waste a perfectly good round?” Abraham asked back.

Silence rang out in the plant, the two groups stared at one another.

The surviving members of the ragged HLF, tired and exhausted, looking worse for wear and dosed in blood. Across from them was the PHL, clean and standing tall, their armor and weapons glowing with magic.

“So,” Yael said, looking them over, “Do we have an understanding?” She then glanced at what little remained of Janvier.

“If not…” Kraber reloaded his LMG, making sure they heard the metallic click. “I can change your mind.”

The Gluemakers, those few that remained scowled at him and his crew, spitting in his direction before turning to leave.

Only to stop as a few of the HLF members remained behind, Dominique included.

“Why are you here?” the bleeding woman asked, wincing as several of the members tried their best to clean her wound.

“To save people.” Kraber said, staring directly into her eyes. “To keep the clean water flowing for the city. To keep the new foals from hitting us from behind. A score of things really.”

All of them stared at the PHL members before they walked up to them.

“Please… Let us join you,” she said.

“Hey! Just because they-” one of the Gluemakers began to stalk up to them, only to back off when Kraber and the others pointed their weapons at them.

“Oh shut up!” she scowled at the Gluemakers, “Fucking Swiss fuckers and their useless fucking-”

“Easy, Tamika, don’t aggravate the wound,” Dominique said. “You are lucky to be alive. I mean, I can understand if it was a nine, but… man had a lolife!”

“Trust me, he was one. And I can treat that,” Kraber said, kneeling down beside Tamika.

Dominique scowled at him, but Kraber ignored her, reaching into one of the various pouches. “Let’s see… gauze. Gauze… Here.” he pulled out a roll of gauze, and a pair of tweezers, then knelt down by her side, peering at the bleeding head wound. He squinted. “Doesn’t seem to be anything in there… that’s good.” He placed the gauze on her forehead, tying it around, watching the stain spread across. “I think you’ll be fine. And don’t peek at this for fifteen minutes, otherwise you’ll keep bleeding.”

“Sometimes I forget you were a doctor,” Yael said.

“Eh, that? That’s child’s play,” Kraber said dismissively. “Honestly, I wanted to be a writer and make radio dramas. I was gonna transfer out, then Kate got pregnant, so…” he shrugged.

“I’m… sorry it ended up that way,” Yael said.

“Eh, don’t be,” Kraber said. “I loved being a dad.”

“You’re still good at it,” Aegis pointed out. “Anyway… Let’s get going then.”

“Do we get fancy guns like yours?” asked one of the remaining HLF members.

“Not yet. First, we don’t have any to spare, second, you’ll have to learn not all the ponies are out to kill us--”

"Bullshit! They are spies, man!" one HLF man shouted.

"Yes, ‘spies’ that spend most of their time protecting humans from becoming unthinking golems and killing newfoals,” Aegis growled at him, his saddle-guns pointing at the HLF man. “Honestly, I’d think we have a lot in common. I don’t like Equestria anymore than you do. Hell, I’d say I hate it more.”

“Oh, trust me,” Kraber agreed, “He does.”

“You’ve never nearly lost your kids to fascism, or had your wife go insane, seen strikebreaking straight of China Mieville’s nightmares, as Kraber put it,” Aegis continued. “Seen surveillance devices go up on every block. You’ve never seen your neighbors carted off for no reason and practically lobotomized when they came back. You’ve never had your queen turn into a raging, deranged-” he paused. “Wait. This is America. All presidents get a bit crazy,” he joked. “But…. you’ve never seen your home just invert itself like that. You don’t hate Equestria or ponies. You don’t know what either of those things are.”

“Enough of this,” Johnny growled, scowling at the remaining HLF, reloading his gun and holding it at the ready. “We don’t have time for your shit. Either help us purge the zombies or leave.”

The few HLF that refused to stand with the others scowled, many of them wanting to fight them but after seeing a mere four soldiers of the PHL fighting against a horde many times their size and walk away cleanly stayed their hands.

Dominique swallowed as she watched the two groups stare off at one another until Tamika gave a painful smile and stepped next to them.

Many of them soon followed her example as they stood next to the group until all the remains was herself standing between the two, alone again. She swallowed as she looked to Kraber and his team, remembering who the current leader of the PHL was.

“Hold on!” someone screamed. “I’m coming! Just stay put!”

“It’s… it’s a pony!” Jean said. “Not gonna miss this time-”

“Don’t shoot!” she screamed. “I don’t have any vials! I’m going to help!”

“It’s Cheerilee!” Jean gasped. “I trust her!”

“Cheerilee…” Dominique said quietly, looking at them. “What did she do to become the leader of the PHL?”

“Other than bang the Commander silly with that shapely ass of hers?” Kraber said with a grin, causing Aegis to facehoof, an almost embarrassed smile on his face.

Many of the HLF hissed in revulsion at his words.

“Well, she does have a nice ass,” Aegis conceded. “But it’s because she loves children, she nearly died for it when the war kicked off. She does a lot for the PHL, for the people in the crossfire and with nowhere to turn to. For being a badass mare able to face against the Tyrant. And punching the shit out of her. For all the kids in our army, she’s practically a second mother.”

Dominique felt tears run down her face. If… if only she’d stayed. If only she’d trusted Cheerilee. If only....

“Now I got one question for all of you. What have you done like that?” Yael asked. “Do what she did? Sacrifice your time and life to teach children, to teach them the wonders of both magics and science? Teach them right from wrong? Teach them to be brave and proud of themselves? Teach them…”

Kraber looked down, frowning somewhat. Aegis placed a hoof on his back, somewhere above Kraber’s waist. He knew what that look meant.

And Kraber placed a hand in Aegis’ mane. “Thanks, bro,” Kraber said, not quite smiling as he remembered that day.

“Viktor Kraber…” Cheerilee looked up at him, a frown on her face. “There’s a lot of warrants for your arrest. A reward, even. There’s people that want you executed.”

“Guess that’s what I deserve, then,” Kraber sighed.

“But… I have a question. There’s a lot of people, both humans and ponies, and at least one zebra that say they owe you their lives. Such as Kiki Palmer, Astral Nectar, and… Dancing Day.”

“Who?” Kraber asked. “I’m sorry. I just didn’t ask their names.”

“I see. Well, Astral Nectar and Dancing Day are two unicorns… Astral Nectar is blue-black, and has a telescope cutie mark, and Dancing Day has a yellow and orange mane and green coat, I think her cutie mark is… ballet hoofshoes?”

“Ah, them,” Kraber said, not sad, not happy, just collapsing, not sure how to feel.

“Why’d you do it?”

“I’d… had one of those days,” Kraber explained. “A terrible day. I lost a man I loved, I’d burned PER alive in tents, I… I killed a family.” He choked, sobbing. “And then, that goddamn fokking kontgesig Lovikov decided it’d cheer me up if we stopped a bunch of people on the highway and put the fear of the HLF in them. Maybe find some ponies, maybe get some… presents from motorists,” Kraber explained.

“Lovikov wasn’t exactly the smartest, was he?” Marcus asked.

“Dear God, you don’t even want to know,” Kraber sighed, laying his head on the table. “Promise me, when you see him… fok bullets, fok knives, just make him suffer. And then, at the checkpoint we made, I opened up the trunk, and…. I know it seems bosbefok, but I saw... I actually I… I saw my wife and kids in those two ponies. For a moment, it was Kate, Anka, and Peter staring up at me, and they were…” he sobbed, slouching down. “They were disappointed in me. They weren’t even angry, just pitying me, and it was worse for that! I just… I tried to pull the trigger, I tried to tell myself they were evil, ‘cause that’s all I knew, and it just didn’t work!”

Marcus and Cheerilee looked at him, unsure of how to feel.

“And… even if they weren’t, I’d realized there. Even if I’d suffered, I’d done just as bad to more ponies than I want to know, so I… I couldn’t take the guilt. I just let them go and shut down afterwards. I … was wrong… I thought I was the hero, I thought… you know what? My mother’s family were partisans during the second world war,” Kraber said. “They had to flee Germany, they were partisans in Poland. Smuggled arms into the Warsaw Ghetto, hid in forests with stolen or borrowed equipment. I was raised on my grandmother’s stories about that, you know. I hated Defiance, but I took it all in stride. I thought I was being like my great-grandparents, but… turns out I’m not the Żydowska Organizacja Bojowa. I’m just a rabid wolf that hurts everyone.”

“I see…” Cheerilee whispered, looking at him in a new light, Marcus standing behind her with a frown on his face and his gun in hand, pointed straight at Kraber’s head. “What do you want to do with your life now?”

“I want to fight… I want to fight for a true cause… I don’t want to be bosbefok, I don’t want to just be a killer.”

Cheerilee tilted her head, looking into his eyes before giving him a beautiful smile filled with warmth and compassion. “Then fight for us. Let us guide you, let us give you a chance to hurt the real enemy that took away your children and wife. Be our tip for our spear, free those trapped souls enslaved by the Tyrant.”

“You want me to be the same fokking killer?”

“I want you to be a soldier, not a wild beast. I want everyone to see that we can use everything we have at our disposal.” Cheerilee gave him a sad smile “I want you to be on the PHL, because I want everyone to see that even the most apparent sinful of people can have-”

“Forgiveness.” Kraber finished, looking at Dominique as she let the tears flow. “We all have sins in this war, some may haunt us for the rest of our lives. But it is ours and we have to atone for it. Cheerilee has her own demons, but she still smiles for those children whenever she can. She hates that many of those kids she had died in the line of duty. Even now, she beats herself up for being too slow, losing one of her kids against the Tyrant.”

“She did?”

“Yeah. I think one died in her forelegs, a French kid named Jean I think?” Kraber did not notice the stiffening of Dominique’s posture. “One of the first kids she ever saved during the start of the war, almost died doing it. The eldest, practically became her son that day, guided the other kids that came into her care. I think it struck her hard to lose him that way. But she needed to stay strong in front of the others… Until she was alone at least.”

“Jean…” Dominique whispered, remembering the brave boy from her class with the nail gun. Even with a fearful look, he gave them such a confident smile to keep them from worrying. Dominique sniffed as she walked over to them and stood behind Kraber, wiping her eyes with her sleeves.

“You knew him?” Aegis asked.

“We… we went to school together,” Dominique explained. “He… God knows where he got that nailgun, but I couldn’t trust Cheerilee,” she explained. The HLF members surrounding her stared in shock-they’d never heard this story, and Louissaint had made it clear that nobody should ask about it. “I just… I never got to say goodbye! Or… or anything!” she sobbed.

“By Luna’s mane,” Aegis breathed. “I’m… I’m so sorry.”

“What would you know?!” Dominique yelled. “You’re just an earth po-”

“My wife went crazy. Nearly brainwashed my foals,” Aegis said.

“...What?” Dominique asked.

“We’ve all lost someone,” Yael said, laying a hand on her shoulder. “I’ve lost a lot of my friends.”

“I lost my family farm, my home and some of my best friends,” Johnny C added. “Trust us. We can understand.”

Kraber smiled as they shared an understanding, while loss was not a good thing, it still brings people together. He turned to the HLF before he stepped towards them.

“Well…” Kraber said quietly, raising his eyebrow at the few remaining left, “I am giving you chance to leave, intact and whole. Apparently, I’m good at the whole ‘mercy’ thing. Befok, right?”

They all looked at him, intrigued.

Kraber stepped forward, a hard look on his face. “But if you come back, thinking you can get a drop on me or my team, or just want to kill the smart ones here. Then go right ahead and we can finish this here and now. And I promise… if you do, I will actually think you’re a threat this time.”

“Just stick close, don’t shoot him or any ponies with the assault saddles, and we’ll be golden,” Yael said.

“...Couldn’t have put it better myself,” Kraber said, whistling.

“Don’t mention it,” Yael said as they headed for the wall, and the factory. “And… I’m sorry. For doubting you.”

“What do you mean?” Kraber asked.

“You handled yourself… a hell of a lot better than most, that’s for sure,” Yael said. “I’ve seen rock-steady recruits that go… Bosbefok, right?”

“Shell-shocked, otherwise nuts?” Kraber suggested. “That what you mean?”

“Yeah, that’s exactly it! They do that right when they get in a real engagement,” Yael said. “But you… you had control. And you were a good shot. I can respect that. Besides… there’s another reason I have to apologize for doubting you.”

“And that is?”

“I doubted you cause you were ex-HLF, but I was seeing it the wrong way,” she said. “You’re not unreliable because of it. You’re reliable because you’re committed.”

“Thanks so much,” Kraber said, smiling slightly. Not bloodthirsty this time - it actually seemed, dare Aegis say it… happy? “It’s just been awhile since I got such high praise.”

Aegis coughed.

“Sorry!” Kraber apologized. “It’s just, well... you’re my best friend! I’m not used to having anyone besides you have faith in me!”

“I believe in you,” Johnny C said.

“Seriously?” Aegis asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Okay, I doubt him, but he’s a solid guy,” Johnny C said.

“IT’S AN EXPLOSION PARTY, BABY, AND EVERYONE’S INVITED!” Touchdown yelled, firing the LMGs on his back into the newfoals. “WE GOT PRESENTS FOR EVERYONE!”

The humans they’d rescued scrambled for the guns in the weapons locker, emptying every bullet into the newfoals that were running at them, screaming the saccharine inanities that might have constituted curse words for them. Abraham fired his strange weapon, bursts of flaming shrapnel exploding out its four barrels, shredding through the newfoals.

And yet they kept coming.

Thankfully, they had a whole lot of guns, and the Dead End residents they'd rescued had been gobbling them up-along with tons of ammunition. Weapons of every type blazed in the hands of the residents and the PHL, or in the mouths of what few ponies they'd been able to find.

One pony, a red unicorn, had been tied to a chair, as newfoals beat him for his 'betrayal'. He now wore an assault saddle, mouth clamped down on the triggers, bullets staggering and outright exploding any newfoals in their path.

"You know what this means, right?" Abraham asked.

"Yeah," Touchdown said, flexing under the massive assault saddle he wore. "See how those goddamn marionettes like it. CHARGE!”

Calling the Wall a nightmare would have been inadequate somehow. There was a huge killing-field between it and the Dead End's mass of buildings, specifically built to take out pegasi, or rushes of newfoals heading at the wall, which would have made a good defense...

...had the newfoals and PER not taken that too. Many of the defenses were brutalized by the newfoals, at least until one human had convinced them to use them to bombard the factory ahead.

The bridge between the two was a crumbling no-man's-land of wrecked trucks and exposed rebar under the concrete.

"How the hell do we take that?!" Tamika whispered.

“Easy,” Kraber said, turning on his radio. “Hey, Abraham?”

“Sir?” Abraham asked. “What’s up?”

“Well, he … kind of recruited some HLF defectors,” Aegis said sheepishly.

“...Again? Seriously?” Abraham asked. “...What crazy plan do you have?”

“Well, we distribute some of the defectors we have so we can take over the Wall,” Kraber said, pointing to the wall of the Dead End directly facing the river. It bristled with defenses-miniguns, oversized shotguns that were practically cannons, and explosives, all made to make sure that any newfoals clamoring up against the walls would be reduced to paste.

Beyond that was their original goal-the factory that the PER had been besieging. The surrounding air bent from a dark pink magical shield, and its own turrets were firing off at the Wall…

Which would have been good if the wall didn’t have a shield of its own. Both were engaged in a battle to whittle each other down… though the PER’s shield looked a bit too strong for comfort.

The PER was pretty much destined to fail, Dominique decided. Having humans in your ranks alongside newfoals and ponies that don’t even consider them sentient is a recipe for disaster.

It was almost insulting how easy it was to kill them. The ponies in their ranks had been given priority for gear, so what few humans they had that could be a threat at (comparatively) long range were easily dispatched by her friends and the PHL.

Well...

Much as she hated to admit it, the PHL made them look like they were playing around with old rifles from when ‘wasting ammo’ constituted ‘firing more than one shot’. Even the ponies! They’d found about seven more that had managed to barricade themselves in, adding to the number of the goddamn merry-go-round-toys.

The men were getting antsy and trigger-happy about it, though those two Czech brothers had made it clear in no uncertain terms that if they shot their friends, (Their friends, Dominique thought, amazed and disbelieving) they would come down mercilessly.

Only an idiot would have killed soldiers so effective, though. Dominique hated to admit it, but the PHL ponies were very, very good shots. Even though most of them had scarcely any way to aim.

“...How do you aim that, anyway?” she found herself asking the pegasus she knew to be named Heliotrope, watching as the slow yet heavy rounds from the two rifles mounted to the sides of her barrel.

“There’s targeting talismans linked up to a headset,” Heliotrope explained.

“Always wondered about that,” Dominique said. “Why… why are you being so accommodating?”

“I was there on Kraber’s first week in the PHL,” Heliotrope said. “The man was desperate, damn near no one was willing to forgive him… ‘cept for Aegis, Johnny, and a couple others. Though they were a bit unnerved after what Kraber did to Lovikov.”

Dominique nodded. Who wouldn’t be? It had been all over HLF circulars for awhile, and there’d just been so much blood and bits of brain everywhere, and even Kraber had admitted he’d gone too far.

“Putting Lovikov’s head where he did, well, it didn’t exactly make him seem likeable,” Heliotrope continued. “It was an impressive resignation, but… he was just so lonely. So, if you join, someone’s gotta welcome you.”

“I’m not joining the bloody PHL!” Dominique yelled.

“So you’re going back to the people that shot your friend in the head for not wanting to do a suicidal order,” that short little Czech guy named Dalibor said, sarcastically.

“...He makes a good point,” Abraham pointed out, firing his old Kalashnikov full-auto into a gaggle of newfoals with potion, careful to keep away from any drops of the purple liquid.

“...It’s… it’s just… you’re working with the same creatures that are trying to kill us!” another ex-HLF member protested.

“We are, yeah,” Abraham said. “But… they’re our friends. They’ve fought alongside us, they hate the Queen Bitch and they’ve suffered for all that they’ve helped us.”

“And there’s nowhere I’d rather be than here!” Touchdown exclaimed.

“Well, yeah,” Heliotrope said. “Besides-” she cut loose with a burst of full-auto, “Home just isn’t home anymore. Like what my friend Fiddlesticks said. But here? All of you? You’re still a hell of a lot nicer than there.”

Dominique pondered that. “...Really?”

“Well…” Dalibor said, firing his 4Sure Ballistics rocket launcher up at the wall from behind, into a particularly large group of newfoals.

“You can work at it,” Heliotrope said. “Trust us on that. But Equestria’s downright hellish, and the Queen Bitch is just always teetering on the edge of a villainous breakdown or the use of lethal force. ”

Kraber, Johnny, and Aegis fought as one along the Wall, each covering the other. None of the three of them went without some cover on their backs. They fought as one, kicking, shooting, or punching any newfoal or PER member that came within forty feet of them, a bitter tornado of violence.

Behind them, the ex-HLF like Tamika followed, spraying their weapons at close range into the newfoals that came running toward them. Their .50 BMG slugs punched through newfoals, only stopping when they ran into rare shields.

On the ground, to their right, their other allies-such as Dalibor and Abraham Svec, Touchdown, and Heliotrope, or the ponies and humans they’d rescued, blazed away at the PER standing by on the ground.

“You’re not worth ponifying!” one newfoal unicorn screamed, jumping behind a minigun. It was blasphemous, human, a killing tool, but… he had no choice. No potion equalled no options to savethemfromthemselves-

Aegis nailed him through the head with one of the Thunderlords on his back, sending him tumbling to the ground.

Where potion grenades, vials of ponification potion, and whatever else the PER could muster were thrown at them, Touchdown’s ‘drone’, the automated floating shielded assault saddle he’d created, would block them. He fought alongside the PHL and civilians down below, a second drone floating nearby, shielding him or any PHL out in the open.

It seemed all but unstoppable, a great wave of resistance crashing against the PER.

Until disaster struck.

A human PER member burst out a door, holding a vial of ponification potion to Yael and another woman, this one a young human.

“Just shoot the fucker!” Tamika yelled, aiming her .50 BMG rifle at him.

“Wait, wait,” Aegis whispered to her, holding a hoof out, stopping her. “Trust me, he’s got something really clever planned.”

“You think I’m going to listen to an earth pony?” Tamika asked.

“No,” Aegis said, “I think you’re going to listen to Kraber’s reputation.”

“You shoot me, and they both get ponified! Choose one within the next couple seconds!” the PER member yelled at Kraber. “AND DO IT IN THE NEXT COUPLE SECONDS, OR I PONIFY THEM BOTH! I’M WARNING YOU!”

“I know who to ponify,” Kraber said, holding out both hands as he clicked one of his boots. “Me. I’ll take on the potion myself. Both of them… just please, let my friend and that girl go!”

“I’m… your friend?” Yael asked.

“Well, since you’re so willing, how about I PONIFY ALL THREE OF Y-”

Kraber kicked him in the balls, causing a resounding crack as his pelvis shattered.

Though Kraber had also clicked his boot, meaning that a knife had slipped out from just underneath the toe. It drove up through the man’s groin, just behind his testicles even as Kraber’s boot crushed them. Blood oozed out the PER man’s massive wound like it was coming from a hose, dripping out his pant legs and staining them red.

As Kraber ripped his boot out of the man’s groin, drawing a large hole through the crotch of his pants, the man’s bloody testicles fell out.

Even Kraber stared for a second at that, before shrugging, grabbing the man’s head in both hands, and dropkicking him in the face so hard he flew off the wall into the river below.

Everyone, PER, ex-HLF, and PHL alike just stared for a moment. So, taking advantage of the confusion, Kraber whipped out his KSG and fired a round into the newfoals, staring silently in shock. “THAT IS HOW THE PHL HANDLES HOSTAGE SITUATIONS, KONTGESIGS!” Kraber yelled.

“Oh thank God!” the girl gasped, dropping to the ground, panting. “Thought I’d be… one of those zombies…”

“By kicking people so hard their testicles fall off?!” Aegis asked Kraber.

“And then kicking their faces, but, well… yeah,” Kraber said, pumping it again, the shotgun’s pellets shredding through a newfoal as they exploded, then went on to explode another newfoal behind him, exploding as some of them bounced off the floor. “Think we can get that on a t-shirt?”

“Sonovabitch got my Galil!” Yael yelled, dropping behind cover. “...Idiot that I am, I-”

“It’s fine,” Kraber said. “We all make mistakes sometimes. Here. I got this shotgun,” he said, handing it to her.

“Thanks,” Yael said, taking it in both hands, then raising an eyebrow. “You gonna forget the ammo too this time?”

The Polish woman glared at Kraber.

“It was just the one fokking time!” Kraber yelled. “And…” he reached onto his back and gave her a bag full of shotgun shells. “Here. For the love of God, do NOT be fokking gentle with the pump of that thing. It’s a shotgun, don’t treat it like a delicate instrument.”

“Got it,” Yael said, popping out of cover, and firing it into another newfoal. “Damn. This ain’t half bad. How many rounds does this hold?”

“Fifteen,” Kraber answered, switching to the MG2023 and firing a short burst through eight newfoals running at him, killing them instantly.

“Damn,” Yael said, aiming the shotgun at a pegasus with a potion cloud, one circling through the air, heading directly at them. “This is a good gun,” she observed, turning along the wall to a group of newfoals Kraber was already putting down with his MG2023-

BOOM

An explosion rocked the wall, and they all looked down to see Dalibor Svec, standing behind cover a decent distance from everyone, a massive 4-barreled rocket launcher over his shoulder.

“Dammit, Dalibor!” Johnny C yelled down.

“Friend of yours?” Dominique asked.

“Define friend...” Johnny C said.

“Dal!” Touchdown called over, tugging Dalibor’s sleeve with his mouth. “We gotta go!”

“What?” Dalibor yelled over. “You can’t be within four meters of this thing, or-”

“Fuck the rocket launcher, we gotta go! They’re sending some assholes our way!” Touchdown insisted, pulling on Dalibor even harder.

“What’s-” and then Dalibor stopped. “Oh, FUCK.” Dalibor whispered.

It looked like their last gasp-all the newfoals that had been converted from people Kraber and his group hadn’t saved.

Kraber would later lament just how many he hadn’t saved. Not… enough, he’d sigh, whispering, his face wet with tears.

But for now, none of that mattered. What did matter, though, was getting out of there, away from that charge of stampeding hooves. all of them wearing bandoliers of potion, pegasi not concerned with flying, all of them ready to crush them under their hooves, if they were lucky… the unlucky ones would just get absorbed into that charge.

“RUN!” Yael yelled.

“What’s so messed up about…” Kraber peered over the wall, seeing the massive newfoal stampede heading for them. “Oh, son of a fok!” He emptied his MG2023 into the stampede below, leaving its 65-round drum almost empty, then activated the Tesla module.

Lightning lanced out from the underbarrel weapon, electrocuting the newfoals below … and, to Krabers horror, not utterly decapitating it. Because there were more coming.

“How many of the fokking zombified varkpoes ARE there?!” Kraber yelled.

“This Dead End was huge!” Yael explained. “And we were pretty late! Now we gotta go!”

Kraber reloaded,

“Oh, not this shit again!” Aegis yelled, biting on one of Kraber’s hands and trying to drag him away.

"I'm just trying to reload!" Kraber protested.

"Yeah, and I'm the king of england!” Johnny C yelled. “We HAVE to go! I’ve seen you fighting, are you trying to die?!”

“You can martyr yourself later, just go!” Yael said, placing a hand on his shoulder as he finished locking the belt in place.

“...You’re right,” Kraber said. “I’ve been trying to kill myself at this far too long. And that’s… they’re looking pissed. Not many of em have potion, so that means-”

A ball of fire shot past them, impacting the wall and leaving a massive hole in it.

“Yeah. We should fokking run,” Kraber agreed.

“Here’s hoping they have better guns in the factory!” Johnny C yelled.

“Well, why didn’t you say so?” Yael and Kraber asked at once, simultaneously staring at each other.

“Ah, fok it. Race ya!” Kraber yelled, dashing off, quickly followed by Aegis, Johnny C, and various human and pony refugees, and their cadre of ex-HLF.

“Fuck!” Dalibor yelled, tripping over a piece of exposed rebar as he pelted off down the bridge. “Ah, fuck it!” he yelled, clutching his ankle. “My fucking leg!”

“Dal!” Touchdown yelled, turning around.

“He’ll slow us down, just leave him!” an ex-HLF man called over.

“Screw… that!” Touchdown yelled, turning around, and galloping in Dalibor’s direction, the wall of newfoals rushing down the bridge practically howling in excitement at the sight of one of the ponies that betrayed them.

“BETRAYER!” a sea-green unicorn screamed.

“SHUT… UP!” Touchdown roared, levitating a derelict car with his telekinesis, and throwing it into the newfoals.

That same unicorn grabbed it in his own field, and threw it back.

Aw, hell, Touchdown thought, galloping around the car for Dalibor. “Come on!” Touchdown yelled, skidding around the wrecked area of bridge, picking Dalibor up in his mouth. “I gotcha!” Touchdown mumbled through the mouthful of clothes.

Still, it was hell on his neck. “Hold on, Dal!” Touchdown yelled, casting off both assault saddles and levitating Dalibor onto his back. “I got you!”

“Touchdown, what’re you-”

“Hold on to my neck, and just run!” Touchdown yelled, galloping down the bridge, his assault saddles hovering in midair, spraying bullets into the newfoals behind them. Ahead of him, the ex-HLF members Kraber had somehow convinced to join them were rushing onward, heading into the doors of the factory. Even Kraber and Aegis were ahead of them, holding open the doors as they fired into the charging horde of newfoals, Aegis’ Thunderlords and Kraber’s MG2023 blazing into the horde. A few HLF men and women stood by, and Johnny C had taken cover behind a wrecked car, firing his Leshiy and its grenade launcher into the newfoals.

“Come on, Touchdown!” Abraham yelled, firing off the Kalashnikov he’d kept since the Massacre.

“I got this!” Touchdown yelled, putting in a final burst of speed and rushing to the doors.

Behind Touchdown and Dalibor, newfoals were tripping over the corpses of their compatriots, bleeding heavily… and yet they STILL kept coming.

“JOU BLIKSEMS!” Kraber yelled, his MG2023 hosing down the newfoals. “YOU WANT US?! YOU THINK YOU CAN TAKE US?”

Beside him, Yael also stood, urging refugees in, firing the Galil. Hadn’t she lost that? Dalibor thought.

The humans and ponies they’d saved were like a flooded river surging into a narrow canyon, urged on by the PHL and even a few HLF.

“We’re wating for Touchdown and Dalibor!” Kraber yelled. “We are not fokking leaving our friend behind!”

Even though they’d only known each other for a little over ten minutes, somehow, the ex-HLF men and women could sympathize. It was funny how Kraber, the last person on earth that you’d expect to keep it together… anytime, really, could be so commanding.

Kraber fired a three-round burst from the MG2023, obliterating a newfoal pegasus with a potion bandolier that was heading for Dalibor.

Dalibor smiled, and gave him a thumbs-up.

“That’s it!” Kraber yelled. “COME ON AND STOP DYING AT ME, JOU BLIKSEMS! I’VE PICKED MORE THREATENING STUFF THAN YOU OUTTA MY ASS-HAIRS, JOU PIELKOPS!” he yelled, firing again. “Touchdown! Get ready!”

“Oh, fu-” Touchdown whispered, throwing up a shield specifically calibrated to be electricity-proof.

“EAT THIS, JOU VARKNAAIERS!” Kraber yelled, and activated the tesla weapon underbarrel. Once more, lightning exploded out from under the barrel, electrocuting any newfoals in the vicinity, exploding several into pink mist.

Kraber laughed hysterically. “YOU SEE WHAT YOU GET?!” he yelled, not noticing the black pegasus speeding at him, carrying a vial in its mouth, a look of the utmost hate in its eyes. “JOU-”

“Viktor, watch out!” Yael yelled, whipping out a pistol and shooting the pegasus in the head.

“...My God, she was so close,” Kraber breathed, his tirade momentarily forgotten. “Oh, thank you so much!”

“You saved me, I saved you, now we’re even,” Yael said. “Now-”

Just then, Touchdown and Dalibor burst through the gates, into the waiting factory behind them.

“...Run?” Kraber asked.

Yael looked back at the newfoals charging at them. “Run,” she agreed.

The two of them pelted back in the direction of the factory, their weaponry banging at their sides as they headed for the factory. The moments seemed to blur together, and for those few meters as they dashed through the fence, then to the open door in the factory, Kraber felt like he was running through very thick oil.

If only… he… could go… faster.

Finally, panting, clutching their hearts from exertion, they threw themselves through the door of the factory, collapsing on an L-shaped couch that might have been artistic and new at some point, but now looked incredibly dated.

“...Long… fokking… run…” Kraber panted, practically sinking into the cushions, one arm on Yael as she placed one behind his neck-

Wait, what? When had that happened?

“Oh, thank god you’re alright! I was worried not all of you would make it!” gasped a woman walking in, carrying a small iPhone. She was thirty, or thereabouts, her skin an indeterminate, slightly brown color. Her hair was thick and lustrous, seemingly composed entirely of great slick black curls nearly five times the size you might expect. “Pleased to see…” her eyes swept over everyone in the room, from the two ragged-looking PHL soldiers that were a bit too close together, to the two huge stallions lying over, exhausted from the run, to the small, rather unassuming pinkish-purple mare with the assault saddle and wing blades, all the way to the refugees and-

“HLF?!” she yelled. “You brought HLF in here?”

“They asked!” Kraber protested, holding up both hands in a conciliatory gesture.

“Don’t worry, Kraber kept them all in line,” Yael reassured her.

“I did?” Kraber raised an eyebrow, genuinely surprised.

“You coordinated an assault on the Wall and we haven’t been ponified,” Yael said. “I think that counts.”

“....Huh,” Kraber said thoughtfully.

Aegis plopped himself on the couch next to them, and Kraber and Yael leaned back against him. “So… who are you?” Aegis asked, confused.

“Miranda Severance, PHL biology,” the woman said, holding out a hand. “Pleased to meet you. We’ve been holed up in here for awhile, now…”

“Who else is here?” Aegis asked.

“Me, Sebastian Irving-”

Kraber drew in an excited gasp of almost childlike glee, eliciting shock and horror from everyone in the surrounding area.

Outside, Dominique watched the newfoals as they crashed against the walls of the factory like waves, ranting and screaming about the defiance of the ‘Betrayers’, and how the One True Monarch or Her Solar Magnificence or whatever term they were using today, and everyone inside had a chance to catch their breath.

It was amazing just how insane the past few hours were… and just what the PHL had access to in their pursuit of bigger, more violent weaponry.

“How long until they breach the place?” Yael asked.

“Not long,” said one of the scientists inside. “They’ve been taking a pounding all day.”

“We had better make the most of this then,” Yael said.

“Well, it’s a weapons factory,” Aegis said, looking over at Yael. “I got one suggestion: Arm yourselves.”

He wandered off, his hooves clopping off in some direction.

Dominique sighed again, watching the newfoals below, trying not to imagine who they might have been, or who they might have left behind. That rarely ended well. Besides… it wasn’t like the potion left much to guess with. The recent ones might carry some article of clothing-an armband, a shirt, a hat, an armband, a watch, a necklace, earrings-but by the time they got to Equestria, were pumped for information, then sent to die, there was nothing of the sort left.

One thing was for sure. Judging by the clothes these newfoals had, they’d been broken men, women, and children. The scraps of shirts or pants or scarves they wore looked like they’d been dragged through the muck, shot a few times, or were so covered in patches or beaten to crap that they were nearly unrecognizable.

And yet, the goddamn ponies had taken even that little from them.

“How do you stand it?” she asked the Israeli woman-Yael?-who was standing by a desk, looking over a large bullpup rifle vaguely resembling a gray and blue Steyr AUG. She carefully inspected it, looking over the manual on the table below.

“...superheated polymer-tipped 6.8mm round with exotic capabilities,” she said. “Huh. They’re working on a new kind of bullet,” she mused. “Not exactly smart, but that depends on how well this works.”

She held the bullpup rifle in both hands, aiming it at a whiteboard.

“Hey! I asked a question!” Dominique yelled.

“...Excuse me?” Yael asked, scowling at her. “That’s pretty rude, you know.”

“Sorry,” Dominique said unconvincingly, “It’s just… I have a question. How do you stand it?”

“What?” Yael asked.

“Working with ponies,” Dominique asked. “How’d you do this from the beginning?”

“Well, that’s a terrible question,” Yael said. “You might as well just ask how it feels being Jewish.”

“Wait, you’re Jewish?” Dominique asked.

“By some really weird coincidence, every human in the squad is,” Yael explained. “Kraber goes to synagogue, Abraham and Dalibor have their own torah, and Johnny C used to go to synagogue in Bethlehem.” she paused. “New Hampshire, not… not the Middle East.”

“...Huh,” Dominique said. “You still didn’t answer my questions.”

“Well…. we had ponies, diamond dogs, zebras just flooding through the Mediterranean,” Yael explained. “A lot of them came through Israel. Now… Israel’s… was... a downright paranoid state. I admit that. But… the stories…. the stories we heard,” she looked out the window. “Equestria wasn’t a paradise before the War. They told us about the most brutal strikebreaking I’d ever seen, about the explosion of the Great Equestrian-”

“What?” Dominique asked.

“Oh, don’t get Heliotrope to start on that,” Yael sighed. “Goddamn catastrophe. I know how easy it is to think of them as all targets, but…. trust me, you know what the average refugee looks like?”

“Sure. It’s like the world’s been ripped out from under them,” Dominique said.

“Now imagine that a hundred times worse,” Yael explained. “It was like… everything had betrayed them.”

“Damn right we did,” Heliotrope said. “Celestia turned out to be a raging, hormonal bitch with no ability to empathize with her subjects or even see an entire species as sentient, she fucking killed everyone and turned a skyliner I worked on into a deathtrap, she… There is nothing, on this world or another, that could ever make me forgive her,” she continued. “She dragged my friends back to Equestria. She turned some of them into fucking zombies. And… then, and then Kraber tried to kill me.”

“I said I was sorry!” Kraber yelled over.

“Eh, it’s… not important,” Heliotrope said. “So when I ended up in Israel, we’d… we’d given up hope. We had nothing left.”

“So… we couldn’t not help them,” Yael said. “Besides. They’d said that if we accepted PHL help… we could destroy the Barrier, cause they had magic, we had the resources to make it better. We’d seen them at their lowest, and even with all the abuse they got-from people like you, I might add-they still just wanted to help without zombifying us.”

“But… what about Verity Carter?” Dominique asked, confused. “She ended up as a PHL newfoal...”

“PHL newfoals don’t exist,” Aegis said, walking up to the two of them. “Man, Kraber was laughing for weeks after that, I’ve never seen him laugh so much. And she’s not a newfoal, she was-”

BOOM

Everyone slid into cover almost seamlessly, Yael shouldering the odd bullpup she’d taken. It felt a lot lighter than its large frame should be, but that was PHL tech, she supposed. She stared through the red dot sight, looking at one of the Dead End’s buildings…

To find that there was a man standing on one of the buildings, holding a four-barrled 4Sure Ballistics rocket launcher, firing into the newfoals that were pounding against the building like a stormy sea.

"How about that," Heliotrope said. "There's still people out there."

"There's still time to do something," Yael said, caressing the odd bullpup with its odd tubing, various circular protrusions, and glowing sky-blue lights.

“Professor Irving, I presume?” Kraber asked.

“Please tell me you’re not here to ask me to make aerosolized Rule Breaker. Again,” Sebastian sighed, greased hand palming his equally greased face, exhaustion clearly showing through. “You already know about the inci-”

“No, no. I understand,” Kraber said, throwing up both hands. “I… thanks for the security footage. Fok, but that was messed up!” He shivered.

“When you, of all people, think that’s messed up, I think I should take that as a bad sign,” Sebastian remarked in a deadpan tone.

To people that kept tabs on PHL weaponry, Sebastian Irving was a living legend. He’d been behind most, if not all of the PHL’s enhanced weaponry from the beginning. He’d started as a low-level desk jockey with big dreams but none of the funding, but worked his way up through the PHL thanks to those very same ideas. Kraber was an avid user of his work- “Rainmaker” grenades that split in midair, bullets that boiled the target’s blood to the point they exploded from the pressure or died from exsanguination, literal Bolter rounds, magnetizing grenades that coated an area in sticky metallic powder and then crushed everything unfortunate enough to be caught in it into a compacting ball, ordinary looking weapons that seemingly could fire hundreds upon hundreds of bullets without reloading, acidic, incendiary, or electric bullets, a proposed sawblade-launching weapon, guns with the ZX-1’s “replay” function (It had proven popular among PHL ponies), railguns, spread rocket launchers, gyrojet rounds, portable MIRV grenades, singularity grenades, improved mines, a PEPS system for use in nonlethally dispelling riots, lasers… . Almost every rune, every bizarre concept the PHL used had Sebastian’s fingerprint or the hoofprints of his team on it. It had been him that was behind the modified MG2019 and the F3-Thunderlord.

Every weapon concept from him had his mind and soul poured into it. There were stories of him going a week without sleeping to get a new weapon perfect and out on production. He would receive letters from PHL soldiers, poring over their feedback to create a weapon that would satisfy all their desires. Kraber had done that several times, once for the aerosolized ‘Rule Breaker’, another time while consulting with Ogunleye Futuristics to make his new NTW-20, another time while talking about the possible utility of thermite guns after a drunken rant about HLF pyros.

And there Kraber and Touchdown were, talking to him.

“...experimental weaponry, you say?” Kraber asked, a dangerous gleam in his eye. “Tell me.” he placed his MG2023 on a table nearby. “Think you can make this even better?”

“Is that a Kasparek design?” Sebastian asked, moving towards the weapon and inspecting it with his eyes and hands. “Looks like something from Warframe…”

“Orokin prime weapon, right?” Kraber asked. “Or the Gjallarhorn, I guess.”

“It does, yeah,” Sebastian said, a slight smile on his face as a glint of undefined emotion entered his eye. “What’s it do?”

“Think of it like the thermite gun from The Order 1886, except with lightning, and bullets instead of pellets,” Kraber explained. “I want to test it with HEIAP rounds later.”

“Exquisite! That can be arranged later, after we’re done with our current predicament... So, what do you need?”

“Well, I’m planning to be at the final battle, and I aim to give the Queen Bitch one hell of a repair bill,” Kraber said. He paused for a moment. “Say… can you work on this NTW-20 I have back in Boston?”

Sebastian adopted a thoughtful look for about half a second. “Give me the time, materials, and schematics,” Sebastian said, a feral grin growing wider and wider on his normally passive face, “And I can make you a weapon to extinguish the sun.”

“And I’d like the ZX1 function,” Touchdown said.

“Alright, I can add that in,” Sebastian said, an eyebrow raised slightly a moment later. “But, you sure? I have this spread rocket launcher you might want to try…”

“Go on…” Touchdown said, smiling. “Link it up to my headset, and we have a deal.”

“...Oh, and can Aegis get the same improvements that my gun’s getting?” Kraber asked. “I… I don’t want to hog all the fun. Plus, Christmas is coming up and I’d like to do something nice for him.” He paused. “Also, he said he wanted a new shield generator.” He paused. “Ooh. What’s that shotgun over there?” he asked, pointing to a shotgun that looked like a Neostead with an oversized pump.

“That… Is the NS2023...,” Sebastian said proudly. “I wanted it to be 10-gauge, but 12-gauge just has more… modularity, you know? It’s like an NS2018, but you flick this switch here-” he paused for a moment, flicking a little switch and watching as purple lines spread across the pump- “And pumping it charges the ammo and makes it explosive! Just don’t use it with tasers. The tests were… unpleasant.”

“So it’s like the shotgun from that reboot of Syndicate,” Kraber said.

“Well, yeah. What do you think inspired me?” Sebastian asked. “Not a good game, but the guns…”

“I liked the COIL laser,” Kraber agreed. “Fired it semiauto, but… the altfire… loved it a lot! And that… what’s the revolver, the one that totally wasn’t .600 caliber, the one Axel Torvenius did that looked like the Blade Runner gun?” Kraber asked.

“I liked the minigun,” Sebastian said. “I still want to get that thing into production… think I have a few prototypes lying around in here actually.”

“Wait, seriously?” Kraber asked.

“Yes,” Sebastian nodded. “Can’t think of a better time to test any of this, can you?”

“Hell no I can’t!” Kraber agreed. “Say… Any improvements you can do to my Quetzalcoatl?”

Face lightning up, Sebastian nodded. “There are, in fact. While it’s still experimental, it’s pretty much ironed out. All it needs is a little…” The smile on Sebastian’s face could be described as little more than predatory. “Field-testing…”

The newfoals were irritated beyond all belief. They pounded on the windows until their hooves cracked, they screamed denunciations in the name of Celestia that were profoundly hypocritical as they had never been to Equestria, they screamed until their throats bled. They threw whatever debris they could in the direction of the factory, screaming like spoiled children when it didn’t work and they couldn’t make any more humans ‘more happy’.

Maybe somewhere in their minds, there was a little bit of happiness, some part of themselves buried away beneath the conditioning from the potion. The newfoals pretended it didn’t exist-rather, some actually enjoyed it. They enjoyed hearing the screaming of what they’d once been.

They were sure the humans inside would be happy to hear the beautiful sound of their filthy, disgusting human nature screaming in agony. And if they weren’t, well… they’d come around. Even those Betrayers would see the light eventually! And the humans could only hold out so lo-

BOOM

Several newfoals vanished in a shower of blood. Out walked a huge white earth pony with two massive weapons on his back, the barrels smoking slightly.

“We’ve got work to do,” he said, and fired again into the newfoals. He was joined by a human, of about average height, and wearing a gas mask painted to look like a wolf’s head.

Oh, buck. THEM. Kraber and Aegis.

While most newfoals weren’t allowed to do the smart thing and run, the few PER humans and ‘Subverted’ were, running screaming from the madman and madstallion with the LMGs. Behind them stood a human woman with a short, heavy black and blue bullpup rifle, and above them, a purplish-pink pegasus flitted from side to side, firing off from an assault yoke, artfully dodging any spells coming their way.

Sometimes, the two humans would duck near the large white earth pony stallion, taking advantage of the shield that appeared around his barrel.

The retreating ones didn’t last long, as snipers on the factory roof fired off their weaponry, newly enhanced by the PHL. The bullets rammed through their upper bodies, though a suspicious amount of the human PER members were actually shot in nonlethal areas. Not for mercy, no-they were forever paralyzed. Those that lived, anyway.

Humans and ponies with guns poured out every door, their guns poking through each window, and the bridge erupted into chaos. At the front were the lanky gas-mask wearing man and a huge white stallion, pouring bullet after bullet into the ponies in front. It seemed that bullets couldn’t fire as rapidly as the two of them were firing, the .338 Norma Magnum rounds obliterating any newfoals in the way.

The human, Kraber, laughed hysterically as he fired, shifting to a massive shotgun when his machinegun ran dry. He pumped it, enjoying the satisfying shunk-click as he pumped, briefly charging the buckshot and letting loose small walls of explosive shot into the newfoals, splattering them across the massive charging horde.

And alongside them, there was a veritable army. Ex-HLF, with their stupidly over-calibered homemade rifles, found themselves effective once more with the last-minute, temporary enchantments and improvised Khvostov 7G-02 modifications hastily remade to accommodate .50 BMG or .50 Beowulf. The HLF’s .50 BMG rounds practically split newfoals in half, and PHL ponies were aiming massive cannons and missile launchers that had been carried up to the roof. Behind a huge ventilation unit, Dominique held a revolving grenade launcher, one that she presumed to be an enhanced Milkor MGL. But something was unique about the grenades. ‘Rainmakers’, they were called.

In midair, they would explode into several more grenades, raining down on the newfoals below.

Some part of her wanted to reduce Kraber, and the PHL standing near him to paste. The damn horsefuckers…. But , on the other hand, she was standing next to a unicorn named Touchdown. He’d equipped himself with a pair of massive rocket launchers, sending out at least eight rockets from each launcher with each trigger pull. Next to him stood Dalibor Svec, holding a Remington ACR with a Metal Storm 3GL and an above-mounted crossbow, dashing over to his friend and reloading the launchers where need be.

While firing off his assault saddle, Touchdown also controlled two… remotes? Drones? Both of them were floating gun platforms with shields that would block potion vials or offensive spells, and he would send them floating across the battlefield, spraying newfoals with bullets while blocking anything inbound. Dominique could see the words ‘wolf’ and ‘saint’ written on each.

Next to him, an unfamiliar green earth pony from the factory with a massive harness-mounted gatling gun, emptied it into the newfoals below. The bullets would make whistling noises upon leaving the muzzle, and explode into the newfoals. Body parts and blood exploded from the ground like geysers wherever his bullets hit.

It was incredibly useful… and, much as she hated to admit it, she needed it. Try to shoot him, she’d have everyone (and everypony) on the battlefield descend on her like hungry wolves.

Beside her, Tamika fired off the .50 BMG rifle she’d taken in the fight with the PHL, aiming into newfoals. “Hey, guess what?!” Tamika yelled joyfully. “They explode!”

Oh, the PHL weaponry was so gloriously overpowered-she recalled Kraber referring to it as “Blomkamp-ish overkill,” and right here, it wasn’t hard to see why. Everyone, firing from the roof of the factory seemed to have enough individual firepower to gut an entire HLF unit ‘s numbers. The more she thought about it, the more surprising it was that the HLF had survived so long at the Massacre of Defiance.

And it was hard to imagine going back to a pipebomb launcher after tasting the power of the Rainmaker. Come to think of it, couldn’t these be added to an auto grenade launcher? Oh lordy, that’d be so much fun to shoot. So…. much… destruction… Hell, she could join the PHL on the benefits of this weaponry alone. Anything that could create something like this to be used against invaders, she decided, could not be evil.

And something about what Yael said… just resonated with her. For the first time, she could see the determination in Touchdown’s face, as he slaughtered the newfoals below.

Below, near Kraber, Aegis, Heliotrope, and Yael, Abraham Svec stood, firing off a weapon that looked like a flamethrower-but Dominique was told later that it was actually a thermite gun.

For the first time, she felt something like… hope? The entire factory, and a few rooftops back in the Dead End, were opening fire on the newfoals with everything they had, turning the bridge into a massive killzone.

Was this what winning felt like? Dominique asked herself.

Out at the front door of the factory, it was pure madness. New foals literally rushed into the barrel of their guns, and Aegis found himself startled as newfoals jumped in front of his Thunderlords.

Of course, the Thunderlords simply ignored the newfoals, bullets punching through them and knocking them backwards about a foot, before continuing into the steadily dwindling newfoal horde ahead. By now, he, Yael, Kraber, and Heliotrope were spattered with blood, but they kept fighting.

Yael’s bullpup rifle was truly a sight to behold. It would leave massive, gaping wounds in newfoals, the plastic-tipped rounds shredding newfoal limbs off, leaving them hopping backwards on their bloody stumps…. and, to Kraber and Yael’s shared excitement, the rounds crackled with electricity, leaving the newfoals spasming and shaking as they tried to scream.

Heliotrope strafed the newfoals below, emptying her LMGs into them. She’d disappear, her invisibility flight-suit hiding her from vision and confusing the newfoals, only for her to reappear on the supports of the bridge, behind cars, or in the middle of the fray, bullets ripping through them. She wasn’t a pony for the heavy LMG-style assault yokes that most PHL pegasi favored-rather, the heavy low-velocity Russian weapons that usually adorned her yoke were some of her best friends.

But she could see the appeal as she sprayed into the newfoals below. A newfoal pegasus, murder in his eyes, flew after her, and she winced-

Only to watch them explode all over her. She turned back, punching through a pegasus mare with her forehoof. As she did so she watched Kraber give the thumbs-up, loading a new round into his revolver then reloading his ridiculous LMG.

She then yelped, diving over the edge of the bridge and skimming the water, ramming both hooves through another newfoal pegasus’ skull. Another volley of missiles from the Dead End and the factory rammed into the bridge. A newfoal, all but one of their legs blown off, trailing blood like some kind of weird reddish-pink rain, flew by her screaming, and splashed into the water.

“DON’T TOUCH ME, BETRAYER!” he screamed, even as the water dragged him under.

She shivered and moved on. “A little warning next time?!” she yelled into her headset.

“Sorry!” Kraber apologized. “You’re going to want to see what we have planned next, though…”

As soon as she streaked up into the air, climbing up to one of the factory’s highest smokestacks, she aimed at the newfoals below and fired. It was so satisfying to have newfoals so enclosed-usually, they just bore down on a position singlemindedly. But now? The newfoals had death in both directions. Their only hope was to ponify more-and, though she noted with sadness that some of the ex-HLF they’d ‘hired’ had been ponified, it was nowhere near enough to replace their numbers.

Below, her friends, new and old, were making mincemeat of newfoals. Kraber pumped his Neostead, sliding the pump forward-and-back in the reverse of the usual action, bursts of yellow-purple stabbing out the muzzle. Where he fired, newfoals exploded, sending limbs flying left and right, splattering him and Aegis’ shield with blood. He was almost completely red now.

As soon as the shotgun ran out, he switched to his revolver, holding it in a two-handed grip and firing into whatever newfoal came his way. Any newfoal it hit was blown backward, gaping holes in their stomach. Often with huge missing awkward stumps, only stuck to their legs by strands of muscle.

Those were just the ones it hit. The explosions would shred through newfoals in the vicinity, as the revolver punched through them, killing anywhere from two to even five newfoals that were close enough. Yael would scoop up the stragglers, firing her bullpup and cutting through arteries.

“They’re nearly gone!” Aegis yelled.

“Well, let’s help them out!” Kraber yelled back. “Everyone close your eyes!
“You mean-” Aegis started.

“HELL YES I DO! COME ON, JOU FOKKING VARKPOES!” Kraber yelled, as he and Aegis let loose a blast of electricity from their MG2023s.

And the world became burning brightness. A sickly sweet smell, like raw meat on the grill, wafted up.

They’d be glad they hadn’t seen the carnage. But the electricity from the tesla weaponry mounted underbarrel had cooked almost every newfoal left on the bridge, arcing to the bullets that the guns themselves had enchanted with a spell to attract and intensify lightning.

However, it had also ignited the alicornal tissue of some newfoals on the bridge. Wings of pegasi, horns of unicorns, hooves of earth ponies, all had turned into bombs like miniature firecrackers, shooting fire and sparks of pure concussive force out in all directions. What few were left were shuddering, shaking and failing to scream in agony as the current passed through their bodies.

Everyone took advantage of it, firing into the massed newfoals. Kraber whipped out his Quetzalcoatl, Johnny C pulled out a new Colt revolver that was essentially an updated LeMat, and…

Every weapon blazed into the newfoals, and, for a moment, it was so crowded with muzzle flashes, bullets, rockets, and grenades raining down that it was near-impossible to see.

There was not much of anything left. What remained of the bridge-what hadn’t been obliterated through rocket fire or enchanted munitions-was painted in blood, some of which dripped through rebar-covered holes. Severed body parts lay everywhere, and a leg had been wedged into one of the supports for the bridge. The concrete ahead of the PHL and ex-HLF was littered with spent casings. There was an odd burnt-hair smell wafting up from the carnage.

The wind gusted over the wreckage, and they all looked at what they’d wrought.

They’d won.

They’d won!

“FINALLY!” Tamika cheered, thrusting her .50 up into the air, holding it by the rear portion of the stock. She abruptly realized just how ridiculously heavy it was, then put it down. She cheered all the same, fist punching up into the sky.

Dominique heard someone yelling something sappy in French: “FINALLY, WE WIN! WE’RE.. WE’VE DONE IT! WE’VE DONE IN HOURS WHAT ONCE TOOK WEEKS!” She realized that it was her, and found herself smiling, laughing and cheering along with the rest of them.

“It… is it over?” Aegis asked, collapsing to the ground. “Luna, what a long day…”

“Oh, lord yes,” Kraber sighed, panting as he sat down against a wrecked car. His MG2023 dropped against the ground. The newfoals were gone, the PER were gone, and the Wall had been taken back. “Booze?” he asked, reaching into his pack for a bottle of kentucky bourbon.

“Booze,” Aegis agreed. “Thanks for not bringing that rotgut.”

“Eh, special occasions,” Kraber sighed. “Besides, I’m kind of… losing my taste for that. It’s fokking siff...“

“At last, you finally get good taste in alcohol,” Yael laughed. “Mind if I dip in?”

“Sure, go ahead. Heliotrope, you want any?” Kraber asked.

“Ah, what the hell. Why not,” she sighed.

“Just before I do this though….” Kraber flipped his gas mask up, letting his beard spill out down his chin and neck. “Thanks, Yael.”

“For what?” she asked, surprised.

“You saved my life,” Kraber said. “Got that pegasus kakfokker heading for me, and… and you had my back.” He placed a hand on her shoulder, a faint smile on his face. “That means a lot to me.”

“You’re welcome,” Yael said, looking over at him. “And… you did pretty well in command.”

“Huh,” Kraber said, a little surprised. “Well, how about that.”

All in a day’s work. Kraber could hear the sound of helicopters and huge planes flying in, emergency services arriving. There… off in the distance. Yellow helicopters. In another time, he might have made a joke about that, but for now, all he wanted was to rest.

“You’re welcome,” Yael said, accepting the bottle. “But Lord… What a day,” she said, taking a big swing of it.

“Agreed,” Heliotrope said, lazily fluttering beside them. “So many… newfoals…” she yawned.

All around them, the HLF they’d co-opted were laying back, similarly burnt out, reloading their weaponry.

“So… what’re you guys going to do now?” Kraber called over.

“Join you, of course,” Tamika said, “If we did anything but that, we’d be real assholes.”

Yael raised an eyebrow.

“...Right. Yeah. But you… you saved lives. You’ve done in a day what would takes us weeks, and a whole lot of bodies. And you have better guns.”

“Good thing coming on, y’know,” Kraber said. “It’s the last chance, really.”

The helicopters landed all over nearby, most of them ignoring the bridge. A good thing too, considering how beaten up it was.

For now, they were safe.

Dominique didn’t know what awaited her. She didn’t know what the PHL would probably say, what they’d do.

The PHL had proven themselves to be quite upstanding, though. Kraber had actually… he seemed more together, somehow, and Johnny C, while a bit odd, had still proven to be dedicated. They were an odd lot, but a likeable one all the same, despite what she’d believed.

She still hated Aegis, Touchdown, Heliotrope. But… the more she thought about it, none of them were that bad. Aegis was rock steady, trustworthy, and strong. Touchdown was… considerably less steady, but downright unstoppable, and Heliotrope had… she’d been pretty nice too. Surprisingly enough, she found herself liking them.

It… wasn’t them, she decided. They just happened to look like the enemy, so I saw them as targets.

“You alright, though?” Heliotrope asked, as she lay on the ground, Johnny C using her as a pillow. “This… must not be easy.”

“Honestly, I’m more worried about how Tamika took it so well,” Dominique said. “But… all of this. I must’ve done awful things, and I’m… I’m sorry. You and all of them seem nice, anyway, but I just…”

“Kraber was the same way when he joined, you know,” Heliotrope said. “Same with Angus Reid, or even.... hell, even Kagan Burakgazi. Especially him. But you won’t regret this.”

“No, I totally want to go back to hiding in caves with this awful patlik gun,” Dominique sighed, pointing to one of the .50 BMG rifles sitting next to a man who’d deserted with her. “Back to only being able to dream of mustering anything like… like this.” She paused. “This what it feels like to be a good person?” she asked, watching personnel spill out of the helicopters, and isolated pockets of survivors climbing up to the roofs of the concrete buildings, cheering and waving the flags of their countries, absorbed or not.

“Yeah,” Heliotrope smiled. “I guess it is.”

“Huh,” Tamika said, walking over to the three of them. “Not used to being a hero.”

“It’s a good time to start, then!” Kraber called over.

“Eh,” Dominique said, watching the human and pony PHL troops heading for them, looking in amazement at the carnage they were wading through, “I think it’s worth a shot. So, Yael, you ever gonna tell me what happened to Verity?”

“Oh, I remember that!” Kraber exclaimed. “Haven’t laughed like that for a long time! So there I was in the PHL headquarters in NYC, when suddenly people notice that Bon-Bon’s gone wandering off again. So I try and follow her and what do I find but-”

Author's Notes:

You know, I did warn you this would happen.
I apologize for the confusion and the unique format, but the chapter was like stupid long, so we split it! A more conventional chapter should be coming by the end of... next week, I think. Be prepared for some big changes, and my apology for the fact that the previews I made earlier are not going to happen. I'll explain why in the next chapter, because... spoilers are afoot. Or is it... AHOOF?
But... again, thanks to everyone for this. I love all you guys.
And no. I'm not revealing what happened to Verity.
Gun-related explanations:
* I did not make up the Homebrewed .50 BMG open-bolt rifles. No, really. That's a thing.
* If you're wondering how 'Fragnum' is a Borderlands reference, BEHOLD: THE FRAGNUM!
* If you haven't played Syndicate, you're... not missing much. It wasn't very good. But it does have a hell of an arsenal!
* The bullpup rifle Yael gets is meant to be the Hard Light. If you didn't pick up on it, I don't blame you-I wasn't sure how to describe the Hardlight, and it's kind of an obscure quote.
* The "4Sure Ballistics rocket launcher" is this thing. But it can't engage targets in space, from earth or shoot rockets that travel at 45 times escape velocity. I mean, I liked Elysium, but that was just stupid. The chemrail, which at least in part inspired the MG2023, however, was not.

Earth (part 3)

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Earth: Part 3
Editors/Co-Authors
Redskin122004
TB3
Beyond The Horizon
Rush
TheIdiot
Special Thanks to Kizuna Tallis. She made Porter's segment, added a lot to Kimball’s quote down below, and she was the driving force behind Kleiner! That is all kinds of awesome!
And of course, special thanks to YOU for reading. Hope you like it!

1: The Stampede / Finally A Tomorrow

“Is it a bizarre job? Yeah. It is. I’m fighting pastel ponies with a gun older than my grandfather, and carrying an old patlik shotgun that looks kinda unfinished and lumpy thanks to the metal used. But without us, well…. the islands would be fucked. The Stampede Fleet can’t be everywhere, after all - it’s up to us to keep the islands safe till help can arrive.”
Aeone Marcos, Filipino PHL-allied Partisan

“I froze up one day in London. My dad was Guard, my mother was in Parliament, and they’d pushed me into the college’s PER, and to some extent… I guess I agreed. I thought ponification could help the humans, I just wanted them to survive, but… I saw the riots in Britain, and I just couldn’t take it. The newfoals had just… they’d shoved the potion down this poor woman’s throat, she was knocked unconscious as the potion broke everything about her and made her into a pony. Her hands fused together into hooves, her bones cracked sickeningly, her eyes looked like they would explode from her skull. Her nose was bleeding, I saw her skin break and reform over her skull several times, growing fur… then the mare she turned into looked like me. Same fur, same eyes, same mane, everything. It was like Celestia was trying to replace me, replace all of us, with something terrible, and it was like looking into a funhouse mirror… it wasn’t me, but it was so close to being me that it was all wrong. And she looked dead. She looked like she couldn’t do anything but smile. And I knew what Equestria was doing. Replacing everyone with newfoals, or turning us all into something so much like them that I can’t tell the difference. And, if Earth falls, in twenty years time, no-one will be able to. No-one will want to or want to be able to, either. They wouldn’t stop with that woman, or anyone else… so I found them, and beat the shit out of them."
“I’m not just fighting for humanity. I’m fighting because there's no future for anyone if Celestia wins.”
Black Cherry, Marshall Islands Earth Pony partisan.

South China Sea, near Thailand…

One of her fondest childhood memories was of that family vacation to the beach. Mom was unloading the picnic basket, Dad was playing with her baby brother, and she was collecting little crabs, digging holes into the sand to find them. At that time, there was also a local summer matsuri going on, drawing locals and foreign tourists alike to partake in the festivities. Grilled octopus dumplings, sushi, edamame and watermelon made up the meal they indulged in, before the night rolled around and there were firecrackers and fireworks going off in the air.

Now was not really the time to reflect on that though, as Rebecca focused on counting how many sit-ups she was doing. She had been increasingly stressed, and working out was always a good outlet for that.

And really, she had good reasons to be stressed. Alongside weekly island hoppings, personally disposing of the PER, and keeping a rowdy group of soldiers and ponies in line, there was news from the Battle of Boston. Only the best soldiers and top personnel of the Conversion War (and those who had been in Boston and simply seen too much for a simple gag order to suffice) were privy to the most classified intel.

Nobody, not even the most hidebound old relic from an earlier time, wouldn’t have classified her as either.

And she had to admit, keeping a secret this big wasn’t very easy. It was big, bigger than any PHL military secret. World-shaking. Universe-shaking, even. It changed the story, the battleground, the… well. There were way too many words she could use to describe it. It was unbelievable revelation after unbelievable revelation - Princess Luna and Discord are alive, attacking Boston?! And she said Marcus was alive?! No, he’s not a pony, but he’s in Equestria. Yes, it turns out that some kind of ancient evil from thousands of millennia ago infected Celestia, and Colonel Renee went to an Equestria that wasn’t infected by that evil? And he’s bringing the Elements of Harmony to purify Celestia, and… no, I’m not high! He’s really going to break the Barrier down, and we’ll destroy Canterlot! Yeah, it turns out magical fields aren’t harmful to humans. Why y’all lookin at me that way? This really happened, I swear!

That had been more or less how Rebecca’s videoconference had gone. Other reactions all over the world had ranged from incredulous laughter, anger, downing entire flasks of some variety of alcohol, silences that seemed to last almost an eternity, curious mixtures of melancholy and relief, and enthused joy that humanity might finally have chance.

She could have written a book on how bizarre it all was. The question was: What was she going to do about it?

"Can you believe it?" Thunderwing asked for the umpteenth time as he trotted in, carrying a bottle of some questionable moonshine in his mouth. "Maybe I'll finally be able to come home."

"Won't quite be home," Rebecca said, mid-sit-up.

"I know, I know," Thunderwing sighed. "There's still another me that doesn't want me taking over his life, but.... Just imagine it. An Equestria that isn't a fascist hellhole. An Equestria that practices what it preaches... I think I'd like to see it."

"You're sure you'd like to?" Rebecca asked. "It'd probably bring up... Lots of bad memories," she shivered, remembering some of the stories from his sister and that mare Coal Embers, both of whom had been funneled through by the Bridle Path, a Chinese group dedicated to helping refugees (particularly scientists, academics, and those with useful skills) through the HLF and PER infested war zones of rural China and Mongolia, either to safe living in America (well, as safe as America could be now that the Barrier finally touched it) or to PHL installations where they could contribute to the war effort.

He shrugged, lifting some weights. “I’ll be honest… I don’t know. You have that saying… you can never go back home again, right?”

Rebecca lie down, wiping sweat off her brow as she breathed out, “Yeah. Nostalgia versus the now. Plus… well, don’t take this the wrong way babe, but it’s not really your home either. You weren’t born there, lived there.”

“That is true,” Thunderwing sighed. “But seeing that… really makes you wonder. When, where, how did things go wrong?”

“We could spend ages arguing over that, going over stuff people already know,” Rebecca said to him. The ship alarm then began going off and they immediately put their things down and stopped. “Shit. Better go check this out.”

The Stampede Fleet of the Pacific.

The bane of the PER and Tyrant Forces on this side of the world. The so-called ‘Last resort.’

On land and in the air they might overwhelm defenders, but on the high seas they found themselves reeling against the mighty oceanic warships of humanity.

Every ship was a city unto themselves, there was no easy targets on a warship because every person on board was a trained warrior. Everyone was armed and ready to fight. The ship was their home on the deep seas and they knew their home backwards and forwards. Cramped quarters, narrow halls, heavy steel doors that could lock from either side.

A nightmare for new foals that used their numbers to overwhelm defenders. Inside any warship was a death trap for them, as a human with a decent shotgun could make mincemeat of them.

There were tales of ships from around the world fending off new foals with ease until more experienced fighters used their magic to try to turn the tide. Fleets of various nations banded to fend off new foals and their flying ships.

The Stampede Fleet was one of those fleets that everyone knew about. The most experienced in fighting the Tyrant horde and her madness.

And the ones that received the countermeasure for the Tyrant's magic, Runes.

Lose of lives dropped and victories skyrocketed after the applications were placed on the ships once they were drydock for repairs and upgrades at Hawaii.

Originally composed of the United States Seventh Fleet Task Force 70, made up of several destroyers and cruisers along with a single aircraft carrier, it has long since swelled to numbers that haven't been seen since World War 2. Forty-seven ships of various nations composed within the impressive fleet, closer to an armada than an actual fleet.

Directly within the center of the massive fleet was four carriers and a replenisher ship; USS Enterprise, JDS Izumo, HMAS Success (which was the heart of the entire fleet), ROCS Liaoning, and the USS Lexington.

All but one were highly modified with the latest technology at the start of the war, the USS Lexington being the odd girl out.

She was ancient by everyone's standard, she wasn't alone as she was joined with the Missouri, both of which were a class of their own within the fleet. They had the be brought back into service and updated with the latest technology, the Lexington able to field several of the newer jets, her defensive weapons re-armed and improved along with several Phalanx CIWS installed onboard.

The same has been done to the Missouri, while she still retained all nine of her 16-inch guns, twelve 5-inch portside and starboard guns, a full complement of Tomahawk and Harpoon missiles, and a new addition of dozen Phalanx CIWS.

Both elder ships had been upgraded with Runic magic, making them far more dangerous than before and putting them both on par with the ships in the fleet.

The Stampede Fleet was the strongest fleet to ever be created or formed.

And she would show her might once more this day.

Rebecca quickly donned her gear, running up to the main deck, bypassing dozens of marines arming themselves for an upcoming fight.

“Captain has the Conn!” Lieutenant Presley called out, Rebecca giving him a small nod.

“I have the Conn, what’s going on, Presley?” Rebecca asked as she stood behind the communications area.

The head communications officer replied, “Well Captain, getting some pretty intense stuff from Crossley’s units up north. Check it out, ma’am.”

Rebecca stared at the screen, her jaw dropping at seeing a large amount of blips on screen. “What… what is that?”

“Radar is a little off due to a spell, but I say that is an invasion force,” Presley answered, “It appears they came from the city of Hai Pong.”

“From Vietnam?” Rebecca grimaced at the thought, “Shit, the Tyrant’s forces have been pushing through the region. Where are they heading? Hong Kong? Tokyo? Australia mainland?”

“Judging by their direction and the winds their pegasi are making, they’re headed towards… Hawaii.”

“Why there?” Rebecca asked no one in particular... before she realized the significance of the island and whispered, “Aw crap.”

Hawaii was not only a huge base of military operations in the Pacific (one where the Stampede Fleet refueled and resupplied regularly), but it was also the single largest target of the entire Pacific.

“Full speed, get us in their sights, relay orders to every ship to prepare for battle!” Rebecca ordered.

“Aye Aye, Ma’am. Full speed.”

“ETA is one hour, enemy ship count is ranging up fifty,” another communications officer said, giving Rebecca a long look. “Ma’am, this will be a slug-fest.”

“Then we better be ready for a knock out,” Rebecca growled.

Captain Flair Winds of the skyliner Coming Dawn stared out into the open ocean, a smoking pipe in his mouth. He smiled as the newfoals worked at top efficiency as they made sure as every inch of his ship was in order. And it had not been easy to do so - they’d been forced to use those filthy, disgusting, blasphemous… oh, the simple suggestion made his skin crawl… human materials. They were temporary repairs, of course, field-improvisation by some of the newfoals created from the most recent batch of potion, but in the end, it had all worked. They’d kept it hidden in a long-forsaken forest valley through a combination of old-fashioned camouflage and various magic spells such as inverted ‘Want-It Need-It’ or any of the new spells devised to fool cameras.

He'd protested the additions to his ship, but it was necessary. This was one of the very, very few remaining skyliners,and by Celestia, they were going to use it sparingly.

They received orders to bypass the Asian front and head towards Hawaii, both to cut off one of the resupply lines and have a stronghold on the western front of North America. He couldn’t ask for a better order, this would cause the humans to scramble at being attacked on two sides! It would force the apes to chose between two sides, while his beautiful Queen would have more time to wipe them out.

“My lovely Queen is so smart,” Flair said as he felt the sea breeze. “The end of humanity and their plague of sin and evil is within our reach.”

And this was his last chance. Not… not that he had failed Her Solar Magnificence, but rather, it all came down to this moment. With the PER purges in North America, such as that unmitigated bucking disaster in Detroit, led by that horribly disgusting man Viktor Kraber killing those PER who saved his children and refused to be saved with them… it made his blood boil. That, and the hundreds of other purges all over human territories. The PER was on its last legs, and he knew it. If he didn’t create a stronghold, if he failed… the humans would win and rape and enslave so many innocent ponies for sure, just like they had to those poor brainwashed souls of the PHL! His Mighty Queen would have no insurgents, nopony to ensure humans would fall from within. Though, the Barrier would devour them eventually and there would be a unified front. They’d be able to live in relative comfort, perhaps even pause the Barrier once more, and casualties would be unacceptable.

And if they could buy that much time for themselves, who knew what they could create?

“Captain!” a newfoal cried out, pointing out starboard side. “Ships in the distance!”

“Ignore them, we have our orders,” Flair said, “We have a bigger target to save from sin.”

“Sir! It looks like an fleet of warships! It is chasing us!”

“What?” Flair blinked as he walked to the edge and pulled out a telescope. “Ah buck…”

“Sir?”

“It’s the Stampede Fleet,” Flair growled as he looked to see the large naval force chasing after them.

“What are our orders, sir?”

Flair sat back in though, a grin forming on his face. “Turn us around! All pegasi start working this sky to our advantage! Let’s show them what they will come to when face against us.”

“Yes sir! You hear him! Get the clouds and make them cry for vengeance for our true light!” his second roared out, Flair only smiled as he look back at the ships.

“Time for the so-called ‘Stampede’ to be stopped in its tracks.” He activated his ship’s intercom. “Ponies of Equestria… It is a tall order I bring you, but I promise you… It shall be worth every drop of sweat or blood. For our objective is to create a new age of Ponification for Earth’s Rebirth, and save the humans from themselves by creating a stronghold on the islands off the coast of North America.”

He paused.

“It shall not be easy. But it is necessary. Any obstacle, no matter how insurmountable it seems, pales in comparison to what we will face if we do not undertake this task. Be brave, soldiers of Equestria, of the Solar Empire! Be brave, for we are staring the enemy in the eyes… and if we break contact, we shall waste away, never to be seen again.”

Rebecca stared at the growing clouds, angry bolts of lighting dancing crossing the sky. “Well… looks like we are pulling another storm assault. Thank God we restocked on our 'special' armaments in Singapore.”

“So… you want me to save the day once more?” Thunderwing joked, only to get a small whack at the back of head from Rebecca, “Just asking.”

“Ma’am! I have the Captains of the USS John Paul Jones and USS Missouri on the horn.”

“Patch them through.”

“Captain Kleiner, this is Captain Gregory Brians of the USS John Paul Jones. I have a plan that you might like to hear.”

“Lay it on me, Brians.”

“Ma’am, allow my crew and the crew of the Missouri take the first shots, drag their sorry asses out of that cloud cover.”

“Missouri, do you want to proceed with this plan?”

“Yes, ma’am. Allow us to get the first shots in. We can do this.”

“Stand by for orders.” Rebecca said, before giving a tired sigh.

“Becca?” Thunderwing placed a hoof on her hip.

“I got nothing.” Rebecca gave a dry laugh. “Other than head into that storm and unleash hell, but we might lose a lot of ships if we do so. Lets not even talk about the fliers we have.”

“Do you trust them?” Thunderwing prodded, giving her a warm smile, gaining a small nod from her. “Then you can trust them to do the job.”

“Yeah… you’re right.” Rebecca gave him a warm smile before looking back at growing clouds. “Okay, Captain Brains, change of plans, I want to make some additions to this.”

“Ma’am?”

“Proceed as planned, but take several destroyers with you to get their notice. I will have Enterprise, Izumo, Liaoning, and the Lexington hang back. Let them focus on the main fleet while we prepare a surprise of our own.”

Five ships glided through the growing wave, two battleships and three destroyers for their own respective nations; JDS Chōkai, ROCS Ma Kong, HMAS Hobart, and the USS John Paul Jones and Missouri.

Captain Gregory Brians smiled as the he watched his men worked, looking out to see the Missouri plow through another wave. “Captain Ramirez, are you locked and loaded?”

“Don’t you worry about me, Brians, this old girl can dish out some pain!” the Missouri’s captain replied.

“The rest of you know the plan, so we should have no problems,” Brians said.

“Hai! Chokai has got her missiles loaded and ready.”

“Ma Kong will let loose her payloads on your orders.”

“Hobart is standing by, ready for mission fire.”

“Big Mo has the guns ready to cover the retreat. We’re ready.”

“Good.” Brians said with a dangerous smile, “Are we ready, Lieutenant?”

“Aye, sir, flak missiles locked and ready.”

“Stand by!” Brians barked out, the five ships growing ever closer the large storm brewing overhead, he turn to see the Missouri pulled ahead, her guns pointing starboard side. The thunder clouds rumbled menacingly, flights of thousands of pegasi swooping between the clouds and making their way towards them.

“Ready! Slow at half speed!”

“Aye aye, half speed!” Brians felt the ship slowed beneath his feet, the Missouri pulling ahead as she continued course.

“Fire!” Brians heard the roar of dozens, if not hundreds of missiles launching from the ships. And for a moment, they lit up the sky, only exhaust visible from the ships.

It would be impossible to dodge them.

There wouldn’t be much left of the pegasi above, and it was certainly overkill, but it would be a hell of a pain for them to contain even one newfoal with potion. Or worse, a pegasus with a cloud of the stuff.

The missiles destroyed the pegasi so thoroughly that no word seemed adequate to describe the carnage, their warheads bursting into miniature suns of burning hot pellets once within range of the pegasi. Large chunks of the pegasi simply vanished, vaporized by the force of the explosion, and limbs flew everywhere. The lucky pegasi were the ones that only popped like balloons upon contact; the unlucky ones, however, were conscious as they fell to the sea, unable to fly as blood trailed from the stumps of body parts. Some lost their wings, trailing blood as they careened down to the sea.

Blood and bits of viscera rained into the waves, staining them for miles around, and fishermen all over would often find themselves hooking bits of pegasi that had floated nearby.

It wasn’t over yet.

“They burst… a hole in our flock,” Flair Winds whispered, looking down at the carnage, the fire and shrieking, injured pegasi falling to the sea below to drown. In all likelihood, the human ships would leave them to die. “But there’s still more-”

They weren’t going to last long out there, no matter how much he told himself otherwise.

“FIRE!” Brians yelled again, and the process repeated, yet another salvo of missiles shooting into the air, aiming for the stragglers.

This time, even fewer pegasi survived. It was like a wall of fire, incinerating each pegasus that came even close to the Stampede Fleet. Fur and feathers burnt to a crisp, limbs and blood flying everywhere… yet another rain of blood on the ocean below. It was utter madness.

Flying just around the carnage, several Potioneer ships sped out of the of the clouds, rushing downwards to the sea and skimmed the ocean surface. Normally this would be seen as a boarding maneuver as most ships of the modern age lacked anything heavy for a defensive measures for such close quarters.

At least… modern ships lacked them.

The Missouri turned ahead of the group while they began their own slow turn, her guns up and ready, showing off her full starboard side full of guns. The Potioneer ships did not slow, only began to rise in the air to fly over her, but was far too late.

A perfect shot for Big Mo.

“Fire!”

All nine 16-inch 50-caliber Mark 7 Naval guns, six 5-inch 38-caliber guns, Tomahawk and Harpoons missiles, and scores of anti-air guns erupted from her side, causing the entire ship to lean from the force.

Every round was enhanced with unstable magic as it left the barrels, every missiles shining brightly with runic enhancements. All brimming with power of both old and new technology of war.

Shields cracked from one single broadside attack, large rounds ripped into enchanted wood and cloth like paper, ships fell apart and fell into the cold ocean grip, and Big Mo kept on firing for all she was worth.

Pegasi, wearing the finest enchanted shields the Coming Dawn’s workshop could make, threw themselves in the direction of the fleet, attempting to overwhelm the defenses and breach the interior.

Most, if not all, didn’t get anywhere within spitting distance of the fleet. They were torn to pieces by dozens of Phalanx CIWS that covered the ships, a gun that most naval commanders had grown to love as the war dragged on.

“Captain! I see an enemy Skyliner!” one officer cried out as the ship roared once more, taking out another ship.

Captain Ramirez’s eyes narrowed at that, most radar systems seem to blitz out once a skyliner was in the area, so it had to go. “Log location! Send to rest of the fleet as priority target, helmsmen, get us out of here!”

“Aye Aye!”

“Ma’am! Skyliner within the clouds!”

“Prepare for full fire effect! Knock that big bastard out of the sky!” Rebecca scowled as she heard the order being sent out. “On my mark!”

She looked out to see the five ships coming back around to them, their weapons firing as they took out their tails.

“Ma’am! All ships ready!”

“Fire!”

Flair paled as he saw the fleet seemingly explode as one, missiles trailing into the sky before making way to his own fleet… no…

To him!

“Protect the Coming Dawn!” Flair cried out in alarm, and the newfoals heeded his call. “Divert all nonessential power to shields! Redirect the missiles, I don’t care how! If we get taken out here, it’s all over for the PER!”

All the ships rushed forward before the skyliner, placing themselves in harm’s way to protect the ship. Flair couldn’t help but cower in fear as the large missiles flew through the air at incredible speeds, the roar of their engines nearly destroying his eardrums as they pushed past the speed of sound.

A potioneer ship flew forward, taking a hit head on, then another and another before shields finally failed, the next few slamming into and bursting the zeppelin apart like a balloon.

The missiles flew through the wall of ships, some hitting the shield of the Coming Dawn and causing the ship to list from the force.

Flair was barely able to stand on his hooves as he watched the many potioneer ships strain against the attack, many of them failing and bursting from the force.

"No..." he watched as several of the potioneer ships began to veer away from the wall, their decks in flames and the new foals being burned alive as they tried to do their duty, only for the ships to fall out of the sky as the magical clouds evaporated from the intense heat.

"No!" The remaining ships struggled back into formation, most barely held together through luck and magic. "You bucking apes!"

“Ma’am, enemy forces cut in half! The rest of them on their last legs!” Pressly called out, “Skyliner is still up though.”

“Good thing I didn’t plan on just using ship fire power to hog all the glory,” Rebecca said with a smile. “Tell our flyguys its time to clear the air.”

“Aye aye!”

Flair looked over the side, staring at the broken ships before his eyes. “Im-impossible..how? How could they…”

“Portside! Enemy jets sir!”

“What?!” Flair cried out, turning back around to see what could only amount to hundreds of jets flying right at him. “But how…they didn’t have time…”

Rebecca smiled as she thought about launching the jets early on, fly a long way around the group and strike them from behind while they were busy with the ships on the water. She didn’t want anyone to die on her watch, nor lose any ships, as losing even one ship meant losing hundreds of people and a ton of firepower.

“Bring them down. Fire another volley. Lets show them that they can’t push us around anymore.”

“No…” Flair whimpered as the jets drew closer, the surviving potioneer ships struggled to get on the other side of the Coming Dawn.

“Sir! Another volley from the fleet!”

Flair looked back numbly to see the ocean fleet erupt once more, scores of missiles flying into the sky, each of them magically enhanced with help from their traitorous kin. The jets lined up, and as one, released a missile, then another. “No… Please… Celestia save us!”

His pleas would go unanswered.

Flair found himself unable to cry out as the skyliner rocked, her shields flaring to stop the missile barrage. Flair couldn’t understand as he saw the fire and what could only be unstable magic blooming from the missiles. It suddenly made sense why the missiles had more power and able to pierce shields so easily. He looked to see the shields beginning to crack under the strain of force, he began to laugh madly.

In the early days of the war, the Coming Dawn had been able to shrug off all sorts of attacks from the filthy monkeys, all the guns and missiles in the world did nothing to her. Only a city-sized incendiary weapon had been able to damage her.

But add a little magic?

And suddenly she was an easy target. A big, slow, juicy target that the apes fast pace fighting found laughably easy to handle. So this was why humanity had given up on skyliners, Flair realized. Our tactics are awful when we’re on equal footing, aren’t they?

He looked to the side to see the jets shoot by at speeds only a few pegasi could ever attain. He stumbled back to his hooves, watching as the jets continued on without turning back to their massive ships. He crawled to the starboard side and looked over it to see the remaining potioneer ships had fallen to the ocean below.

The Coming Dawn was alone against an entire fleet.

It was then he took note of the whining sound of an engine from behind him. He slowly turned around to see a dozen of the jets floating portside, hovering in the air through sheer power about a hundred meters away.

He began to laugh once more as they continue to hover, their weapons primed and ready.

“Such a fool I am,” he said with a crazed laugh, ignoring the cries of the new foals that rushed to defend the ship. “To believe I can amount to anything worthy for my goddess. Go to Tartarus you sick beast-”

All 12 of the F-35 Lightning 2s, pilots hailing from the US, UK, Italy, and Australia, unleashed their own brand of hell on the large floating ship.

GAU-12 Equalizers roared to life, spitting out 25mm rounds at 4,200 rounds a minutes, tearing through the enchanted wood, metal, and bodies as if they were not even there. The short range missiles of the AIM-120 and AIM-132 missiles rushed out slammed into the side of the ship, ripping her sides apart like a balloon.

The Coming Dawn’s tie downs, connecting the ship to the enchanted balloon overhead snapped either by the force of the attack or the simple weight of the ship becoming too much for the rest of the ropes holding her.

And the Coming Dawn fell...

“There she goes!” Presley said, watching as half of the ship fell loose from the balloons, the other side holding on for a few seconds longer before they snapped and dropping the ship into the cold sea. Numerous pegasi, newfoal and natural born alike, carrying unicorns and earth ponies, scrambled and flew away from the destruction.

The crew cheered, high-fiving and fist (or hoof in the case of the ponies) bumping each other happily.

“Does anyone think that was too easy?” Rebecca asked, looking around the open ocean for another attack.

“Maybe...” Thunderwing admitted, watching as the destroyers and battleships returned back into formation. “Then again, we never faced against an invasion fleet head to head.”

“True…” she murmured, watching the former skyliner floated in ocean waters, tyrant forces struggling to swim and climb aboard the pieces of floating rubble. Not like it would help them, since the ship’s own weight would take it down to the cold depths. “We never have to worry about people in the way, usually we are early to defend or too late to do anything. Plus we have magic now in our weapons. Presley, what is our location?”

“North 19°12.778 by East 115°06.076, Ma’am!” Presley relayed, “Orders for survivors?”

Rebecca stared at the sunken airship, she can barely see survivors struggling on the floating remains. She stared at the fliers, a scowl on her face before she turn to Presley. “Get the Nathan James to clear the sky of fliers, leave the swimmers to the waters.”

“That’s cold,” Thunderwing half-joked. “There could be some natural born ponies out there. They could provide info too. I get the feeling there’s something missing here.”

Rebecca closed her eyes before opening, walking over to the horn. “Captain Ramirez, can you look for non-newfoals out in the water. Fish them from the drink?

“I don’t know about that, Ma’am. I can see a lot of bodies in the water and some of them are making a beeline for us,” Captain Ramirez said over the radio, “Doesn’t matter. Even if we wanted to help them, the newfoals would attack as soon as we get close. We will be too busy fighting them off while doing so.”

Rebecca rolled her eyes, “And given the amount of firepower we have, we could clear the waters easy enough.”

“So how about you take some of our best marksmen and take them out?” Thunderwing asked. Rebecca hummed before speaking.

“Ramirez, do a little a trip around them. Get on the speakers and tell them to stay put and that you will fish them out of the water. If they attack, they are newfoals and will be shot on sight.”

“Ah, yes I get it. Natural borns are much smarter about self-preservation.”

“Good, link up with the Nathan James and take John Paul Jones with you.” Rebecca looked to the map before speaking again. “Once you are done, head towards the port of Manila and link up with the rest of us.”

“Manila, Ma’am?”

“I have something important to tell the captains of this fleet. I want to be somewhere secured when I tell you. Manila is practically a fortress now and we can trade some extra weapons we have for fuel,” Rebecca reasoned.

“Aye aye, ma’am. Proceeding with operation. See you at Manila.”

Rebecca turned to the rest of the Conn, “Presley, inform the fleet of a change of course. We are heading to Manila port. Full speed.”

“Aye aye, ma’am. Full speed.” Presley repeated before relaying the change of course to the fleet. Rebecca looked around the Conn before speaking.

“I leave the Conn to you Lieutenant Presley.”

“Aye Ma’am, I have the Conn.”

Rebecca smiled as she turn and left the Conn, with Thunderwing trailing behind her as they made their way back to their quarters, admiring the view before finally speaking up. “You’re going to tell them about what happened.”

“Yes. They have to know what really went down in Boston. I can’t keep this a secret, not from the people who make this fleet work. It just worries me a lot, this info is big.”

“Yeah… you think and worry too much.” Thunderwing said, looking around before gently nipping her left butt cheek, causing an involuntary giggle to echo out. Her eyes widen as she felt him bury his face into her ass, looking down to see his snout peeking between her legs and took a deep sniff. “Sorry, Becca. But having such a fine looking rear just below eye level is rather hard.”

“T-thunder-” She stammered out before she giggled again, feeling him bite her right one.

“No one is on this level… at least for the next 30 seconds.” Thunderwing’s ears flicked once before he began to push. “Open the door already and take off these nasty pants. I don’t know why you cover such wonderful pair of legs and rear end. Its a crime!”

“Shut up.” She blushed brightly as she open the door before she felt Thunderwing squeeze between her legs and hefted her onto his back, causing her to laugh as he kicked the door closed and trotted around the room with her on his back, bouncing her up and down with each step. She gave him a mocking glare as she pulled off her overcoat, watching as his eyes zeroed in on her bouncing breasts. “Perv.”

“But I’m your perv!” he laughed as he bucked her off his back onto the bed before he leaned over her and began to work on her pants, but not before giving a small lick at her toned stomach. “And the perv has designs on you! Now! Off with the pants! They’re in the way of progress!”

Rebecca couldn’t help but laugh out at his words, hugging his head and pepper his face with kisses.

Rebecca pulled her head from the pillow with a start, feeling Thunderwing on top of her back and nuzzling her neck. She gave a warm smile as she gently ran her hand through his coat on his jaw, enjoying the warmth his body gave her. “Thunder… get off please.”

“No…” Thunderwing muttered, moving his hip and she felt something hard brush against her inner thigh.

“Naughty pony,” she whispered, before she heard her quarter’s phone ringing. “Get off… Someone is calling me.”

“Yeah, me and lil me.” Thunderwing lightly nibbled her shoulder, causing her to giggle a bit before she pushed him off, causing him to groan and watched she walked away. His eyes centered on her butt and he licked his lips. “Watching you walk away is just as good.”

“Perv.” She turned and gave him a small wink before answering. “Kleiner.”

“Ma’am, we got a call from Manila port. They are requesting our assistance for an underground PER movement.”

“You have got to be kidding me,” Rebecca growled.

“Sorry Ma’am. But it seems to be a purely human group of PER, so no idiots.”

“No obvious idiots in the cross hairs.” Rebecca sighed, before she looked at the clock. “How far out are we?”

“Two hours ma’am. Thirty-five minutes by Chinook.”

“Then get the Navy Seals ready, tell them to take some PLA Special Forces with them. They got annoyed with them last time, when they snatched up the last ‘Clean House’ operations. Seeing them trying to compete with each other gets annoying.” Rebecca shook her head, but gave Thunderwing a saucy smile, cocking her hip to the side and biting her lower lips.

“Aye, Ma’am. I will let them know.” She practically heard Presley hold back a laugh. She hung up, slowly running her hands over her body, watching as Thunderwings’ eyes slowly trailed after them.

“As for you…” She whispered seductively, watching as his own desire grow on such a cute face.

‘No wonder some males like mares a lot. That face is awfully cute… Plus it’s my own little pony! Let me run my hands through your mane!’

She crawled back on the bed, keeping her upper body low to the sheets while keeping her ‘assets’ in view. “We got a lot of time left on our hands.”

“Oh?” Thunderwings was staring at her ass, she knew it because he adored it. She leaned in and bit his neck, “OH!”

“Lots of time~!”

2: The Light at the End / Family

Crossley: “I feel like I’m... I don’t know, waging a guerrilla war of engineering. I would build it, someone would smash it.”
Interviewer: “Any... Anything specific you can recall?”
Crossley: “Too many... too many, though the collapse of the Vashi Bridge during the Battle of Mumbai hit hard. We’d just finished rebuilding part of it, and there was a train straight from the factories heading over it, right for Navi Mumbai. It was an old battleaxe stolen from the HLF, then armed and reinforced with PHL weaponry and defenses, then lined with claymores just to be safe. They called it the Dreadnought, and so did we.
Interviewer: “What happened then?”
Crossley: “Those PER sons of whores and pigs blew up the bridge. Some cars got across… but only just. Lost a lot of good people that day. (He stares at the ground for a second.)
Interviewer: “What would you say the biggest threat is, besides the Empire? PER, or HLF?”
Crossley: “Both. The HLF, though... the men all hate them. You wouldn’t find an HLF sympathizer anywhere in here, no matter how bad Imperial attacks got. And that’s because those HLF sons of bitches hate ponies beyond all reason. I’m not exaggerating. The motherfuckers will blow up bridges, set off avalanches, kill off servicemen and ponies that are helping people who don’t have anything left! All because I have ponies under my command. Pegasi can rescue humans that have fallen, earth ponies are crazy strong, unicorns have telekinesis and can serve as welders in a pinch... They’re so good, and they hate their homeland more than any of us. Admire them for that. Yet the HLF will never forgive them, just because they’re ponies. The sons of bitches. Defenders of humanity? Kiss my ass.”
Interview with John Crossley, U.S Army Corps Of Engineers tasked with evacuating India and the Himalayas

“Working with Kraber and Aegis on these things is like Christmas. No, he's not a bad boss - whenever he comes with us, newfoals and those PER cocksuckers die. Plus, they bring some kind of new PHL weapon for testing almost every time! Those... Those motherfuckers never know what hit them long as he keeps the gear flowing. And besides.... If anyone deserves bizarre and unusual weapons tested on them, it's the PER."
Kraber: (from off in the distance) "Think of it like pest control!"
"Yeah. It's kind of like that."
Interview with Johnny C, PHL soldier attached to "Kraber's Operations," a country-wide purge of PER elements.

Fort Hood, Texas

This wasn’t exactly what Porter had in mind when Cheerilee told him and his fellow ‘Dragons’ (he still had to stifle a chuckle at that name) that they were going to help in the final battle. The battle that would make or break all of this, that would decide the future of humanity.

And it would all be in a scant two weeks.

So he followed Yon-Soo’s advice and decided to take the plane to Fort Hood, where his family had taken up refuge, helping the PHL and official US military branches stationed there to contribute what they could to the war effort. It was an admirable sight - people of all different walks of life came together for a common goal. Of course, the people were all working to their fullest. Many analysts, engineers, doctors and nurses, and anyone else able to help perform an important function crucial to the war effort were in full swing.

But he wasn’t here to analyze; he was here for a reunion that was a long time coming.

At the western hangar, there were groups of people waiting for someone to come out of those planes. Family members, relatives and friends all stood there, hoping to see their loved ones come out of one of the planes alive. Some held signs, others just standing by. And the people Porter would meet didn’t need a sign; he recognized them immediately.

A stockily built man with greying dark blonde hair; a comely lady with a slightly plump build with greying brown hair, and a young man in his mid twenties with brown hair.

Dad, Mom and little bro.

“Porter!” his mother, Gail, cried out, relief and happiness clear on her features. She ran up to him, tackling him in a hug. His father, Richard, and little brother, Charlie, joined in, understandably excited to see he was home safely.

“Thank God and Jesus you’re here and alive!” she said happily, squeezing him tight. Porter smiled as he hugged the rest of his family back, happy they themselves, were alive and well too. For just a moment, everything felt right and normal with the world.

“Nice little setup you guys have here,” Porter noted, looking at his parent’s little quarters. It was little more than a single motel room with one bathroom, a bed in the middle, a single table with two chairs, and several boxes filled with clothes, books, and, from what Porter could tell, family heirlooms and even some important photographs. There was no TV in this room.

“It’s not a lot,” Gail admitted, “but your pop and I make it work. Charlie’s got his own little quarters that he shares with a few other medics.”

“It’s not easy, is it?” Porter asked. Admittedly, he’d slept in worse rooms, and they were lucky to have a bed. But it must have been quite the change for them, to go from their relatively nice home in the suburbs to… this.

“Come on, son, you aren’t giving us enough credit!” Richard said to him in a tone of mock pain. “I like to consider this the boot camp before your mother and I make ourselves a home in Alaska!”

“Wait, Alaska?!” Porter asked incredulously.

“Hey, fresh seafood, living off the land, away from the distractions of the hustle and bustle!” Gail exclaimed, “Once this war’s over, we can finally just retire out of all this.”

Charlie laughed and admitted, “Yeah, don’t worry about me though, I won’t be joining that adventure. I like my tech too much, and Jenna wouldn’t survive a day out there.”

“Jenna?” Porter asked, raising an eyebrow. “You actually got a girlfriend?”

“Why? Is that a surprise?” Charlie asked. “Come on, loving comics and collecting Lord of the Rings merch doesn’t make me undateable!”

“I’m kidding, little bro,” Porter laughed. “I’m really happy for you! Admittedly dating during a war doesn’t sound up my alley, but I’m glad you’ve found someone.” For a second, he seemed to stare at his brother intensely. “Just… keep her safe, alright?”

Everyone became solemn and quiet, a grim feeling overtaking them. Charlie replied softly, “I know, Ports. I wouldn’t let anything happen to her, and she wouldn’t let anything happen to me either.”

“I’m happy to hear that,” Porter said.

“You want to meet her?” Charlie asked, trying to lighten the mood, just a little.

“Definitely,” Porter agreed. Anything to get out of the mood he’d put them all in.

They walked on out, and Porter took in the scenery once again. The surrounding area of the military base was oddly chaotic and orderly all at the same time. Everyone had something to do, something to contribute. No doubt they wouldn’t be here if they had nothing to contribute to the war effort and the safety of the base.

People and ponies, even a few zebras and a couple diamond dogs, walked through the streets, all with some clear goal. Nobody was milling around - to use that word would be a disservice to all the hard work that was being done. Engineers and repair crews were checking vehicles of all forms, and somewhere off in the distance, he heard the sound of an assault rifle on full auto. He’d later learn that today, they’d been testing the Khvostov 7G-02 thaumic modifications for assault rifles.

It was ironic, really. Equestria claimed to represent love and tolerance for ponies, but all the stories Aquamarine Glimmer kept hearing from recent refugees made it seem like the exact opposite. Most of the races of Equestria seemed to have vanished before the war, and those that remained lived in mortal fear of the Solar Empire. The majority of the survivors fled from there and joined humanity to avenge their fallen brethren and get their lives back.

Simply put, Equestria was what it hated.

“Hear that?” Richard asked. “That’s our top zebra helping out with the creation of enchanted guns! Got gems and crystals coming in from Africa. Amazing how De Beers was willing to help during the apocalypse...”

“What kind of things are they making?” Porter asked, curious. In the area where he’d been fighting, PHL tech was spoken with either reverential awe, superstitious fear and hatred, or a combination of both. Thankfully, no HLF members had destroyed its rare shipments out of fear - it was amazing how a few exploding newfoals could change one’s mind. On top of that, he and the fellow members of his unit (he still hesitated to use that silly name a few enthusiastic civilians had christened them with, but it was definitely recognizable) had looked forward to every shipment.

“I’d tell you, but then I’d have to kill you,” Charlie joked. “Nah, I’m just kidding.”

“Remember the Battle of Boston?” Gail asked. When Porter nodded, she continued, “More or less the same stuff, and even some electrocution weapons! We need to get those newfoals put down as soon as possible, and the less bullets, the less time we waste trying to survive.”

“The tesla weapons were the idea of an ex-HLF guy,” Richard added. “He’d said flamethrowers seemed promising. If not for the fact that newfoals don’t really care about being on fire. But electrocution means their muscles contract involuntarily.”

“Sounds useful,” Porter said, intrigued. “I’m kinda curious to see them in action.”

“Well, there’s someone in Maine that has one right now,” Richard said. “It’s mounted under his LMG, and he’s had nothing but praise. And he said, and I quote ‘It’s like a scene from fokking District 9 in here!’ after using it.”

Porter let out a low whistle, impressed. He remembered the lightning gun from that movie. Charlie chuckled and then said, “Soooo… Dragons of the East, huh?”

Porter shot a glare at his little brother, grumbling, “Hey! I didn’t come up with that idiotic nickname.”

“Then why do you keep using it?” Charlie teased him.

“Cause… well, I don’t like it, but it’s recognizable,” he explained. “It came around in China, when we just razed this village run by this guy who fancied himself a warlord, as well as blew up a section of the Great Wall. The way we just destroyed everything in our path-like that time we set that city on fire-probably helped make us fearsome too. And suddenly, everybody starts saying ‘dragons of the east’. I don’t even get the hoops you have to jump through to decides that’s a fitting name, but even Command does it. We tried to keep them from using it, but that just made everyone use it as a joke, it just sort of snowballed from there… eventually, we just gave up.”

“...How do you get Dragons of the East from THAT?!” Gail asked.

“I don’t know,” Porter sighed, throwing up his hands. “I just don’t know.”

Which was a bald faced lie. Porter knew exactly why they were called Dragons of the East, and while they were very good at infiltration, it was the amount of destruction they left behind for almost every battle. Like a dragon came storming through the area and laid waste to everything.

They walked through a moderately sized building, where every room seemed to be teeming with all kinds of state-of-the-art tech. Scientists, designers and engineers that had careers in defense programs before the war were hard at work coming up with new and improved designs for weapons to use on the field. Assault arms that could be used easily by even less trained fighters if they ever found themselves in a bad spot. At least one room had a group of ponies trying on new assault saddles. Footage of a man firing a gun that looked like it was made by FN Herstal, shooting one target, turning 90 degrees to the side and firing full-auto, only for the bullets to visibly curve back to the target.

And then there was this one room his family brought him into, where every man and woman working here was equipped with a headset and at least two side-by-side computers. There were huge screens on the walls, keeping track of the barrier’s movements, of communications with any other bases on the front lines and helping any airplanes up in the sky. People were rapidly firing off piloting lingo, typing feverishly as they entered information and guzzling coffee and anything else with caffeine by the gallon.

Charlie approached one particular woman, whom Porter assumed was Jenna. She was certainly quite pretty, with sandy blond hair and brown eyes, and a skinny frame. She looked at Charlie, brightening up with a smile before she turned to a guy next to her to ask him to take over for her for a moment.

“Hey, babe,” Charlie beamed as he hugged her. He towered over her by at least a head, so she stood on her tip-toes to kiss him. “Doing alright so far?”

“So far, so good. But this is one of those days I wish I could have a green tea frappuccino. I can’t wait to go back to Starbucks after all this. I will never complain about bitchy customers ever again,” she replied with a half groan, half laugh to her voice.

“I know what you mean. Graveyard shifts for the late night hospital emergencies will be a walk in the park after all this.”

“...still won’t be easy getting back to a normal life after a war, I guarantee that,” someone added.

Porter pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. “Great. You sound just like my friend Melnik. What a pessimist. He’s always saying the same things about doom and gloom, always thinking of ways it could be worse.” He paused. “Granted, he’s been right so far, but that just makes it worse.”

“Oh we will win,” another communications officer said. “The Queen seriously underestimates just how resourceful we can be. And we’ll recover; we’ve survived a lot of near apocalypses and there’s no way in hell we’d go down easily.”

“It sure would be great if the PHL can find a way to take the barrier down and then we can get rid of the Tyrant. I’d rather die than be a newfoal,” Jenna spat, shuddering with disgust. She then noticed Porter and turned to Charlie, asking, “Is that your brother?”

“Yep,” he replied. “Jenna, this is Porter. Ports, Jenna.”

Porter shook her hand, smiling. “Hi Jenna. It’s good to meet you.”

She shook his hand back, responding cheerfully, “Hi, Porter! Charlie told me a lot about you. It’s a real honor to meet one of the big heroes of this war.”

Porter blushed and said, “Come on, hero is a pretty big term to throw around here. I’m not like Colonel Renee or Major Bauer.”

Jenna smiled reassuringly. “But still, you and the other guys in your group have done really amazing things. You’re all better than you give yourselves credit for.”

“Well, thank you very much,” Porter modestly took the compliment. “You take care of my little brother, alright? I can see he loves you a lot, and I wish you both the best.”

“Of course. Thank you, Porter. I promise I wouldn’t let anything happen to Charlie. I know you two had been close growing up.”

She gave him a quick hug and a smile before walking off with Charlie so they could go to the cafeteria to grab a bite to eat. Porter noted the relaxed smiles on their faces, how close and loving they looked. And even from a distance, he could see Charlie tell Jenna that story about that pool incident from when they were kids, making her laugh.

Porter really was glad that his brother, one of his best friends through his life, had found someone special, especially in these trying times. He had to admit, he did feel a bit jealous, especially being reminded of his own major loss. But it wouldn’t be fair to resent Charlie for that. Jenna was clearly a nice girl who really did love Charlie, and Charlie clearly loved her too.

He genuinely hoped they could have a happy ending. They really did deserve that.

Porter had to admit, he was confused. Everything around him looked bigger, his parents looked younger. Everyone wearing black, clearly saddened by something. He was wearing a black suit too. It felt uncomfortable and stiff.

He remembered this house. And this day.

The day he and his family attended David Renee’s funeral.

He wasn’t really in control of his own actions; just reliving and watching everything going on. His father was just solemn, the haunted look on his face was of guilt. His mother clearly didn’t know what to feel; on one hand she was glad her husband was alive but on the other hand, she was also saddened that another man had to die for that.

At the front of the living room, Porter could see the picture of David, wearing his formal Marines uniform and smiling for the camera, surrounded by an arrangement of flowers. Marcus had inherited a lot of his father’s features, that was easy to tell.

He could also see Megan Renee, David’s widow, Marcus’ mother. She was just so heartbroken, her eyes red from her non-stop crying. Porter saw how his father, as well as his other squadmates tried to comfort her despite their own grief and guilt. She did not seem resentful, however, and did appear to really appreciate their efforts.

He walked up the stairs, where the other kids attending the funeral were at. He had already met a couple of them, including a girl named Julia Kleiner. He had to admit, he was curious to meet them; to a young boy, the grown ups were clearly in no mood for fun so maybe the other kids would be better company. As he walked through the hallway, he saw one bedroom door open, with two boys inside. One looked to be the same age as Porter himself, the other was a young toddler. The toddler, none the wiser for what was going on, was playing with his toy dinosaurs, but the older one understood everything and looked much more grief stricken.

Even as a kid, Porter understood that this boy was the one who lost his dad.

He decided to reach out to him, awkwardly saying, "Hi."

He looked up, his eyes red from crying while he held a medal with a purple ribbon in his hands. He sniffed as he looked back down, trying to ignore him.

"My name is Porter... What's yours?"

The boy swallowed before he mumbled quietly, too soft to be heard.

"Uh... not sure I can hear you like that?"

"My name is Marcus," the other boy looked up to him, his voice choked up somewhat. Porter looked to the boy next to him, giving him a smile.

"Your brother?" he asked, gaining a nod as Marcus picked him up and put him in his lap.

"His name is Jacob," he whispered, the toddler quickly trying to take the medal from his older brother. He tried to munch on it, but Marcus just put the medal off to the side, keeping his squirming brother from trying to reach for it again.

Porter wasn't sure what to say next. Marcus looked like he had been crying for hours and didn't want to talk to anyone. He was young but not stupid, and knew any word he said next could set off problems.

He looked back to the door to see his father talking with Marcus' mother, who came upstairs to check on her sons. It was jarring to see the man he saw as a hero, unafraid of anything, looking terrified to be in the woman's presence.

“Oh God, Megan, I’m so sorry,” Porter could hear his father say. “It’s all my fault… if I’d just… I shouldn’t have survived through that.”

“Oh Richard, don’t say that!” Megan told him firmly. She gave him a comforting hug, but it couldn’t keep him or herself from crying again. “It’s not your fault, or anyone else’s fault that he died. I don’t blame you for anything; David would’ve done it for anyone.”

Porter then looked over to Marcus again before he sat down next him and wrapped an arm around his shoulder. "My dad is alive thanks to your dad. Your dad is my dad's hero."

To anyone else, it was an extremely childish way of thanking someone. But to a child, it was a most profound experience. Marcus looked up, his eyes wide as he looked at Porter, then looking to his mother and seeing her hugging Porter’s father.

"My dad... saved yours?" Marcus seemed to be lost, and Porter was afraid that he got him angry. But then Marcus got up, wiped his tears away and handed Jacob to his mother, before turning to the man.

Porter watched as his father got down on one knee as he placed a hand on his shoulder. Porter walked closer to his family, listening to his dad.

"You are... Marcus, right?"

"Yes, sir..."

"Marcus... I'm sorry. I’m so so-" Marcus wrapped his arms around him and hugged him.

"My dad saved you..." Marcus choked out, "My dad saved you so you can be with your family. My dad... did what was right..."

"Oh... oh my God, I’m sorry... I’m sorry..." Richard began to cry, "His last words... his last words were about you and Jacob... how he was so proud of you both... he wanted to give you so much..."

“Come on,” Megan said as firmly as she could, “we should get going. The procession is about to start.”

Porter and Marcus followed the adults downstairs, out of the house and over to some cars. They drove to a local cemetery. Everyone stood up as tall and strong as they could so as to honor David’s memory. They listened to the priest talk through the eulogy, each squad member giving their own piece, Porter’s own father delivering one of his own. No one could hold back their sadness, their guilt. All they could do was try to get through this, and ultimately, live with it.

The casket was slowly lowered into the ground, all the while everyone began to sing Amazing Grace. One by one, everyone threw a single rose on top the lid. Porter went up too, throwing one in, silently thanking David for saving his dad’s life. He could see the other squad members’ kids do the same.

The rest of the day was a blur, mainly consisting of everyone trying to comfort each other. The other attendees had to leave; they had their own lives to go back to, living so far from this place. Porter and his parents were the only ones left; they wouldn’t have to leave until tomorrow. Porter and Marcus were playing with Jacob to pass the time while the grown ups were at the dinner table, drinking some tea.

“We should get going. Know any decent motels around here, Megan?” Porter’s father asked Marcus’ mother.

“You shouldn’t go through the trouble. You can stay here tonight,” Megan said to them.

Porter’s mother replied, “That’s very nice of you, Megan, but we don’t want to impose.”

“No, it’s no trouble at all,” she insisted. “The guest room just needs a little dusting off. My home is your home.”

Porter’s parents smiled, and his father replied, “Well, thank you very much, Megan. We really do appreciate everything you’ve done for us.”

"It's no problem at all. Porter wouldn't mind sleeping next to Marcus, would he?”

“I don’t mind,” Porter replied to her, before he looked at Marcus, who shrugged and smiled slightly.

Later that night, Marcus and Porter laid down on the former’s bed, but neither could sleep. They both were reading a comic book to make themselves tired, but they weren't exactly invested in the story.

Marcus suddenly said, "Thanks, Porter. I was really sad before... I still am, but you helped me a lot."

"I did?" Porter asked, surprised.

"Yeah, you did."

Porter couldn’t help but smile at that, glad that he did help out. He replied, "You're welcome."

The next day, the Stanley family had to go back home. As the cab driver loaded their luggage into the trunk, everyone was saying their goodbyes.

Porter saw his parents saying farewell to Megan, trading hugs and bittersweet smiles.

"Thanks again for everything, Megan," Porter's mother said to her.

Megan shook her head and replied, "It was no trouble at all, Gail. I appreciate everything you both have done. Just promise me that you don't waste your lives, alright? Be there for your son, and cherish every moment."

"We will," Richard told her. "I promise to keep in touch. It is the least I can do, and I’ll be there for Marcus and Jacob too."

"That would be wonderful," Megan replied with a smile. She gave them one more hug and said, "Have a safe trip, and take care of yourselves, okay?"

"Of course," Porter's mother said, returning Megan's hug. “You take care of yourself too, Megan.”

Meanwhile, Porter and Marcus traded hugs, and farewells of their own.

“Thanks again, Porter. You helped out a lot,” Marcus said to him.

“You’re welcome, Marcus. I’m glad I could do that for you. Good luck to you,” Porter replied.

“Good luck to you too.” Marcus then noticed Jacob suddenly gave Porter a big hug and he said, “I guess Jake’s gonna miss you too.”

Porter hugged Jacob back before he turned to see his parents behind him, telling him it was time to go. “Goodbye guys.”

Jacob let Porter go, and went back to his big brother’s side. Porter then ran over to Megan and gave her a hug too. He said to her, “Thank you, Mrs. Renee. For everything.”

She smiled warmly and hugged Porter back, telling him, “You don’t have to be so formal. Just calling me Megan, or Aunt Megan is fine. And you’re welcome.”

“Okay, Aunt Megan. I’ll miss you.”

“I’ll miss you too, Porter.”

And so Porter joined his parents and boarded the cab, taking one last look out the rear view window to see the family of just three waving goodbye to him and his parents. Porter waved a last goodbye as they drove off and Megan, Marcus and Jacob disappeared in the distance.

Porter awoke slowly, feeling a bit dazed. It was odd to be dreaming about that day at this time. It was still sometimes hard to believe, that Marcus was connected to this second Equestria, and how even he was connected to all of this due to having met and befriended Marcus in the past. Porter himself never really believed in the concept of destiny, but everything just seemed to be too lined up perfectly for it all to be a coincidence.

And in between his memories of Megan and Marcus, and his own stress and excitement over the big “final battle” that would commence in just a few days, he couldn’t bring himself to go back to sleep. He got up from his cot in the main barrack given to soldiers, and decided to take a little walk. It wasn’t lost on Porter that some of the beds were empty, looking as if their occupants had to get up for some air and clear their heads. He walked outside, taking a deep breath of the cool midnight air. Though the base wasn’t as busy at nighttime, there were still people working over the night. Guards and look-outs mainly, but he also saw planes coming in, with cargo crews sorting through shipments to make sure they were all safe. And judging from that, there were likely people in communications working at this hour.

“Couldn’t sleep?”

Porter turned around to see his father, wearing his old military jacket from years ago. It still fit him well despite the fact his old man had packed on a few pounds due to old age.

“Couldn’t really. It was weird… I had this dream, more like a weird flashback, to the funeral. David Renee’s funeral,” Porter admitted.

Richard sighed and looked up at the sky with a reminiscing tone. “That’s odd indeed. Ever since hearing about Marcus’ affiliations with the PHL, and reading about the things he’s done with them, I just can’t help but be reminded of them both. David and Megan… it’s a real tragedy Megan and Jacob died so soon after the war began. It really felt like losing another member of the family.”

Porter remembered back to when he and Marcus met again at St. Petersburg over two years ago. Hearing about what happened to those two had hit very hard. In the few times he got to talk to Megan since the funeral, she had been nothing but warm and kind to him, regarding him like an honorary nephew. She also expressed a lot of excitement for Charlie’s birth a few years later, sending the family packages in the mail full of presents and signed cards from Marcus and Jacob congratulating them.

“It’s still odd for me too,” Richard admitted, “to think back on that day. I still do grieve for David, you know. But at the same time, I’m grateful too. You realize that if it hadn’t been for his sacrifice, your little brother wouldn’t even be here?”

Porter solemnly nodded and said, “Yeah, that’s true. I guess he kinda did save another life on that day, didn’t he?”

“You could say that,” Richard said. “I do sometimes wonder about the what-ifs, but there’s probably no point to it. I promised Megan that I would cherish every moment and not waste this life I’ve been given. Besides, David wouldn’t have wanted that either.”

“That’s probably true too,” Porter nodded with agreement. As he listened to his father, he couldn’t help but wonder too. “You know, I was still pretty young, so I don’t remember a lot about her, but what was… Aunt Megan like?”

Richard warmly smiled and replied, “She was one of the strongest and most resilient people I knew. A very kind soul, loved her family and friends more than anything. Saw the beauty in everything. The world feels like a less happier place with her gone, honestly.”

Porter thought back again on whatever memories he had of Megan. He couldn’t find any fault with his father’s description of her. And before he could stop himself, he quickly said, “Dad, there’s something very important I have to tell you. I don’t think it would be a good idea to tell Mom about this, because I think you can agree with me that she already worries enough about me, so promise you won’t freak out, okay?”

Richard’s eyebrows went up, surprised. He asked, “What is it, son?”

Porter sighed and said, “Well… about a week ago, Miss Cheerilee contacted me and my team. She has something big planned for all of us.. We… we’re helping out with the big final battle. It involves infiltrating Equestria itself, and getting rid of the barrier.”

Richard, to his credit, did not laugh or assume his son was joking. He did, however, stare blankly for a couple seconds, and then asked, “How exactly does that work?”

“Do you want me to tell you the classified parts?” Porter asked.

Richard answered, “Just what’s important. Keep it simple.”

“Well, thanks to some work from the PHL’s spies, they found out how the barrier operates. There’s a device, buried deep in the Queen’s castle in Canterlot, which maintains and expands the barrier. That’s why full-frontal assault on the barrier hasn’t worked,” Porter explained. “My team and I are to infiltrate the castle, and we’re going to get rid of that thing.”

“And what about the magic there? You’re not going to die just breathing the air in Equestria, right?”

“That was all a lie spread by the Tyrant,” Porter answered. “Magic itself isn’t harmful to humans unless it’s specifically made to be lethal. If I had to hazard a guess, she only made it look like that with her own power. We’re in no danger just from being in there.”

Richard’s shoulders slumped as he looked at his son for a silent moment. He simply put a hand on Porter’s shoulder and said, “Go then, Porter. You are more than strong enough to handle yourself, and I know your teammates can take care of you too. And I promise that I won’t tell your mother or your brother. I wouldn’t want them to worry about you more than they already do.”

Porter smiled. “Thanks Dad. It feels good to tell you this.”

Richard smiled back and suddenly hugged Porter, whispering in his ear, “I’m so proud of you, Porter. For everything. You’re a great man, a great soldier, and I can’t begin to tell you just how much I do love you, son.”

Porter couldn’t help but close his eyes, some happy tears leaking out as he returned the embrace. “Thanks, Dad. And I’m proud of you too. I couldn’t have asked for a better father than you. I love you too.”

Richard and Porter then let each other go, the older man sighing as he said, “Well, I should get back to bed. Your mother might wake up and notice I’m not there. She can get paranoid, especially with how everything’s been these last couple of years.”

“Yeah. I should get some rest too. Goodnight, Dad.”

“Good night, Porter.”

Neither of them slept well for the rest of the night. Richard knew Porter was strong enough to handle himself; the fact that he had survived his tours in the Middle East, as well as the Conversion War in general, and managed to survive the hellhole China had turned into were testaments to this. But that didn’t stop him from worrying about his eldest son, who had already suffered a loss early on in this. It was only natural for a parent to worry, especially considering the incomprehensible circumstances surrounding them.

Porter meanwhile couldn’t stop thinking about everything that had been going on over the past week, and what would inevitably and likely go down at the end of this week. Going to Equestria, at the center of the Solar Empire, was already mind-blowing enough, but the information he’d received was also just as insane. For one thing, there was the fact that everything happening right now was being orchestrated by an even worse, more evil threat than Queen Celestia herself, and then there was the news that an alternate Equestria out there coming to humanity’s aid.

He would have to just accept this though. Nothing should have to surprise him anymore, given all that was happening. And he really needed to try resting at least. He had to prepare himself for the final battle.

The next morning…

“Are you sure you can’t stay a little longer?” Gail asked, almost crying.

“I can’t,” Porter replied sadly. “I was contacted by Cheerilee herself to help out in the final assault. Colonel Renee even specifically requested our assistance. We’re all expected to pull our weight now more than ever.”

“Just promise me right now that you’ll come back to us, alive and human,” Charlie said. “And for that matter, promise us that you’ll get at least one blow on the Queen Bitch.”

“I promise.”

Richard put his hand on his son’s shoulder and added, “I know you’re strong, Porter. Winning this war and ending it once and for all is all that matters. Do what you have to do.”

“I will,” Porter promised, his eyes narrowed. “And you all take care of yourselves and each other, got it?”

“We will,” Gail said with determination, wiping the tears out of her eyes. She gave him one last hug and sent him off. Richard, Charlie and Jenna saluted Porter as he entered the plane. As he took one last look at them, he could have sworn that, out of the corner of his eye, he could see five other people standing beside them.

David and Megan Renee standing together and holding each other, Jacob had his arms wrapped around their shoulder, Ambassador Heartstrings standing next to Megan, and a pure white alicorn with a vibrant scarlet mane next to David, smiling at him.

He blinked, rubbed his eyes, and they were gone.

‘Fuck me, I’m losing my marbles,’ he thought to himself.

3:
On The Eve Of Destruction / A Broken Monster Goes To War

“Fuck running. Fuck the Queen Bitch. Fuck that cesspit calling itself my rightful home, and what they’ve forced us and our families into! Fuck losing everything and fuck giving up! Fuck that PER! Fuck being forced into slums because the alternative is being a glassy-eyed zombie with no will of its own! Fuck the barrier! Yesterday, I despaired, but today, I reject all that, I reject all that we have come to merely accept about this war! AND YOU KNOW WHY?! Because today… is a day unlike any other day! Today, Marcus Renee has returned! Today, New York stands against a barrage of zeps and HLF, besieged from all sides, unfaltering, as humans and ponies alike fight for their right to their own thoughts! Today, we fight and maybe, just maybe, we win and earn a victory beyond mere survival, taking back our lives and countless others! TODAY, WE MAY FINALLY WATCH THE SUNSET AND LOOK FORWARD TO THE TOMORROW WE FINALLY HAVE! TODAY, WE CANNOT AFFORD ANYTHING BUT TO PUSH FORWARD, GRINNING AND BEARING IT, RIFLES IN HAND OR MOUTH, AS WE SLAUGHTER THOSE NEWFOALS AND PROTECT OUR HOMES AND FAMILIES! TODAY, WE HOLD THE LINE AND FALL NO MORE! TODAY, IT’S TIME FOR THE PAYBACK, CAUSE I PROMISE THAT WE WILL NOT FALL… AND WE WILL GIVE THEM WOUNDS THEY’LL NEVER FORGET!”
PHL Sergeant Duststorm (pegasus stallion) at the Battle of Montreal, the day of the Atlantic Blitz

“We’re holding out, just barely! (sounds of rifle fire) There’s so goddamn many newfoals, we can’t let them get to this town! If I fall, if I become a newfoal, I just want you to know, Yekemi, my niece... I love you. I love all my family. I-”
There is a pause.
“What’s… what’s happening?! Listeners…. something is happening! The Barrier, which is eating the horizon, is…. It’s going brighter and brighter. The fighting has stopped as we all stare at its awesome, terrible glory, as it pulses and becomes brighter than the sun. Humans and natural-born ponies, zebras, even newfoals, we have ceased fire, as we stare at the Barrier. Some of the men are resisting the urge to shoot themselves, kept alive only by curiosity. Is the Barrier about to expand? Is it some new surprise from the Queen Bitch, ever so eager to damn us to a living hell? Is it…”
“I can’t believe this! I CAN’T BELIEVE THIS! YES! YES! MY EYES AND MIND ARE REBELLING AGAINST ME, BUT I KNOW WHAT I SEE! IT SHOULDN'T BE POSSIBLE, BUT I CHECKED THE SATELLITES AND IT IS REAL! I HAVE NOT BEEN THIS HAPPY SINCE I FOUND OUT MY NIECE ISN’T A NEWFOAL! I HAVEN’T BEEN THIS HAPPY SINCE I… EVER! THE BARRIER IS GONE! CHECK A DAMN SATELLITE, BECAUSE THE BARRIER! IS! GONE! THE NEWFOALS THAT WERE ATTACKING NAMIBIA ARE IN UTTER CHAOS, AND-(there is the sound of heavy artillery going off, and screaming)-EASY TARGETS! THEY’RE MILLING AROUND, SCREAMING, THEY CAN’T EVEN SUICIDE CHARGE RIGHT, THEY’RE BUMPING INTO ONE ANOTHER, AND WE ARE JUST CUTTING THE BLIKSEMS DOWN! WE’RE KILLING THEM AND OBAYANA JUST KILLED ONE WITH HIS SHOTGUN! I AM SHOOTING THEM WITH MY BERETTA, AND THEY’RE JUST FALLING APART! THEY ARE RUNNING AT US AND WE ARE KILLING THEM AND ADVANCING! TODAY IS A DAY THAT ALL OUR LIVES HAVE NEW MEANING, AND NOT JUST CAUSE NEWFOALS EXPLODE! I DON’T KNOW HOW TO DESCRIBE THIS! OH, IT IS MADNESS! WE’RE CRUSHING THEM, STOMPING THEM! WE ARE CHARGING AND THEY ARE RETREATING! OH! OHHHHHHHHHHH! FOR TODAY, HUMANITY IS FIGHTING AND WE! ARE! WINNING MORE THAN A FEW MORE HOURS OF SURVIVAL! TODAY, WE ARE CANCELING THE APOCALYPSE!
(Ten minutes later)
Wait...
Why did they....
They all stopped?
What's going on with them?
Oh my God, what is happening to them?! SHOOT THEM! KILL THEM BEFORE THEY-”
(Screaming and weapon fire until it cuts out)

Enitan Adebayo, broadcasting live from Namibia the day the Barrier fell.

“Kraber.”

Said man blinked awake, the skyline of New York appearing in his view from the Black Hawk. He’d been having such a nice dream, too.

Kraber groaned as he stretched, gently patting Heliotrope on her head as she snoozed on his lap, happy to have another successful mission under his belt. Glad to have everyone here and alive and not enslaved, so much better than his time with the HLF. Aegis nodded his head to the others, showing them stretching or simply looking out the window with a blank expression on their faces.

“Okay. Time to prep up and get ready for another trip after this.” Kraber popped his neck, running his hand through his beard. “Ek is siek en sat van al hierdie, kan ek nie gaan slaap?” he sighed.

Johnny smirked at that, rolling his eyes before looking out the window. “Uh oh.”

“What?”

“That.” Johnny pointed out, seeing a familiar cerise-colored Earth Pony on the helipad below. “Miss Cheerilee is waiting for us. Eeee crow, y’all hear that sound?”

“What, rotors?” Heliotrope muttered sleepily.

“No, the sound of some heavy shit coming our way,” Johnny said, “And she looks like she means business too.”

Kraber looked out to indeed see Cheerilee staring up at them, a frown on her face as she watched the Black Hawk land. He had to admit, for a being a homely schoolteacher, she could look quite intimidating even for being half his size.

Then again, having your boyfriend being a total badass that could rip you apart for just looking at her funny was just as good in keeping others in line.

Beating up the Queen Bitch with bare hooves also had helped a lot. You did not talk gara to the mare that managed to drib the Queen Bitch.

“Welp, let’s find out what kak we in now,” Kraber said as he open the door.

“No, we’re talking about the shit you’re in,” Johnny said.

“Agreed.” Yael said with a smirk as she crossed her arms.

“Maybe you did something to piss her off?” Heliotrope asked.

“Me existing pisses Marcus off.” Kraber deadpanned, “It’s why I was shunted off to Stephan’s crew instead of Marcus’s, Marcus just doesn’t have the time nor does he like me. Think she was concerned we’d kill each other by the time I got put in basic?” he asked Aegis.

“Yeah… kill each other… sure.” Johnny laughed out loud, gaining an annoyed look from Kraber. “More like he would kick your ass from here to Cali and back again, without the magical boost. And I heard it had something to do with you commenting on Cheerilee’s flank?”

“That too. Shame, too-I get on better with Americans, usually.”

“What about Vinyl’s flank? Or Astral Nectar’s eyes?” Aegis suggested. “Or Zecora’s-”

“...Probably that too.”

“Kraber!” Cheerilee yelled over the running blades, “Get over here, now!”

“Fok. I’m thinking I am in deep kak.” Kraber muttered. “All of you! Stand at attention!”

“I notice you’re not… gesuip?” Cheerilee asked, ignoring the others in favor in leveling a glare at him. Normally Kraber wouldn’t give two shits about what people thought, but given the fact that this mare literally held his fate in her hooves and gave him a chance to amend, well… you just didn’t disrespect that. “Is that the word you use?”

“It is,” Kraber nodded. “And maybe I can get drunk later, but there’s more important things than booze at the moment. So, what did I do now to cause your ire? I was sure I was held back on this mission.”

Heliotrope and Aegis looked up at him in shock, while Johnny hummed a funeral march. Cheerilee rolled her eyes, but waved her hoof to follow him. “The rest of you, take some down time. I will be back with your esteemed colleague in a couple minutes.”

“Hope she doesn’t kill him,” Johnny C said. “That bastard owes me a lot of pints. Aegis? You got his wallet?”

“Sure, yeah,” Aegis said, walking over to the stairs, while reaching into one of his saddlebags. “It’s right in-”

“Ah, Aegis? You miiiight not want to touch that one with your mouth,” Kraber called over. “That’s where I keep the unopened condoms.”

Aegis looked distinctly green for a moment. How the hell that worked, Kraber had no idea, but he’d long since learned not to question it.

“If it’s any consolation, that one’s empty,” Kraber said.

“Oh, that reminds me. Aegis? You might want to be around for this,” Cheerilee said.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I didn’t have any part of it,” Aegis said before walking up to them with a downcast look on his face, Cheerilee rolled her eyes before looking to the others. They looked around for a moment before leaving to the chow hall.

“So, what kak have I done now?” Kraber asked. “By the way, for the love of God, I’m not the fokking werf eter! And that guy I kicked in the face totally deserved it-”

“I know that.”

“Is this about calling Enitan Adebayo? Cause I didn’t tell her what we were doing. She was real pissed bout that.”

“No…”

“Nearly revealing the existence of that… secret training camp?”

“No. Besides, you were surprisingly tactful that time.”

“The shotgun I took today? They said I could do it. You can ask them, and I needed that shotgun.”

“Not that…”

“Making too many references to Welcome To Night Vale?”

“Why would that even… no.”

“The thing with the-”

“Man, shut up,” Aegis whispered.

Cheerilee’s eye twitched. “...I’m not even going to ask. No, this time, you didn’t do anything.”

“Wait, seriously?” Aegis asked.

Kraber was silent for a moment, truly a sight to behold. His mouth flapped slightly, his beard fluttered in the breeze. Then, finally- “Izzit?!” Kraber asked. “So… I’m not getting shot by firing squad?”

“Why would we do that?” Cheerilee asked.

Kraber raised an eyebrow, waving his arm to himself once.

“Fair point,” Cheerilee said. “No, you and Aegis are needed for a secret mission.”

“Great. I finally stop volunteering for suicide missions, then this happens,” Kraber sighed.

"Don't worry." Cheerilee said, a smirk on her face. "I think it will be a mission you will like."

All Kraber could do was tilt his head in confusion as he followed her.

“You have free access to the armory, if that helps,” Cheerilee said. “Though considering the guns you have, I’m not sure you’ll need it.”

“Okay, now you’re speaking our language,” Aegis said, hoof-bumping Kraber.

“Yeah, color me intrigued… you got any .338 Norma Magnum HEIAP rounds?”

“Whatever you need, we’ll supply it,” Cheerilee said.

Kraber and Aegis shared a look. That…. what did that mean?

Johnny blinked as the doors opened to reveal Viktor Kraber and Aegis, both stunned and amazed. "So, she gave Kraber the boot and you have five minutes to leave."

"She gave you a hour head start before she beats you down." Yael said.

"She is shaving your beard." Heliotrope smirked as Kraber flinched.

“No,” Kraber said. “I... “ and suddenly, impossibly, incredibly, he smiled.

Johnny C took a step back, as did Yael and Heliotrope.

“No, we,” he said, running a hand over Aegis’ red bandanna, “Are going to do something… extraordinary.”

“Oh,” Aegis grinned, “You’re gonna be hearing about this shit in legends.”

“Well… what is it?” Yael asked, intrigued by his words.

“Oh, nothing special. Just me doing me, shootin’, stabbin’, stranglin’ ponies, going in skop, skiet, and donner…” Kraber paused, with what British acquaintances of his often called the ‘oh-bloody-hell-you’re-enjoying-this’ smile. “From within the belly of the beast itself. Canterlot. We are taking down the fokking barrier, and painting the city red with the blood of our enemies. Turn the castle into a wasteland, kill everything in sight...”

There was silence for a moment.

“You are shitting me,” Johnny C said. It wasn’t a question.

“He really isn’t, you know,” Aegis said.

“You’re going deep into the darkness, you know,” Heliotrope said.

“Eh, we’ll just light our path with burning newfoals,” Kraber shrugged. “I brought enchanted thermite grenades, and I have free armory access… and dimensional compartmenting ammo storage decks. Even the gods can die, motherfokker.”

Johnny, Heliotrope, and Yael looked at one another in shock at his words, staring at Aegis and Kraber talked to one another as they made their way to their rooms with smiles.

Yael stared at the door, unsure what to do. Kraber seemed to be excited about the prospect of invading Canterlot and trashing the Tyrant’s own home while she was away, kicking newfoals in the face. Knowing Kraber, he would bring down the entire city if given the chance.

And given what Kraber said to them before heading to his room, he wouldn’t be alone. The Dragons were going, along with Cheerilee, Doctor Whooves, and hired help.

It was practically a guarantee that something was going to be destroyed. Though this might be too much for even him… and she’d never properly gotten to thank him for saving her from ponification.

Yael shook her head, clearing the stray thoughts of a flaming city falling down a mountain as Kraber pointed and laughed maniacally, and knocked on the door.

“Yeah? Door is open, come on in!’ Kraber answered.

Yael entered the room.

“Yael?” Kraber asked, raising an eyebrow. “...Hey. Whatever’s up?”

“I’m just… here to say thank you,” Yael said. “You saved my life today, and...all those people. And I’m here to apologize.”

“...Who are you, and what have you done with the real Yael?” Kraber asked.

“Ha ha, very funny.” Of course, this being Kraber, he actually did know her name-it was just more of him being himself. She pushed it away. “I’ve said and heard bad things about you. No matter how you act, no matter what you might do… you’re still a good person.”

Kraber didn’t speak for a long time, then he looked up at her. “Thanks… thank you so much. That really means a lot to me.”

There was a large bed in there, likely taken from a furniture store somewhere. Only one, clearly big enough for Kraber and Aegis to share it. About three stuffed animals lay on one side, and posters lined the walls. A ten-gauge sawed-off four-barrel HLF shotgun hung on one wall. Every wall seemed to be lined with photos… they looked like they’d be a pain to pack. And evidently, Kraber and Aegis had been having some trouble, with one tub half-full of them. A medical bag lay off to one side.

“You, ah… sleep with stuffed animals?” Yael asked.

“Yeah,” Kraber said, not quite angry, not quite sad. “This one, Spitz?” he held up a stuffed wolf. “That’s mine. The others?” He put it down, then picked up another stuffed wolf, and a horse. “Ambassador Nikai the Second and Joanna? They belonged to my kids.”

“I… had no idea,” Yael said.

“Only Aegis, Marcus, and Cheerilee know,” Kraber said bitterly. “Had to sew the stuffed animals all back up myself after they got torn up cause the PHL thought I had bombs inside. Which would be kiff and all, but… fok, they were my kids.”

There was an awkward pause, and Kraber collapsed on the bed. Slowly, methodically, he stripped off his armor, placing the weaponry on tables and hanging the pistol holsters from coathooks.

“That’s… I don’t know what it is,” Yael nodded her head, “But it’s… that’s beautiful. That’s… you’re Kraber, that old raging badass! I wouldn’t have thought you’d be like this, and you keep tha-”

“Go,” Kraber said.

“What?” Yael asked.

“Just go. I thought you’d actually like me a bit, but turns out you’re like all the rest,” Kraber sighed, choking slightly. “I… I just, I try and try, but it’s never enough. It’s never gonna be, either. I’m one of the best surgeons on the base, I’ve saved people, I fokking shot Celestia… I like kids and dogs too,” he held up one stuffed wolf sadly, “But no. I was HLF, and a lot of people here actively just wish I’d die. A lot of people do like me, don’t get me wrong, but… there’s still people that’ll never forgive me.They think I’m the werf eter cause I like kids, all because I’m-”

“What’s werf eter mean?” Yael asked.

He looked up, bitterly, tears welling up in his eyes. “Pedophile. All because I was HLF, and that made me a monster, so they all assume the worst. And the worst part is, I understand them. If I were them, I’d be the same. I wish…”

“There’s a lot of us that have wishes,” Yael said, wiping a tear from his cheek.

“I wish someone would switch me off and… fix me,” Kraber choked through the tears that had not yet come.

Yael hugged him.

“Thanks. I… I need a hug,” he sighed.

“You’re welcome,” Yael said, drawing him in closer. “Viktor.”

For the first time in a long time, Kraber didn’t hear the silence of a wrecked home, but one of peace.

Before the war, even when he’d been overworked, overdosing on drugs, struggling to pay the bills, Kraber could find some reason to smile. In a sense, he still was a smiling man, but it usually meant he was looking forward to the slaughter.

For the first time in three years, not a single ounce of insanity or misery was to be seen on his face as he released the dark thoughts that plagued him.

We Are Not Alone

View Online

Co-authors:
Jed R
VoxAdam
Kizuna-Tallis
1. Finally A Tomorrow

Xiulan Zhang: “Would you say that there’s any truth to the stories about the so-called Last Resort?”
Oliver Singh: “Oh, God. That name. I hate it so much.”
Xiulan Zhang: “Would you say it’s… untrue?”
Oliver Singh: “No, I hate it because it’s so true it hurts. I want to find whoever did the calcs that put us as the last place on earth and wring their neck.”
Xiulan Zhang: “I remember that. The one that calculated that within six years, New Zealand would be the last place on Earth.”
Oliver Singh: “That’s the one. Sure, not the whole island, but by the time it enclosed us, it wouldn’t matter. Nobody wanted to think about that, though. We get a decent influx, but the later Barrier Evacuation, once it hits areas more densely populated than Switzerland… well, that convinced enough people that they never wanted to go through something so truly horrifying. So they up and left.
“First, we get the rich and famous running roughshod over everyone here. Then the PHL base with the most expensive, ridiculous tech that barely anyone can so much as breathe at. Then, you get people who’ve been through enough evac that they sell every damn thing and come here with only the clothes on their backs! And sometimes, not even that. Yes, Ms. Zhang. The stories are absolutely true.”
Xiulan Zhang: “You sound… do you wish they hadn’t come? I can sort of empathize, but I don’t know where they’d go.”
Oliver Singh: “Yeah, I know. I just… it’s hard. I used to know every corner of my city, now it feels like I get lost whenever I turn the corner. I miss… I don’t know how to say it.”
Televised interview for Xinhua News Network on the Last Resort, between Xiulan Zhang (Reporter) and Oliver Singh, a New Zealander

It’s easy to hate us out here. To call us monsters, say we had our heads in the sand. Maybe it was selfish. Maybe not. But we were terrified. Being on the move, only separated from the Barrier with an ocean in the way? Watching the Empire plow through country after country? I couldn’t allow myself to live like that. So I found what seemed the perfect solution. I took every piece of art I owned in my private collection, brought my dogs, my family – even the ones I didn’t quite like. If you see this, that’s you, Aleksi. I couldn’t let you go through the tales of our grandparents. I took everything I valued and ordered it flown to Akaroa.
I don’t know when they started calling it the Last Resort. Maybe it was the first big party – the real bust-ups, the ones that lasted weeks or more, the ones where people would dance, drink, smoke, fuck, eat anything for days on end without sleep. It sounds fun, but it was either throw yourself into the deep end or realize just how lost it all was. The workers were abused, forgotten. They were just props. It seemed like things would come to a boil once America had Barrierfall, and the news reached even the most oblivious partygoer. And then, days later… when we found out where Colonel Renee was, it was like all the lights went out in the city. I don’t know how to describe it. That day, we didn’t know what to believe.
– Ilinga Cojocaru, former citizen of Romania. Excerpt from an interview for ‘The Last Party In The World’, a New Zealand documentary on Last Resort made in 2042.

Let me tell you about the day that everything stopped.

The Last Resort was always in motion. There was always a party. There were always people wired on some substance. There was always something being fixed. There were always people trying to get somewhere. There was always a reason to do anything but what you needed to do, always a way to cope, more or less.

And there’d always be people with jobs to do. Ilinga, cleaning up a party that’d lasted ten days, and wearing her characteristic scowl. Flywheels, this unicorn engineer I knew, off working on the PHL magitech which had made it to the private sector.

And me, working on a sculpture. Some city bigwig wanted a sculpture of whatever I could find; a sculpture that only a unicorn could create. So I sat in my apartment, with a pile of refuse that I would shape into an abstract human form, working on a Crowe Laboratories accu-vox...

- - - - -

Alright, testing, testing, one… one two… one two three…

This is Maple Glaze. Earth pony, twenty-six years old. Yellow coat, orange-and-red mane, y’know, faux Spitfire, yadayada. I’m participating in the Crowe Laboratories accu-vox program today, for payment, extra rations, and because… (*groans*) I need a break, goddammit. I’ve been working on these sculptures for twenty-eight hours, I don’t give a shit if they’re done, I’m done, that’s what matters. I am attending, if that’s the word, the Design And Arts College of New Zealand, in Christchurch. I transferred here from Hoofington U because I wanted to see Earth. By the time I was a sophomore the war was in full-swing, and I just kept taking subject after subject so nobody would deport me.

Turns out, nobody would have, so here I am in Christchurch. Yay. Ah, well. Least I’m not lonely. That’d really suck.

I didn’t come out of the Crystal War feeling happy. I came out of there feeling disaffected, not really finished with my studies, so I came here. Which is where I learned about dadaism. Which is why I’m trying to work on something that feels like Chalcedony’s work before that mess with the Equestrians for Humanity’s Salvation. If you don’t remember them, trust me, you’re better off. I actually have a few examples of her work some guy in a tweed coat gave me as inspiration. She was… interesting.

Going to college during wartime is odd, to say the least. Few people think they’re actually going to going to survive, and the art department is-

(*static*)

“Get in here, Maple!”

“I’m trying to work!”

“Screw your work! Get in here! THIS IS BIG!”

(*static*)

Fine…

Whatever. I might as well...

Um.

Oh, damn.

(*recording cuts off*)

- - - - -

Watching the news goes against the Great Roommate Agreement of ‘21: We Do Not Watch The News On The Gaming TVs. After years of anguish, of tragedies once a week, we’d all agreed we’d find the news at one pace. We had a lot of TVs, all bought before the price rocketed up, and the idea was that we used them all to play video games. We weren’t rich enough to be invited to the Last Resort’s parties, more that we just sort of happened upon them.

And now our roommate agreement is broken in favor of a right bombshell of a story.

I think that on some level, yes, I understand this. Or at least, understand that something had been said in the first place. I understand what the words had been. The specific arrangement of sounds which superficially resembled an actual sentence.

We crowd in, squeezing onto a couch, on the floor, anywhere there’s space. There’s ten of us to this apartment, bunkbeds lining the walls in places. A zebra named Fundiswa, a Turk named Mustafa, an American named Tom Casey. A woman with an armory of Soviet weapons named Vorona. A Chinese man named Huang. A Czech woman named Dobromila. A family of Swedes, Karl and Tuuri Lundberg, and their children Olaf and Hanna.

“The Internet is just blowing up,” Mustafa says, stroking his beard nervously as he scans some forum on his iPad.

“What’s happening?” Dobromila asks in Czech. We’ve all learned enough of her native tongue, not to mention her body language (grasping both knees as she tried to sit still on the couch) to know she’s completely gobsmacked.

“Don’t you all know?” Karl asks. “It’s… it’s Equestria.”

“Don’t you mean the Solar Empire?” Tom asks.

“No,” I say, my fur in a cold sweat. “Karl doesn’t.”

“How could he not mean the Solar Empire?” Tom asks, snorting derisively. “How could…”

And then the news popped up. The PHL is holding a press conference, Cheerilee is standing at a podium in front of a large banner with the PHL’s insignia, reporters shouting over each other to get something.

“Why didn’t you immediately release this news to the public?” one reporter asked on TV, beads of sweat rolling down their face.

“Because we thought you’d panic,” Cheerilee says, a hint of guilty admittance to her voice. “This was… this was a miracle. You don’t want to know what some of our contingency plans were. Of all the things that could have happened, this was the least likely. And if I told you another Celestia wanted to help, well…”

It’s impossible to miss the shock on another reporter’s face.

“I wouldn’t take it well, and I don’t think anyone else would,” Cheerilee says. “But they saved us. Their Lord Discord and their Princess Luna came. Their Princess Celestia didn’t, because she knew what we’d think.”

“This all seems a bit too… convenient, Lieutenant Colonel Cherry,” another reporter says. “It’s, if you’ll pardon my French–”

“Faute de mieux,” Cheerilee intercedes smartly.

Hanna giggles nervously. Everyone knew the Teacher hadn’t been idle during her time at the Equestrian Embassy in Paris, where she’d first met Renee.

“Well, it’s a fucking miracle. I’ll have to play the Devil’s Advocate here, but, um, what made you decide to take it up?”

A blue mare with a white mane, Photo Finish, who’s standing next to Cheerilee, sighs.

“Ve thought of zat,” Photo Finish explains. “Oh, did ve think. Ve considered turning it dow… no, zat’s not right. Ve considered zat ve should consider it. Zen ve reconsidered. Zere are… certain personnel... in ze PHL zat could never trust any Celestia. Who have had enough of offers from Equestria zat claim to have no downsides. Certain ponies zat, even if ze var never ended, vould stay here out of spite. But… ve realized ve couldn’t do anything else.”

“Isn’t that rather defeatist?” a third reporter asks.

“Yes and no,” Cheerilee said. “These Equestrians treated Colonel Renee well while he was there. If I remember correctly, he was given a room in Canterlot Palace that had specifically been made for minotaur visitors. They were nothing but understanding to him, and Princess Celestia has called together every army of her world to help.”

There’s a gasp, from both sides of the television screen.

“Yes. Every army. Dragons, minotaurs, diamond dogs, zebras, reindeer…” Cheerilee says. “Maybe a few more. We may have different magics, different techniques from the Solar Empire. But we don’t have another planet’s worth of resources, troops, and magic.”

“Ze applications are literally dizzying,” adds Photo Finish.

“And we’ve probably thought of them,” Cheerilee says. “We’ve been attempting to offload artwork and anything from Earth we can think of to the other Equus. Apparently it’s getting very popular. There’s factories producing PHL equipment and machinery, and we’re attempting to help them learn more of our tactics.”

“But, Lieutenant Colonel. I do have one more question,” the first reporter says.

“Yes, sir?”

“Why tell us now?” the reporter begins, before clarifying. “I mean, we understand you wished to break the news carefully. Only, while I realise it’d make no functional difference to ask about this, what makes you confident that disseminating this information won’t alert the Empire to a potential element of surprise?”

The sad smile on Cheerilee’s face suggests she had anticipated this question.

“Because, ladies and gentlemen,” she says wanly, “surprise was off the cards for us from the moment Luna and Discord first manifested in Boston. It was off the cards from the moment every camera and smartphone in the city was running. As you’ll recall, owing to the uncertain nature of the unfolding crisis, we initiated a media blackout for the duration of it. None but our best-confided media liaisons were allowed on the scene…”

She nods respectfully towards Photo Finish, who gives a curt nod in return.

“The Empire sent an advance recon to Boston to intercept Princess Luna and Lord Discord. The Tyrant was already aware of our new ally before they’d even landed.”

As murmurs of dismay are exchanged between reporters, Cheerilee ploughs on resolutely.

“However, people, ponies, everyone on Earth,” she declares. “I entreat you not to fear or despair. Whether by fate or some cosmic whim, time is on our side. As we speak, a week has passed since Boston, but a whole two months have passed on this new Equus, a world ‘downtime’ from our own. Messages between universes tell me our envoys are working around the clock, working, more than anything, to make things right once more with Equestria. Princess Celestia has pledged that her land shall be the crux upon which two battered worlds may lean, that when the Barrier falls, and I promise you it will, our shared might will overcome the Tyrant, but with them at our side, we may finally know peace.”

- - - - -

“Maple Glaze, Accu-Vox Log Two. Subject… I don’t know where begin,” I say slowly. I don’t know how long I’ve been sitting in the empty bathtub. “It was going to be another audio log about… I don’t know. Today I had eggs. Boring stuff, you know?” I ask, my voice veering off-kilter. “But… today. Today, I just… this is like the biggest discovery in history. Our world might be safe, because there is another Equestria. No Newfoals, no Return Act, no totem-proles, no Ministry of Culture, none of the wankers saying I’m worse than a lobotomized little golem made from some poor human, nothing that makes me want to be somep… something else, anything but a pony.”

I laugh, but there’s an odd edge to my voice. “I know. I know. Sometimes… sometimes it’s hard to deal with knowing you’re part of all that. So this is where some of my work might be going. Huh. Or not. But… I just… I don’t know what I’m thinking. I mean, I read Porno... dammit, Irvine Welsh! Did you title it that way just to make it awkward!”

“The man does like shock humor!” someone calls from outside the bathroom.

“Yeah, makes sense, Tom,” I say. “Anyway, the quote is, ‘I'm in shock. It's like everything good's gone, and the rest's been turned upside down.’ I wouldn’t say everything good’s gone, but… I feel like a lot of things were just turned upside down. I don’t… I can’t even. And my family…”

- - - - -

“They might still be alive,” Cheerilee said. “Those lost to this war might be alive in another world.”

- - - - -

I stagger out into the street, into the listless night outside. I need air. I need to think.

We aren’t rich enough to be booked for a permanent stay at the Last Resort, so we live in a hastily-constructed prefab built over the abandoned buildings in Christchurch. Pockets of these buildings still remain, though the majority are being broken down. Squatters live in them. There’s one such abandoned building, damaged enough for the city to leave it to rot, and populated enough that it hasn’t been demolished. This place had once been the Central Business District. I wonder if it had looked this way when the first earthquake hit. Not in the sense that the buildings had crumbled, but more...

How do I put this. I’ve seen disaster. I was in Manehattan when the Dark King’s golems attacked. It’s not the violence I remember, more how we reacted to it: Staggering out, dead-eyed, in shock, unable to comprehend what truly happened.

The people on the street look like that.

Humans of every ethnicity, various Equusite expatriates like Diamond Dogs, zebras, and griffons, they’d all walked onto the street. Cars are stopped. The very heartbeat of the city has stopped for this revelation. It sounds like it should have been happy. Like… like we should have been partying in the street. Someday somebody’s going to ask me, ‘Maple, why weren’t you happy? Why wasn’t anyone else?’

I have plenty of time to mull that over as I walk. It was dreamlike. I knew that everyone I passed on the street had to be thinking of something similar.

So I keep trotting down the street.

I don’t know if you’ve been to the Central Business District. The war did a number on any rebuilding efforts, so for now it’s a blend of prefabs and unsafe abandonments, new and old, unplanned and planned.

“Can’t be true,” someone says. A dark-skinned beggar with one of those wheelchairs that isn’t really a chair, more a pedestal with wheels for legless people.

She’s crying.

I’ve seen plenty of bad news saying not to trust humans outside the PHL. Stick together. But everypony, and yes, I do mean every pony, ignores that, mostly. It shows we have nothing to hide. We can’t very well live here if we spend the whole time hidden.

So I come up to ask her what’s wrong, and if I could help.

“Don’t touch me, geldo,” she snarls, and for a second, under her shorts, I see the stumps of her legs. Patches of inhuman fur. Scarring that never quite healed right.

She’d been potioned before, and had escaped. Mostly.

“It’s a lie, you know? Everything your country said is a lie. It’s fine without the bastards that did this to me. Your home is a lie.”

I stare at this damaged woman, then gallop down the street. Night’s descending on Christchurch, the sunlight wavering and halfheartedly replaced by artificial light.

I should be happy. I wasn’t. The War destroyed my family. Not in one fell swoop, no. Mom had been taken by PER, practically murdered, even if she’s still alive, by Newfoals and humans who considered themselves better ponies than her. Dad had just disappeared while we were evacuating Sophia. My big brother, before Mom had died, had been so put off by the racist jibes we got from humans that he’d joined the PER, headed to America, and died horribly.

I’m the last of the Glazes and now I’m here.

I pass by a vacant lot. There’s an HLF woman standing on a crate, a few heads above all the other men and women there. She’s holding two Kalashnikovs in each hand, and screaming in English.

“–can’t handle more of them!” she’s yelling. “If any intruder from that world comes over here, we’ll give them the same welcome we’d give any other gluestick! Who’s to say they won’t stab us in the back? They pushed us this far, and you can’t trust ‘em! You can’t trust the bastards!”

Church bells are tolling as I hurry away. Whatever that woman is saying, I have no wish at all to be anywhere nearby. I don’t know where I’m going. I don’t know what they’re thinking in the church. What they’re saying.

So I turn left, I see a party break out in the middle of one street. There’s humans and ponies alike, laughing together. It’s nighttime and someone’s projecting the film the PHL had made onto the side of an untouched old ruin.

- - - - -

This is for the record.

Someday, people are going to look at the revelation of Sunny Equestria, Unsullied Equestria, Equus, whatever it is, like some kind of triumph. Like it was a victory. And it was… and wasn’t. I don’t know how to describe it. There were those who were angry that this place didn’t come sooner. There was grief. Crying over missed opportunities. A sense the very foundation of our world had been brutally undermined.

Personally, though, I think it’s that we weren’t used to good news. In fact, for some of us, hope, the very thought that things might actually look up for us, felt… scary. So we went through the whole five stages of grief before realizing we didn’t have to.

- - - - -

That ruin had been a mall before the earthquake. Hadn’t totally been replaced.

And it’s bursting with light. Somebody’s most likely spending weeks worth of electricity rations there. Neon lights shine out, and music pounds from inside. It’s like someone upended a pot of hot soup into the street.

The film is... I don’t know. PHL giving exposition on the land. Accompanied by text in bright blue, pink, and green against indigo background in the most offensively Earth-1980s color scheme I had ever seen.

I haven’t been to a place so throbbing with energy for quite some time. And I see a griffon girl there. An old friend named Brigitte. She’s holding a cup of something in one talon. I don’t know what it is, but knowing Brigitte, it’s alcoholic.

“WHAT’S THIS ABOUT?!” I yell, trying desperately to be heard over the pounding music.

“IT’S ABOUT EQUESTRIA!” Brigitte yells back. “YOU KNOW, THE OTHER ONE! COME ON, JOIN IN!”

I shake my head. “I… I’M NOT SURE! I THINK I MIGHT PASS!”

Brigitte walks up to me on three legs, her cup – I can just smell that rotgut. Lordy, that is foul! – still held in one talon.

“What’s wrong?” she asks.

“I just...” I trail off. So many emotions, swirling through my head. The idea that Mom, Dad, and my brother might still be alive. My brother had joined the PER, turning people into those, those… things. But getting to see him…

Is the other him already guilty? Is he a bad person because of what he might do? Would they accept me if I tried to say ‘hi’, get one moment with my family even if it wasn’t technically mine?

“I needed to… de-stress. Let myself relax,” I say finally.

“Then why not come here?” Brigitte asks. “Come on, Syrup. Everyone in this city’s been trying to de-stress since the first parties started. Just… join in.”

‘And she just had to resort to silly nicknames, didn’t she,’ I think. “I don’t know…”

“Look,” Brigitte says. “If you leave, you might just end up wondering forever ‘What if I just decided to enjoy myself?’ If you come, at least you know.”

I shrug. What the hell, she’s right.

So I follow her into the party, weaving between the throngs of humans and others.

I don’t know if you’ve ever seen it, but watching four-legged creatures - like griffons and ponies - dancing in the same space as humans is weird, watching us take up so much more space as humans squeeze themselves in tighter and tighter.

It’s goddamn great!

I can’t really explain it, but Brigitte and I sort of… dance our way through the old mall towards a hideaway on the upper level. We must have gone up a set of stairs, weaving our way through crowds, bumping and grinding our way upwards.

And we find ourselves at a table just upstairs. There’s a human pole-dancing nearby, but she seems more like part of the scenery than anything.

“Maple,” Brigitte says, pointing with one talon towards the table, at which I could see a pale-skinned man, a slightly darker-colored woman, a Malaysian woman, a zebra female, and male zebra. “These are my friends Young Neil, Anna, Damia, Mariama, and Omodele.”

Anna, the slightly darker-skinned woman, waved at me. “So you’re Maple Glaze?” she asks. “Brigitte told us a lot about you.”

“She did?!” I ask. Honestly, I’m kind of flattered.

Mariama holds out one striped foreleg, held through the loop in a pitcher full of beer. “Certainly did. Told us all about the good times you had on the way here!’

Young Neil raises an eyebrow and coughs into a slice of pizza that he’d found somewhere.

“Enjoying that slice, are you?” Omodele asks.

Let’s skip forward a bit. The DJ is playing something happy. Upbeat. Energetic. Hopeful. Things we barely had the luxury of feeling.

“Isn’t it great?” Young Neil says. “We’ve got at least something left.”

I’m going to admit it. I’m not a happy mare. I’m probably what some people would call depressed. Either that or I have an anxiety disorder. I never got around to getting diagnosed.

“The Barrier’s not gone yet,” I hear myself saying. “There’s still people–”

“But something’s at least going to be here,” Young Neil says. “They said on the broadcast they made an exhibition.”

This means nothing to me, but clearly Young Neil is leading into something here.

“Even if we die,” Young Neil says, “There’ll still be something of us left. The exhibition, it’s… it’s everything. Everything we’ve done. And some of it will still be there. With people that’ll listen.”

I’d honestly figured I’d have to do that when the Barrier got here. If I survived. I’d heard rumors that some Equestrian refugees dragged back by Newfoals hadn’t come out the other side.

“That’s…” I look up at Young Neil. “Yeah,” I say, finding myself smiling.

So I throw myself into the party.

There’s only so many ways to say I actually enjoyed myself. I remember throwing myself against humans and ponies.

I remember rearing up and weaving from side to side like a boxer.

I remember drinking some alcohol. Okay, more than some.

“Whoa, she is really grinding on Brigitte!”

Okay I don't remember but it was a lot.

Brigitte’s laughing raucously. I’d say she was crowing, but no, it’s more like eagle shrieking. She’s part eagle, anyway, so that makes sense.

But you know what? Most of all I remember the laughter.

When Damia isn’t drinking straight from the bottle, she’s laughing crazily. “We’re alive!” she cries, a huge smile on her face, as she embraces Mariama and Omodele.

Young Neil just smiles slightly, and walks up to a girl with a mohawk, a ragged shirt full of holes, and striped blue-and-pink tights under shorts.

“Milena Epstein,” he says. “I’ve always loved you.”

“But Neil!” the girl with the mohawk says, “We’ve only just met.”

“Well, apparently we have a lot more time now,” Neil says.

Milena just smiles back.

“Fine,” she says, and starts dancing with him. Or at least… they just start throwing each other around, laughing and spinning. That’s kind of like dancing, right?

“Come on!” Brigitte says, holding out one talon to my foreleg. I place my right hoof in her talon, and we twirl around. She is, I kid you not - waltzing.

Then again, I kind of am too.

She releases her talon and twirled on one hindleg. I do too.

- - - - -

I wake up halfway across the city in Brigitte’s apartment, with her roommates, watching TV.

Brigitte and I had been sleeping together on the couch.

“Your chest down is fluffy,” I slur, barely awake. “... Someone makin’ breakfast?”

“Nah,” Brigitte says. “Just that someone set something on fire outside.”

I rear up bolt upright. “What?!”

“Relax,” Young Neil says, walking out of one door mostly naked, Milena leaning on him. She was a lot taller than him, I realize.

“Neil said it himself,” Milena says, so slurred that even now I’m not sure if that’s what she meant. “We have time, and mrmrmrmrmrrrrglrlrlrlrrrrrgphrgmrrrlmphmmm…”

“Couldn’t have said it better,” Neil says, a huge smile on his face.

“I mean, it’s not like that hard, but this is Young Neil we’re talking about,” Damia calls over.

“Whoa whoa whoa,” I say. “Hold the phone, and the mayo. Is nobody questioning that something was set on fire so close to us?!”

“It wasn’t a big fire, and it’s kinda windy out,” Brigitte say. “Besides, uh…”

Omodele held the remote in his mouth, placed it on the table, and flicked on the TV.

“–explosion of energy last night in Christchurch,” the newscaster says. “The former Central Business District was overtaken by various parties and riots in celebration of last night’s revelation of an uncorrupted Equestria.”

Various shots of the district flash across the flatscreen. I can see police officers armed with riot shields, assault rifles, and what I can only assume to be riot equipment pushing across deserted streets in the early morning.

I can also see HLF, or at least, I assume they’re HLF, covered in tattoos and ragged clothing with their own weaponry. Throwing molotov cocktails. I see footage of looters stealing shoes from a store...

“Friggin’ Belgrade bimboes,” Milena mutters.

“What?” I ask. Brigitte, Omodele, and Mariama looked up at Milena, expectantly.

“It’d take too long to explain,” Milena says, sitting cross-legged on the floor. “Just… reminds me of Kosovo, a bit.”

“In better news, though,” the newscaster says, “apparently the parties last night were great!”

“Hey!” I say, pointing with my left foreleg at the screen. “Brigitte! That’s us!”

“Wha?” Brigitte asks.

“There! Right there!” I say, pointing excitedly. They were showing a scene of the party at the mall. The one we’d all visited.

“Nah, that’s not… that can’t be us,” Brigitte says. “We look way too goofy.”

I just raise an eyebrow at her. Shoot her a look that just screams ‘Really.’ Because I know for a fact that I never even came close to have a cutie mark in dancing. And I know that I did not qualify to become a dancer that night.

“Seems pretty accurate,” Damia says.

“Heh, you look like the Bust A Move dog,” Young Neil chortles, looking at me. Seeing my look of confusion, he continued. “He puts one paw out, starts wiggling around…”

“I’ve never seen that,” I say.

“You should,” Neil explains. “Later.”

“... Not the only party of its kind over the Last Resort,” the newscaster says. “In fact, something seems to have returned. To all of us.”

I find myself nodding.

There’s shots of parties - the kind that only real bigwigs at the Last Resort can afford. With foods that cost ridiculous amounts of money nowadays. I’ve been to those for one reason or another. They’re fun enough but they just get depressing after awhile.

“The PHL has said they’re offloading as much as they can to this other Equestria,” the newscaster continues.

“I thought everyone knew that by now,” Omodele says. “Like… the press conference, and… well, Twitter is just blowing up right now. You’d think people would find out.”

“It’s the media,” Milena says. “Before the war they’d get almost a year of mileage out of stuff like that. Besides, what else are they going to talk about?”

Omodele shrugs. “Got me there.”

And then all of a sudden I facehoof.

“Ah, crap. I have to deliver that sculpture,” I say. “Anyone have a car?”

- - - - -

Damia did.

We drive out of the business district, my sculpture in the back of the truck.

I can’t describe the things I see. There’s a kind of energy to everyone - the people out buying food, other necessities.

Once, somebody compared all of us to Newfoals. Like... when we tried to smile, we were covering things up. That isn’t as far from the truth as I like to think. But that’s not what’s happening here.

The day feels honest. That’s as best I can explain it.

Damia flicks the switches on her truck’s radio, so I listen in, relaxing in her front seat.

“...sense of newfound vigor and joy,” a woman says over the radio. “A sense we might actually survive. It’s a brand new day-”

Damia flicks it again.

“News of actual HLF unity in America - well, that’s a nice change of pace - as the controversial HLF unit known as the Reavers make a call to put down break barriers.”

“Must be nice to hear that,” Damia says. “Can’t believe they’ve gone on this way for so long.”

It’s not like I’ve known much of the HLF since I got to New Zealand. Since the Stampede Fleet managed to break the backs of any HLF movements in the pacific and turned them towards PER and Imperial forces alike, I’ve been safe. This isn’t to say I don’t have my bad memories, however.

“I can,” I say. “I saw HLF ransacking towns for supplies, I saw them making drugs and booze to make money for supplies, I saw what they did to ponies on the way out, I saw somebody trying to raise up a riot last night. If someone’s going to put them towards doing something fucking constructive, I’m good, but…”

Damia looks down at me, a bit concerned.

“Your heart doesn’t seem like it’s really in that,” she says.

“It’s not that,” I say. “It’s that it was… yesterday, it was maybe we survive, a whole lot of people die. My home is evil, blah blah blah.”

“You… do you really mean that?” Damia says. “That your home’s beyond redemption?”

“They took friends of mine,” I say. “Turned them into smiley little zombie-dolls. Destroyed close to half, maybe a third of the world - so much history, so many people just… gone. That’s pretty evil. But, you know…. ” I sighed.

“What is it?” Damia asks.

“Well, that idea’s gone and been upended,” I say.

“Ah, I get it,” Damia says. “A Celestia that wants to help, a Luna who hasn’t been petrified for having a sense of compassion or emotionally abused-”

I blink slightly. “Wait, what?”

“Yeah, I heard from this pony who heard from a Night Guard that Celestia emotionally abused and used gaslighting techniques to keep her sister from intervening. ‘Are you feeling yourself, dear Luna?’ Making it look like any disagreement was a sign Luna might be turning into Nightmare Moon.”

“What a bitch.”

Damia just nods. “But yeah. We’ve gotten used to thinking that. We’ve gotten used to being almost dead. But now, we’re not. Now….”

And she makes a noise halfway between amusement and sadness. “Huh. Equestria willing to help us all out and treat us as sentient, and just… well, uphold its own damn values. Any of the HLF that these Reavers won’t pick up are going to be…. Well, they’re going to be pissed off for trusting another one.”

“I’m not worried about that,” I say. “I’m more worried about the PER.”

“Isn’t everyone?” Damia asks.

“Yeah, but they’ve gotten drunk on that idea,” I say. “What happens when someone comes out and tells them exactly the opposite of what they’ve gotten to thinking Equestria’s supposed to be?”

And all of a sudden I start laughing. Damia looks at me, concerned.

“All these people with such a stupid idea of what my home is like,” I say in between giggles. “It’s just…it’s funny to me. They’re expecting to see so many ponies like Rainbow Dash be genocidal maniacs, but no, she’s happy just trying to be a wonderbolt.”

“Sounds kinda kafkaesque,” Damia mutters.

- - - - -

The buyer, a woman by the name of Ilinga Cojocaru, isn’t sleepy.

‘Sleepy’ implies being cute. Tired, yawning. The woman buying from me is not any of these things, and seems to have subsisted for hours on a steady intake of coffee, amongst other things.

Damia and I just stand, looking nervously at her as some heavyset men offload my sculpture into her house. Which, from what I can see, bears the signs of one of the Last Resort’s traditional parties in the same way that being bisected and lacerated bore the signs of a knife wound.

“Busy night?” I ask.

Cojocaru just stares at me with death in her eyes. I immediately regret asking the question, right up until she sighs and falls against a wall. If it hadn’t been there, she might’ve just fallen asleep right in front of me.

“Honestly, up until last night, it felt like I was partying because I didn’t know what else to do,” Cojocaru says. I’m under the impression that she would’ve said this to any random who walked by. Not just me, not just Damia, even a cleaner if she could afford it. “This time I actually had something to be happy about, which was… weird. You know what somebody left scrawled on my floor? The most common graffiti I saw when I was traveling through Eastern Europe, Russia, then… then here?”

“You’re going to tell us anyway, aren’t you?” I ask.

Cojocaru just raises an eyebrow, shrugs, and laughs. “Yeah. I guess I am. Comes with being partly Russian. Anyway, I’ve seen… The Accu-vox that beams our last gasps into space, the few rockets that send up new satellites or supplies being loaded with odds and ends, and the graffiti that fucking well followed me. It said: "Last one to die, please turn out the light. Honestly, I was throwing all these parties to distract myself. Me and everyone else."

“I can relate,” I say. “I’ve… been invited to a bunch of parties like that.”

“You gate crashed them, didn’t you,” Ilinga says.

“No we…” Damia starts.

I snort a little and roll my eyes. “Yeah, we have.”

“Who hasn’t around here?” Cojocaru asks. “But now… well, now?”

And I swear to God I hear something break as this happens. Like mechanical parts that hadn’t been moved in awhile.

And she smiles. A real, honest smile.

“There’ll be something left for just a little longer,” Cojocaru says. “And I think I like the sound of that. Hell, we might even win.”

‘Might even win?’

I don’t even know when I last heard someone say something that optimistic. I barely even know how it feels. But…

Well, knowing another species won’t fall off the map? I like the sound of this. I look up to the sun, shining through a window behind Cojocaru.

“We will,” I hear myself say.

“Yesterday,” Damia said, “you heard people content with being able to launch their voices and belongings into space, now you hear people saying they’ll survive.”

I find myself smiling. “And why not? It’s a brand new day.”

- - - - -

I don’t know how to explain how I got to Downtime Equestria… or ‘Sunny’ Equestria, as many of us soon took to calling it. There’s a lot of things to explain. Some above-board, some not. That’s a story all its own. But here’s how it ended.

I have it all on tape.

(*pause*)

“Me, walking into a house in Hoofington. I have the recording here…”

“Maple? How did you get so much bigger?”

“Is that me?!”

“She’s from Uptime Equestria!”

“Hi, Mom. I’ve missed you so much.”

2. PERtinent Knowledge

“I spent years thinking that ponification was the only way. That Equestria was only the paradise it is because of assimilation. Because it truly was the only way.
And now? I see a story on the original Equestria. One without war. Without Newfoals. And I’m struck by just how… how happy it looks. The pony that trained me in the PER told me that we were to bring perfection and unity at all costs. Now…. I don’t know what to think.”
– Amina Petrikov, PER potion bomber

You’re lying on the seats of this old canvas truck. It’s got a spell that deflects notice, so you should be fine unless you pass a security checkpoint. It can probably pass as a refugee convoy. There should be an old missile silo somewhere, a place just waiting for you to take it and use as a base.

Nobody in the truck wants to say anything.

Not you, not West, not Aviva. Not Nimbus, the pegasus potion-bomber – who, as it happens, is in another truck trailing just behind you carrying her prized refurbished potioneer. Not Trip Vine, the earth pony horticulturist trimming a bonsai with scissors held in his teeth, even as the truck shakes and judders. Not the Newfoals that you made sure to save, the ones who couldn’t make it to the Barrier. Nobody can truly comprehend this news.

‘Another Equestria, no potioning, no…’

Except possibly one of your number. Your prisoner, who you’re transferring from one end of nowhere to another. A man, supposedly from the PHL. One immune to the potion.

You click back the tape recorder. It was a gift of sorts from a friend, long since ponified and dead in some skirmish. You’d kept it, left it recording the historic news broadcast that you’d seen over your previous base’s TV.

‘No potioning, no…’

You sigh. Lie against the pillow and hope that you can get some sleep as the truck rumbles across the land.

Why had you joined the PER? It seemed so… simple, once upon a time. You’d seen people do terrible thing after terrible thing, and nothing would change. You’d never really cottoned on to the idea that people were inherently good.

And then came Equestria. From the history they gave, it seemed almost as a dream. A goddess who was actually there. A world where in times of crisis, you could come together and talk. And a deep abiding sense that nothing so beautiful could ever happen on Earth.

Your first target had been a violent racist. A hate-spewing bigot who had committed many crimes against other humans without remorse, all for something as trivial as the very color of their skin. You’d seen other Newfoals, heard the pleas to stay human from people such as Reverend James Thomas and Michael Carter.

But this man. This bastard. He’d hurt some of your friends. Thrown rocks at them when they marched for their rights. Insulted them constantly. Laughed at them all the time. Claimed to be a godly, righteous man too. So, whatever religious pleas you’d heard from the Reverend, they didn’t exactly stick.

It hadn’t been hard to find PER somewhere. You’d found a pony musician touring the country, a yellow earth pony with a blue mane named Fiddlesticks. Right now, you hated her. She’d gone Betrayer during the Three Weeks of Blood, joined up with a human named Johnny C, and apparently fought Shieldwall twice. But back then? She’d had a supply of potion for herself, for her benefit concerts. She’d sold really well in Memphis.

And - you can’t exactly remember how - you took one of her vials of potion. Looked for the bastard until you found his very favorite bar. You paid off a friend to provoke him, and while he wasn’t looking you spiked his pint of Guinness.

The bar went silent when he started screaming.

You watched him scream in agony as his body ~~rippled and melted together like a burning candle~~ was blessed by the potion. And then watched him reborn like a butterfly from a chrysalis. He’d become a happy, courteous pegasus named Sunbeam. A bit effeminate, honestly, but considering how overbearing he was… wasn’t that for the best? Wasn’t it really?

Everyone in that room had without a doubt been happier with Sunbeam than the violent racist. But there’d been… well, you wouldn’t say they were laws. But enough disapproval, enough backlash from the fledgling HLF, other governments and that turncoat Lyra Heartstrings that you hadn’t just been able to do it whenever.

Then came the Barrier, ripping through Switzerland. And then, eventually, France. Reitman and Catseye had left a message for PER, delivered by communication spell and projected onto the nearest reflective surface.

- - - - -

“It is a tragedy what happened,” Catseye had said solemnly.

“It is?” Reitman had asked. Vaguely gleeful.

“It is,” Catseye said. “People lost their lives before they could be ponified. Everyone lost something. But need I remind you of humanity’s state? This is worth it, all of you. We have to wipe the slate clean. Humans talk day after day about how they come together in a crisis. Well, we made a crisis and proved them wrong.”

“Meanwhile, we watched humans fight amongst each other. When you’d think they’d unify...” Reitman started.

Your heart had swelled in what was almost pride as Reitman had said that. As she’d comfortably excised herself from the species. She’d turn into a truly beautiful Newfoal when she finally drank the potion.

“When you’d think they’d unify, they break apart,” Reitman completed. “Look what the HTF became. You’re right, Catseye. We have to wipe the slate clean, nothing can come of humanity as it is now.”

- - - - -

And Equestria had been the best ones to do so. Equestria, always Equestria. The way they made sure everything was perfect down to the wire. Their culture had always been perfect for this…!

… Or not.

No, not really.

Going by what you remembered hearing in the old base, a place so near the Barrier that nobody would dream of attacking it, it had not always been this way.

- - - - -

Earlier. Before you left.

“What I’m thinking, Freddy,” West told you, “Is we’ve gotten it wrong.”

Treasonous talk, yes. The kind that made PER Command hand out emergency ponifications. But nobody here could deny what was on their mind. Every news station still running had released the bombshell that there was another Equestria out there… and it had allied itself with humanity. It had no bureaus or potions, no secret police, no totem-proles. It simply… was.

One unicorn had just vanished upon hearing it. Nobody could find him.

“Look,” West was saying. “Here’s another Equestria. Good enough that Arpeggio just up and ‘ported out.”

“His loss,” someone else said, coolly. “Fair-weather sailors would only be millstones in a tempest.”

It was Aviva, who hadn’t once glanced up from her laptop as she typed away, the gem encrusted in the back of its lid flashing a bright, piercing blue in synch with her activity.

“It’s just that Arpeggio is… was… well, I thought he was as PER as you could get,” you said. “Remember that time he replaced all the water in a school’s sprinkler system with potion?”

Aviva looked at you, unconvinced.

“I just miss him is all,” you said. “Or at least, I already miss not thinking of him as a traitor.”

Aviva still looked unconvinced. “He betrayed us. Does it matter?”

“Sometimes, even if people were awful,” West said. “Then you miss them. It’s not about how they are, it’s about what should have been, how you could’ve made things turn out.”

Aviva looked to consider this.

“What kinda deal do you think that even is?” Nimbus asked, confused. And you really have to find yourself wondering along with her.

“What do you mean?” you ask.

“I’m guessing he left to go see how things used to be,” Nimbus said. “If they even give him the chance, then what could he even offer? This is probably their greatest military asset, so what could possibly make him valuable enough?”

Nimbus started laughing. It made her kind of a jerk, honestly, but she coped in her own way.

You knew that. Aviva knew that. Everyone in your PER cell knew that. And for a second, you all laughed, much to Aviva’s disapproval.

And then all of a sudden West wasn’t laughing. Somehow, his absence of laughter was just as loud, just as powerful as Nimbus’ thunderous guffaws. His silence was somehow impossible not to notice.

Maybe it was the fact that there were only a few of you in the room - Aviva, West, Nimbus, and you. Maybe it was that West had a certain force, a charisma, that wasn’t in force.

Or maybe it was the fact that he had gone ashy grey, his jaw dropping, his eyes wide. The fact that he looked as if he wanted to be anywhere else.

Aviva was on her computer, and Nimbus was still guffawing. Neither really noticed West’s lack of reaction.

“West?” you asked. He looked devastated, and you just wanted to hold him, to tell him everything would be alright. “Are you going to be okay?”

It wasn’t going to be.

“Nimbus,” West said, his voice sounding as if it was not quite coming from his body. Nimbus and even Aviva listened. “You asked what he could even offer.”

“I did,” Nimbus confirmed, her voice tight.

“Us,” West said. “We have somebody who teleported off-base, who wants to see his family… and the only thing that he could give them, the only thing that has value… is us.”

You wanted to say that he wouldn’t. So does Nimbus. You can see it in her eyes. But a week ago you would have said Arpeggio would never turn traitor and yet, here you all were.

Aviva caught on immediately.

“We have to evacuate. Now. Rig the building with as many traps as you can, “ Aviva said. “They may have dogs to sniff out the potion, or… or something, but it’ll slow them down. We need to go.”

- - - - -

Now

There’s a little window in the side of the truck, just above your bed. The truck is hugging back roads, avoiding the highways. The roads it travels have grass poking through cracks - it looks like they weren’t truly maintained even before the War.

Nobody would be likely to notice you here.

There is a town coming up. A muddy little place, a ramshackle little American town.

You see people on the porch of one building that looks like a general store. You see humans with prosthetic limbs, miserable-looking people. Rusting machines.

‘Could we ponify this whole town?’ you wonder.

Then you shake your head. No. Your PER cell is hobbling along as it is, potion supplies are… well, in automobile terms they’re running on fumes, and it’d draw too much attention.

You see a woman rushing after the truck awkwardly on one normal leg and one crude prosthetic little better than a crowbar and strips of metal attached just below the knee, holding a baby in both arms. She is running for your truck.

You feel almost proud of how these people will be saved, no, perfected. America had been safe from the Barrier thanks to distance from the epicenter, but with the arrival of the Barrier, and thus safe places to build Portal Stations, it would face the full fury of the Solar Empire.

Sure, they look to be suffering now, but you’ll be able to wipe it away.

Right? Just. A little more. Time. And more people will know the joy of going pony. Of forgetting everything about the corrupt, fat, decadent Earth that allowed them to suffer like this.

Any day now, then…

For no reason at all, you think of Shieldwall. He could get away with this sort of thing. He could get away with anything…

At least, that’s what you’d thought.

‘I wish he was still here with us,’ you think, drifting off to sleep.

- - - - -

When you come to, your truck is slowing down. You look out the window.

There is nowhere and then there is where you are, at this moment. As far as you can tell, it’s an unincorporated township halfway across the country. The industry - whatever it’d been, railroads, mills, whoever knew - had gone, and then the inertia keeping people here had gone too. Then, knowing that the town wasn’t important enough for police or any kind of development, the remaining population had filtered into larger communities.

You look at that as another thing to be fixed. In Equestria, you’ll all be equal. In Equestria, this sort of thing absolutely cannot happen because with the cutie marks, everypony has a role to fill.

Right?

There’s an old garage, long since stripped for anything useful. Your two trucks head in there and hide. It’s just inconspicuous enough that you probably won’t be noticed.

You get out of the truck to stretch your legs. So do Nimbus, Aviva, and West.

“That bastard,” Nimbus sneers, flitting down from the truck that carries her prized Potioneer, slightly disassembled. It’s much larger than your canvas truck.

You wince at the profanity.

“Nim,” Aviva says, trying to stay calm. “There is no need for-”

“There absolutely is a need!” Nimbus yells, reaching into a saddlebag to pull out a piece of paper. It’s written in what is unmistakably Arpeggio’s hornwriting.

Nim,

I’m sorry for this. For what I had to do. But I’ve been thinking for awhile and this is the straw that broke my back.

I think I prefer the idea of there being a world without the war than I do fixing people. I know what people say the potion does, I know it can’t really be true, right? But I’ve seen enough anguished friends and family of the ponified to wonder. I’ve seen so many of my friends die, week after week. Sylvia Bray was turned into a barely-equine monster and Kraber beat her beyond the point of death. Rio, JJ, Merciful Light… whatever happened to them, they’re gone. Shieldwall was just… Sweet Celestia, the less said the better. I keep thinking that we did this for the ‘greater good,’ but I’m left wondering: When does it stop? Does the greater good have a finish line?

I know many newfoals are going to be fodder. That’s how things are. You say jump, they ask how high they can do it for the glory of Celestia. And we’re going to reward that by killing so many of them. Oh, we don’t pull the trigger, we just throw them at people who do until we stop having to throw them. We’re going to be making newfoal after newfoal, and what? One in forty, probably less, actually get what we’ve promised them? With us struggling to support massive populations of the poor souls in a country with infrastructure we’re rapidly destroying? I know I sound like the PETN official we laughed at, Nimbus, but I’m wondering if she had a point.

Even when we win, newfoals are going to die in droves. So I’m leaving. You’ll all hate me for it-”

“He’s right about that,” you interrupt. Nimbus nods vigorously.

“But I just can’t see an end in sight that doesn’t hurt more people than I’m comfortable with. What’s this mean I believe? There’s no way for me know. But knowing what we’re putting ourselves through for the greater good, for other people, makes me wonder just how good it is. Knowing that there’s an Equestria without the War makes me wonder that more. Because we were happy back then.

And I can’t remember the last time I truly was. Or when any of you were, either? When were you guys happy, huh?

I don’t know where I’ll go from here. I’ve taken most of our newfoals - Celestia knows they won’t come to a good end if they follow our hoofsteps.

Arpeggio.”

You didn’t know how to respond to this.

“Well, now I don’t know what to think,” Trip Vine says. “About our finish line.”

“He’s no different from a Betrayer,” Nimbus snarls.

“Trip has a point,” you say.

And Aviva stares at you quizzically. Nimbus… is just angry. You’ve seen her beat Betrayers to bloody pulp when she’s that mad.

“When… when does it end? Does the greater good ever have a finish line?” you ask.

“Are you doubting The Cause?” Aviva asks.

You don’t know, and stammer out something to that effect. “No, no!” you say, when you’ve finished explaining. Sort of. “It’s just… I have to ask myself about how hard this gets. And he had a point about how we are with newfoals, and it just, all of it, it seems like it’s going to be so hard…”

“Nothing worthy is ever easy,” Nimbus said.

You nod. “Dad told me the same. But...”

And you think back to the old days of the PER. The days when it was almost counterculture. The days when there were unprepared crowds everywhere, when people were so unprotected they almost seemed to subconsciously welcome it when you remade them. Back with Josephs, Jakulski, Sullivan, Pasquale, Kuang, and McCoy.

‘PER,’ you reflect, ‘have a high turnover rate.’

Of those six, all had died suddenly and violently. It felt like one in three agents of the PER you met came to a brutal end. Or worse, they potioned themselves to stave off a brutal end, brushed with salvation…

And then died. Suddenly and sadly. You wonder idly how it is over in Asia or Africa. Sure, if you go pony, or consort with PER, there’s the Dragons of the East and HLF practically drowning in Soviet surpluses. And to say nothing of the rumors that some zebras put some kind of spell on the predators of Africa to make them kill newfoals on sight. But it’s possible to trot or fly your way past the Barrier and get to Equestria.

Meanwhile…

Virtually none of the necessary infrastructure to move newfoals to Equestria exists behind the Barrier in North America, and its progress has been… odd. It stutters. It retreats slightly. Sometimes, it just stops for days at a time. And the only large scale project that could have let even a fraction of the people you fixed come to their new home had literally fallen out of the sky.

- - - - -

For now, the abandoned fire station serves as a decent enough base. You kept the prisoner in the cellar. He'd said something about it being a ‘cellar’, the kind of tortured pun you might have laughed at from another person.

You have to tell Aviva, though: “I’m worried.”

“Aren’t we all?” she says, tiredly. “I can sympathize, Freddy. I really can.”

You shake your head. “Not exactly. It’s… I’m worried... about the new Equestria.”

Aviva looks downcast. “I’m… worried about it too. What do you think the poor meat-headed, gun-fellating sods who’ve elected themselves to strike Celestia shall do with a fresh new Equestria in their hands?” she told them all. “Their first instinct will be as it always is. Violence. But not necessarily indiscriminate violence upon Equestrians, no. Arguably worse than that, incitement to turn Equestrians against their fellow Equestrians.”

“You don’t think?” you ask. “They were…. They were crowing about new allies.”

“They did it with the PHL. They will do it again,” Aviva says.

“A whole Equestria, though,” you say. “Surely they can’t do that.”

“Something troubles you,” Aviva says. “It’s not just the new Equestria. Or even the prisoner, weird as he might be.”

You shrug listlessly. “It’s just… the stories we keep hearing… so much of it a smear campaign to discredit the Queen, I know. But after a while, it all gets to you. You start wondering.”

“There's nothing to wonder about,” she says with conviction.

“But… y’know,” you say, “if it's another Equestria, then there's another Celestia. And if it's another Celestia… well, isn't she a goddess, too?”

“There may be countless Equestrias throughout reality, just as there are countless Earths,” Aviva reminds you all sagely. “But if we are here, it’s because we have pledged ourselves to a fundamental truth. There is only one Queen Celestia.”

You sign. “But what do we do, if faced with more of the Queen’s own people turned Betrayer on Her? Or worse, another her?”

Aviva places a hand upon your shoulder. “As we have always done, my friend. Trust that, someday, very soon, the Queen’s grand plan will show them the light. Because, outside interference or not, in the grand scheme, what difference does it make? The Barrier continues to come for all of us as we speak.”

“And suppose the Barrier… could be halted by the power of a different Celestia?”

“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” she says quietly. “Perhaps, frankly speaking, that wouldn’t be so terrible. These things are sent to try us, and it’s easy to have faith when victorious power looks assured; true faith shines in the darkest of days.”

Aviva checks her watch.

“Alright, grub’s up,” she sighs. “Tonight’s my turn to feed the prisoner.”

“Look, Viv, if you’d rather someone else–”

“No, no, it’s fine,” Aviva assures, placing down her laptop. “Wasn’t going to get anything done at this rate, anyway. Perhaps this’ll help jog my mind. Besides, I might get something from him.”

“You know, I think you spend more time than healthy around our prisoners,” you tell her. “It can't be good for you, you know. You could get…” You swallow. “Stained, or something. They'll rub off on you.”

It's a worry everyone has, though none of you admit it out loud. The old wives tale - that the more contaminated a soul is, the more chance your reborn self will turn out less like a normal, perfect newfoal, and more like… one of them. The Creeds, Quickblades, Reapers, Pretty Privates of this war. The anomalies. The freaks. The things that become pony but don’t become pony and don’t fall in line, the things that aren’t hobbled within reasonable parameters for the safety of ponykind.

Aviva smiles wanly. “I think you’ve got a pessimistic way of looking at things, Fred,” she says, moving to take a tray off the table. “You ever hear the tale of King Mithridates? Every day, the guy’d pick a little taste of his poison, literally. Over time, he acquired an immunity. The way I see it, you can’t overcome the enemy without understanding them first.” She gently shakes the tray. “I’m the one slowly taking their venom into myself. This way, I will build up an immunity to their corruption, and be purer still when the time comes. It’s an effective defense.”

“I see… and what about that king? What happened to him?”

She pauses. “He tried to poison himself and failed, then fell upon his own sword, I think.”

Without another word, Aviva reaches for the last sealed bento box left. A shame about Arpeggio, really. If nothing else, you miss his cooking. Although coming by food was a task made easier with the support of a superpower controlling the resources of half a colonized planet, regular supply still isn't guaranteed, nor is it always very good.

Yet none of you seem to mind, so long as your plates all have one thing in common – no meat.

- - - - -

Sooner than you would have liked, it’s your turn to speak with the prisoner.

“He’s… tricky,” Aviva says to you quietly. For all her words earlier, she looks almost shaken. “He wouldn’t say much to me. Said something about not wanting to waste his breath, which at the very least means he’s obstinate.”

“Aren’t they all?” you ask. “So… nothing about him being… y’know.”

“No,” she says quietly. “And honestly I don’t know how he could be.”

Before you walk in, she grasps your shoulder.

“Fred,” she says. “He said it was almost too late for me, Fred.”

“Psychological tactics,” you say, trying to be cool. “He’s probably some smartarse. Don’t pay it any mind.”

“He knew things he couldn’t have known,” Aviva says, her eyes faraway. “It’s… there was pity in his voice as he said it.”

She shakes her head, and the mask returns.

“Take care of yourself in there, Fred,” she says. And then, in a tone of voice that sounds almost like pleading: “Take care of yourself.”

You walk down the stairs into the cellar.

He’s wearing a tweed coat, a white shirt and corduroy trousers, and even though you’re sure he was handcuffed, his hands are out, fingers splayed. He looks for all the world like he’s at a desk, not in a cell.

The man waves cheerily as you enter. “Hello!”

“False cheer will get you nowhere,” you say. You’ve done more than a few interrogations like this. A few where potioning would have been untenable, so you had to resort to other methods to extricate answers.

Not the barbaric physical brutality the PHL and HLF resorted to, absolutely not.

He waves this off. “You’re not here to talk about that. You’re not here to talk about anything, really.”

“Yes, I am,” you say.

“No,” the man says, looking up at you with hard eyes. “You’re not. You’re here to talk at me until I tell you information I don’t have. You’re here to ponder why I’m immune to the potion, probably ask about that to see if you can fix it - spoiler warning, no, you can't. Beyond that, presumably, you’re here to talk about how superior you all are to regular humans and how humanity sucks. How this is all futile. The same old script. Really have heard it before, from cleverer people too. Like Shieldwall.”

“Don’t disrespect his memory,” you say.

“He’s not dead,” the man says. “So I’m not technically doing that.”

“He’s dead to all of us for how he lives,” you say.

“So he’s punished for failing, and punished for being punished in the most painful, vindictive, sadistic way I could think of,” the man says.

“I wouldn’t have thought anyone PHL would have that kind of sympathy for him,” you say.

“Honestly? No, I don’t care about him, at best,” the Prisoner says. “I just… disapprove of that kind of condemnation. You must truly be moral paragons, all of you.”

You bristle. “Do you think insulting us will save you?”

He smiles coldly. “Oh, I don’t think you can do anything to me either way, so I don’t see why not.” He leans forward slightly. “So go on. Question time. Ask away. Any questions about relative physics are not guaranteed to be comprehensible to the human mind, and any questions about life, the universe and everything are guaranteed to have an answer of ‘42’.”

You take a breath. “You’re PHL.”

“Not anymore,” he says. “Not that you care.”

“You know secrets, and since the potion doesn’t work, for whatever reason, we want to know those secrets,” you continue, unabated.

“Tell me, at this stage of your lives, do you think it matters what secrets you know?” the man says, sighing. “You literally haven't got the manpower to take on a raggedy old Christian Marine remnant, much less the PHL.”

“You will tell me what I want to know,” you say

“I could tell you lots of things,” he retorts. “I could tell you that you’re all going to die. I could also tell you that, considering how history could have gone, half of you, maybe more of you would have died. I could even tell you how. After all, I looked you up. You especially.” He looks you in the eye. “Such a waste, you know.”

“You looked me up,” you repeat with a tone full of your disbelief. “Really.”

“S’why I’m here,” he says with a shrug. “I know I can’t save you. You’ll do what you’re going to do - not because you did it and destiny is immutable, but because human nature -”

“Human nature,” you spit, “is why we do what we do.”

“Ah,” he says. “Because a little girl decided to act on her conscience, and help out the poor rainbow horses, and eventually destroy an embodiment of pure evil. You don’t get that crucial irony, do you?”

You just stare at him for a second. “What.” You try to keep smirking. To make absolutely sure he thinks you haven’t given an inch.

“Nothing. Just testing how much internal sense you all make. And you believe, somehow, that you’re better than humans,” he says. He’s not convinced.

“Yes,” you say, as firmly as you can.

“You’re not,” he says very matter-of-factly. “Your mistake is in viewing one side of the picture. Honestly, a very easy mistake to make. You see the bad and think that is the defining factor, by which the whole may be judged. You ignore the good. By the bad actions of some individuals, you judge the worthiness of the whole race to be lacking.” He sniffs, before looking at you. “You know, even by being here, you prove the inherent foolishness of your own cause.”

“Excuse me?” you ask.

“You judge humanity as one homogenous mass,” he says. “But it clearly isn’t. If it was, there would be no PER. No PHL. No HLF. There would be humanity, of one voice, of one purpose, and if Celestia’s propaganda was right, it would be an evil purpose. But there is no such homogeneity. People are infinitely diverse, making a million different choices, even within the narrow bands of categorization we have. That proves you wrong - humanity is not ‘all good’ nor is it ‘all evil’. It isn’t ‘all’ anything. It’s a swarm of individuals, no two truly alike, all beautiful in their own way. And doesn’t the very presence of ponies in the PHL, or not joining the war effort prove the same about your oh-so-precious Queen’s race? Ponies and humans, two masses of individuals, not one individual amongst them able to act as a barometer for any other individual. They are all unique.” He smiles for a moment, as though this is the most wonderful thing in the world, and then his expression falls and he sighs. “Except, of course, for the Newfoal. Unless, for whatever reason, environmental factors throw sand in the gears, at which point they become unique and thus anathema to their own purpose.”

“You don’t know anything about what you’re talking about,” you snarl. “You don’t know why I’m in the PER. And that talk about how I could have died? Bull.”

“Frederick William Holman. Born February 2nd, 1990, at 3:21 AM in Memphis, Tennessee. Disowned by your mother for joining the PER. In fact, despite being protestant, she went out of her way to sit shiva for you with her Jewish friends. Would have died on July 19th, 2020 at 12:30 PM to HLF forces without the Reavers distracting them, calling a meeting. An unintended consequence of my work, but I had to take the long view. If Shieldwall’s plan had succeeded, you would have become an administrator of sorts for PER-held territory. As far as I can tell, you would have been bait of a sort. Good accommodations in what was once a hotel, newfoals catering to you, and you would have been in charge of restructuring Montreal’s Conversion Bureau while creating a new one. In fact, on September 1st, at 12:40, you would have been opening a new Bureau. This, along with the human districts you and others helped administrate, would be publicized in a PER underground newspaper meant to lure humans into what was once Montreal on the promise of stability. Then, you would have died on September the twenty-fifth of 2022 at exactly 6:47 PM, captured by human insurgents and tortured to death.”

“What?” you say.

“I told you,” the prisoner says, “I looked you up. One of the last on my list, actually, along with your friend - Aviva, wasn't it?”

“What list?!” you demand. “Why are you visiting? Why me and Aviva? Why not Trip Vine, or Nimbus? Or Arpeggio?”

“You might very well ask yourself why he left in the first place,” the prisoner says.

“What,” you say, twitching slightly.

“No, I’m just kidding. He left of his own accord, because in his own way, he suffered a sudden and debilitating attack of conscience,” the prisoner explains. “But to answer your earlier question, I am here, visiting, acting as the arbiter of your judgement and potential salvation -”

“Don't be so grandiose,” you snap.

“Sorry, old habit,” he shrugs. “But basically, someone has to… even if, in Aviva’s case, it is probably - well, certainly on some level - too late. And unlike you two, your four-legged compatriots are not likely to literally lose their soul if I don't intervene. The stakes are different. And for all the PHL’s talk of kindness and unity, they won’t really give you a chance. On some levels, I can’t judge them in this case. They're only human,” he finishes. “But someone has to try and save you.”

“We already have one powerful being, one goddess helping us,” you say. “What makes you think you can undo that? Or do more?”

“Because I am who I am, and in your own way, you’re pitiable. I’ve met things that wanted to cast humanity’s ‘flaws’ aside before,” he says quietly. “And they did, oh, they did, but it brought them nothing. So often did they forget just how much a flaw can be an asset. Someone who wants to think before they rush into battle can be either a coward or a person with foresight. Someone who wants to rush in can be either bold or bloodthirsty. And it is in those differences that we are defined. Without those feelings, we are nothing. And without the darker sides of those feelings, they’re worth less than nothing.”

“You prefer having violence, hatred, war, murder?” you ask. “I learned every day in school, in history classes, from my friends, just what those feelings lead to. Slavery. Rape. Genocidal despots. Death camps, countries brought to the brink of war.”

“Ah, yes, the worst of humanity,” he retorts. “So let's ignore Tolkien and Tennyson and Van Gogh and Leo and the beautiful Mona Lisa and… even China Mieville, actually. Kraber swears by it, but I honestly think he’s kind of overrated. Ignore all the subtle little comforts that you had as a child in America that you see nothing wrong with removing from others en masse. And let us not leave out all the beautiful, brilliant buildings in Europe that the Barrier incinerated, the culture, the memorials, the love and brilliance that creates families - families this war has destroyed, or worse than destroyed…”

“You talk about the heights of culture, but how many people can really say they're Tolkien or Tennyson?” you argue. “Most people’s lives are unfulfilled, miserable. Life is all about power plays - your bosses, their bosses, the people who boss them in turn. Isn't happiness better?”

“If it was happiness, maybe,” he snorts. “Even if it was, though, people have unlimited potential. Would that not be something worth mourning if you lost it?”

“You think I had unlimited potential? I was born shit-poor. The only option was making a movie, a podcast, some kind of project to get my name out there, but it always crashed and burned. I went to college, found so many friends that agreed with me, but I could never get anywhere. I didn’t see anything but our unlimited potential to hurt ourselves,” you counter. “Our unlimited potential to drive people further and further into the dirt.”

“Cherry picking,” he says flatly.

“Truth. We make weapons capable of slaughter - our science has been driven forward by our love of war,” you say, before the prisoner can interrupt. “We have to be brought to heel before we destroy ourselves. The PER actually follows one of the Queen’s most core tenets - she believes humans can be the most creative, adaptive creatures in the multiverse, able to survive our universe, and - even after transformation - stand tall as vital contributors that rejuvenate an entirely different universe.”*

“Really?” he says. “Really though?”

“What?” you ask. “That's -”

“What, exactly, does the average newfoal ‘contribute’ that has anything to do with their ‘humanity’?” he asks. He starts counting off fingers. “It isn't their memories because those are curtailed or basically deleted, and I’ve seen what happens when they even consider thinking about them. It's not their personality, because that is irrevocably altered to the point of being literally different people - if you can call lobotomised half-automatons that only feel anything when they flagellate themselves or try to kill anything in range ‘people’, and honestly it would be kinder if they were automatons.”

You try to interrupt but he steamrolls on.

“Not their opinions, because they’re indoctrinated from the moment they can string together a sentence. Not their skills, because most newfoals become nothing more than cannon fodder, and their IQ is measurably lower! It isn't their language, because they all speak Equus-standard, and it isn't their culture because they're reborn hating human culture! It isn't even their own bodies.” He finishes, his expression thunderous. “Literally the only thing that the human aspect contributes is raw material. A positive number to do a subtraction sum on to get to the ‘newfoal’ state. Even the Cybermen keep something.”

“Are we sure that’s not for the best? To keep them within reasonable parameters?”

“Reasonable parameters,” he repeats. “You're joking.”

“Newfoals are happy, they're productive, with all the worries of their human lives over!” you say. “Isn't that better?”

“Stop sounding like a Strexcorp representative, thank you. I prefer having choices,” he says. “I prefer having myself. I prefer being myself! It’s like an acquaintance’s grandson once said: ‘I don't think my sister's trying to say that life would be perfect without you. I think she's just saying that life would be, you know, life.’”

“I saw that argument,” you say. “That because it’s natural, it’s good.”

“No, I’m saying that because it’s natural, it has the potential for good. And for evil. And for change. And people have the right to choose. I prefer remembering every mistake I’ve ever made and knowing how to fix them, instead of, what, hiding? Pretending that you’ll be somehow different when you shed that body?” He snorts. “I’ve gone through bodies, too. Trust me, those things don’t take your sins with them, just hair, an accent, and maybe some stubble. And becoming a Newfoal?” He fixes you with a glare. “Oh, that’s not even hiding. That’s… I don’t even know what other word to use but cowardice. And foolhardy cowardice. And perhaps, to borrow from China Mieville - why do I keep doing that? - lunatic self-loathing.”

“What are you?” you ask.

“I am the Doctor,” he says quietly. “Not human, but I love your species, flaws and all. It’s why I come here.”

You take a breath. “You’re insane.”

“And you ponify people while telling yourself they’re better, even after all this time. You live in a world like this,” the Doctor replies. “And, as reinforced, you can’t do much to me. Does that matter?”

You stare at him, trying to adopt a flinty-eyed look.

“You know what’s funny?” he says, as though musing. “You and the PER are made up of people who wanted to be ‘different’. Who wanted to be set apart from others. Many of you were proud of it. And yet you follow a creature that wants nothing but a row of things, all the same, with the same smile, the same feelings, the same… everything.”

“What does…” you begin, before reconsidering. “What does that matter?”

“It doesn’t,” he says. “I came here to try and convince you.”

“And you think that will work?” you ask.

“Why wouldn’t I think so? Don’t you?” he asks back.

“Humanity is violent,” you point out. “Internecine conflict, environmental disaster, economic exploitation-”

“Newfoals tear people apart if ordered, crush their own brothers and sisters if they happen to fall,” he retorts. “You’ve killed, too.”

“I’m human,” you point out.

“Ah, so human violence is a tool with which to solve human violence works,” he comments. “Two wrongs, a right turn at Albuquerque, that sort of thing.”

“That’s different.” You don’t know why, but you feel a buzz in the back of your head, an irrational irritation. “We are fighting for a good cause.”

“Good causes are subjective,” he retorts. “The PHL believe they are ‘fighting for a good cause’.”

“They’re wrong.”

“Human error?”

“Yes.”

“But you’re human, and thus equally capable of error.”

“We receive our instructions from Ponies.”

“Ah, so ponies are not capable of error?”

“No: they're a demonstratably superior form of life when left to their natural devices. No war, no misery…”

“But there are PHL ponies. Even the EHS had ponies. It was kind of in their name.”

“They’re… different. They've been taken from their natural environment.”

“Are they ponies?”

“Yes, but…”

“Ah, but they’re the ‘wrong sort’. No True Scotsman. So many qualifiers now, aren’t there?”

He sounds amused, almost.

“Look,” you say, uncertain why you’re even trying to justify yourself to this man, “I don’t need to explain myself to you, or what we’re doing. I don't expect a man with a closed mind to understand.”

“Is my refusal to take your point of view the evidence upon which you base your judgement of my closed-mindedness?” he asks. “Are you open-minded, then?”

“Yes, clearly.”

“Open minded enough to have your opinion change, if I provide the more compelling case?”

“I - no, but -”

“Ah, then you're not open minded.”

“I'm in the right,” you say.

“But if you’re so right,” he retorts, “then surely you can explain why to me in such a manner that it convinces me, something you haven't yet.”

“Celestia is a Goddess,”

“So might makes right.”

“The rights of a superior being…”

“If I told you Yahweh, the god of Judaism, Christianity, Mormonism, Islam and a bunch of sub-dividers in the next few millennia, was real, and that the Bible was one hundred percent on point - something most of the people who follow those particular religions cheerily recant, the obstinate aside - would that make the destruction of the entire human race, minus Noah and his family, sound any less unpleasant? Or maybe Sodom and Gomorrha?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, generally speaking we consider genocide to be pretty unpleasant,” the man says. “That's why those stories are considered apocryphal now: because the notion that an all-loving God - as Yahweh came to be, come the New Testament - would cheerfully smite people was generally considered - well, pretty sort of bad.” He grins. “In short - generally speaking, extremists aside, believers don't think he - or, rather, He - is an exception to the ‘don't commit horrific acts’ rule we place on ourselves, despite being a ‘superior being’.”

“That… that’s different,” you say.

“Oh, I dunno,” he says, shrugging. “Yahweh might be real. Or something that allegorically resembles him might be. Anything might be real. And He would count as a ‘superior being’. So, the rights of that superior being -”

“Celestia is real!” you snap. “And she is superior! Our notions of morality have to bend to that. Doing otherwise is just… just humanocentrism!”

“I’m superior too,” he says, without any sign of joviality. “Massively so.”

You scoff. “You’re a superior being.”

“I don’t really like thinking about it, but I guess I am,” he says, perfectly serious. “I look like you, but I’m not. I’m thousands of years old. I’ve seen things you wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. The end of this world, the void at the end of creation. I’ve met the most powerful people of your world, saved your world from dæmons, legions of the undead, alien tyrants and worse. I have walked between the universes and even listened to the mournful howl of the things in the infinite nothing.” He snorts. “And for all that, you cuffed me, your friend gave me some substandard drivel, and you’re currently sassing me. I could leave any time I want, so you’re only here on my sufferance. So, where are my ‘superior being rights’, huh? Where’s my organisation dedicated to my every whim? Huh? If I asked you to go shoot a dog or something, you probably wouldn’t. Everyone loves dogs.”

“Why would you ask me to shoot a dog?”

“I wouldn’t, it’s an example of a nasty thing,” he says with a shrug. “But still. Where’s my… I dunno, ‘Tweed Coats and Fezzes Or Death’ organization? Speaking of which, LINDA doesn’t count.”

You blink. “You’re insane.”

“No,” he says. “Well, yes, kind of. But that’s beside the point.”

“You honestly think you’re not human?”

“I’m not,” he replies. “Check my pulse, if you really don’t believe me.”

You cough. “I, uh… never learned how to, properly.”

He chuckles. “Well, alright then. My word will have to do.”

“Look,” you says, frustrated. “Even if I didn’t hold all the cards -”

“Which you don’t.”

“- what do you want from me?”

He smiles up at you, an honest and almost pleasant smile. “You’re human, much as you clearly hate that. So, human, make a choice. If you come with me, I can take you somewhere so far away that the memory of your sins is irrelevant. Sure, you’ll have to run, but it’ll be you doing it.”

“Running...” you say.

“A second chance,” he retorts. “You can be human. Decide on a new life. Decide to do good - real good. You can save plague victims, be a teacher, a doctor, anything you choose. And believe me - if you don’t, then there’s only one other choice ahead, and that is the submission of choice.” He leans forward. “It is our choices that define us all. Mine. Yours. Everyone’s.”

“You’re crazy,” you say, turning to go.

“You’re the one submitting to the dark force that enslaved Celestia,” he retorts.

You turn at that. “What?”

“Didn’t you ever hear from Betrayers like… I don’t know, Heliotrope? Ponies who said this was impossibly out of character?”

“You said it yourself,” you retort. “Betrayers. Why would I listen to them?”

He sighs. “Alright, then listen to me. When you ponify yourself, and you likely will, you’ll meet something unpleasant. Something that will delight in your pain. I’m sorry for that, because you can’t be saved once that happens.”

“How could something that makes them all so happy be… that?”

“Because then you won’t think about it,” he says. “Besides. You’ve never been inside the head of a Newfoal. Smiles are masks, for many things, and most especially for them.”

“Not those smiles,” you say, maybe too quickly.

“It’s the difference between… how would Mr. Cynical put it? Or Mrs. Cynical, sometimes. He’d say it’s the difference between skiing backcountry and being on the mountain. Go out in the backcountry, you have all kinds of choices for which way you go. Go to a small place that’s just a cable and an incline, and all you have are directions. Regimented paths. Now, imagine that’s all there is governing a mind - something forcing you down paths. I once used a piece of advanced tech to look inside, and…”

He shakes his head. He looks almost sickened for the first time since you’ve seen him. You turn to go again.

“When you do meet it,” he says as a parting shot, “remember two things. The first is this: Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“Trying to scare me?” you ask over your shoulder.

“No,” he says. And this time he seems… warm. Almost grandfatherly. “Just telling you the truth. The second thing might even comfort you - though it will be too late for you… it will be defeated. All probabilities run in that direction. If not by the PHL… then by something else.”

“Right,” you say sarcastically. “As if anything could stop us when the PHL is gone.”

“You only wish,” he says, and for a second, he sports a look of profound… resignation? Disgust? Loss? Fear? There is a profound look of something on his face. “Oh, and one other thing. You didn’t really think I’d be sitting here, all on my lonesome, if I didn’t have people on the way to save me, did you?”

You turn, eyes widening in horror. “What did you -”

There is a slow rumble from somewhere, like a distant explosion.

“You’d probably,” he says nonchalantly, “go see what that is.”

- - - - -

“PHL,” Aviva says, her voice sounding almost like it is coming from far away. “They’re coming!”

There’s a human APC parked in the middle of the street, blazing away with what looks like an automatic grenade launcher. And you can see several humans spilling out, clad in full-body white and grey armour, assault rifles at the ready.

Aviva turns to you. “Go.”

“What?”

She presses a bottle of potion in your hand. “Run. Hide. Take this when you're done. Live. Please. I'll hold them off if I can.”

You try to think of words, try to question just how she can hold them off. Even if you have some hated human weaponry like guns, (you have to defend yourself somehow) it can’t possibly make even a dent in all these people. What about the APC? What about body armor? What about all the little multipliers that make you stop and think, really think about Arpeggio and realize that this is how he must have felt.

You realize how he might have felt. Realizing that he couldn’t take the running. And you think you suddenly understand something, something important, and you’re about to tell Aviva-

But she's already running. And so you run.

- - - - -

You hold the bottle of the Potion in your hand. It was a beer bottle, once upon a time. You can hear them out there, the fighting and the dying. But they won’t find you in here, not in time.

Violence. Barbaric, brutal violence. Not surprising. And yet… your allies are fighting back. They’re also using violence. Justified violence, sure… but… doesn’t the PHL think their violence is justified?

And for no reason at all you think about what the prisoner said. You find yourself balancing what he said with what you’ve thought. You argue and out-argue yourself. You rationalize and deconstruct, though you suspect on some level that you already know what you’ll do.

So, holding the potion in your hand:

Do you drink it?

***

*DISCLAIMER FROM FLUFFY: ACTUAL CHATOYANCE QUOTE. THIS IS WHAT CHATOYANCE ACTUALLY BELIEVES. FUCKING SERIOUSLY

3. Served Our Time In Hell.
Part One: For Valhalla.

“Had they been fighting in any other war, any other time, under any other name, they'd have been heroes. They’d proudly proclaimed themselves members of the HLF and set to reforming it, though this became their downfall.
Many HLF who had found their way into power through charisma and fear – the cultists, the ideologues, soldiers who’d disowned their governments, opportunists, and others - simply didn’t want to be reformed, and as a result the Reavers were left with comparatively little goodwill from military or civilians. Allegations that the PHL stifled news of Reaver contributions to starve any favorable opinion of the HLF circulate to this day… and they might not be wrong.”
– True Quill, Unsung Heroes of the Conversion War

“While the aim of reforming the HLF seemed sisyphean and borderline foolhardy, the Reavers made numerous efforts to do so. Meeting after meeting failed, and everyone turned on them. PHL turned on them for being HLF. Civilians, embittered by the fact that their militias and former allies had turned into gangsters, criminals, and bandits, grew to distrust the Reavers. Even many HLF grew to hate them for not being HLF enough, and what allies they had fell over the course of the conflict. The PER and EHS… well, to borrow a phrase from one of my co-authors, they were what is known in some circles as ‘fokkin varknaaiers,’ so they probably would have been against the Reavers anyway.
While some opinions, including mine, have shown the Reavers in a less than favorable light, there is something truly pitiable about the efforts of the Reavers. On July 18th, 2020, they attempted to bring together disparate groups of HLF, including such soon-to-be-known names as the Thenardier Guards (long since infamous for their truce with the PER) and Menschabwehrfraktion (the specific group responsible for the Sutra Cross murder), to serve as a united front in alliance with the PHL, an attempt that met with only very limited headway with smaller groups, many of whom were quickly wiped out in conflict with the Solar Empire. In the First Battle of Montreal, they served admirably, only for the media at the time to downplay their contributions, followed shortly by PHL and UN officials ordering their arrest and silencing those within their own ranks who tried to support them. With that, they up and disappeared.
Nonetheless, they finally made headway on November 27, 2023…”
A War In the Pocket: The Decline of the HLF. Written by Dayoung Tengku, Viktor M. Kraber, Aegis, and Yael Ze'ev.

Somewhere, far from the war, far from worry, there was a town. This town had log cabins, a wooden palisade, and a few dozen men working hard at building a concrete wall. There were women and children milling about, watched over by patrolling armoured men and women, though most seemed happy to stop and chat.

There were other signs of the war here, too. A tank, a little rusty and battered but still workable, stood by one of the cabins, its cannon aimed at the gate. This tank was Betty, and no-one in their right mind would so much as sniff wrong at her, for fear of upsetting her engineer. A tall mech stood nearby, the legend REV6 stamped smartly above a scrawl on it that read ‘Little Berty’. A few people nodded to Little Berty as they went by. Though inanimate, it was as much one of them as the tank. Further in town, there was a limited armory, of guns, ammunition, supplies. They continued to receive regular deliveries, though God only knew how that was wangled, but they were always careful to conserve what they could. They didn’t know how long it would last.

The town was always quite bustling – men and women working, children playing – and on this particular afternoon, the sound of laughter could be heard.

“Daddy, daddy!” a toddler laughed, wobbling slightly as she took a few, hesitant steps.

Brushing back a strand of dark hair, Richard Crane smiled at the sight of his daughter stepping toward him from the undergrowth. He grabbed her as she reached him, hefted her up and held her above his head, in the sunshine, the two of them laughing slightly.

She laughed. He laughed. And life was good.

“You did well,” he said, smiling at her after he’d brought her down. “You always do very well, Becky. I’m so proud of you.”

She smiled back, laughed again, and he carried her off, heading for their cabin. Like the others, the light inside belied its wooden simplicity. Power came from a generator which adhered to the tried.and-trusted old adage of “anything mechanical, give it a good bash!”, and even that had required jury-rigging by a friend to make it work. Their food was homegrown, it kept them alive, kept them strong, but it wasn’t much. Yet life here was good. He had his family, and his friends, those brave souls he had rode and fought alongside for years, surrounded him.

As they entered, Angela came to meet him.

“Hello, dear,” she said tiredly. “Preston came by today. I think Joe wanted to talk with you.”

Richard frowned as he passed Becky to his wife. “Preston? Must be serious. Odinsons wouldn’t usually come bothering me for less than a big deal.”

“Whatever it is, dear, be careful,” Angela said quietly. “Joe’s been a bit… restive, recently. The last few months have been hard on him.”

Richard nodded. “It was hard for Maxi, too.”

“I know,” Angela said. “And maybe that’s the problem.”

Eyes gleaming, she shooed him. He walked away, looking for the head cabin.

- - - - -

The town seemed full of ghosts. Not the literal kind, no. They’d seen enough of those. But… memories. Things that should have been. Every corner Richard took, he felt like he should run into Yarrow.

“Richard. It’s nice to see you,” Yarrow would’ve said, if he’d been on the other side of that corner. And he would’ve been undertaking the usual ‘township duties’. Things that almost anyone else would have delegated to lower-ranking personnel - except, of course, that there were no ranks among the Reavers. Yarrow was Yarrow, not ‘Colonel Yarrow’, not ‘Commandant Yarrow’, not ‘Warlord Yarrow’. Just Yarrow. He would have been pottering about in his vest and green coat. Checking to see if everyone was okay. Helping someone with a job, be it repair or farming. Or even just saying hello. Helping in the commissary - once he’d even been serving the camp’s stew, ladle in hand.

That was who Yarrow had been. Even in those last desperate months where they’d barely heard from Kevin, where their backing had attracted unwelcome attention, he’d been on his bended knee… well, no. He hadn’t. Yarrow was far too proud to beg on his bended knee. Too dignified. What he had done was be almost maniacally charitable. When the world went low, he would go high.

Extend amnesty to anyone with enough conscience or sanity left. A quarter had been brought onboard from collapsing HLF units in the past year (counting Montreal) but simply everyone here owed their life to Yarrow. It was Yarrow who’d kept the line, however sparse, open with their ‘backing’, who had wangled getting some of their people sent home when the PHL caught them (and Richard caught sight of Erin Hansen, a young tattoo artist who had been arrested after graffitiing Reaver symbols on a wall somewhere, now returned to them).

Yarrow had been the man who brought them together.

‘Wherever you are,’ Richard thought, ‘I hope you’re happy with what we’ve done. I don’t know if I’ll ever be.’

On the way, Richard met Preacher. The old man sat in a simple shirt and trousers, his spectacles glinting. Only a few scars and the sidearm at his side hinted that this man was more dangerous than he appeared. He was busy consulting a hefty tome of some sort.

“Greetings, Tom,” Richard said quietly.

Preacher looked up from his book. “Hello, Richard,” he replied with his habitual, genial smile. “How goes the day?”

“Pretty good,” Richard said, “but it might be less so. Joe wants to see me.”

Preacher nodded slowly, adjusting his dog collar. “Best of luck, then. I’ll hope it’s good news.”

Nodding his farewell, Richard continued on. When he finally reached the cabin, he found Howard T Preston standing outside the door, in full armor. Heavily, the man inclined his head to Richard as he came closer.

“How’re the family, Crane?” he asked.

“Not so bad, Preston, not so bad,” Richard said. Despite his scarred visage and permanent scowl, the big black man wasn’t all that intimidating to his friends. Even if he had been seen to do a Gregor Clegane to someone once.

“I hear Joe wants to see me,” Richard said.

Preston jerked a thumb at the cabin door. With a nod of thanks, Richard opened it.

The inside of the cabin wasn't changed much from the days of Maxi Yarrow. The green military coat was hung on a hatstand, a permanent reminder. The maps, the pictures on the walls, all were still as they had been. Only its resident was different. And perhaps not by much, for he, too, had once been a Royal Marine.

“Joe,” Richard said quietly. “And… John.”

“Richard,” Idle said with a nod.

Tall, broad, sporting battle-damaged armour, Joe Rither was cut from much the same cloth as Maxi Yarrow. He clutched a newspaper in one hand. Next to him, already waiting with his nose in a newspaper, was the ever-sullen John Idle. The other man didn't respond for a moment, but when he turned, he wore a grim look on his face. He threw the newspaper on the desk for Richard to see.

“Latest news,” he said shortly.

Richard frowned while picking it up and going over it. The headline read, in terms far too excitable for memory’s comfort, ‘New Equestria! World on Brink of New Age!’

“Another Equestria?” he said, skimming the article. “Is this legit?”

“Far as we know,” Rither said.

“I’ve heard from that True Quill bird, this is the real deal,” Idle grunted. “Another Equestria... ‘s like a bloody deus-ex-machina.”

Richard put the paper back down. “So?”

Rither shrugged. “I thought I ought to share the intel with you. You, my old friend, speak for this settlement’s families, if anyone does.”

“And what about telling the others?” Richard demanded.

“Yeah,” Rither murmured. “What about that? I’ve been thinking about it. How to tell everyone. And whether I should. Whether it matters.”

Richard frowned. “The way this reads...”

“It’s the PHL’s miracle,” Rither said. “Like John says, deus-ex-machina. A fresh legion of help to save the day.”

“Cue ride of the Valkyries,” Idle muttered. Rither glared at him, and he shrugged. “I’m worried.”

Richard felt his fists clench. “Who wouldn’t be?” he demanded. “I think we’ve had enough of Celestia telling us how to think. Even if it’s not the same Celestia.”

“Exactly, Crane,” Idle said. “It says she wouldn’t say that in the article, but not many of us would be willing to think so. I’m not saying we have more Yorkes in our own ranks, but...”

“But you’re saying not everyone will take it well.”

“More of these ‘benign’ Equestrians coming to help,” Rither said. “Best case, they win, humanity survives, big party. Good news for them. But that’s them. Where does it leave us? Answer, same place as ever. Waiting here, for them to come and kill us for daring to exist.”

He sat down with a heaviness that had more to do than with his armor.

“Other HLF are taking this as a last chance to do something stupid,” Idle pursued in a soft voice. “I’m hearing a lot. Talk about attempts to take over military installations and such.”

“Idiots,” Richard said reflexively.

Idle snorted. “Yeah, well, at least they're doing something.”

“So are we,” Richard pointed out. “We’re building a home. When this war’s over, we’ll still be here, safe and alive.”

“Until they come to kill us,” Rither repeated, staring down at the paper.

“Which ‘they’ do you mean, Joe?” Richard asked, folding his arms.

“Either,” Idle said with a shrug. “Both. Does it make a difference?” He turned away. “How’s the little one?”

“She’s good,” Richard said, eyes narrowing a little. “Joe...”

“Richard,” Rither told him, holding up a hand. “Don't.”

Richard took a step forward. “What’s wrong with the two of you? I’ve not seen you this glum since Maxi passed away.”

Rither sighed, running a hand through his greying hair. “I promised Maxi I’d keep his people safe. Right now, that feels like a more Sisyphean task than trying to repair the HLF ever was.”

“We are safe,” Richard insisted.

“Are we?” Rither retorted. “We’re a few hundred people, a couple thousand at most, whether we’re armed to the teeth or not. If and when someone, anyone, who wants to kill us shows up, we cannot hold. The best we can do is make them bleed, and then we die. Just like every one of our friends who didn’t sell out, the mad dogs and the good men alike.”

Idle glanced at him, but Rither didn’t look back.

“Then we’ll make them bleed,” Richard said simply. “None of us expect this to last forever, but we’re making the most of it.” He paused. “You’re doing a good job, Joe. You’re keeping us together. You’re keeping us focused on building a home. You could’ve gone nuts and taken us on a killing spree, but you didn’t.”

Rither snorted. “Maxi didn’t want me to.”

“Then you’re living up to what he wanted,” Richard said.

“I just… I find myself wondering.”

“Wondering what?”

In response, Rither shrugged. “Everything. Nothing. Whatever comes to mind. But… Is this all there is? Is this all that’s left for us to do?”

Before either man present could answer, the clank of armor signalled that Preston had entered the room with them. They all glanced his way.

“Somebody’s come,” he said grimly.

- - - - -

There were six of them. Men and women in battered gear, carrying rifles one might charitably have called ‘ugly’ if one were feeling especially saintly. Their leader was a grizzled-looking man, shaven-headed and pale, like he’d been hiding in a hole for months. A lot of the civilians were standing around, gazing at him with concern, wariness… no-one was happy to see him.

“I’m looking for whoever’s in charge!” the man said gruffly. He sounded Australian, maybe.

Joe stepped out of the cabin, taking a few steps towards the man. Preston stood behind him, a deepset frown on his face. Crane and Idle stayed near the cabin doorway, scrutinising their newly-arrived ‘guest’ carefully.

“And who are you?” Joe asked.

“Banner,” the man said. “Keith Banner. These are some of me lads. Who’re you?”

“Joseph Rither, leader of the Reavers,” Joe said solemnly

“Nice to meet you,” Banner said with a nod. “Nice place you got here. Beats Defiance, anyway.”

“What do you want?” Joe said, shifting his stance.

Banner smirked. “There’s a PHL base not sixteen miles from here. Lad called Jackson’s gathered about two hundred HLF and enough guns to storm the place... make the bastards bleed.”

His words sunk in. Preston’s glare intensified. A few people were muttering, but none looked any happier for it.

Joe didn’t twitch a muscle. “And?”

“And, you lot used to be tough,” Banner said. “‘Least, that’s what they say. Battle of Montreal, battle against Creed, the Cain run… ‘course, word is Yarrow was a horsefucker and you lot were traitorous cunts, but that’s the past, ain’t it. They say Yarrow’s dead now. I guess, what with him not coming out, that’s true.”

“Yep,” Joe said tightly. “Yarrow’s dead.”

He could feel Preston behind him, tension mounting. His bodyguard was slowly growing angry, he could tell. He subtly held a hand out, keeping him at bay for the moment.

“Right,” Banner said. “Then with him gone, I guess you guys are okay. That somethin’ can be made of ya.”

Less subtly, Joe’s fist curled. “‘Okay’. We’re ‘okay’, are we.”

“Yeah,” Banner said, brows creasing. “So… you lot up for it, or what?”

Joe turned to Preston, who nodded once, then to Idle, who was scowling, and Crane, who looked the most angry. Finally, Joe turned back to Banner, who was grinning.

“Little Berty!” the Reavers’ leader called.

With a few heavy thumps, the mech was suddenly standing in the same square. The fading light from the sun caught on its guns. Which were trained on the new HLF visitors. A couple of Banner’s troops looked uneasy, but he whistled appreciatively.

“That is a nice bit of kit!” he said with a grin.

“Drop your guns,” Joe said quietly.

Banner stared at him, grin frozen on his face. “What?”

“Your guns,” Joe said simply. “Drop them. Now. I’m not in an asking mood, so do what I say.”

Banner’s troops dropped their guns at once. Most HLF, contrary to the old joke, weren’t stupid enough to think they could take on a mech. Banner glanced at them, then back to Joe, his expression shifting to one of outrage.

“Hey, look here,” the man said, moving towards Joe. “If this is some idea of a joke, it ain’t funny.”

“And we’re not laughing,” Preston retorted. He took a warning step forward.

“Look,” Idle said. “Kraber once said: Even if you think it could be an airsoft gun, even if he’s shivering, you listen to the man with any fucking weapon to your head. Now, we’re not shaking. We’re not laughing. We are dead serious here. And honestly? Now we’ve got five guns. And two of them are rocket launchers mounted on powered armor that wouldn’t even notice your bullets.”

Banner raised his gun, aiming it at Joe.

“Christ,” Idle sighed. “I always assumed the dumb ones would’ve darwinned themselves out.”

Suddenly, Banner’s shoulder sprayed blood at the ‘crack’ of a gun going off, and he fell to the ground, screaming blue murder.

Blinking imperceptibly, Joe turned, to see, of all people, Richard Crane aiming a pistol at the fallen HLF man, the barrel still smoking slightly. Sensing his gaze, Crane returned it, an eyebrow raised.

“Six,” the family man said.

“What?” Joe asked

“Idle said five, I added another,” Richard said. “By the way, he’ll live. More than I could say for us if we listened to him. We seem to have this odd-”

Banner gasped, holding a hand to his bleeding shoulder.

“- streak of bad luck with other people using us as cannon fodder. Or forgetting about our wounded,” Richard said.

“What do you think I am, Richard?” Joe asked calmly. When he looked back at the fallen HLF man, however, the scowl was spread across his face. “We’re the Reavers, Keith. Bit of a tip. Don’t come in here badmouthing a man most of us owe everything to, and after all we’ve given, don't tell us we’re ‘okay’.”

He motioned, and a few armed Reavers marched forward, carting the injured man and his troops away from the camp square. Joe ran a hand through his hair, looking at the other Reavers. They were all looking back at him expectantly. He lowered his hand, turning first to Crane and Idle, then he settled on Preston.

“It would seem we’ve had a call from above,” the big man whispered.

This did not fully ease Joe. “Maxi believed in that stuff more than me. And I’d say that getting asked to become bandits doesn’t count as a call from above.”

“Maxi made you the man in charge,” Preston reminded him. “Besides. Maybe it’s a warning?”

Joe looked around, mind racing. With Banner out of sight, people were already talking again.

“They’re going to attack the bloody PHL?!” someone was saying. “Are they mental!”

“They’ll get themselves wiped out,” a stern man replied. Karl Osterman, Joe remembered, whose daughter had died of a tumour a few months back. His arms were folded, his eyes downcast. “And they’ll get another gottverdammter HLF purge started to boot!”

“Oh, it’s started already!” one of the retreating prisoners called over. “What with Celestia promising her big hit in about a week, the PHL has decided… no loose ends.”

“What?” Crane started, shuddering at the man’s tone.

“There’s not much HLF left,” the prisoner said. “What’s left, they’re fighting harder than any HLF ever have. You think this is the only military base we’ve been taking supplies from? Look up Blount Island, ya cowards. Yesterday, Kraber and Ze’ev wiped out Taskforce Paris.”

“Get that idiot out of here!” Idle yelled angrily.

As the prisoners were dragged away, though, the crowd’s talk only grew more frantic.

“Taskforce Paris is gone? What the hell?”

“Can’t believe those idiots, attacking bases,” another voice muttered.

“But if they start attacking bases near here, the PHL will find us!” one of the younger women cried. “Won’t they?”

“They might,” growled a man with a red stripe down one side of his armour. “Motherfuckers!”

“Calm down, Martell!” Idle called. “We don’t know that those idiots’ll start anything!”

“But they might,” Crane said loudly. “We have our families here, our homes. If those idiots stir the hornet’s nest, whose to say we’ll be safe?”

“We’re not ‘safe’ now!” Martell yelled. “We’re all one step away from some PER raid or some fucking PHL purge or something else! I say we–”

“ENOUGH!” Joe yelled, so suddenly that a shocked hush fell on the entire crowd. Both his hands were held up high, the expression on his face was hard, and he was deep in thought.

“Joe?” Preston asked quietly. “What do you want to do?”

Slowly, Joe lowered his hands, looking around the assembly. Men, women, children. People whom Maxi Yarrow had brought together. Whom Maxi Yarrow had protected, had saved from the ruins of the HLF. People he had died for. Maxi had always said that they deserved better than to be forgotten, but Maxi had been beaten down and worn out by the fight. as well any of them might have been. Now the responsibility was on Joseph Rither’s shoulders.

“Look at us,” Joe said, very softly. “We’re scared. We’re angry. We’re making bad decisions on the spur of the moment. And for all we know, Taskforce Paris did something really stupid. That is not what we do!”

“How do we know they did?” Martell asked.

“We... don’t,” Joe admitted. “But attacking a military base isn’t a decision people make when they’re calm, or thinking rationally. Not all have ATC guns, and tech pilfered from Armacham. Maybe Taskforce Paris was another bloodbath like Defiance, maybe it wasn’t. We don’t know the whole story.”

Idle snorted. “We could just ask little Vikky next time we see him.”

“That… bastard!” someone swore.

Idle shrugged. “Kraber’s always been honest with us. Ahem. ‘Look, Idle,’” he quoted, “‘I’m not going to mince words. I’m fokkin’ evil. But the PER we’re fighting? They’re something else.’”

Someone in the crowd snorted. “Was he being honest when he lied about his identity, spent all that time in Vermont?”

“New Hampshire. Technically, he wasn't lying to us,” the calming voice of Preacher spoke from the crowd. “He had every opportunity to lie to me, and he didn’t.”

“Didn't he threaten to kill you for no good reason?” Idle smirked.

Preacher shrugged. “He and I exchanged words. I never said he was a model human being, and I doubt anyone ever will, himself included. But he didn’t lie to me, which more than I can say for many who claimed they were our allies. And like him or not, Yarrow gave him a second chance to seek repentance.”

“And to be fair,” Preston added, “these mediocre dogs don’t seem like they’d be perfectly honest with us... or at least, they don’t seem like they’d tell the whole truth.”

Joe cleared his throat. “Whether Banner was lying or not, it’s clear as day to me. We can’t just sit here anymore.”

“You’re not suggesting fighting the PHL?” Crane asked, horrified.

“No,” Joe said simply. “I’m not.”

“You’d bloody better not,” Idle said. “I’d rather find Maxi’s fucking ashes and snort all of them with some recreational drug than do that. If I were to desecrate him and his memory, I might as well choose something quicker.”

“How very vivid you are, John,” Preacher said wistfully.

“Speaking it like it is, Richardson,” Idle replied with a wry grin. “Besides, I think everyone here can agree that turning into bandits would essentially be the same thing. Am I right?”

There were murmurs of assent.

“I said, am I ri-” Idle started.

“Enough,” Joe said. “It’s immature, Idle.”

Admittedly, Idle was probably coping in his own unique John Idle way, but there were more important things that deserved their attention. He remembered the Purity, when he had seen Maximilian Yarrow speak for the first time. He remembered then the fire that had inspired him to follow. He raised his head slightly.

“John,” he addressed Idle, “how many fighting people can we take out, assuming we leave behind a decent defensive garrison?”

“Fully armed and equipped?” Idle replied at once. “I’d say seven hundred, maybe eight hundred at a pinch, if we want to leave more than a skeleton crew with Bastion. Most of ‘em should still be equipped in top notch gear, but fuel’s a bit lower than I’d like.”

Joe nodded. He sought out a woman in the crowd, and when he found her, he motioned to her.

“Sandra, how are the Valkyries?” he asked.

“We’ll have to cannibalise parts from 6 to make 9 and 1 flyable,” the woman said smartly, “but they’ll fly once that’s done. Better two that’ll fly than one that’ll fall.”

“How long?”

“At top speed?” Sandra asked. She sighed. “A day.”

“Make it three hours,” Joe ordered. He marched over to Crane. “Richard, Can I trust you to guard Bastion while we’re gone?”

“It would be my honor,” Richard said quietly.

Preacher joined them. “What are you thinking, Joe?”

Joe looked at him. “Viktor Kraber got his chance at redemption, clawed his way toward it, and hit his karmic jackpot. What are we doing with ourselves it we lagged behind him? I dare say it’s high time we gave a few others theirs, or else stop them from fucking things over for the rest of us.”

Crane nodded, a slow smile creeping onto his face. Joe, meanwhile, looked out at the people of Bastion, before turning to Preston.

“Fetch my hammer,” he said.

Preston nodded, and a cheer went up from the crowd at those three words. Joe held up a hand for silence.

“Out there, right now, they say the PHL has found a miracle,” he said. “Another Equestria, free from whatever fuckuperry happened to the one we’ve fought!”

A hush fell over the crowd, quiet murmurs of disbelief.

“Now, I don’t know the truth of it,” Joe said. “I suspect we’ll never find out. It's bigger than us, and bigger assholes are involved. But I know this; they’ll be focused on the bigger war, which means they’ll miss what’s happening now. Right now, if we want to win, we can’t let the world descend into insanity. We can’t let riots and rogue HLF and opportunistic PER burn this world down while the PHL are making nice with another one!”

Behind him, Preston walked out of the cabin, holding Joe’s hammer. Joe didn’t take it yet.

“Right now, there’s rogue HLF out there ready to start tearing the world apart! PER just waiting to prey on the defenceless!” he yelled, raising a fist into the air. “We can’t let them! We can’t let there be fire and savagery in the midwest, night in the cities! We can’t let the vultures pick at our wounded Earth and leave nothing but ruin and ash! We are the Reavers!”

A cheer went up.

“We have given our blood before!” Joe continued. “But it wasn’t enough! When people speak of the HLF, they speak of Galt, of Lovikov, of Zhou! They forget that we bled for them, that we fought. To those people, history is already written.” He paused, letting those words sink in. “Well, I say, it's time to change that! Time to rewrite those history books!”

Another cheer, louder. Joe held out a hand, and took the hammer from Preston, raising it up.

“What are we?!” he called.

And the crowd shouted back. “Reavers!”

“What do we do?!” Joe yelled.

The reply came. “Ride the road!”

“Where do we ride the road?!”

“To the road's ending!” they called back.

“And where does it end?!” he asked them.

And the cry, exultant, arose. “VALHALLA!”

Joe planted the hammer’s haft in the ground. “Brothers! Sisters! Arm yourselves, for we are riding to war!”

“Rither for Valhalla!” John Idle called, and the cry went up.

“Rither for Valhalla! Rither for the HLF! Rither for Yarrow!”

Joe turned to look at Idle, who was grinning.

“What?” Idle asked.

“Doesn’t quite have the same ring to it,” Joe replied.

“Fuck the ring,” Idle said. “Today’s the day we make Yarrow’s dream real. We’ll go knock some donkey heads, and then we’ll make the poor confused lions of the HLF follow a better road.”

Joe nodded. “And it's about damn time.”

- - - - -

Part Two: HaLF Right.

The public perception of the Reavers was tinted by the public perception of the entire HLF, but in turn the Reavers tinted the perception of the HLF themselves. Too often, we consider them the ultimate exception of the HLF that proves the rule, the only good men among the Lovikovs and Galts. The truth, of course, is more complex. When the Reavers made their fateful meeting to try for unity on the HLS Purity, they did so with such infamous units the Thenardier Guard and Taskforce Paris, it's true, but there were other units less well remembered. Kraken Grenadiers, Richard Thomlinson’s Rangers of the North, Soren’s Skydivers, the Redstripes… these were individuals who fought under the banner of the HLF following the militarisation, but did so with honour, focusing on the larger war. However, from the beginning, these units began folding in with the greater force Maximilian Yarrow was assembling. Take Andrea MacMurdo’s Valkyries, an all-female group of pilots and commandos - they began as a separate group, but as a unit, became one facet of the greater Reaver force. Eventually, as the war dragged in and others were killed, the survivors of other groups gravitated to the Reavers. Not helping was that PHL would attract more idealistic people, while angrier, more dispossed people would filter into what we commonly know as the HLF - precious few would fall in between and join the Reavers.
The Reavers became the ‘face’ of the good HLF, and that was a face the PHL demonstrably turned from, choosing to play up atrocities and starve the HLF of good attention. Perhaps a concerted effort to convince the saner elements within the HLF to join the PHL’s forces rather than remain attached to a force that, while allied to the same principles, never submitted to PHL authority. This can be seen in all the highly publicised speeches decrying all HLF, speeches which conveniently forgot the many people who had fought and died under that banner, defending people the way the PHL did. Angus Reid’s oft-quoted speech, Victor Kraber’s diatribes, all of them neglected to mention that the Reavers even existed. All of them painted a picture of an HLF that was united - united under psychopaths and monsters. An HLF that was easy to hate. Faced with this, there was no wonder the Reavers retreated. Even as the war came to a close and they finally succeeded in reuniting the remaining HLF under a single banner, stopping the assaults on PHL bases and cleansing at least two dozen PER cells in a matter of days, they still faced suspicion and resentment.
Can the PHL be forgiven for trying this tactic? Perhaps. The war was a desperate time, and the need for unity was great. But there is no denying that a great many men and women, heroes in their own way, still do not receive the same praise and recognition that the heroes of the PHL do. Perhaps - though Maxi Yarrow himself died defending humanity and free ponies alike - we will never remember them the same way. Maxi Yarrow might have said that such things were not why he fought, but there is no denying that the surviving Reavers, now resettled as an independent settlement in the reclaimed British territory, would be grateful for such a recognition. It may make the deaths of hundreds of their comrades more palatable.
– True Quill, Unsung Heroes of the Conversion War

“Now, I’ve made no secret of my disdain for the Reavers at this point. Maybe that makes me biased. It hasn’t earned me any favors from the other three writers, but… imagine this. Imagine you are a frightened Malaysian girl who immigrated to America, and then your town goes off the map.
And you wake up as it’s doing so. There’s newfoals everywhere, so you find an M4 (because doesn’t everyone here have one? I like Kalashnikovs more. --Kraber) and you shoot your way out. Then the HLF rescue you, and you… you earn a living best you can. I don’t want to talk about how, but HLF men had… appetites. Then, you get dragged into atrocity after atrocity. Start shaking people up for the most money you’ve seen in awhile. Use newfoals as punching bags, it’s not like anyone around will complain. End up in the most vile, disgusting shit you ever thought.
And here comes Yarrow, thinking he can reform that. I didn’t think it was possible. As far as I could tell, you’d be better off starting another organization entirely. I’d seen and done so much impossible, disgusting things in the HLF that I didn’t think it was worth it, either.”
A War In the Pocket: The Decline of the HLF. Written by Dayoung Tengku, Viktor M. Kraber, Aegis, and Yael Ze'ev.

Bert Donovan was sick and tired of arguing.

He wasn’t the strongest man, nor the cleverest. Nor was he particularly handsome. The eyepatch he wore over the ruined spot where shrapnel had once been sent hurtling into his skull, combined with his scraggly, unwashed beard, were his constant reminder that he looked and felt anything but cheery. At one time, in the days after the evacuation of Britain and that accursed grenade, Rachel was there to joke that he looked just like a pirate. It had never left him that on the day she last made that joke, she’d been ponified.

There were scars all over his body from fighting. He wore a battered leather coat over battered kevlar armour, battered boots, and battered who knew what. He was, all things considered, lucky. Back during the recruitment drives following Britain, they, the PHL, had told him he couldn’t fight due to his missing eye. As if it was their choice.

Now, to a man who has just lost everything, this is hardly the sort of thing one wants to hear. As it turned out, he wasn’t the only one. A man called Thomas May, an old friend and drinking buddy of his, actually, had been recruiting a few of the people who’d been told they weren’t fit for service. Eventually, those few people grew into many, enough to start a group, a group that had moved to America and ended up killing PER. It hadn’t been an easy life, and regrettably, had sometimes required asking for “donations” from the same humans who were getting saved, although no-one was left to die if they couldn’t provide. But he’d killed PER. Lots of PER.

Under the loosest of senses, they had been HLF. They’d received help from a stranger named Kevin, a very strange fella who’d always worn flowery armor, and had kept contact with a couple other groups (loosely), but despite all the noise that had gone on about HLF, PER and PHL clashing with each other, nobody ever bothered them about anything, and they had been allowed to keep protecting people.

Until Yael Ze’ev’s purge came.

Now, the HLF were hunted, and anyone who’d ever so much as spoken to a member of the HLF was subject to investigation. Thomas and Bert had kept their people underground as best they could (despite losing a few good men to PHL patrols, shot ‘resisting arrest’), but it hadn’t been what they wanted. They had wanted to keep the fight going.

The problem was, not many of the other HLF seemed to know what the fight was. Most wanted to kill PER, but nobody could agree on where they were. Some of them wanted to protect towns, but the events of Summer 2022 and onwards had left them unwelcome. Some of them wanted to attack any ponies in sight, PHL included, but Bert had just never felt the need. Most ponies weren’t PER, they were just people wanting to be away from a dangerous regime. Albeit colourful, four legged, furry people, escaping a regime run by a demigod. But hey, he’d known a guy who’d tattooed his face with a picture of an anus once. It took all sorts to make a world. Didn't mean he'd ever want to have sex with them (seriously - how the hell did people not think that was weird?!), but he could live with them being in his neighbourhood.

At Tom’s request, Donovan’s people had come to the meeting called in by a man called Jackson, not a name anyone actually knew. Set in the burnt-out remains of a barn, the meeting place looked like it been chosen because maybe there’d been a fight here, a long time ago. Maybe even a fight Jackson had been part of, though to look at him, he didn’t seem like the sort who got into fights. More the sort who, if not ran away from them, preferred to avoid them. There were different groups present that Donovan might’ve recognised. Survivors from around a half-dozen groups, such as a couple of people in Christian Marine gear wearing stripes of the Prussian blue that William Kraft had instituted before Viktor Kraber murdered him (and most of the Christian Marines too). Some Menschabwehrfraktion survivors that had inexplicably survived Montreal, before Kraber (again) killed off most of them. There were a couple Thenardier Guard survivors, and more than a few running around in kit of no particular allegiance.

That’s what they were, wasn’t it? Survivors.

For all Donovan knew, these were the last remnants. In fact, he was almost certain he was in the presence of the last Thenardiers. Something, the news hadn’t touched on it, he’d only heard confused reports, had utterly shredded every HLF unit near Nova Scotia. The town of Truro had been taken over by Atlas Galt, then, from what he could gather from the scattered Thenardiers, a crazy bastard from their unit had flooded the town, dooming thousands. Which hadn’t been before a…

A super-Newfoal of some kind? Or several? The stories were vague. Seemingly, you never really fought super-Newfoals, you’d only meet someone who claimed to have done so, and even then they had to have embellished a detail. Or met someone who claimed to have met someone who fought one. Regardless, if the PHL or PER were good enough to have done that, there wouldn’t be many HLF left.

There wasn’t much of anyone left, to be blunt.

Jackson was an ugly son of a bitch, with a turned-up nose broken more than once, acne scars and a balding pate. He wore what might have been stolen military fatigues with a set of black kevlar over them, and held a battered-looking pump shotgun with a wood grip held together by electrical tape. If Donovan was a pirate, Jackson looked like a bad cosplayer. Even as Donovan watched, he was speaking to a couple of his men, irritated.

“Wonder what that’s all about?” Lem whispered next to him.

Donovan shrugged. “Guess we’ll find out.”

“Alright!” Jackson said, holding a hand to silence the hubbub. “Listen up, you guys!”

Donovan folded his arms. Jackson’s voice was nasally. He radiated authority like a broken lightbulb radiated light.

“The PHL are focusing on something, something big!” he said. “Word is there’s another Equestria! With its own Celestia, its own Element Bearers!”

Bert’s eye widened. Another Equestria? Like one wasn’t enough?

“They’re gonna be stronger than ever!” Jackson continued. “Which means we have to take advantage now of what’s going on, and strike, strike hard!”

“And strike who?!” asked a young voice. A girl, no older than fifteen, with a permanent scowl etched on her face, stepped forward, backed by a good score of men adorned in all-black gear identical to hers.

“The horsefuckers, who else?” Jackson asked, as though the question were obvious.

“What about the PER?” called out someone else, a haunted-looking woman in a black, sleeveless leather coat. “There’s rumors of cells acting in this State alone! Whatever’s fucking going on with Equestria, they’re–”

“I’m not talking about the PER!” Jackson snapped. “The new Equestria just threw in its lot with the PHL! You think we can let the PHL have that kind of power?!”

“How d’you even know they’re getting reinforcements?” a white-haired Thenardier man yelled back at him.

“Look,” Jackson said, “the point is–”

“The point is, you want to go kill PHL when the PER are out there, ponifying people!” the fifteen-year-old from before snapped. “I don’t care ‘bout some new Equestria, I care about–”

“What do you think that new Equestria will do?!” Jackson cut her off angrily. “You think it'll shit rainbows and the bad ponies will go away? Do you think things’ll magically be better?!”

“The PHL clearly thinks they will,” a man pointed out, his armor decorated with a floral pattern.

“Yeah, of course they do,” Jackson snapped. “The PHL is gonna get reinforcements, more of the fucking gluesticks!”

There was a long pause at that declaration.

“And what if they’re not the enemy?” Donovan spoke up. Lem shot him an incredulous glance, but Donovan ignored him.

Jackson, on the other hand, laughed. “Not the enemy, he says. So, what? They’re our friends?”

“They might be,” Donovan said with a shrug.

“Yeah right,” Jackson snorted. “It’s clear as fucking day what’s happening. They’ve got more like themselves, and those newcomers will help them take more of our liberty, kill more of our people!”

“The PHL isn’t an ally of Queen Celestia,” another woman, blonde hair tied back in a ponytail, cut him off. Her heavy combat armour was in decent shape, and a tall man in even better gear with a shotgun was standing behind her. “You... no, we can stand here lying to ourselves about it all we want, but fact is, they’ve been her enemy as long as we have. Other groups know that!”

“What other groups?” the Thenardier Guard asked. “We’re all that’s left.”

“She’s got a point,” Donovan threw out. “The Skydivers, the Rangers of the North, the Kraken Grenadiers, those guys got by without fighting PHL.”

“Those guys are dead,” said the woman in the sleeveless coat.

“So are the Thenardier Guard, the Menschabwehrfraktion, Taskforce Paris,” the fifteen-year old pointed out. “And they killed more civilians and PHL than they ever did Empire or PER. Galt made a truce with the PER, if I hear right.”

“You did,” the Thenardier Guard said sullenly. “Bastard. I’d say I hope he rots in hell, but knowing how Truro went, he hasn’t been afforded that kindness.”

“Why’d that even…” the girl asked the Thenardier.

“I honestly have no idea,” the Thenardier said. “When those weird Newfoals started attacking, when Birch had us–”

“Is Birch dead too?” someone else interrupted. “Or ponified?”

The Thenardier looked vaguely sick. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

The blonde woman looked at him quizzically. “We had a pool going, back in my old unit. Ten on Batshit Birch getting killed by PHL, twenty on-”

“I don’t. Fucking. Want. To talk about it,” the Thenardier Guard said, enunciating every syllable.

Going by what Donovan had heard of the Thenardier Guards’ most recent actions, it was hard for him to keep himself from remembering the old Discworld quote: ‘Some things sicken even jackals.’

“So how the hell did you get out?” someone asked.

The Thenardier shrugged. “I stole a motorcycle and headed out. I think about six more followed suit. Fuck my unit, and fuck Galt for dragging us into this.”

“So many of us are dead, now,” the woman in the sleeveless coat said quietly.

“Which is why those of us who are left need to unite, to hit back hard now,” Jackson said, trying to regain control of the conversation. “Sure, we disagree on some things–”

“You're not the first one to discuss unification,” the Thenardier Guard said with a snort. “I was with Birch when Yarrow first called a meeting of HLF leaders on his old rustbucket, the Purity, back before Helmetag got garrotted and Galt called himself that.”

“I was in that meeting, too,” said the woman in the sleeveless coat. “Didn't work out then. Why should it work now?”

“It didn't work then, Packer, because you and half the HLF there just wanted to go kill gluesticks without a plan,” the floral-armored man said shortly. “Plenty of us stayed when you lot left. Plenty of us listened.”

“Then listen now,” Jackson said insistently, almost petulantly.

“What you’re talking about is the opposite of what we agreed,” said the floral-armored man, pointing at him in something like bland derision. “We agreed to prioritise, to pick our battles. You're talking about–”

“I’m talking about bringing us together to make a difference!” Jackson snapped.

“No, you’re talking about group suicide without even the comforting delusion of survival,” the floral-armored man said.

Jackson bristled. “Why you fucking -”

“Shut up, Jackson,” a stern voice said, cutting him off.

A small group of men and women entered the barn. They all wore heavy armor, with the leader and a couple more wielding large custom sledgehammers. Many carried advanced-looking weapons. Was that a Type-7? Those things had become ultra-rare.

A few people started muttering under their breath at the sight of this group.

“Reavers!” Lem hissed, not entirely unhappily. “I thought these guys were dead!”

The leader was a grey-haired, man with a no-nonsense look as he scanned the gathering. He planted the haft of his hammer into the ground. Behind him, the rest waited.

“I take it you are Reavers,” Jackson said, his voice a kind of forced neutral, though his face was twisted in a grimace. “Nice of the traitors to show up.”

There was a collective murmuring.

“That’s a word you get to use once,” the leader said grimly. “After that, I start getting unfriendly.”

“And I take it you're Maximilian Yarrow?” Jackson asked with a sneer.

“No,” the blonde woman whispered. “No he isn't.”

“His name’s Joe Rither,” the man behind her said. He stepped forward and saluted. “Sir.”

“McReady,” Rither said, nodding. “The hell have you been?”

The man ‘McReady’ pointed to the blonde woman. “Protecting something important.”

Rither frowned, looking at the woman, before looking at McReady, who simply mouthed “later”. With a frown, Rither turned to address Jackson again.

“So,” he said. “Let me guess. The plan is, ‘go kill some PHL and then hope they don't send more to kill you later’. Right?”

Jackson sniffed. “The plan is to hit while they're distracted.”

“And then what?” Rither asked. “What next? What about after that? What about if the PHL beat the Empire? Or the Empire beat the PHL? What then?”

Jackson fidgeted slightly. “We’re working on the plan.”

“Oh? And what is that, pray tell?” Rither asked scathingly.

“Normal shields do fail against sustained attack,” someone said. “In theory–”

“It takes the equivalent of eight or nine people sustaining fire with non-augment weapons to drop a standard unicorn shield,” one of Rither’s men said bluntly. “The Barrier is nearly the size of a planet. Got eight or nine planets worth of guns, have we?”

“And the Barrier isn’t even a normal shield,” someone else added. “Normal shields, things just impact on. The Barrier disintegrates them.”

There was an awkward silence.

Jackson kept fidgeting. “What else is there?”

“How about those PER?” Donovan called out, pointing to Packer. “She says there’s loads of cells running around. Why not put a stop to that?”

“They're not the real threat–” Jackson began.

“Yes, they are,” Rither cut him off, turning on him with a glare so strong Jackson quailed. ”I got two questions for all of you.”

The steel in his voice made it certain everyone would listen to him. This was not a man used to being ignored. Or if he was, he simply didn’t have patience.

“Any of you play video games?” Rither asked.

The crowd murmured, confused.

“Fuck’s that have to do with anything?!” the Thenardier Guard yelled. “I mean, I did, but…”

“I had a friend who liked to play. A lot.” Rither said with eerie calm. “Fat lot of good that did him when the real apocalypse came rolling. But the thing about friends, gentlemen, is that you cherish them for the little things they bring into your life.”

“Spare us,” said the Thenardier, not to be put off. “Games are just that, games. Whether you’re talking pixelated shit or tin soldiers from two fucking centuries ago, children’s fantasy battles fought in their bedroom can’t measure up to good, hard military knocks–”

“Like you, I suppose?” Rither said placidly. “We all start somewhere. I’m certain you began playing with your little tin soldiers, once.”

The Thenardier fell silent. Satisfied, Rither moved on.

“One game springs to mind,” he explained. “Fallout: New Vegas. And I’m sure you’re all wondering right now, ‘what the hell does that have to do with ponies’? Well, it doesn’t have all that much,but it has a lot to do with us, with our situation for when it’s well-written, and more for when it’s not. Because one faction there, the Great Khans, biker mongols, essentially… well, this friend of mine, he couldn’t stand them. ‘They’re so poorly written,’ he’d say. ‘Because they keep poking the bear.’ Even as their enemy, the only functioning government, gets more and more powerful, they keep poking it. Then cry when it actually fights back after years of being pissed off. They sell out to an enemy that’ll steamroll them, just to get back at the people they’ve done nothing but provoke from the beginning. Seeing as Galt did that, I can only assume, that’s us.”

“Spare me this self-loathing bullshit!” Jackson roared.

“What? You afraid it’s true?!” Rither yelled. “Yarrow would’ve been fine if none of you had decided the PHL were as bad as the PER. If you hadn’t let the crazies run the asylum. You had one job! ONE JOB!” He sighed. “There’s only so far I can take this reference, but... Maxi Yarrow wanted us to be heroes. Not the PHL, no, just an independent faction that stood for the rights of others, and fight where the PHL couldn’t. Maybe even make sure that we had a point when we called the PHL out on some of their actions. The near-martial law, the propaganda bullshit.” His face twisted into a scowl. “Bastards like you made that impossible. Who gives a shit about 1930’s style propaganda and full on martial law when there are humans raping and skinning ponies, huh? You managed to make totalitarianism look appealing!”

No one said anything for a moment.

Rither turned to the others, looking around the room. “I’m going to state this as bluntly as I can.”

Everyone, even the glowering Thenardier Guard, listened, staring at the Reaver. Some looked highly on edge, Jackson and his men especially, but most, like Packer and the floral-armoured man, looked thoughtful.

“The HLF has one last chance to pull itself out of the shithole,” Rither said. “Whatever war you lot wanted to fight against the PHL, you lost, and I reckon we’re all better off for it. Men like Galt–” and the Thenardier’s glare deepened, “–and Lovikov fucked over the HLF. They turned us into the enemies of mankind. And look where it got them. Dead, or…” Rither struggled for a second. “Or whatever happened to Galt. I don’t know, don’t particularly care. Well, that’s over. As of now.”

“Who says?” Jackson asked.

“I say,” Rither growled vehemently, and Jackson shrank back. “Me and mine have seen too many friends die, given too much, for shits like you to be those deciding how history remembers us.” He looked around the room again. “The HLF have a chance to be better, and that chance is today. With us. We can root out the PER and make them bleed. We can stop the Empire from having a hundred little footholds. We can fight, and we can help. History doesn't have to remember us as monsters. We can change the world for the better, today.”

“And if we don't?” Jackson asked with a sneer. “If we don't go along with your grand plan?”

“Then that’s its own punishment,” Rither said, simply glaring at him. There was a soft murmur that seemed to permeate through the room. After a moment, the floral-armored man stepped forward.

“I stood behind Yarrow before, when he wanted to unify the HLF,” he said, for all to hear. “Because he was right. We would have been better if we’d listened then. Well, I’m still listening.”

Rither nodded. “Good to see you still alive, Kevin.”

Packer scowled, before stepping forward as well.

“I didn’t listen to Yarrow before,” she said. “I thought the PHL were gonna try and trick us.” Her expression softened. “And I was wrong. Yarrow had a good idea this whole time. But it's too late, far too late.”

“Too late for Yarrow to see his dream come true,” Rither said slowly, “but not too late for us to make it happen, for the HLF to stand united, to sweep away the supporters of the Empire. We can make a difference.”

Packer nodded evenly. “If you think that, if you really think that, then I’m with you. All the way.”

“Me too,” Donovan said, stepping up as well. “It’ll be good to make a difference again.”

“We’re with you too,” the fifteen-year-old girl said, motioning to her group.

“And us,” the blonde woman added. She shared a glance with McReady. “It's… in my blood.”

A few others nodded as well. Jackson sputtered a bit, but said nothing. Finally, the Thenardier Guardsman stepped forward.

“I hate this,” he said simply. “I’ve hated you guys. I hate what happened to Galt, I hate that we were dragged down to the point of doing something stupid, and I hate what we’re doing. But, and here’s the thing, I also hate sitting around doing nothing.” He laughed. “I’m basically not a positive person. But hell, if it means I can kill PER? Why the fuck not. I know a couple other Thenardiers - they'll probably fall in, too.”

Rither nodded, before looking at Jackson.

“Well?” he asked.

Jackson looked around, at the crowd of HLF who looked hopeful, determined, some for the first time in years. And whatever else Jackson was, even he wasn’t that stupid.

“Fucking hell,” he swore. “Fucking hell.” He ran a hand through his hair. “This is on your head, asshole. If we get ponified by this new Equestria, I’ll fucking kill you and wear your skin.”

Rither raised an eyebrow. “Uh huh. Well, then I’d better make sure we don't get ponified, hadn't I? Fortunately for you shitbags, we’ve got… friends.”

4. All My Worst Nightmares At Once

Interview for Mysteries of the Multiverse: An Amateur Exploration of Space/Time, by Doctor Whooves (Downtime) and Doctor Whooves (Uptime) with notes from Doctor Richard Bowman. Interviewer True Quill (T.Q.), and interviewees Uptime Doctor Whooves (D.W.) and Doctor Bowman (D.B.).
I am sat in the same room as two Doctors. Doctor Bowman is well dressed and appears young, with long, messy hair. Doctor Whooves is the same as ever.
T.Q.: “Okay, so you're both...”
D.B.: “The same person. Yes.”
D.W.: “Albeit from different points in space time. Technically, I will never become him.”
D.B.: “But he may become a version of me.”
D.W.: “Hopefully one who doesn't like cords so much.”
D.B.: “What’s wrong with cords? Anyway, you can’t talk fashion. All you wear’s that blasted necktie.”
D.W.: “I wear a bow tie occasionally. Bow ties are–”
D.B.: “Don’t.”
D.W.: “What?”
D.B.: “Honestly. When I was you–”
T.Q.: “Ahem. Doctors.”
There is an awkward pause.
D.W.: “Sorry. We always do this when we meet.”
D.B.: “We’re surprisingly fractious for the same man.”
T.Q.: “So, those familiar with Doctor Who know a little bit about the process of regeneration–”
D.B.: “Am I going to have to explain that we’re not the show?”
D.W.: “Nobody ever made that mistake with me.”
D.B.: “Probably subtle racism. You didn’t look like a human, so they didn't make the connection as readily as they do with a young, lanky humanoid like me.”
D.W.: “Great wickering stallions, I’d never seen it that way. Now I’m wondering if I’m supposed to be offended.”
D.B.: “... ‘Great wickering stallions’? Is that really something we say?”
T.Q.: “If you could focus? I'm trying to ask in what ways you're different.”
D.W.: “Aside from the obvious?”
D.B.: “Don't be rude. Anyway, Miss Quill, you see how it is... we share a sense of what humans might call ‘eccentricity’...”
D.W.: “Mine tempered by experiencing this war.”
D.B.: “But he’s generally happier than I am, since I’m tempered by things he’s yet to experience. A lot of differences, mind you, come from different circumstances. He’s married, I wasn't, he had a stable life in one space and time, I still had my wanderlust, he didn’t have responsibilities, I do–”
T.Q.: “Responsibilities?”
D.B.: “I owe a debt to some people. (*pause*) When I first came here, I had already been through a conversion war of sorts in my own universe.”
T.Q.: “Really?”
D.B.: “Let’s not get into that.” (*pause*) “Honestly, I shouldn't have mentioned it.”
D.W.: “He doesn't like talking about that.”
D.B.: “Needless to say, it granted me perspective. And so I decided to help.”
T.Q.: “It's worth noting you’ve been somewhat more… obscure than Doctor Whooves. His involvement with the PHL is rather known. Yours, I understand, was more... clandestine.”
D.B.: “It was.”
D.W.: “Then there was that business where you died.”
D.B.: “Let's not get into that business.”
D.W.: “Sorry.”
T.Q.: “I’m… sorry, what?”
D.B.: “Long story.”
T.Q.: “I… take it you… ‘got better’?”
There is a pause. Doctor Bowman becomes more serious, his expression what I can only describe as ‘grim’.
D.B.: “No.” (*pause*) “I didn't.”

A man with a knee-length coat and red hair was sat in a room in one of the experimentation rooms inside the PHL’s HQ. The coat was tweed, brown and softly checkered. Beneath it was an open-necked shirt, a black waistcoat with little lapels, and a pair of brown corduroy trousers, set off by black boots. His eyes were hazel and warm, full of a twinkling merriment.

He was waiting.

The PHL building was oddly quiet. There hadn’t been many troops on guard – somehow, there never were at this time of night, even in the PHL’s stronghold. To be fair to them, though, they hadn’t come in here and he had come straight in. Whatever anti-TARDIS defences they might have had, they didn’t work (would the stallion here have even thought of anti-TARDIS defences, or were they just set up to repel other TARDIS’?). His eyes drifted to the familiar blue box, and he smiled. If that wasn’t the best way to announce oneself, he didn’t know what was.

A brown Earth Pony stallion with a dark brown mane and a tie on entered, and the young man simply smiled. As the stallion wandered around the room, he seemed entirely oblivious to the man’s presence for a moment, focusing on a piece of paper with some complex looking equations.

“No, no, no, no,” the stallion was saying. “None of this makes sense!”

“Can I?” the young man asked, standing up and holding out a hand.

The stallion passed him the equations, and the man tutted as he read over it.

“Lots of thaumic nonsense, here,” he said. “Very difficult to work out. Maybe if you subdivide the differential and take into account the frequency alterations?”

“Maybe,” the stallion said, nodding thoughtfully.

After a moment, the stallion looked at him, his eyes widening in realisation, shock entering them as he saw the box sitting in the corner. He looked back to the man, and the man winked.

“Oh,” he said. “Oh.”

“Yup,” the man said. “Hello, Doctor.”

“Hello,” Doctor Whooves said quietly. “Doctor. Doctor…?”

“Richard Bowman,” the man said with a smile. “I figured ‘John Smith’ might be too obvious.”

There was a pause as the two regarded one another, neither of them entirely certain where to begin.

“So,” Doctor Whooves said after a moment. “I was right.”

“You knew I was pottering about?” Bowman asked. “Or did Renee tell you?”

“I suspected something,” Whooves said quietly. “I asked Hex - he had a suspicious reaction when I specified Chalcedony as my friend.” He paused and frowned. “Marcus knew?”

“He did,” Bowman said with a smile. “He said he presumed you already did.”

“No, but as I said, I suspected,” Whooves said softly. “Too much tech they wouldn't know how to start. Too many ideas that made no sense unless someone came back and gave them then.” He took a breath. “Dare I ask if it's soon?”

Bowman blinked for a second, then laughed. “Oh. Oh. You think I’m your future. Oh, no, no. I’m from a parallel timeline. Entirely different business.”

Whooves paused. “A - a parallel timeline? The other Equestria?”

“No,” Bowman said. “More like one a few dozen universes to the left. Different histories entirely. Celestia was about seven thousand years older, there were Moles, magia instead of thauma. That kind of thing.”

“Moles?”

“Trust me, long story.”

Whooves sighed. “I… I don't know where to begin.” He paused. “I’ve not been given access to your file, but I know Richard Bowman – so, you – was accused of helping the HLF.”

“I worked with the Reavers from time to time,” Bowman said airily.

“Why?!” Whooves said, half-yelling. “Why help the HLF?”

“I wasn't,” Bowman replied evenly. “I was helping Maxi Yarrow.”

“He was HLF,” Whooves pointed out.

“So was Kevin the Mildly-Miffed, and Soren Hagen, and Isaac Richter, and Trevor Ducane, and Andrea MacMurdo, and Rickard Thomlinson,” Bowman said, reciting the names with the soft finality of a dirge. “They were also good men and women. People who wanted to do something and weren't prepared to wait for ‘permission’. Yarrow was the best of the lot.”

“The HLF have done too many things to -” Whooves began.

“No,” Bowman said, holding up a hand. “No, don't. Don't generalise. You've been in that body a long time - don't tell me you've forgotten how to think like one of us.”

Whooves sighed. “I knew Sutra Cross.”

“And Sutra Cross delivered Angela Crane’s baby, Rebecca, during the fighting against Imperial Creed,” Bowman retorted with a sarcastic expression. “Without even blinking when she knew they were HLF. Which was what was so good about her, really, though I fear her good experience made her too trusting. How is it that a relatively normal mare could look past three letters on someone’s shirt, and you can't?”

Whooves paused, and shook his head. “Let’s not have this debate. You’ve done different things to me.”

“That much is obvious,” Bowman said simply.

“Why didn't you trust me?” Whooves asked.

“You mean, apart from the fact that I do things differently to you?” Bowman asked, folding his arms.

Whooves looked hurt for a moment. “You think I’d have betrayed you, your friends?”

“As always, in a heartsbeat if you had to,” Bowman said quietly. “Or thought you had to. That much about us both remains true.”

“And you think I would have?”

“Yes,” Bowman said simply. “From your perspective, my friends were potentially dangerous. I don't doubt that you would have had them arrested or… otherwise handled.”

Whooves looked upset for a moment, but he didn't contradict him.

“Alright,” he finally said. “But that can't be all the reason.”

“You're exiled,” Bowman said simply. “And I’m not your future. I’m your alternate. For all I know, you might not be trustworthy.”

“We’re not that different, surely?” Whooves asked quietly.

“When I was an equivalent of you, retired and enjoying the peaceful pony life, I never married Ditzy,” Bowman said, pointing to a picture of the Whooves clan. “Or… ‘Derpy’. That was only a cruel nickname where I was from. Can’t believe it’s really her name here, actually. Makes me wince.”

“That doesn’t mean you and I are different,” Whooves pointed out.

“Still,” Bowman said. “There were considerations. I couldn’t risk what I was doing. And there's a question you've not asked.”

Whooves frowned slightly, his eyes drifting to the box in the corner. “Your TARDIS.”

“Yes,” Bowman said.

“It's fully functional,” Whooves continued. “Isn't it?”

Bowman nodded slowly.

Whooves took a deep breath. “I… won't deny. I want to… to use it. To go out there. To take my family and run.”

“But you won't,” Bowman said softly. “In that, at least, I guess we’re not so different.”

“Course not,” Whooves said. “We’re us.”

There was a long pause.

“So,” Whooves asked quietly. “Why are you here?”

“A few reasons,” Bowman said quietly. “Firstly to let you know that I am here - we’ve reached the point where even if I wanted to keep hiding from you, I couldn’t. Not considering everything I’ve still got to do.”

“And that would be…” Whooves asked.

Bowman ignored that. “Secondly, to ask if there’s anything you can think of that might need two heads, rather than one.”

“Really?” Whooves asked, raising an eyebrow. “It’s taken you all these years to finally come here and ask me that?”

“What can I say?” Bowman said with a shrug. “I’ve been preoccupied.”

Whooves narrowed his eyes. “There’s more to it.”

Bowman smiled wanly. “What makes you say that.”

“I know me,” Whooves said grimly. “You’d have come looking for me immediately. You’ve actively been hiding from me - you just said so - and there’s no reason for that unless…”

His eyebrows raised, his eyes widening in horror. “Oh no. No, you didn’t. Tell me you haven’t…”

Bowman said nothing.

“Your TARDIS - it’s fully functional, you said as much,” Whooves said quietly. “No limitations - it can go into the future, can’t it?”

“Yes,” Bowman said quietly.

“And you…” Whooves said, eyes still wider, “you’ve.. actually changed things, haven’t you? The timeline I’m living right now is the product of you messing about with this universe’s established history.”

Bowman said nothing. His silence was damning enough.

“How did I not know before… what are you doing, interfering like that?” Whooves asked, shocked. “It’s against the rules!”

Bowman nodded slowly. “For you, yes.”

“What does that mean?” Whooves asked, frowning. “It’s always been against the rules - it’s number one on the big bloody book of the Rules!”

Bowman sighed, looking at his TARDIS with a sorrowful expression.

“Tell me,” he asked quietly. “What’s your relationship like with Them?”

“Them?” Whooves asked nonplussed, before his expression became one of dawning comprehension. “Them? I… I don’t really have one. I’ve not been back in… well, I don't know how long. Not since before I regenerated last.” He paused, frowning. “Why?”

Bowman rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. “My relationship with them has become… somewhat complicated.”

Whooves narrowed his eyes. “They… sent you here?”

“Yes,” Bowman said quietly. “They sent me here.”

Whooves blinked, trying to run this through his head.

“How can you work for them?” he finally asked. “After… after everything they’ve done?”

“I’m twice your age, Doctor,” Bowman said with a slight smile. “For me, there’s been a lot of… shall we call them ‘ups and downs’? I owed them something.”

“‘Owed them something’?” Whooves repeated. “What can you possibly owe them?”

Bowman sighed. “A long time ago, I accidentally let someone escape who ended up selling weapons to one of Their enemies. I stopped the attack, and They… asked for my help.”

Whooves narrowed his eyes. “You mean They made you.”

“If you like,” Bowman said quietly. “Even though I stopped working for Them properly a long, looong time ago, They still see fit to ask for my assistance on occasion.”

“I… alright then,” Whooves said, shaking his head. “Then what’s Their interest in this?”

“That’s an interesting question,” Bowman said quietly. “They’ve been wanting to catalogue different worlds for a long time. They sent me because I’m good on ‘aimless wandering for the sake of exploration’. I was also tasked with ‘preventing powers from becoming threats to Their interests’, which has a lot of carte blanche.”

Whooves frowned. “So you used your ‘carte blanche’ to interfere with established history.”

“Believe me, I had to be careful,” Bowman said, a wry smile on his face. “Nothing drastic - stop a PER agent on a boat here, fix an engine there… make a schematic, make a friend, help some people meet some other people…”

“Help the Reavers,” Whooves said with narrowed eyes.

Bowman nodded. “Right now, this world’s gone from ‘definitely going to hell’ to ‘might not go to hell’, which is - after more tries than I would really like to think about - the best I can do.”

“So that’s why things have been so inconsistent lately,” Whooves said. “I had suspected a time travelling influence, but I assumed someone else. Actually, I thought you were here trying to stop them.”

“On any other day, I would,” Bowman said with a wry grin. “Remind me to tell you about an annoying little upstart called the Watchmaker.”

“Something tells me I don’t want to know,” Whooves snorted. He frowned. “Hang on. Did you have anything to do with this other Equestria thing?”

“No. And I don’t think that anybody could have seen it coming,” Bowman said. “This isn’t merely a curveball, this is… this is replacing the ball with a Toclafane. Even I was surprised, and I’ve actually done the whole ‘Conversion War’ thing before.”

“Now we’ve made contact with the other Equestria,” Whooves said. “It’s an endgame. Last gambit, etc, etc.”

“Everyone’s going for their last gambits,” Bowman said, a slight smile on his face. “The forces of the Solar Empire have pulled out all their stops, hoping that once they’ve broken what you’ve got that there’ll be nothing left to stop them. The last of the PER and the HLF are making noises - some of them not as bad as you think, if the rumours I’ve heard from Bastion are true -”

“Bastion?” Whooves said.

“And you, the PHL, and Downtime Equestria are preparing to launch the last strike on the Solar Empire,” Bowman finished, not acknowledging the interruption. “So. Last gambits. Hope and glory. Damn the torpedoes.” He smirked. “And this time -”

“- there’s two of us,” Whooves finished, nodding. “Alright, I see the point.” He smiled. “I’m gonna have a hell of a time explaining this to Derpy.”

“Well, that joy I leave entirely to you,” Bowman said with a smirk. “She’s your wife.”

“Who knows, maybe she’ll see this as an opportunity?” Whooves asked.

Bowman blanched for a second. “Um.”

Whooves blanched too. “Oh. No, no, no, not like that. Not even gonna. No. No.”

“Seconded,” Bowman said quietly. He smiled. “Right then, Doctor. Where to begin?”