1: New India

Chapter 1

Dark clouds rolled in, blotting out the dim star that lit the little backwater planet. Rain, just a drizzle at first, increased to a steady downpour just minutes after it began, and intermittent, almost rhythmic, flashes of lightning traced the darkened afternoon sky.

Moisture: such a simple thing with such enormous importance. Without water, carbon-based life would never have existed. Our chemical processes require dihydrogen oxide in order to make energy, and without this unique molecule a planet is considered uninhabitable. Even Radical Environmental Restructuring Teams couldn't simply create an Earth-like climate without naturally occurring water vapor.

Human colonists had no trouble settling on this little shit-hole of a planet, however, and as Raymond Schaffer lay prone in the waist-high grassland that New India was most famous for, he contemplated the pregnant clouds from the corner of his eye.

“No amount of moisture is going to keep this planet habitable for much longer,” he thought, smirking slightly despite having been frozen in the same position for nearly seven hours. His mind continued to wander.

“New India,” another smirk, “I swear to God: the more planets The Company colonizes, the stupider the names. Last time I checked the history holodecks, India was a lush, tropical country, not some grassy wasteland. Not that it matters. Jungles aren’t exactly common on Earth anymore…”

Slightly disheartened by this new train of thought, Raymond turned his full attention back toward the task at hand. Several hundred yards ahead lay an abandoned Atmospheric Adjustment Station: its titanium alloy walls slick with the product of the current deluge. Various antennae adorned the roof of the station, some twisted and bent out of shape due to the tiny planet’s unusually strong winds. Dwarfing the antennae stood the station’s “chemical cannon” as the engineer boys back at home used to call it. It was an old magnetic accelerator rig. Mid-2097 design. Boy that baby was old. Atmosphere technicians used to build them for launching explosives seeded with different chemical cocktails (CFC martini anyone?) into the stratosphere. It was an old technique, but it revolutionized how humans regulated climate on newly colonized worlds.

The building wasn’t exactly condemnable. It had been sitting out here with nary a visitor for several years, its deep underground network of laboratories, maintenance shafts, and offices left to be reclaimed by nature. And it certainly was reclaimed: with interest. On the day of the grand closing of the site, the left portion of the pneumatic door must have malfunctioned. It stood wide open to the emptily undulating sea of tall grass. Ray could make out several clumps of yellow foliage spread like a cancer in the shadows of the lobby from his position. The place looked like a graveyard for lost weather engineers: a vast emptiness whistling in the wind.

According to Ray’s contractor, however, the abandoned station was no longer devoid of life.

Sheets of rain continued to soak into his body armor -- already heavy with perspiration. The grass bent under the weight of the downpour, almost to the point of buckling. Back stiff, arms tingling, Raymond continued to gaze ahead, alert to the slightest change in the sea of grass. He had been laying stock-still like this since he had arrived after his drop two miles to the east. A single movement could give away his position. He didn’t even have to imagine what kind of hell he would have to go through if that happened. He’d seen it firsthand.

He was quite practiced in the art of the human statue act, and he had quite the incentive to be good at it. Years of training, both on the planet he called home and in the field, always took hold in times like these and distractions just seemed to… melt away.

Rain began to collect on the visor of his Mark II Camouflage Helmet, and, responding to a quick blink of Raymond’s eyes, an almost invisible line of plasmodized rubber began to move up the Plexiglas view port, wiping it clean.

Ray tightened his grip on the stock of his weapon, giving the blood that had settled in his fingers a chance to move on. In his tingling hands he held his pride and joy: a Cobalt Systems Computer-Integrated Long Range Pulse Rifle. He had named it “Wrath.” The name seemed to fit pretty well, considering Ray’s occupation. Jer said he babied the damn thing too much, but Raymond didn’t think so. It had been his first real weapon (besides the BB gun his father had given him as a kid), and it had gotten him out of a more nasty scrapes than he cared to count.

Ray’s COM link crackled.

“Rise an… n camp… s!”

Speak of the devil…

Ray clicked his molars together and tuned the frequency on the comm. Immediately a raspy, overly-enthusiastic voice vibrated against his right ear drum.

“Elmo, this is Big Bird, come in Elmo. The package is almost ready for delivery. See anything interesting yet?” the voice crackled. Ray could hear the smile radiating from his unnaturally genial face.

“How come you get to be Big Bird, Jer?” Ray answered, a rare chuckle escaping his lips.

“Because I’m piloting your ticket off this grassy horse’s ass. Have you seen anything or not?”

“No. Not yet.”

Technically that wasn’t true. Three hours ago a prairie cat, one of the few predatory animals that roamed this small planet, had slunk by his position. The creature had startled him slightly as it padded by, moving silently like a panther, even though it more closely resembled a wild boar. Its thick hide had been the same golden color as the grass in which it stalked its prey, and as it passed Raymond caught a faint whiff of carrion through the air filters in his helmet. Luckily, Ray’s training paid off, and, not having noticed him, the predator merely continued on: heading west.

“That’s unfortunate,” he replied, his disappointment telegraphing quite well over the COM link, “I was hoping that we could get this party started. I’m just about finished cutting the fission rods for the main event." Ray could almost see the manic glint flash across his partner’s slate-gray eyes.

“Remind me again why we don’t just use the company-issued nukes?”

Jer giggled in his own special, almost frightening, way.

“Because making the baby’s the fun part, Amigo.”

“Just let me confirm an infestation before you come blazing out here with that thing,” Raymond cautioned, letting out a small sigh. Gerald always got like this while bug hunting. Not that he wasn’t always a little off…

“Don’t fret young one,” Jer huffed in his most convincing high-class accent. “I’m nothing if not patient.” He paused a moment for effect. “This COM chatter was brought to you by the letter ‘E’. Big Bird out.”

Another sigh escaped the prone man’s lips.

“That man needs counseling…”

“It’s the end of the world as we know it—and I feel fiiiiiine…” The song faded into static for a moment before the DJ’s gravelly voice cut in.

“You’ve been listening to K-Rock 104.4 out of Delphi,” the man, who apparently had dubbed himself “King Kody,” growled.

“Do I sense a bit of job dissatisfaction there, Kody? Cuz I’m lovin’ mine.”

Gerald Hanes sat hunched over a workbench, separated from the icy void of space by nearly two feet of tempered steel and carbon fiber. Another song, the newest hit by an aspiring electronic artist, began to reverberate within the confines of his skull and the opaque, faintly glowing concoction sitting before Gerald began to take on a sickly yellow hue.

The young man sat up a little straighter; a drop of perspiration rolling down his lightly pointed nose, and a look of manic glee overtook his already affable expression.

“This should burn a bright purple,” he muttered to himself as he began stirring the mixture with a lead rod. Jer didn’t know about the radio DJ, but he sure as hell enjoyed his line of work. He carefully poured the mixture over the nuclear fuel rod he had securely clipped to the firing mechanism of his specially constructed warhead. After filling the casing to the brim, bobbing his head to music only he could hear, he stepped back from the bench to cast an appraising eye over his latest creation.

He had set the device using a simple push-button firing mechanism that would allow his waiting comrade to key as long of a countdown as they needed to move to the optimal viewing distance. He wasn’t going to miss this baby’s début if his life depended on it.

Hanes moved to the seven-inch thick glass viewport at the rear of the vessel and looked out into the starry void, away from the dim red star that lit New India. The ship had been orbiting the small, yellow, ocean-dotted sphere since Gerald had dropped Ray off ten clicks from the abandoned AA station. The fuzzy music became more distinct when he neared the window as the chunk of metal embedded in his skull picked up the stronger frequency. Jer smiled. He liked hearing music in his head. It complimented the voices quite nicely.

Crackling erupted from the COM link sitting in its special slot near the pilot’s seat.

“Gerald. I think I may have something down here.”

“Wonderful,” the grey-eyed man cooed to himself.

He turned back to the workbench and grabbed a can of yellow spray-paint.

“Just one final touch…”

The tall grass to the west of the AA station bobbed and twitched against the wind. An ebony figure prowled out of the grass, dragging a thrashing white bundle behind it. The figure was generally humanoid in stature, but looked almost skeletal: its vertebrae jutting prominently from its back and its ribcage clearly defined even in the half-dark of the storm. The creature’s legs bent back like those of a dog and it sported a long, segmented tail tipped with a wicked barb. Four horn-like appendages extended from its upper back, giving it an almost dragonfly-esque appearance. The most distinguishing feature of the beast, however, was its head.

The beast’s long, phallic cranium swiveled about atop its shoulders, reflecting what little light escaped the cloud cover. As the being scanned the surrounding sea of grass for other forms of prey, its tongue, tipped with a second, smaller mouth, lolled out between its larger pair of metallic jaws and stretched weakly. Though the creature had no eyes to speak of, Ray felt its gaze pass over him in its search.

That settled it. New India had a bug problem.

Satisfied that it was alone, the monster, a sterile drone connected to a much larger hive, resumed dragging its prize toward the open door to the station.

Ray gazed down the electronic scope of his rifle, hoping to get a better look at the drone’s prisoner. He was awarded for his perseverance. Blinking rapidly, he zoomed in on a pale, bearded individual with a bit of a paunch, the beginnings of a fierce set of jowls, and mussed white hair. The man was wearing a lab coat and seemed to be shouting indignantly at his emotionless captor.

Ray glanced at the bottom left corner of his HUD, staring at a small microphone icon until it was surrounded by a blue, electronic aura. He blinked once, enabling his helmet’s directional microphone. He turned his gaze back on the unfortunate scientist and was immediately greeted by his furious squawking.

“Put me down this instant, damn you!!! I’ve worked on revitalizing the ovaries of your queen for far too long to be carried about by the likes of you! I’m the reason you exist! Dammit!”

The man began to thrash wildly, a look of pent-up anger and fear crossing his face. Ray sighed. They just never learned did they? There’s no reasoning with a bug.

Ray took a deep breath in, sighting down his scope at the prowling drone, tracking it as it slithered toward the door with the still-struggling wannabe god. The crosshairs settled at the base of the brute’s neck, just above the shoulder.

One final thought flitted through Raymond’s head: “The rain’s stopped.”

Sure enough, it had. Only a few drop continued to plummet from the heavens.

Ray exhaled… and fired.

There was a muffled cough and a geyser of yellow ichor bloomed from the bug’s throat, painting the right door of the station in a modernistic spirit that rivaled the work of Jackson Pollock. The door began to sizzle and spit despite its rain-slicked surface, steam rising from the dissolving titanium alloy.

Missing most of its throat, the bug could no longer support the weight of its parasaurian head and it slumped to the left, resting on its shoulder as acidic blood continued to spray from its almost entirely exposed inner-throat. The drone slumped to the ground in front of the open door, still barely conscious. Its humanoid forearms scrabbled in the dirt of the New Indian grassland, clutching at dust. Its inner mouth lay in the dirt as well, chomping dispiritedly at nothing, as if gasping for air.

The creature’s former trophy sat up, his arm, clearly dislocated from hours of rough travel at the hands of the drone, hanging useless at his side.

“Thank God!” he cried. “Soldiers!” Another muffled cough reverberated from somewhere out in the grass, but the scientist paid it no heed. He struggled to his feet and began staggering forward, only to have his vision obscured by a warm river of fluid running into his eye sockets. He lifted his hand to his temple, expecting to find a nasty gash. He was surprised to find that half of his face had disappeared. He pulled his hand away, sticky with clotting blood, peeling with it a portion of his temporal lobe. The tissue felt like fine sandpaper. His left ear dangled from a thin strip of flesh.

The wannabe god stumbled, landing on his hands and knees. He felt no pain. Only emptiness. He began to get up but was punched twice: once in the chest and once in the stomach. The force of the perceived blows knocked him on his ass. His intestines slid into his lap. The man looked down, his expression somewhere between analytical interest and outright horror.

“I can see my lungs…”

Finally, a wall of pain slammed into the man’s already strained body. Unconsciousness took him and he slowly drooped onto his right side. His heart stopped pumping. Small flickers of neural activity continued, then faded away.

Rain began to fall once more.

Raymond stood and began to move toward the AA station. He looked down at the now saturated corpse, lying in a slowly expanding puddle of dark blood.

“He was right to hope for soldiers. They might have shown the bastard some mercy…”

Ray glanced about, looking for more drones that may have been attracted to the scuffle. Confident that the looming threat was still unaware of his presence, Ray began to strip the elongated barrel from his rifle. He clicked his molars together and radioed Gerald who was currently (hopefully) in orbit above his position.

“Looks like we got one Jer. God-complex scenario.”

The COM crackled. Ray heard something that resembled laughter.

“They just never learn, do they?” Gerald chuckled from wherever he was above the New Indian atmosphere. “You waste him?”

“Seemed like the thing to do.”

“It’s our policy.” The cruel edge in Gerald’s voice was palpable. They both had their own reasons to be merciless. “The bug bomb’s ready. I’ll be dropping it off shortly. Remind the former inhabitants that the home will be unsafe for a few days.”

Jer’s satire was not lost on Raymond. Unfortunately, he’d heard that joke before… about sixty times.

“All right Jer. Just don’t create too much of a disturbance. I want this to just be a quick in and out, no manual extermination.”

“When have I ever let you down?”

Ray held his tongue; though he honestly couldn’t recall any time his anarchic comrade had ever failed him.

An hour passed. Reluctant to take shelter in the infested AA station, Ray stayed outside. He had moved back to his former position several hundred yards away from the station and was currently keeping watch on the silent building.

Lightning continued to flash. Rain continued to fall. Ray was beginning to warm up to the bleak little planet: ominous weather notwithstanding. It reminded him of home. After scanning the roiling sea of golden foliage for the seventieth time, Ray realized he had been completely soaked through to his undershirt. So much for environmental protection. Cost-cutting sure had become a nuisance on Nerobi: the center of the Company’s industrial supply chain.

“I understand why Jer buys on the black market-"

An impatient tapping on his shoulder interrupted his train of thought.

Ray flinched and whirled around onto his back, rifle raised… to find a completely dry Gerald, wearing his own special “work clothes,” crouching behind him, eyes directed at the seemingly peaceful adjustment station. Jer was the only man alive who could sneak up on Raymond, and the former Colonial Armada Marksman was never going to get used to his friend’s uncanny stealth.

The makings of a smile twitched at the corners of Ray’s mouth while he watched the crouching man gaze hungrily at the yawning portal into the station.

Gerald hated being the getaway driver.

Turning his attention back to his partner, Gerald handed Raymond a fairly heavy satchel.

Ray accepted the offering and gave his companion a slight nod. Gerald gave the marksman a mock salute, then merely melted back into the semi-darkness provided by the still overcast New Indian sky.

The sniper turned toward the no longer empty climate control center and began to crawl towards the semi-darkness of the entrance. Into the hive.

Raymond made his way down the elevator shaft quickly and quietly. There were still no signs of the major infestation he had expected to find. The walls, corroded though they were, still could be seen in the near pitch darkness.

“Bitch hasn’t had time to start decorating yet. Good.”

Having made his way down the ladder, Ray switched on the night filter in his helmet. What was before a husky silhouette took the form of an empty maintenance room. Old industrial chains and a tattered pornographic poster appeared in the sharp contrast of green light displayed in his visor.

Noticing a doorway to his left, Ray exited the maintenance room and made his way down a narrow corridor that stank of mildew and fossilized cigarettes. He turned a corner and was met with an abrupt change of scenery.

The hall ahead narrowed, but not due to human engineering. Bug resin coated the walls of the corridor, perverting it, turning it into what looked to Ray like a funhouse tunnel. Stalactites of alien excretion dribbled from the ceiling, occasionally meeting with stalagmites of the same nature rising from the uneven floor. Intricate, skeletal carvings dotted the walls, marking xenomorph drone’s respective territories.

“At least they don’t piss everywhere,” Raymond thought to himself for the fortieth time. “These hell holes smell bad enough.”

Ray moved down the tunnel, boots occasionally crunching on loose resin. He flinched at every noise, freezing, listening for movement. Eventually, the tunnel opened into a chamber that Ray recognized as the former chemical storage center for the station. It now served as the hive’s nursery.

Several fleshy eggs protruded from the ground ahead: some clustered around columns of bug goop, but most evenly spread throughout the chamber. Ray would have to be extremely careful as he made his way to the chamber beyond that, which, hopefully, contained his ultimate objective: the Big Bitch herself.

Ray took a step forward then froze once more. He glanced at the walls, noticing humanoid figures encased in the sticky resin that made up the now confirmed Class III Bug Hive: a reproductively successful colony.

Boiling anger welled up inside the young man as he scanned the seven bodies lining the walls of the chamber: three young women, two men, an elderly person of unknown gender, and a child of no more than six years. All wore looks of bewildered pain: faces contorted in agony beyond imagination. Gaping holes in their chests left Ray with an, unfortunately, excellent view of their ravaged insides. Anger turning to nausea, Ray’s stomach turned over unpleasantly. He was never going to get used to this. Ever. He gazed at the little boy encased in bug shit and began to feel rage roiling up from the very depths of his soul once more. His hands tightened on the grips of his pulse rifle.

It was then that he noticed something odd: the elderly host was without a birthing wound. Tensing, Ray inched forward and prodded the old one with the barrel of his rifle. The elderly gentleman (from this distance Ray could now make out his gender) had freed his arms and had subsequently clawed at the resin encasing his legs and upper body.

Blood stained the thick resin and several fingernails littered the floor below. Ray crouched and, with the barrel of his rifle, lifted a shriveled, yellow face-hugger, a spider-like parasite that inserted developing bug embryos into a host’s body via the trachea, from the ground below the old man. The poor SOB had definitely been impregnated. Ray checked his pulse and felt nothing but stiff flesh.

“Must’ve had a heart attack before the embryo fully gestated,” Ray mused. He was grateful the man had escaped the same painful fate as the other six hosts. He was also relieved that he had one less drone to deal with.

Ray turned from the bodies and made his way along the wall to the next chamber, keeping his rifle trained on the clusters of eggs nearest him. Luckily, none of them moved even an inch as he passed by.

He entered the next chamber and was met with a sight he had seen too many times before: a room he and his comrade had often referred to as “the royal suite.” Before him, supported by four lengthy resin ropes, hung the Xenomorph Queen. The Big Bitch.

The creature was of the deepest shade of black and had a body type much like that of a common drone, except ten times the size. The Queen’s head was also slightly different than that of the common alien drone. It fanned out along it’s length, resembling a medieval shield, and granted a formidable defense for her retractable jaw, which was currently pulled upwards in slumber. A bulbous, abdominally attached egg sac, resembling that of the common termite queen found on Earth, bulged and shifted. An egg was deposited on the ground below, accompanied by a faint slurping sound. The egg shone with amniotic fluid in the green light of Ray’s night vision.

Ray slipped the satchel containing the nuclear “bug bomb” off of his shoulder and gently lifted the warhead out. Jer had painted a bright yellow smiley-face on the grey casing, accompanied by a stenciled message: “Have a Nice Day in Hell.”

“When did he make this stencil???”

*Sluuurp* Another egg.

Shaking his head, Raymond carefully set the device down and extended a finger to punch in enough time for him to escape.

“One, Zero, Zero, Zer-“

The snapping of her highness’s resin tethers interrupted Ray’s careful button pressing. He snapped his head around, finger wavering over the zero key, finally descending on the wrong button. Ray didn’t care, however, seeing as he now had much bigger problems to contend with.

Momma’s awake.

Another tether snapped and the huge creature lowered its seemingly spindly, yet strong hind legs onto the chamber floor, supporting its own weight. The beast reached up with thin, angular forearms and snapped the last two tethers, fully trusting itself to the mercy of gravity once more. Only then did the Queen lower its face, adorned with a toothy, grinning maw, from behind its protective crest.

Ray didn’t think. He looked down at the bomb’s video display and noticed that he had inadvertently armed it.

“Well, shit… what am I sitting here for?”

Ray scrambled for the exit, catching a glimpse of the Queen using its massive barbed tail to cut itself loose from the still suspended birthing sac. The creature turned to face him, screeching with a characteristic bloodlust. Ray increased his pace.

As he passed from the throne room into the nursery, Ray began to spray the eggs in front of him with automatic gunfire, clearing a messy path to the corridor beyond.

He activated his COM.

“Jer, I’m gonna need an emergency evac… now.”

There was a brief crackle of static, followed by his partner’s raspy voice: completely devoid of concern.

“What happened to the ‘quick in-and-out’ plan?”

Ray breezed through the nursery, turning and taking up a firing position at the entrance to the maintenance corridor. He squeezed off four shots and scored three hits: two to the beast’s armored breast and one to its muscular thigh. Another inhuman screech emanated from the Queen. Ray fumbled for one of Jer’s specially crafted incendiary grenades, which he had clipped to his right hip-strap.

“Momma woke up and she wasn’t exactly ecstatic to see me poking about in her dresser drawers.”

“Get yourself out in the open and I’ll give you a lift good buddy.”

Ray finally ripped the grenade from his side and primed it. Big Momma was striding purposely toward Ray’s position, skeletal arms tensed. She had yet to cross the threshold into the nursery, however. Ray tossed the grenade at a container marked: THERMITE.

The metal rod bounced off the container and rolled to a stop two feet further along. Ray turned and ducked into the resin-clogged corridor, hoping to put as much distance between him and the coming explosion.

“That should slow her down,” Ray thought as he sprinted down the shaft, stopping only to blast a drone from the ceiling. The bastard had emerged right out of the woodwork, clambering toward Ray in the hopes of intercepting him. Now its acidic blood rained down, soon followed by a mangled, black body.

Ray’s night vision brightened dramatically around the edges and the underground facility shook with the force of the explosion in the nursery. Heat flared at Ray’s back and he shot forward, lifted by the shock wave.

“I’ll have to get the recipe for that shit from Jer,” the sniper mumbled dazedly as he lifted himself up and stumbled around the corner to the maintenance room.

Shaking his head violently to clear his mind, the marksman ran to the metal stepladder that extended up the elevator shaft and began to climb. Sixty rungs later, he looked down.

Glinting teeth and a green-tinged crest gazed back up at him.

Ray increased his rate of ascent.

“This is going to be interesting…”

Gerald sat in the pilot’s chair, checking the ship’s weapons systems. The re-fitted Colonial Marines troop dropship that served as their home away from home had been outfitted with a matching pair of gatling guns that fired incendiary or armor piercing ammunition and a high-impact rocket launcher. It also featured twelve cup holders and had been nicknamed the “Ugly Duckling” by her two young pilots on account of its awkward, boxy shape. A large, voluptuously depicted anthropomorphic duck had been painted on the left-hand chassis of the ship. The bestial beauty wore a very tight two-piece jumpsuit and held a can of insect repellant in one hand; in the other, a large cartoon grenade.

Gerald re-routed the armor piercing ammunition to the right-hand turret located just below the wing. Wings on these ships helped create lift when moving forward, but were mainly aesthetic since thrusters in the ship’s undercarriage allowed it to hover freely.

Jer remained hovering fifty yards above the spot in which he had met Raymond earlier to drop off his most recent masterpiece of the explosive arts. He looked on, sweat beading on his forehead, faint classic rock playing in his head, as a shape burst from the shadows of the complex door.

It was Raymond, and he was running all-out toward the dropship. Gerald quickly diverted power from the thrusters to the weapons systems and the ship sank to the ground. Jer cycled open the troop bay. Rain, loose grass, and an exhausted marksman quickly entered the ship. Without waiting for the troop bay doors to close, the pilot lifted off the ground, turning Ugly around so she was once again facing the old AA complex.

Raymond ducked into the cockpit, breathing heavily.

“Bitch was right behind me,” he bleated, trying to catch his breath.

Suddenly, there was a loud tearing noise in the bowels of the ship and the whole cabin tilted to the left.

Jer routed more power to the thrusters, causing the ship to rise higher in the air and revealing the indignant looking alien queen. It struck out again with its strong, whip-like tail, cutting a long scar in the underside of the Ugly Duckling’s right wing.

Ray glanced at Jer. An inhuman grin spread across his face and an insecticidal light reflected in his grey eyes.

“You scratched the paint!” he cried, firing the right-hand thrusters and circling around his prey. He armed both turrets and began to fire indiscriminately in the general direction of his quarry, hoping to play with the bug for a bit before killing it. Bullets cut through the waves of grass and spouts of New Indian soil rose into the air.

The xenomorph queen, leaping towards the ship, hoping to once again attack its underside, escaped most of the armor piercing rounds. A stray bullet had hit its left arm, cutting it off midway. Yellow ichor poured from its wound, searing the ground and starting a small fire despite the rain.

As Gerald tried to line up another shot, cursing and laughing hysterically, Ray remembered the bomb.

“Oh fuck… how much time did I give us?”

The ship shook and he stumbled forward, bumping against the co-pilot’s chair.

“One… Zero…Zero, Zero… shit…”

“Ummm, Jer? We have a situation.”

Gerald just smiled and laughed, continuing his mad pursuit of the queen, who had tried to run back toward the open AA station door.

“I only gave us ten minutes to get to a safe distance, Jer…”

“I’ve got a lock on the bitch,” Jer giggled, bloodlust overcoming all sense of caution. “This should only take a second.”

He flipped up the plastic cover on the rocket launcher’s firing mechanism and pressed the button.

There was a bright flash of white… and then blackness.

White light flashed in the sky above the Everfree Forest, a living, green desert stretching as far as the eye could see. A strange metal box suddenly streaked across the afternoon sky, trailing smoke.

Three young fillies, eyes wide, watched in trepidation from the window of their tree house as the flaming object crashed not two miles from the edge of the forest.

Silence. Stillness. Emptiness. The radio signal was gone.

“Am I… dead?”

Darkness gave way to blinding light and Gerald Hanes squinted against the obscenely blue sky outside the fore viewport of the ship, now bucking and jerking in the air as the forest below became closer and closer.

Jer grasped the ship’s joystick and frantically tried to pull up, but the controls were locked. The altimeter spun rapidly and the forest ahead seemed to be rushing up to meet the ship, as if in greeting.

A deadly calm overtook the exterminator, and he glanced out the window to the left. Nothing but a sea of trees. He glanced right, and noticed what looked like a settlement in the distance. He took note of the apparent position of the town and once again set his gaze toward the oncoming ocean of dense, temperate foliage.

A smirk played across his thin lips.

“I’ve been practicing my poker game, Satan. Hope you’re ready for a challenge…”

Snapping branches and screeching metal. Darkness once more.

2: New Residents

View Online

Chapter 2

“Hurry up girls!!” the small orange mare called. She glanced through the dense brush behind her, and, seeing her two friends struggling to keep up, sighed in exasperation and sat disconsolately against a nearby poplar.

Sunlight flowed in small streams through the canopy above, splashing the forest floor with splotches of light varying in size and shape. The young filly looked up at the small patch of sky above her, hoping to catch a glimpse of a certain cyan pegasus. She blew a strand of purple hair out of her face and stretched her still developing wings, sighing once more.

“I wish I could fly already…”

She began to imagine what it would feel like. The wind rushing through her mane. Weightlessness. Freedom.

The sound of two fillies gasping for air broke into the orange pegasus’s afternoon reverie. She wrestled her gaze away from the sky just in time to see her two companions come stumbling out of the underbrush.

“Scootaloo!” panted a yellow earth pony, her voice fluctuating in a distinctly southern tone despite her breathlessness. “Ya don’t have to go so darn fast! Anyways, shouldn’t we be trahyin’ to be careful?” The earth pony sat down with a small grunt and her ever-present pink bow bounced slightly in her red mane.

“Yeah!” piped up a slightly less breathless unicorn filly. “You remember what happened last time we were crusading in the forest!”

Scootaloo rolled her eyes at the pink and purple haired unicorn.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, I remember. But that only happened because it was nighttime. I betcha half the scary creatures that everypony in town keeps whining about are day-sleepers.”

“Nocturnal,” the little white unicorn said matter-of-factly, sitting herself down next to her red-maned friend.

“What?” Scootaloo responded quizzically.

“The word is ‘nocturnal’,” the unicorn repeated.

“Ugh! Sweetie Belle!” Scootaloo cried in exasperation. “We don’t have time for this right now! Do you want to get your salvage team cutie marks or what? Applebloom, help me out here!”

“All right… lets go. Just please slow down a bit fer us, okay?” the yellow filly responded, hopping to her hooves.

“Fine,” the pegasus huffed, “but if we don’t get our cutie marks because you two took too long don’t come whining to me!”

And with that, the three fillies began to weave there way through the underbrush.

Due north: thin smoke rose from the forest.

Gerald was breathing. This in itself was an unexpected development for the young man, but when he opened his eyes he was greeted with an even more unexpected surprise: the ship had not yet landed.

Jer blinked a few times, trying to make sense of the situation. He un-strapped the pilot’s restraints and moved closer to the fore console. The viewport had shattered, littering the myriad of buttons and switches with slivers of flexible fiberglass. The console itself was twisted and shorn, revealing the crystalline labyrinth of fiber optic cables and machinery. Jer, noticing something amiss, glanced to the left and found something else rather interesting: the ship’s steering column. It had been bent to an almost ninety degree angle and was currently embedded in the cockpit wall directly behind him, after having torn through half of the pilot’s-seat headrest.

“Close call,” Jer muttered to himself, turning back to the ship’s damaged instruments.

He brushed some of the slivers from the console, glancing at the altimeter and checking the craft’s event horizon.

According to the instrument, a weighted sphere suspended in liquid and endowed with an aft view of the modified dropship, the Ugly Duckling was tilted approximately thirty degrees downward on the port side and pitched forward by almost the same amount.

The dazed space-farer looked out the shattered viewport and stared at the forest floor below. Somehow the ship had gotten caught in the crook of a very large tree. Jer estimated the craft to be about thirty feet above the ground.

“This feels like a cliché…”

The tree groaned under the weight of the ship, and, realizing he was in the perfect position to lose his head, Gerald quickly ducked back into the cockpit and waited for the Duckling to plummet to the ground.

Nothing came and Gerald settled down to examine himself for injuries. Despite having taken his body armor off when he had returned to the Duckling on New India, Jer had escaped major injury. Aside from a large gash just below his hairline and a few contusions, the human was physically unharmed.

Raymond, however, had not been so lucky.

Jer glanced to his right, finally noticing his unfortunate comrade. He was wedged under the co-pilot’s seat, his left arm twisted at an impossible angle.

Gerald hurriedly crouched next to the man, fumbling for the catch on his helmet. He carefully pried the helmet loose, revealing his friend’s brutally scarred face. All previous injuries. Each with their own gruesome tale.

The concerned man prodded Ray’s neck with two fingers, feeling for a pulse. He was rewarded with a slight thumping pressure, and the sound of faint breathing.

“And that’s why you wear a seatbelt kids,” Gerald thought, relieved. “If he hadn’t been wearing his suit…” Gerald didn’t want to travel that mental road just yet. He had to get the two of them out of there before the whole tree came crashing down.

A gravelly laugh echoed through the confines of Gerald’s mind.

Jer furrowed his brow. A rare frown tugged at the corners of his mouth.

“Haven’t heard from you in awhile,” he mused to himself. “Personally, I prefer your soft-spoken friend, even if he is a bit repetitive…”

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck…”

“Dammit…” Gerald shook his head, hoping to jar the voices into silence. This never worked, but he felt that if he tried often enough he would eventually earn some peace. He missed the soothing tones of his unintentionally inserted radio receiver. The fuzzy music often drowned out the jabbering of the voices, but only to a certain extent.

Jer refocused himself on the task at hand and lifted his immobile partner-in-crime onto his right shoulder. He began to stagger his way uphill toward the rear troop-bay doors, flipping the switch to cycle the locks. The bay hissed open, the thick titanium plated, lead shielded door swinging out to reveal rustling leaves and thick, tangled branches.

Gerald dragged himself and his companion to the open bay door. He had curled his fingers around the left-hand edge of the threshold and was about to swing out onto a thick branch jutting out below when the ship gave a lurch.

Jer froze, considering his options: not move and go down with the ship, possibly injuring himself and his companion on twisted metal and shorn wires of the console below… or jump.

The choice was obvious.

With a loud grunt, Gerald flung himself out of the troop bay, twisting mid-air in order to cushion Ray’s impact with his own body.

The young man and his unconscious cargo plummeted to the ground, voices laughing and cursing all the while.

The crash reverberated through the forest, startling a flock of birds into flight.

The three questing fillies froze immediately, listening.

“M-maybe we should rethink this girls,” Sweetie Belle stuttered.

“Are you kidding?” Scootaloo exclaimed. “Do you want your cutie mark or what?”

“Well… okay Scootaloo. If you think it’ll work…”

Truth be told, Scootaloo didn’t care about getting her cutie mark at this point. She had sat by that window, gazing out from the old dilapidated tree house for years, waiting. Her life had been a constant disappointing monotony of wandering the streets of the nearby Ponyville. The only excitement she was ever a part of was when she was caught stealing food, or Rainbow Dash caught her spying on her. Whenever she wasn’t with her friends she sat by the window and stared at the sky, the forest canopy, whatever. Waiting for something to finally happen. Now it has, and she wanted to be a part of it.

“Well hurry up then. I don’t want to miss this chance!”

The three fillies plunged onward into the undergrowth, toward the sound of the crash.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck…”

“I swear I’m gonna lose my mind if… oh… right… hehe…”

Gerald rolled Raymond’s body off of him and sat up. The ship had slid straight out of the tree, nose planting straight into the soft humus of the forest floor and digging a small furrow into it. The aft section of the ship quickly followed suit. Having escaped the crook of the tree, the rest of the ship merely flopped down onto the ground, pivoting on the buried nose cone and producing a loud, secondary thud following the noise of the initial crash. Lacking extended landing gear, the craft settled onto its left side. One of its decorative wings rested softly on the ground.

Relieved that the fall damage looked to be minimal, Jer took the time to take in his surroundings. He seemed to have crashed in a rather dark, forbidding wood. Sunlight streamed through a large gap in the canopy where the ship had crashed through and gave the illusion of a sunny clearing within the overall gloomy landscape. Jer thought he was going to enjoy this new, hopefully temporary, home.

The sudden appearance of three rather large wolves didn’t do much to dampen his opinion of the place even one bit.

They had entered the man-made clearing from the northeast, circling around the recently downed Ugly Duckling. The entire right leg of the salaciously depicted bird appeared to have been stripped off by the bark of its previous perch. Ray wasn’t going to be happy about that. It had taken him nearly four hours to get that leg exactly right, nearly half the time it took to produce the finished product. Jer frowned.

“Well that’s unfortunate.”

The wolves were dark grey in color and looked to be of the timber variety. Gerald wouldn’t know of course. He had only seen one before. It had been stuffed. In a museum.

The three predators leered at their perceived prey: a wounded biped and his immobile companion. They bared their teeth, letting slip low growls that hung in the sultry air.

Gerald grinned and carefully slipped his fingers into the crease of his boot, feeling for his favorite tool. He hurriedly glanced at Ray, making sure he was still breathing. Confident that his friend was still among the living, the exterminator examined the oncoming hunters and closed his fingers around the hilt of his knife.

“This should be fun…”

The lead wolf lunged forward.

Maniacal laughter echoed through Jer’s crowded skull.

Furious barking broken intermittently by pained yelps and a miserable whining sound echoed through the Everfree forest. Scootaloo turned to look at her two friends, only to find them hugging each other, eyes wide and bodies trembling with surprising force. A faint voice drifted through the dense foliage.

“You wanna dance bitch?! You wanna DANCE!?!”

More yelps of pain followed, coupled with the echo of almost childish, yet frighteningly familiar laughter. It sounded almost like Discord…

Scootaloo gulped, gave one last look to her trembling friends, and pushed onward. After a brief hesitation, Applebloom and Sweetie Belle hurried after her.

“I prefer the tango myself, but swing is perfectly alright,” Jer mirthfully declared as he wiped his blade on the mangy fur of the predator-turned-prey lying before him. He sheathed the blade, promising himself that he would sharpen it and clean it fully later.

He looked down at his body armor, which was now adorned with the blood of three hungry canines and one hapless mosquito. Another promise: clean clothing.

A glint of metal caught the meditating warrior’s attention. He stooped down and picked up his service pistol, a semi-automatic handgun with an extended magazine and finger guard.

“Well this could have been useful earlier,” he considered, smirking to himself. “Nah.” He replaced the firearm in its home: the nylon holster on his right hip.

Gerald checked on Ray, propping his head and feet up and covering him with an emergency blanket from the now grounded dropship. He then gathered suitable firewood for cooking. Luckily, the Duckling’s impromptu landing provided plenty of viable tinder and cordwood.

A laser torch flashed. Flames danced in the now dusky clearing. Humming, Corporal Hanes commenced to gut the wolves.

The moon rose and stars formed bright pinpoints in the night sky.

The savory smell of seared dog-flesh filled the clearing and Ray began to stir for the first time. He mumbled unintelligible gibberish for about two minutes while Jer sat and patted his shoulder, whispering encouraging words as he further checked his friend for injury.

Ray’s armor had thankfully taken the brunt of the damage, leaving only large, black contusions… and a broken arm. Jer had set it as best he could under the circumstances, using large sticks as splints and gauze and torn fabric to hold everything together. All other injuries seemed to be superficial. Jer just hoped his friend hadn’t been concussed too badly during the crash.

He had made the man comfortable. Now all he could do is wait.

Jer ambled through the troop bay of the Duckling and changed into an old pair of combat fatigues from his days in the Colonial Marines. He pulled on his leather service jacket, hoping to ward off the growing chill. He grabbed another blanket for Ray. After rummaging about the small bunk area, Jer had a flash of insight. He quickly walked past the troop bay and made his way to the slightly larger vehicle-storage compartment. He peered inside, taking stock of their ground transportation. Ray's and his much fawned over combat jeep was still standing, despite the crash and subsequent tilting of the Duckling. Ray had sure strapped that sucker down tight.

They had stolen the jeep during a raid on Gerald's home colony of Jiboomi: a desert world known for its excruciatingly dry summers, numbingly cold winters, and really rather pleasant spring weather. Many up and coming Company members have spring cottages there. The jeep was a dusky brown color, matching the rolling dunes of Jiboomi quite well, had GPS, a genetic identification ignition system (requiring a fingerprint and quick tissue analysis to start up), a rear-mounted, rotary 50 caliber pulse cannon, and two cup holders.

Jer briefly searched the compartment for their second vehicle, a dirt bike they had purchased a month or two ago while taking leave back on Earth. Weyland-Yutani didn't deem it fit to provide their extermination crews with proper ground transport, so Jer took it upon himself to make sure he and Ray were well equipped with whatever toys he felt necessary. He spotted the cycle in the dim light, lying in the corner of the compartment, having come unbolted from its usual storage rack. Jer decided to deal with the downed bike later. Before exiting the compartment, he checked the fuel supply on the jeep along with the spares. Thankfully, all the extra fuel rods had remained stable during the crash.

The gray-eyed human exited the Duckling, stepping out into the fading light with Ray's blanket. Once having covered Ray again, Gerald circled around to the right side of the Duckling and stopped about halfway down the side of the ship, directly under the wing, and kicked the gray titanium paneling as hard as he could. There was a light hiss that could barely be heard over the crackle if the fire and the panel dropped completely off, revealing Gerald’s personal storage compartment.

Out of the velvet interior Jer salvaged a miraculously unharmed acoustic guitar, among other instruments. Smiling to himself, Jer meandered over to the wing currently resting on the ground and settled down on it, gazing up at the stars. He cracked his knuckles, and began to play a very old ballad he had learned as a child. It was a classic: dating back to before the Weyland-Yutani Company had risen to power in the depressive wake of the global energy failure. He sang softly:

“Am I loud and clear? Or am I breaking up?

Am I still your charm? Or am I just baaaad luck?

Are we getting closer or r’ we just getting more lost?”

Jer heard a faint rustling at the edge of the clearing. He pretended no to notice.

“I’ll show you mine, if you show me yours first.

Let’s compare scars. I’ll tell ya’ whose - is worse.

Now let’s un-write these pages and replace them with our ooown words.”

The rustling distracted him again, but he continued to feign ignorance.

Jer began to play a quicker tempo and calmly moved on to the chorus.

The three fillies, using their meager stalking abilities as best they could, crept up to the fire-lit clearing, unwittingly announcing their presence by brushing against every plant imaginable.

The recent trek through the forest had been a nightmare since the three equines had last stopped to the sound of animals crying in pain. Applebloom had gotten thoroughly muddied after slipping down a slight incline into a smelly bog, and the others, while attempting to save her, were ferociously attacked by mosquitoes and voracious biting flies. Then it got dark…

If it weren’t for the warm glow of the mysterious fire in the distance, the three fillies would have most likely broken down from fear. They had been in the forest at night before. But then they had been on the trail… and they had had their capes.

Scootaloo shivered. Even this close to the clearing and the fire, the night chill seeped into her and prompted her muscles to feel especially stiff.

A faint sound drifted over to the three crusaders. Scootaloo cocked her head slightly, listening intently. Somepony was… singing? And isn’t that a guitar? She glanced back to her friends as if to confirm her deduction. Applebloom wore a perplexed expression similar to, if not the same as, how Scootaloo felt she must have looked, and Sweetie Belle had a far-away look in her eyes. She seemed to be mouthing something silently to herself.

The orange pegasus beckoned to her friends and began to creep toward the clearing as best she could. From the sound of slight rustling she inferred that her friends were right behind her.

When the three fillies reached the edge of the clearing, the first thing they noticed was a huge metal structure glimmering in the combined light of Luna’s moon and the nearby bonfire. The second was the smell… a sickly sweet, greasy smell. Whatever it was, it made Sweetie Belle and Applebloom slightly uncomfortable. They were accustomed to rather clean home environments. It didn’t bother the young pegasus, however. She actually kinda liked it…

She bent farther forward, sniffing, trying to find the source of the strange scent. That’s when she saw it. The thing.

It was slightly obscured by the shadows cast down by the moonlight and the flickering fire, but she could make out most of its strange countenance. It was lying down, back against a strut that protruded out of the huge metal structure. It had long, muscular hind-legs, but disproportionally small forelegs, which cradled a beautifully crafted (though dramatically oversized) guitar. It had no mane to speak of, merely a patch of fur adorning its oval-shaped head. Scootaloo couldn’t make out any fine facial features in the dark, but she noted that it had no visible snout. The strangest features of all, however, were the creature’s front hooves. They were flattened sideways and split into five separate pieces. The pieces appeared to be jointed, as they bent every which way along the neck of the guitar, pressing on the strings.

Oddly enough, the creature appeared to be wearing clothing. It was dressed in baggy grey-green leg coverings and large boots. As Scootaloo looked at the creature’s hooves, she noted that they were elongated like those of a dragon. An unbidden image of Spike, the town’s assistant librarian, popped into her head.

On its torso, the strange being wore a dark jacket covered in fabric patches and metal pins of every shape, size and color.

Suddenly, the creature began to play faster, and Scootaloo finally registered the creature’s voice. It had a raspy, masculine quality and lilted softly as it sang with greater vigor:

“We sit on front porches and swing life away.

We get by just fine here on minimum wage.

If love is a labor I’ll slave ‘till the end.

I won’t cross these streets until you hold my haaaa-”

*SNAP*

Scootaloo froze and squeezed her eyes shut.

She had taken another step forward, mesmerized by the sound of the being’s voice, and had stepped on a fallen branch.

There was a soft click.

She opened her eyes slowly to find the creature down on one knee, forelegs pointed straight at her, gripping a metal object with a dark hole in the front.

Scootaloo looked into its eyes: grey as the ash raining down from a volcanic eruption. In its eyes she saw no emotion, no mercy, no deeper meaning. Only grey.

Neither creature moved for an eternity. Then, finally, the kneeling creature lowered the metal object, flicking a small switch on its side and returning it to a black pouch at its hip. The creature’s eyes softened slightly as it regarded the Scootaloo with mild bemusement. A wacky smile graced its thin lips.

“You’re lucky I’ve already caught my dinner little one,” the creature said with a grin, “or I might have shot first and asked questions later.” He (Scootaloo could now definitely tell it was male) stood up on his hind legs and pivoted back toward his former seat, bending down only to retrieve his carefully discarded guitar.

“I don’t really like the taste of chicken anyways…”

Scootaloo sat down with a thump, her legs trembling from excess adrenaline.

“Wait,” she thought suddenly. “WHAT did he just call me?!?”

Jer settled back down on the wing and replaced his guitar on his lap.

“Now where was I?” he thought aloud to himself. He raised his right arm to begin playing once more, but was interrupted by a sharp prod in the calf.

Jer looked down, only to be met with the icy stare of the strangely colored poultry. Looking more closely at the small animal, the human couldn’t help but realize his haste in classifying it as avian.

“It looks kinda like a little horse… but with wings. Cool?”

He was taken aback by the boldness of the creature that, not seconds earlier, had been frozen within the sights of his firearm. The orange and purple quadruped abruptly opened its mouth and spoke with unconcealed rage:

“I am NOT a chicken!”

The creature’s eyes widened exponentially, clearly taken aback by Scootaloo’s outburst. It stared at her for a full second before bursting into a fit of spasmodic laughter.

Now it was Scootaloo’s turn to gape. Her confusion quickly converted back to anger, however.

“WHAT is so FUNNY?!” she raged at the chortling biped, who was currently doubled over in his laughter.

“Please… don’t provoke it Scootaloo,” a voice sounded behind her.

The orange filly turned to see her two friends carefully entering the clearing, flinching at every new burst of hysterical laughter.

The creature sat up.

“There’s more of them?” he cried, eyes wide and mouth still split into a grin to rival that of Pinkie Pie, Ponyville’s resident prankster and self-proclaimed distributor of mirth. He fell back and continued to laugh for almost three minutes. The three fillies sat, confused and slightly disturbed, watching him.

Eventually, Gerald calmed down enough to sit up and lock eyes with the three young ponies before him. Seeing their confused (and in Scootaloo’s case, angry) glares, he tried to explain himself:

“I’m sorry about

“Kill them…”

that. It’s just a little bit surreal for me that

“Kill them…”

three quadrupeds, two appearing to be creatures from ancient mythology and one being a regular horse, are talking to me… in perfect English.” He stopped, glaring off into space for a moment then shaking his head, trying to shut the voices up once more.

“Well of course we can talk,” Applebloom piped up, clearly hesitant because of his strange behavior. “We’re in the third grade!”

Gerald stared at the filly in disbelief for a moment, and then started laughing again.

All three fillies were becoming rather annoyed now.

“HEY!” Sweetie Belle yelled indignantly.

Gerald sat up once more, addressing the young unicorn: “I’m *giggle* sorry. My race has been searching for sentient life for countless generations, and I, of all people, have found it, and my first *snort* contact is with seven-year-old, talking horses.”

This explanation only increased the intensity of the glares.

“I’ll have you know I am exactly eight-and-a-half years old, Bub,” Scootaloo growled.

“Yeah, and Ahm nine!” Applebloom added.

“Was that a southern accent? Jesus that’s cute…”

“Kill them…”

A stirring to the left of the fillies stopped the individual declaration of ages short.

The three fillies jumped as the currently unconscious Ray shifted, causing the reflective emergency blankets wrapped around him to crackle loudly.

“Don’t mind him,” Jer soothed. “He didn’t fare too well in the crash and is gonna be asleep for a little while.”

“So you WERE the thing that fell from the sky earlier!” Scootaloo exclaimed, brightening.

“Well, not me personally, but m-- our ship.” The creature answered, gesturing to his sleeping friend, then to the gigantic metal box behind him. “You can call me Jer by the way, and my sleepy friend over there? You can call him Fuss-Bucket.”

“My name’s Scootaloo, and these are Sweetie Belle and Applebloom,” the pegasus replied, gesturing to the white unicorn and the yellow earth pony. “And we are… THE CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS!!!” All three of the young horses screamed the name of their club in unison, jumping into the air while doing so. Jer flinched and thanked God that Ray

“Hehe… Fuss-Bucket…”

was really unconscious and not sleeping. He had always been a light sleeper. It paid to be easily aroused in their line of work.

“I’m not even going to ask about that little outburst,” Gerald muttered while rubbing his ears. “I assume you three live in the settlement south of here?”

“Yeah, but… how did ya’ know that?” Applebloom answered.

“I noticed it on my way down,” the warrior said with a winning grin.

Having grown to trust the odd biped as only children can, the three fillies began to extol the many aspects of life in Ponyville, pausing occasionally to ask Jer questions about himself: mostly superficial things about his clothing and what the funny smell hanging around the clearing was. He dodged that particular question quite well. Scootaloo seemed especially interested in how the giant, shiny, metal thing could fly if it was so big…

“It probably won’t be flying for awhile now,” Jer sighed. “But I can assure you it usually flies quite well.”

“Mister Jer…” Sweetie Belle asked, a nervous undertone invading her previously animated questioning. “Could you… um… play your guitar a little more… please? I’ve only ever heard anyone play a guitar once, but it was Pinkie Pie playing, and we were all a bit distracted by a swarm of parasprites. Oh wait… that was a banjo… so it didn’t really count…”

“How the hell did… Wait, seriously? Pinkie Pie? Did I die and go to kindergarten? How the fuck did a horse play the banjo without fingers???” Jer thought, baffled.

“Of course I’ll play a bit more for you guys… but shouldn’t you be back in that town by now? From your description of the place it seems that you have pe- I mean ponies waiting for you.”

The three fillies looked at each other anxiously.

“Judging from the visitors I had earlier, the forest is a dangerous place: night and day. Amiright?” Jer asked, understanding finally setting in.

The three fillies nodded solemnly.

The human thought a moment.

“Well you’re welcome to stay here for the night. I’ll set up the perimeter defense system around the clearing and I’ll accompany you into… Ponyville in the morning. If you don’t mind, that is.”

The three fillies, though unsure of what the “perimeter defense system” was, accepted the generous biped’s offer.

“Sounds like a plan,” Jer stated, more to himself than his three-pony (and one Fuss-Bucket) audience. He picked up his guitar, checked the tuning, and, as the moon continued its journey across the night sky, began to play.

Night had fallen on the Canterlot Palace statue gardens hours before. Capering ponies, dragons, and griffons, frozen in marble, danced for eternity under the twinkling sky.

She clawed her way out of the roiling blackness, into the damp night. Into reality once more. She moved her arms with great care, sending jolts of pain through her left, cut off near the elbow but no longer bleeding. She pushed herself up onto her hind legs, using her segmented tail as balance. The sword-like tip dug into the carefully laid sod of the statuary.

"Shelter... food for my children... flesh..."

The ebony giant limped through the gardens, searching the darkness for shelter. She came upon the statue of a snake-like creature, frozen in a state of abject fear, formed as if by a three-year-old in a period of extreme angst against all forms of social order. The statue appealed to her in a way she did not understand. Her tail wrapped around the base of the stone creature’s torso, razor-tipped end clicking against its throat. She leaned forward, opening her maw and caressing the mismatched statue’s face with her second mouth, smaller jaws quivering slightly. A glob of digestive fluid dripped onto the statue’s goatee. There was a faint cracking sound, and the granite encasing the God of Chaos began to fall away.

“Thank you… My Queen…”

3: Market Value

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Chapter 3

“Beginning phase two of conception… please stand by…”

Gerald’s eyes fluttered open at the sound of the soft, clearly female voice.

An intercom squawked and the voice invaded Gerald’s ears once again: “Host bodies are in position… Project ADOPTION now in effect.”

Sleep left Gerald slowly and, as his vision became clearer, he glanced nervously about. He tried to move, but found himself restrained by leather straps cinched around his wrists, waist, and ankles. His head was trapped between two padded blinders, forcing him to face toward the center of the unlit chamber.

His eyes darted across the darkened room. To his left he could make out the dim reflection of a narrow plate glass window. There was movement behind the glass: silhouettes stood out behind a backdrop of flashing blue and red-lighted machinery.

Suddenly, the glare of fluorescent lighting seared his retinas. Blinking back tears, Jer returned his gaze to the center of the room. What he saw sent a chill racing down his spine.

Before him sat two mature xenomorph eggs. Their damp outer skins rippled slightly as their deadly cargo stirred restlessly within.

Gerald’s heart began to go into overdrive. He felt his muscles tense as adrenaline began to saturate his system. He frantically struggled against his bonds, never taking his eyes from the two eggs...
The thought crashed into the struggling man like a freight train: “Two eggs?”

Gerald shifted his field of vision higher, past the devil’s progeny under him. What he saw made his throat tighten in absolute horror. He redoubled his efforts at breaking free and the straps dug mercilessly into his soft flesh.

Across the room, restrained in a fashion similar to Gerald, hung an adolescent girl. She, fortunately, had yet to awaken from her slumber. Her dark, curly hair hung forward obscuring her face. A medical gown rustled loosely against her sun-kissed skin as she began to stir.

Though her face was hidden, the frenzied man knew exactly what she looked like behind her russet curls. Blood flowed freely from his wrists, now rubbed raw due to his useless struggles. He leaned forward as far as he could, straining against his bonds in order to try and get a better look at his captors.

His vocal cords surged, but he quelled the desire to scream before any noise could escape his lips. He couldn’t risk disturbing the eggs… couldn’t risk putting her in any more danger.

The dark-haired girl shifted and the egg below her pulsed.

The immobile man bit back another wail.

“No… no no no no… not her, not her!”

Gerald threw himself forward, trying to use his momentum to move the apparatus he was attached to.

The egg apparently meant for the girl opened. Four sections of skin flapped upward silently and a faint scuttling noise sounded from its shadowy depths.

Abruptly, the girl awoke. She lifted her head, her umber eyes immediately locking with Gerald’s. Her brow furrowed in puzzlement.

“J-Jer?”

The scuttling sounded once more. The teenager looked down and her eyes widened. She began thrashing against her restraints, breathing in short, panicky gasps.

Gerald thrust himself forward with as much force as he could muster. Pain stitched at his side as the restraints dug further into his skin. He squeezed his eyes shut, tears streaming down his face, and hung exhausted from his struggling.

“Jer!”

The fatigued man looked back at the girl across from him. She fixed her glistening eyes on him, beseechingly…

“Jer, I-”

More rattling from below prompted the girl to look down. Her pupils contracted to mere pinpricks and she let out a blood-curdling shriek. A yellowish blur sped through the air and latched onto her face, muffling her frantic cries, its long, muscular tail whipping about, slapping against her papery hospital gown.

Gerald finally let out his own anguished cry. He screamed with all his might, twisting his body against the leather shackles that held him suspended. Every ounce of sorrow, agony, and rage he could produce was let out in this one final shriek.

His voice continued to echo throughout the small room and tears flooded his vision, even as the egg below him roused and its fleshy maw slithered open.

Cpl. Hanes jerked awake, the emergency blanket he had wrapped around himself crackling with his sudden movement. Sweat intermingled with tears had settled on his face. A sole drop of perspiration rolled down the bridge of his nose and dripped down onto his upper lip.

“Salty,” the now fully alert human thought to himself, recovering quickly from his recurring nightmare.

Gerald shuddered, then disentangled from his metal comforter and carefully exited the Duckling, wearing nothing but a pair of worn-down boxer shorts. This particular pair was adorned with hearts, which, over years of being sported by the ex-marine, had faded from a deep red to a light shade of pink.

Jer quietly tiptoed over his three young wards: the fillies who tried sneaking up on him the night before. They lay bundled together near his workbench, wrapped in yet another unnecessarily noisy emergency blanket and snoring peacefully. Gerald had to admire their devotion to the dogma of circadian rhythms.

Once he had successfully exited the altered troopship, Gerald ambled over to the opposite side of the clearing, past the previously doused fire and a small pile of wolf bones.

“I should really get rid of that,” the human mused while stepping over a couple of split vertebrae. “If I remember correctly, horses are herbivorous. I don’t want my three would-be stalkers to freak out.”

Ignoring the forest scenery, Jer made a beeline for the corner of the camp, stopping in front of a blue wire that ran across the soft earth at the edge of the clearing and around the entire site. The wire met at a T-junction near the Duckling, running to a small bowl-shaped device near the fire pit.

A relieved smile spread across the human’s countenance as he began to alleviate one of his more basic needs. A light crackling sound could be heard and blue-tinged steam drifted upward from where his stream struck a previously invisible barrier. The transparent wall of energy pulsed blue as droplets struck its charged surface.

A light jolt of electricity surged through Jer’s privates, causing the man to jump slightly due to the small dose of voltage to his upper thighs. His grin widened.

“That never gets old…”

He had installed the Jiboomi Black Market defense system before hitting the hay the night before. When touched, the wall of energy emanating from the small blue wire that ran around the camp produced an extremely painful electric shock, discouraging any unruly creatures from sneaking into camp looking for an easy meal. Not that Jer considered himself an easy meal.

A familiar cackle resounded through Jer’s skull.

“Good morning to you too, fuckface,” the former soldier responded resignedly within the confines of his own head. He took stock of the trees surrounding the camp. Some, whose branches hung into the clearing, were scorched due to the transparent energy barrier, but thankfully none had been set alight. Jer would have to gather leaves from each of them and place them in the system’s genetic material receptacle. He didn’t want a forest fire on his hands.

Unlike any Company-made device, Jer’s defense system was DNA integrated, meaning that any piece of genetic material on file in the systems computer registered with the defensive outer wall, allowing the recipient to pass through unharmed. The same could not be said for the recipient’s bodily excretions, however.

Fully relieved, Jer turned back to the center of his temporary home, taking in the planet’s rather appealing landscape.

“So tranquil. So picturesque. So… flammable.”

The anarchic human pondered the final moments of his and Ray’s job on New India, remembering Ray’s muddled warnings about having little time, the pleasure behind firing a missile at the xenomorph queen, and a bright flash of light.

Ray assumed that the flash was his special concoction going off… or the Rapture, but he doubted it, because this place sure wasn’t Hell…

“I wonder if it glowed the right shade of purple. I’d hate for my final masterpiece to have been anything short of spectacular.”

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck…” the thin, reedy voice wheedled.

“Give it a rest already!”

Jer walked the camp, admiring the diverse forest and peaceful climate. He immediately loved it. It kicked the shit out of Jiboomi, that’s for sure.

“Maybe I should build a summer home here,” he snickered. “Wherever here is.”

The night before, the Scootaloo, Applebloom, and Sweetie Belle had explained (with little detail and quite a lot of bickering) as much about the planet he was currently on as they understood. Like Applebloom had said, they were in the third grade. Gerald had no idea what kind of education her species gave at that level, so he had decided to assume it was similar to that of the tertiary level of elementary schooling provided by the Company.

Gerald arranged his current knowledge of the new environment in his overcrowded head, pacing while he did so.

“I am within the borders of a country known as Equestria,” he stated to himself, shuddering somewhat at the pun. “This country is ruled by a monarch by the name of Princess Celestia, who is apparently ‘uber-cool’ as stated by the orange poultry. The town to the south is called Ponyville. More puns, GAH! Judging by the lack of a human radio signal, I can also infer that the planet this country resides on is currently outside of Company space… or reality.”

Gerald stopped his restless pacing. Outside of Company reach. Bittersweet feelings of sorrow and joy ravaged the displaced human. No Company meant no orders, missives, mandates, bureaucracies, hearings, debriefings, or quarterly reports to the board. Gerald was free… but to do what? Without Weyland-Yutani there was no purpose. No excused catharsis of rage. No planetary inspection. No cleanup.

“What are you going to do now?” the throaty voice of one of his inner demons asked, tone dripping with venomous sarcasm.

Gerald slumped down on the wing of the Ugly Duckling and stared at the cold, dead ashes of last night’s bonfire.

“I’m going to stabilize Ray,” he said quietly for his own benefit. “Then I’m going to escort the young natives back home.”

“Kill them…”

“In one piece.” Gerald shot his own mental equivalent of a glare at the voice.

Now that his day had purpose, Jer made his way back to his personal storage compartment.

“Time to get dressed.”

Scootaloo’s eyes fluttered open. Looking about, she realized she had no idea where she was. She, along with her two friends, was wrapped in a thin sheet of metallic… stuff inside of a small, dimly lit room. Above her and to the left a large metal workbench jutted from the wall. Beyond the table was a short row of compartments, each flush to the wall of the chamber and closed by a small latch.

Sunlight streamed through a large doorway ahead of her. The orange filly observed the clearing she and her friends had stumbled upon yesterday. A light breeze shifted the trees and she could hear the faint crackling of flames from a morning cook fire. Scootaloo assumed she and her friends had been placed inside the creature’s crashed airship for the night, though she didn’t remember being escorted inside.

Careful not to disturb her two sleeping companions, the young pegasus unraveled the reflective blanket and quietly made her way to the troop bay doors. She peeked around the edge of the portal and caught sight of their bipedal benefactor, wearing a coal-gray jumpsuit of sorts. He was crouched low over his unconscious friend whom he had introduced the girls to last night, an annoyed scowl flitted across his previously jovial visage. He was tilting a metal thermos over the prone human’s drawn lips, trying to entice the comatose man to drink. After half a minute of frustrated muttering and pressing on Jer’s part, his partner began to drink greedily.

A visible wave of relief washed over Jer’s face. Scootaloo smiled at the sight. He wasn’t half as ugly looking when he smiled. It put her at ease.

Jer stood and turned toward the small fire crackling nearby. Above the flames sat a small turning spit like the ones she usually saw at that fancy restaurant on the south side of Ponyville. Scootaloo’s mouth watered at the thought of the roasted vegetable shish kabobs that she often watched waiters carrying around the outer patio of the eatery. She thought the place was called "Chet Linguto’s" or something like that. She hadn’t been there since last week, and that was only because she hadn’t found food anywhere on the east side of town…

Scootaloo observed Jer crouch next to the spit, lift it off of its supports, and slide a charred hunk of something off of the metal bar. He began to tear chunks out of the cooked material with his glaringly white teeth and chewed thoughtfully. Remembering what the creature had said last night, the pegasus’s eyes widened in shock.

“You’re lucky I’ve already caught my dinner little one…”

“J-Jer?”

The munching human glanced up, and, seeing the pegasus, beamed good-naturedly at her.

“Well good morning little one,” he greeted, swallowing a mouthful of wolf meat. “Are you and your friends ready to get on home?”

The filly gulped.

He had seemed affable enough the night before, and he hadn’t eaten them yet. Steeling herself, the filly trotted down the ship’s gangway, trying to keep the memories of last night’s ghost stories, sing-alongs, and silly-voice games with the giddy creature prevalent in her mind. The thing that frightened her the most, however, was the smell of singed flesh. She… she liked it.

“Good morning Jer,” Scootaloo replied with her best phony smile. “Do you have anything ummm… vegetarian that I could eat? Me and my friends haven’t had anything to eat since lunch yesterday…” she trailed off.

Gerald looked down at his breakfast of greasy tissue.

“Of course. My bad,” he grimaced. “I think I may have something you three will find more appetizing in Ray’s compartment.”

“Who’s Ray?” Scootaloo asked, taken aback. “Are there more of you?”

“Oh, hehe.” Gerald chuckled, a mischievous smile playing across his features. “I meant Fuss-Bucket.” He stood up quickly and made his way up the ramp into the Duckling, disappearing momentarily from view.

Scootaloo hurried over to the human’s abandoned breakfast and took a tentative whiff. The heady aroma of grease and cooked fat clouded her mind momentarily.

The fact that the smell of prepared meat had such a pleasant effect on her was freaking her out a bit. The purple-maned filly shook her head violently and sneezed, taking a few stumbling steps away from Jer’s breakfast and settling down next to Fuss-Bucket. She began breathing through her mouth, hoping to rid herself of the cloying, yet pleasant, scent.

Squeals resonated from the inside the creature’s metal home and, recognizing the excited tones of her two friends, Scootaloo glanced noncommittally at the entrance.

"Sounds like Applebloom and Sweetie are up.”

As if on cue, Jer staggered out the bay doors: a bow-wearing earth pony clinging to his leg and a white unicorn riding on his shoulders. The man was grasping several rectangular packages in his hands.

As he approached, he was released by the two energetic fillies, who quickly joined Scootaloo by the still unconscious Fuss-Bucket.

“All right you three,” Jer cautioned. “I have four granola bars that I took from Fussy’s stash. Each of you gets one and then you’ll split the fourth. They’re made with oats and have a little bit of honey in them. That good? No dietary issues?”

The hungry fillies shook their heads eagerly, watching intently as Jer unwrapped the snacks. All three were excited at the prospect of trying the foreign eats. He doled out equal portions and they tentatively tried them. Enjoying the taste, they eventually began to munch on the bars in earnest.

While the girls were eating, Jer made his way back to his personal storage compartment, hoping to gather the equipment necessary for their journey through the forest while the fillies were distracted. He rummaged around the disorganized locker and pulled out his Mark III Camouflage Helmet, this one slightly more advanced than Ray’s older, Company model. Gerald would never understand Ray’s fixation with Company gear.

The ex-soldier rummaged around a bit more and pulled out a gleaming pair of brass knuckles and a steel machete he had snatched while employed on the planet Sulara. The rather large planet had been at the center of a binary star system, just at the right point between the two revolving stars that it wasn’t a molten wasteland, but instead a tropical paradise that never saw the dark of night. Well, at least it was paradise along the shorelines of its few oceans. Inside its vast jungles, it was quite the opposite. Jer, still rummaging, reminisced over Ray’s and his extended expedition in the dense jungles of Sulara, where, despite the constant sunshine above the canopy, darkness reigned. Damn that was a fun week.

He glanced over at Ray, still unconscious. He had laced the water he had given him earlier with morphine and a sleep-aid. Jer didn’t want him to wake up while he was gone and he worried about his arm. Jer was a pretty good field medic and had splinted it as best he could under the circumstances. Ray wasn’t delirious so he could rule out any kind of infection. He would be fine until Jer got back from the settlement. Besides: it wasn't the first time he'd had to babysit his partner. Ray had been hit in the head so many time, Jer was surprised the man hadn't lost his marbles. Gerald was confident that his partner would be up-and-at-'em soon enough.

Jer closed the compartment and sheathed his machete on a small buckle on the side of his jumpsuit: a Cyrulian grayle-hunting suit. A grayle is a large, rhino-like creature with very keen eyesight that lives on the plains of Cyra, one of the Company’s many farming colonies. The suit projects the environment around it onto its surface using a system of microscopic cameras and LEDs woven together in the place of nylon or fabric, rendering the wearer practically invisible. Using this ensemble, colonists have been hunting wild grayle for decades putting extra food on the table so that the Company’s meager wages could be used on other necessities. Jer had gotten the suit for a steal and had tinkered with his helmet for three days after the purchase in order to make it compatible with it. The effort had been worth it. Now, he could explore the three fillies’ hometown without becoming the target of a frightened mob of natives. Or, at least, not yet.

A thought suddenly occurred to the human. Turning to the three eating quadrupeds he asked calmly: “Won’t your families be suspicious as to where you three were all night?”

The three fillies glanced at each other and smiled.

“We’ll just tell ‘em we were sleepin’ over at Scootaloo’s” Applebloom piped up. “They never question it.” A curious expression came over her. “Come to think of it, Ah’ve never been to your house Scootaloo.”

“Yeah, me neither,” chirruped Sweetie Belle, now also rather confused.

Scootaloo smiled sheepishly.

“Um, i-it’s in C-Cloudsdale so it would be kinda difficult to take you guys there,” Scootaloo stammered. The other two fillies nodded sagely.

“That makes sense,” Sweetie Belle stated.

Gerald looked on skeptically. He logged the conversation as something he would have to pursue later.

“All right then little ones,” he sighed. “It’s time for me to get you home, but first I’m gonna need a feather from you,” he said, pointing at Scootaloo, “and strands of hair from you two.”

The Cutie Mark Crusaders eyed the human suspiciously.

“Why?” they asked in unison.

“Do you remember what I told you about the defense system last night?” Jer asked, exasperated but still rather amused.

“Uuhhhhh…”

“I thought not. All you need to know is that if you want to leave the camp without a nasty shock, I’ll be needing some of your DNA for the computer.”

The fillies looked at each other and shrugged. Sweetie and Applebloom pulled out a strand of hair each and Scootaloo plucked one of her feathers. Jer took them carefully and walked over to the defense systems genetic library: the bowl-shaped thing near the center of camp. He placed the hairs and small feather in the device, pressed a few commands into the screen on its side, and… presto! The hair and feather vaporized, now registered within the system’s computer. It was safe for them all to leave now.

He turned back to his young companions.

“All right,” he said. “Lead the way.”

Near the edge of the Everfree Forest, the God of Chaos materialized from the void. His mismatched body stiffened as he stretched, joints popping and muscles straining. The Spirit slithered forward a bit and plunged into the earth through a small, grassy opening.

“Honey!” Discord snickered, “I’m home!”

Gerald hacked and slashed his way through the thick underbrush, clearing a path for him to move forward unencumbered by whipping brambles and the like. He glanced back at the three fillies behind him. After trekking for nearly a mile, they had opted to hang back, preferring that the larger creature clear the way for them. Gerald, hidden behind the visor of his helmet, smiled unconsciously. The three young ones huffed and puffed in their efforts to keep up with him. They were getting tired.

The ex-marine was amazed at the fillies' innocence and trust. He had only met him a few hours ago, a violent alien life form from unknown reaches of space, and they immediately accepted him as a benefactor, if not a friend. Children where he came from would never be that trusting.

Jer stopped and cut away the brambles in the immediate area and, turning on the external speaker in his helmet, gave the fillies a chance to rest. Apple bloom and Sweetie Belle immediately sat on their haunches, breathing in short gasps, while Scootaloo walked to the edge of the newly cut clearing and leaned against a tree for support. She began gazing out through the canopy, a wistful look in her eyes.

Jer smiled at the sight. He had always loved children, no matter what species. An idea occurred to him and his smile widened.

“Time to have a little fun.”

The human stepped backward into the thick underbrush as silently as possible, and vanished.

Scootaloo was daydreaming again. The deep blue sky above beckoned to her. She imagined drifting on the breeze, not a care in the world, high above the oppressive forest and the societal jumble of Ponyville. Away from all her problems. Is there such thing as a drifting cutie mark?

A frightened whine caught the pegasus’s attention. Once again, her daydreams were broken by one of her friends. This time it was Sweetie Belle.

“Oh no oh no oh no…” She was wandering around the clearing, eyes searching the surrounding undergrowth.

“What’s wrong Sweetie Belle?” Scootaloo asked with unveiled exasperation.

Sweetie turned to her orange friend, either not noticing her annoyance or not caring: “Where’d Jer go? He disappeared!”

Now it was Scootaloo’s turn to become worried. She jumped up and looked around frantically.

“He wouldn’t leave us… would he?” Applebloom asked, trembling.

“No,” Scootaloo replied emphatically. “He would never do that.”

“Yeah, h-he’s our friend,” Sweetie Belle added with less conviction.

Suddenly, a rustling sound came from the bushes to the fillies’ left. All three flinched, huddling together for protection. Silence reigned in the dim half-light of the forest floor.

A throaty whisper resonated in Scootaloo’s right ear.

“Boo.”

The Cutie Mark Crusaders screeched, jumping nearly twice their height. They landed on the soft, loamy turf with a light thud and quickly scrambled to the opposite side of the clearing.

They were too busy trying to calm their heart palpitations to notice the laughing at first. When they did, puzzlement was their first reaction, followed by indignation, and finally outright anger.

Upon their abrupt mood change, the laughter only became more intense. Light shimmered ahead of them, and the vague shape of their giddy escort began to take form… upside down.

Jer loosened the muscles in his calves and crashed down to earth from the overhanging branch he had hung from, body still hitching with unbridled laughter. The three fillies immediately jumped him, bouncing on his chest and yelling resentfully. Jer’s laughter was infectious, however, and eventually all three of them were rolling about giggling hysterically.

The sound echoed throughout the forest. In a small cave that hugged the forest floor, an injured giant stirred, then returned to its restive slumber. An egg fell to the cave floor with a wet thump.

Ray awoke to the sound of small arms fire. He glanced at the alarm on his bedside table. The holoscreen read 3:45 am. The small icon of a crescent moon inched across its upper border.

More shots followed by a gurgling scream.

Raymond flung away the sheets of his bed and ran to the window. His neighbor’s house (the Bartletts? Gaines?) was in flames. A gas explosion ripped through its south wall, shattering the lower level picture window. People were sprinting down the street and flashes of gunfire pulsed intermittently along the suburban cul-de-sac.

A man dressed only in pajama bottoms tripped on the curb in front of Ray’s home, skidding along the pavement. He began lifting himself up, only to be set upon by a black, skeletal creature. Its vertebral tail wrapped around his upper thigh, dragging him backward over the pavement. Wails of terror emanated from the man as he tried desperately to claw away from the beast. The creature tilted its elongated head toward the very top of the man's spinal column, its second jaw bursting from its gaping mouth like the tongue of a chameleon. A veritable geyser of bloody tissue erupted from the front of the man’s face, staining the pavement below and silencing his pitiful cries for mercy.

The crash site remained silent except for the stirrings of the unconscious man and the occasional crackling zap of mosquitoes against the defensive barrier. Raymond thrashed in his sleep and a low growl resounded in his throat. The forest around the comatose man remained peaceful, but inside his head, Earth had been set aflame.

As the trees began to thin out above the three fillies and their odd companion, blessed static erupted within Gerald’s head. The man slowed his stride, a look of bewilderment crossing his face. The voices in his head were muffled behind the hissing white noise, but he could still faintly hear their demands for blood and repetitive cursing.

No longer needing him to clear the way, and not having noticed his sudden change in demeanor, Applebloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo continued past Jer babbling about rock climbing, of all things.

After a moment of consideration, the human followed.

“Am I picking up a radio signal? But that would mean I’m within Company space… or the girls were lying about the technological prowess of their people.”

Last night the three fillies, amid shouts of “Cutie Mark Crusaders,” bickering, and general nonsense, had explained the three pony races to Jer and their subsequent abilities. They hadn’t mentioned any higher forms of technology other than comments over lighting and electronic music at some party they’d been to at “Sugarcube Corner.”

The warrior shrugged inwardly and continued walking. The trees were really beginning to thin out. He could see the outlines of brightly painted buildings in the distance. He looked up at the sky (still obscenely blue) and noticed something streaking across it, leaving a rainbow contrail.

Apparently, Scootaloo had noticed it too because she immediately let out an excited squeal and dashed toward town, her friends hot on her heels. Jer shook his head; his ever present smile not faltering one bit. As he approached town, words began to form amid the static inside his skull.

“…hell of a scorcher out today, but that isn’t stopping protestors one bit am I right?”

Another voice chimed in.

“Absolutely Robby my boy, rain or shine these men and women are kicking up a storm in the streets of upper east-side Chicago. Let’s put on some music that will really knock some pansy government socks off!”

“Damn right!”

“Government socks?” Jer thought to himself, amazed. “How old is this broadcast?” Some scream-o band began to screech about locking doors and sucking dicks. The song was familiar, but Jer couldn’t quite place it. The human resolved to solve this mystery later. He was getting close to town and his filly guides were nowhere to be seen. Sighing, Jer selected the camouflage icon on his HUD and made his way into the bustling town.

Multi-colored ponies, each with a pair of strange tattoos on their flanks, trotted left and right, carrying packages, chatting absent-mindedly, or just merely walking through town. Gerald sauntered past a large group of them, noting their size. They only came up to his waist, but there were tons of them. No point in causing any undue panic, then. The invisible human didn’t like the idea of being trampled to death by hundreds of brightly hued quadrupeds. Granted… it would be a rather interesting way to die.

The man spotted a large tree that seemed to have been converted into a home. A small balcony overlooked the road and Jer could see a large, tubby lizard sunning himself upon it. Down the road he saw plenty of plaster and wood-framed homes jumbled together. The place reminded Gerald of an early colonial township he had visited during grade school on a field trip to Earth. He was impressed. This town was the third most surreal thing he had ever laid eyes on. The memory of an old holovid depicting an ancient Olympic award ceremony flashed in his head. Bronze medal goes to… Ponyville.

Nobody noticed the light-bending silhouette that crept on the edge of the road. Finally, Gerald arrived at what looked to be an outdoor marketplace at the center of town: just in time to watch his new friends get scolded.

“Now I say, Sweetie Belle,” an elegant voice proclaimed over the din of the marketplace. “You look positively dreadful! Please tell me that’s just mud all over your coat!”

“As fer’ you Applebloom,” another voice rang out in a clipped southern drawl. "Where’ve ya’ been all night? You had Macintosh, Granny, and Ah’ worried sick!”

Jer weaved his way along the edge of the crowd of ponies and vendor’s stalls until he spotted his three young wards. They were being accosted by two older mares next to a cart full of ripe apples: one being dazzlingly white with a purple mane coiffed in a spiral fashion; the other, orange with a yellow mane done in a simple ponytail. The latter was wearing a slightly battered brown Stetson.

Jer arrived just in time to hear Applebloom reply, wearing her best poker face: “Ah’m sorry sis’. We were just havin’ a sleepover at Scootaloo’s house. Ah guess we just forgot to tell y’all.”

The older mares gave Scootaloo a stern look. She merely grinned sheepishly, suddenly finding the cobblestones at her feet extremely interesting.

The white unicorn gave a small huff, and turned back to Sweetie Belle.

“Come along darling, I will not allow you to continue walking the streets covered in such filth.” Her horn glowed a bright blue, the same aura forming around Sweetie’s tail. As she was being dragged away, the young unicorn waved sullenly to her friends.

The orange earth pony was the next to speak up.

“Ah can’t leave the cart to take you home Applebloom, so you and Scootaloo had better go wash up in the fountain. Run along now!”

The two remaining fillies gave a comic salute and ran off to the fountain at the center of the marketplace. Jer quickly followed them.

When he caught up, the two were already in the fountain, splashing about and causing a scene. He patiently waited for them to finish their antics.

While they were busy ‘washing,’ Jer listened intently to the radio broadcast his head had picked up, hoping to glean any information at all as to how old it was. Maybe then he would be able to tell how far away he was from Company territory.

A new song began playing. A man's voice radiated from the hunk of metal lodged in Jer’s brain.

“Everybody be cool this is a robbery!” Then a woman’s voice.

“If any of you fucking pricks move, I’m ‘unna execute every motherfucking last one of ya’!” A guitar began playing in the background.

Applebloom hopped out of the fountain and made her way back over to the orange mare’s apple cart. Judging from the earlier conversation, Gerald placed the cowpony (Hehe…) as her sister. He looked left, behind the cart, and noticed another pony among the bustling crowd, this one a dark brown pegasus with a black mane. He was eyeing the cart in a way Jer didn’t quite like.

The music continued. A man with a sumptuously smooth voice began to calmly dictate inside his head.

“Me an’ Fas got the gats. We out to rob the bank.

Got a jeep outside countin’ full a pack

an’ ev’rything’s cool an’ evry’thing’s smooth...”

“You have got to be kidding me,” Gerald thought to himself as he watched the brown colt paw nervously at the street, still gazing at the apple cart. “There's no fucking way.”

“I walk in to the tellah’. I gave her the lettah’

She gives me the loot, with puckered up lips

and a wink -- that I found cute. An’ I said:

‘Baby, baby, babyyy…”

Scootaloo hopped out of the fountain, bumping directly into the back of Gerald’s calf. She looked up, momentarily confused, and whispered: “Jer? Is that you?”

Just then, the brown colt made a break for the apple cart, pushing aside Applebloom’s sister and grabbing a metal cashbox with his teeth. With a satisfied grunt, he sped past the cart, knocking down the now clean Applebloom as she ran to help her startled sister. The yellow filly knocked her head against a nearby cherry stand and was suddenly still. The orange mare ran to her, yelling desperately: “STOP! THIEF!”

Jer's inner demons cried out in rage above the dim sound of the radio.

“KILL! KIIILLLL!”

“You know what? I just might.”

Twilight Sparkle turned on the corner of Mane Street into the marketplace, saddlebag full of bits, on a mission to replenish her depleted stock of quills and parchment, when she heard the commotion. She saw a brown colt with a cutie mark that looked like some sort of sack dash for the Sweet Apple Acres apple cart, knocking her friend, Applejack, to the ground. She ran forward, arriving just in time to put a magical cushion around Applebloom before she rammed headlong into Jubilee's cherry stand. The lavender unicorn’s magic saved the young filly from any spinal damage, but she was going to have one hell of a bruise.

Applejack ran over, yelling at the top of her lungs: “STOP! THIEF!” Remembering the brown pegasus, Twilight scanned the crowd, barely catching him leap into the air, wings outspread and cashbox nestled safely between his jaws.

He only made it five feet off the ground.

The colt cried out as something latched around his tail, holding him down as he flapped desperately to escape the scene of the crime.

“WHAT IN CELESTIA’S NAME!” the thief yelped as he was tugged back down to earth by an unknown force. A raspy voice, sounding like it was coming out of an intercom, resonated through the panicked square.

“Hold on there big fella,” the voice calmly intoned to the struggling robber. “Where do ya’ think you’re going?”

Twilight shuddered inwardly. There was no mistaking the hint of malevolence in that voice. It… it sounded like it was smiling. She watched as the robber was thrown to the ground in a cloud of dust. The powder shimmered across a tall figure standing above the thief, but Twilight couldn’t clearly make out what it was. It looked almost as tall as the Princess! The dust settled, and the figure disappeared from view.

A loud crack echoed through the now silent square. The robber’s front left hoof shattered in a rain of keratin fibers. The subdued pegasus roared in pain, pleading with the unknown force to let him go. Another crack. His wing bent back at an awkward angle, shedding downy feathers onto the cobbled courtyard.

Twilight stared in horror. Pegasi’s wings are almost impossible to break. How…

Applebloom stirred beneath her and Applejack let out a relieved cry. Sobbing, she hugged her sister, who, now fully conscious, gazed wide-eyed at the scene unfolding before her.

Suddenly, the thief was forced right in front of the three mares. His nose was bleeding and he was missing a few teeth.

“Apologize to the little one… NOW!” the voice growled, shouting the last word.

“I-I’m s-sorry,” the thief stuttered, spitting out a tooth. Tears welled in the corners of his eyes.

“Now are you going to give the nice horse back her money?” the voice whispered. “Or do I have to slice off your face and hang it on my wall?” Twilight shuddered again.

The floating thief placed the cashbox in Applejack’s trembling hooves, then, gazing at Twilight, he pleaded: “P-Please… d-don’t let it k-kill me…” he trailed off, tears in his eyes.

The voice sounded again, clearly amused this time.

“Oh, I won’t kill you. Don’t think I didn’t consider it, because I most certainly did. I don’t take kindly to thieves..." he trailed off. "Fortunately for you: there are children present.”

Relief washed over the stallion’s face.

“But that doesn’t mean I can’t put you into a coma,” the voice added, momentarily devoid of emotion.

The stallion’s eyes widened and he screeched in terror. He was once again being dragged back to the center of the marketplace, the hairs of his tail straining behind some unseen forced. He struggled as best he could, and in response to his efforts he received a second broken wing.

Manic laughter echoed through the square. The colt’s screams became louder. Blood spurted from above his flanks. The remains of his tail were tossed carelessly into the air. The colt twitched and wailed under the successive blows coming from nowhere. Bones cracked and shattered under the massive force of the invisible laughing thing. Fur, feathers, and teeth flew. Ponies who hadn’t yet fled the marketplace gagged and shied away from the gruesome sight.

Twilight heard cheers of approval coming from the bar in the southwest corner of the square.

After nearly a minute of mindless screaming, the brown colt lost his voice. He merely wheezed in pain as he was once again lifted into the air and swung carelessly like a sack of grain. His head cracked against the asparagus stand and the pony suddenly found his voice once more. He wailed in agony, but the malicious laughter only grew more hysterical. It sounded like the transparent creature had just heard the most amazing joke rather than the colt's pained wails.

Suddenly, the thief was once again flying through the air… without the use of his wings. He sailed over Twilight’s head and crashed headlong into the decorative fountain in the center of the square. She heard the crack of his ribs shattering. The now red-stained stallion slumped unconscious half in, half out of the basin of the fountain. The laughter from nowhere tapered off, slowly becoming quieter and quieter until Twilight couldn’t hear it at all. Whatever it had been, it was now gone.

Applejack sat, stunned, still hugging her sister who was now squirming to get loose.

“Sis, Ah’m fine,” She pleaded. “Please stop crushin’ me!”

Applejack either didn’t hear her or didn’t care. She gazed off in the direction the voice had disappeared with a mixture of horror and gratitude. The voice had gone north, toward the Everfree forest. She looked up at Twilight.

“Uh… Sugarcube?”

Twilight, meanwhile, was staring over toward the fountain, at the little orange filly who sat looking at the broken thief, a knowing smirk teasing at her lips.

“She knows something,” the lavender unicorn mumbled to herself.

“What was that, Twi?” the orange mare inquired.

Ignoring her, Twilight trotted past the crowds of still stunned ponies toward Scootaloo. When she reached her, she used her magic to lift the filly up to eye level. Scootaloo whimpered.

Twilight narrowed her eyes at the pegasus, giving her her best interrogatory glare (she had read about interrogation in many mystery books).

“Tell me what you know, Scootaloo. Or so help me I’ll get Pinkie Pie to force it outta you!” she snarled.

The pegasus’s purple eyes widened in horror.

Jer had stopped laughing, but his ever-present smile still stretched jauntily behind the visor of his helmet. He had been slinking through the forest for the better part of an hour now, looking to catch himself (and Ray if he woke up soon) some lunch. Still camouflaged, Gerald quietly stepped over a bush adorned with sickly-looking red fruit. He was stalking a family of forest deer. As of yet, he was unnoticed. He glanced at his knife, still stained with the thief’s blood from when he had cut off his tail.

"Shoulda kept that,” he thought remorsefully. "Well... at least I got a chance to use my brass knuckles..."

A dark chuckling reverberated in his head, accompanied by quiet cursing.

Jer sighed. He missed the radio.

“It’s over this way!” Scootaloo called nervously, leading a rather determined-looking Twilight through the bushes toward the crash site. She held out as long as possible under Twilight’s interrogation, not wanting to sell out her new friend and his sick partner. But then Twilight had taken her to Pinkie. Oh Celestia it was awful…

After she had spilled the proverbial beans, Twilight had demanded that she take her to the crash site. Scootaloo hoped Jer was home, otherwise, she didn’t think she could hold Twilight back in her current state of fearful curiosity.

Pinkie, upon hearing the news of a new resident in the area, had simply vanished.

The two ponies made it safely to the edge of the crash site. Scootaloo walked right in, searching in vain for any sign of Jer. All she found was a still unconscious Fuss-Bucket and the bowl-shaped device near the fire pit. Wait…

“TWILIGHT! WAIT!”

A bright blue flash flared behind Scootaloo, followed closely by a sharp crack and a surprised shriek. Scootaloo ran back to the edge of the clearing and found the purple unicorn on the ground, coat singed and mane smoking. Her eyes were spinning out of control.

“What… what was that?” the unicorn whimpered, holding her head in agony.

“I-I forgot,” Scootaloo stammered. “We told Jer that the forest w-was dangerous so he put up a defensive barrier.”

“But I would have sensed any magical wall in my way,” Twilight responded, confused. She shook herself off and tried to stand. Scootaloo got her head under her midsection and helped lift her up.

“It’s not magic,” Scootaloo said, matter-of-factly.

“That’s impossible!” Twilight huffed. “It felt like I just got struck by lightning! Nothing besides advanced magic could do that!”

The orange pegasus sighed. Jumping up, she plucked a hair from Twilight’s mane with her teeth and coiled it safely within her mouth. Twilight stared at her quizzically.

The orange filly quickly stepped over the blue wire running around the edge of the clearing and headed for the bowl-shaped receptacle by the now cold ashes of the fire pit. She spat the hair into the receptacle, and, like she saw Jer do earlier that day, tapped the “read” command on the device’s screen. Twilight’s hair, along with some of Scootaloo’s spit, vaporized within the bowl.

Scootaloo turned to Twilight.

“It’s safe to come in now.”

The studious unicorn gazed skeptically at Scootaloo. Tentatively, she stepped over the wire. She didn’t explode. Twilight let out a breath of relief and immediately began exploring the camp, looking for anything new she could learn about the dangerous creature that had appeared just hours before. Perhaps, if she found out more about it, combatting it in the future would be simpler. She had completely ignored Scootaloo's assertions that he was friendly during the earlier interrogation. How could anything so violent be anything close to friendly? He had almost KILLED that colt. Granted, he was a thief who had injured two of Twilight's friends... and would probably do it all over again in a different town... but STILL! Twilight had a hard time coping with the creature's form of vigilante justice.

Scootaloo looked on in trepidation.

“Please don’t touch anything… oh please oh please…”

At that very moment, Ray turned over, his metallic blanket crackling loudly. Twilight, who had been admiring the Ugly Duckling, mumbling something quietly to herself, yelped and looked over at the unconscious man.

She began to make her way over to him.

“Hold on there Twilight!” Scootaloo practically yelled. She scrambled to put herself between the studious unicorn and Jer’s sick friend.

“Out of my way, Scootaloo!” Twilight scolded. “I’m getting to the bottom of this if it’s the last thing I do! I just saw a pony brutally beaten in the middle of Ponyville square!”

“He was a thief!” Scootaloo cried angrily. “He almost killed Applebloom!”

“That's besides the point, Scootaloo. Applebloom didn’t die, and it was only money. Applejack is a hard working businessmare. She could have made up those losses in less than an hour. That stallion could have been killed.” Twilight was trying desperately to rationalize her anger toward the supposed alien. It was getting more difficult by the minute. Sure, his actions had been cruel, but... when she saw that colt take off... she had wanted to get ahold of him and... and...

Twilight pushed past Scootaloo and levitated the prone form out from under the blanket. She gazed hungrily at the floating creature, trying to glean every bit of information she could from his floating body.

The creature was dressed in matte-black body armor that gleamed in the sunlight streaming down through the trees. Its left front foreleg was held close to its chest by a makeshift sling. Twilight spent turned her attention to its face. A twinge of sympathy constricted her heart like barbed wire.

The skin covering its cheekbones was pocked with burn scars and deep indentations. Scars laced their way across its features, the largest crossing over its right eye. Twilight stared intently at the creature, wondering what could have possibly given it those scars.

Something cold and sharp pressed against her neck. The unicorn froze, her heart leaping into her throat. She almost dropped the unconscious thing, but kept herself concentrated just enough that it only dipped in the air.

The raspy, masculine voice from the marketplace whispered in her ear:

“Put him down gently.” All the former amusement that had resounded in the voice during the scene in Ponyville Square was gone, leaving only cold anger.

Twilight slowly lowered the scarred creature, gently placing him on the ground and re-covering him with the emergency blanket.

“Like I told young Miss Scootaloo last night: you’re lucky I already caught food, or I may not have given you a chance to explain yourself,” the voice lilted softly in her ear. “Now, please. Tell me why you forced my young friend to let you into my camp? And what gave you the right to fondle my comrade so carelessly with that ungodly purple magic of yours?”

“I… Y-You…” the unicorn spluttered. The knife pressed deeper into her neck.

“Take a minute to calm down,” the voice soothed. Twilight glanced at Scootaloo. The orange filly was giving her a disappointed look. Now that Twilight thought about it, she had been a bit hasty. Much, much too hasty...

“I… I was just curious. And scared. I saw what you did to that thief in the marketplace and could tell that Scootaloo knew what was going on. I needed to know…”

“Let’s get something straight sister,” her captor said, his voice a low growl. “Nobody touches my friends without their permission.”

“That… sounds reasonable,” the unicorn stammered, realizing that it really was very reasonable. Very reasonable indeed. “I’m s-s-sorry…”

The electrical barrier surrounding the camp sparked as a large beetle met a grim end behind the Ugly Duckling. The three beings remained still as Twilight's apology hung in the midday air. Suddenly, the creature broke the silence:

“Ok then!” he chuckled, removing the knife from above Twilight’s collarbone and sheathing it in his boot.

Scootaloo gaped at the man, looking at him like he’d just sprouted wings from his head, then, looking at Twilight, she started to giggle and immediately tried to stifle it with her hoof. Twilight was just as surprised. She turned to look at her captor, seeing a biped much like the one who she had unthinkingly accosted earlier, wearing a gray, almost skintight jumpsuit and helmet, which the creature promptly removed with a slight hiss of escaping air. Twilight gazed at the creature’s face, now uncovered, taking in every detail. This was, after all, her first encounter with a new species that was neither invisible, nor unconscious.

The biped had an angular face with very pronounced cheekbones and laugh lines. It’s mane was almost non-existent, only covering the very top of its head in a rather close-cropped fashion. It wore a manic grin and its slate-gray eyes shone anarchically, reminding her of the mismatched red eyes of Discord.

“You… You forgive me?” Twilight asked. “Just like that?”

“I’m a good listener,” the human alleged. “Last night, I met three young fillies with a penchant for storytelling.” He turned to Scootaloo, who was now rolling on the ground, trying to suppress her laughter at Twilight’s incredulity. “They gave me an overview of the town heroes, Ms. Sparkle. I know you meant no real harm. You saw me as a potential threat, which, in my case, is understandable.” He chuckled at a joke only he could hear. “However, that gives you no right to barge into my camp and start snooping around.”

The unicorn lowered her head dejectedly. He did have a point. It was weak, but a point nonetheless.

“I’m sorry…” she sighed.

The human shook his head, smirking.

“Apology accepted. Now go explore, but don’t touch anything… or I’ll cut off your tail.”

Twilight stared at the creature, surprised and frightened at the emotionless way he had threatened her with dismemberment.

Scootaloo couldn’t hold it anymore. She burst out laughing, and nearly rolled into the fire pit. Jer stuck out his boot and stopped her progress, and then he burst out laughing as well.

“The tail thing was a joke, right?” Twilight asked nervously, glancing back at her flank to check on the body part in question.

“Yes, yes don’t sweat it kid. Just don’t touch anything,” the creature reassured, still giggling along with the orange pegasus.

Amazed and confused by the creature’s quick forgiveness of her actions, the unicorn looked hesitantly around. She had given up rationality at this point, and had to physically force herself not to smile. The alien's laughter was infectious! Twilight was still suspicious of it, and continued to tell herself that its actions in Ponyville Square had been wrong, but she had decided it wasn't a threat to her at present moment. She admired its devotion to its friend, and it seemed to get along really well with Scootaloo...

It wasn’t until the creature had begun gathering branches for a fire that she spoke up.

“Ummm… I’m sorry, but I didn’t catch your name.”

“Oh! My bad,” the jovial biped said, patting Scootaloo on the head while she tried to build a teepee out of the branches he gathered. “I’m Gerald, but my friends call me Jer. That ugly mess over there is named Fuss-Bucket,” he continued, gesturing toward his comatose companion.

Still completely taken aback by his forgiveness and mood change, Twilight decided to push further.

“If you wouldn’t mind… Gerald… I have a few questions for you.”

“Ugh I sound like Fluttershy…”

“Fuck, I hate questions,” Gerald responded noncommittally. He whipped out his laser torch and lit the lopsided teepee with a loud sizzling flash. Twilight flinched. “You get three,” he relented after looking at her for a moment.

Hesitantly, she began:

“What are you?”

“Human.”

“Where are you from?”

Jer merely pointed up into the midday sky.

“How did you get here?”

“That,” Jer muttered, “is yet to have been made clear.”

4: Awakening

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Chapter 4

Applejack pushed through a dying blackberry bush, following her sister through the foreboding landscape of the Everfree forest. She’d always hated the woodlands north that bordered Sweet Apple Acres: it was nothing like the rolling hills and beautiful orchards of her home and its difference made her uneasy. She wasn’t afraid of the forest! Oh, no. Never. But… she did prefer to keep her distance: especially during the spring. Manticore rutting season and all…

Sure, she had heard all of Granny Smith’s stories about how the forest was a living part of Equestria and should be respected as such: not avoided or feared… but she never really trusted the place. Granny had always had a soft spot for the forest. Applejack assumed that was because she had first discovered her famous "zap apples" within the forest as a filly. Or maybe she was just a bit of an old romantic.

Applejack smiled at the thought of Granny pining over the natural beauty of Everfree, maybe writing some poems. Her grin quickly soured into a scowl as she tried to free herself from some wild brambles that had become entangled in her long blonde mane.

Applebloom jittered impatiently a few yards ahead.

“C’mon Applejack!” she whined, hopping around the base of an old oak tree.

“Calm down Sugarcube,” the orange mare growled, frustration clear in her usually calm, collected tone. “May Ah remind you that yer’ still in trouble fer lyin’ tah me and Rarity earlier.” Applebloom drooped a bit, but her impatient enthusiasm won out and she began fidgeting again.

After Twilight had run off after the incident in Ponyville Square and the Royal Guards had carried the crook away on a stretcher, some staying behind to question witnesses as to what had happened, Applejack had rushed her sister to the hospital. Both Nurse Redheart and that new doctor who came in from Canterlot last month took a look at the still dazed yellow filly. After a thorough examination, both physicians reassured Applejack that her little sister would make a full recovery. Still unconvinced, the farm pony had taken Applebloom home and forced her to lie down and rest her head despite the early hour. Unfortunately, Applebloom would have none of it.

The little filly babbled excitedly about what had happened in the market. She was absolutely livid at the would-be thief who had knocked her down and tried to steal Applejack’s hard-earned bits. She kept mentioning a name in her endless monologue of indignant thief-bashing. Applejack disregarded her ramblings, attempting to tuck the excitable filly into bed, until about the fifth time she mentioned the errant name.

“…knew it was Jer the second Ah heard his voice! He was all like ‘apologize to the little one…’” Applebloom deepened her voice to match that of the invisible vigilante from that morning’s skirmish in the square. The older mare started and began paying closer attention to her younger sibling’s rant.

“…he was flyin’ with broken wings! Jer really showed that meanie what for! Ah guess he’s pretty cool for not havin’ a cutie mark… just like us! GASP! I’m gonna get the girls to let him join the Crusaders! He’ll be so-”

“Now hold on there, Pardner,” Applejack interrupted. “Who exactly is this ‘Jer’ pony?”

“He ain’t a… Aw shoot…” Applebloom shook herself from her earlier enthusiastic sermon against the crook: apparently realizing that her new friend would probably prefer to stay anonymous, especially after that morning’s episode.

Visibly cursing herself for her loose lips, Applebloom attempted to save face by feigning exhaustion. She stretched her back, little spine clicking loudly into place, and gave Applejack her best yawn.

“Y’know Sis? Ah really am tired. Maybe Ah should just go to sleep.”

“Applebloom,” the older mare seethed. “You tell me what’s goin’ on right now or so help me…” Applejack trailed off menacingly, allowing her younger sister to imagine what unpleasant fate awaited her if she made the wrong decision in the next few moments.

Applejack glared at the filly, giving her best imitation of her friend Fluttershy’s stare. Applebloom blanched and appeared to be nervously weighing her options. After nearly a minute of cold silence and fidgeting, the orange farm pony finally won out and Applebloom began confessing everything… absolutely everything.

“Wow… there really is somethin’ to be said about that stare thing,” Applejack thought, amazed at the endlessly
flowing admissions of fault coming from her little sister.

The filly spilled everything: the fiery metal object that fell through the sky, the Crusader’s trek through the forest, their encounter with the apparently friendly creature named Jer and his injured companion, all up until their return to Ponyville with the creature, whom they’d left unattended in order to chase Rainbow Dash. She also admitted to “borrowing” Applejack’s Stetson while she took her midday nap last Tuesday, as well as playing “Doctor” with Snips and Sweetie Belle behind the barn a month ago.

Applejack filed that last one away for later.

The yellow filly looked up at her sister expectantly, frightened of what her punishment might be, but remaining curious enough about her sister’s expected reaction to make eye contact. Applejack sat, stunned for a moment by the sheer magnitude of her sister’s confessions. A space pony… prevented a robbery of Apple family property.

Needless to say, the farm mare was skeptical.

Being the Element of Honesty, Applejack expected the truth from her friends and family, but knew she wouldn’t always get it. She stared at her sister, trying to gauge her truthfulness. The farm mare couldn’t detect even a trace of untrustworthiness in the yellow filly’s eyes. Even so… a space pony?

Applebloom watched her older sister worriedly. She had sat there, blankly staring at her, for almost a minute.

“Uuh… Sis? You okay?”

“Show me,” the orange mare said suddenly.

“Wh-What?” Applebloom stuttered.

“Take me to the clearing. Ah have to see this fer mahself.”

And now here she was. A mile into the Everfree forest with her energetic little sister, trying to disentangle herself from this darned bramble patch. Applejack sighed resignedly. She took out the small rubber band she used to hold her ponytail together and pulled herself out of the bush. She shook her mane, letting it fall around her shoulders, and trudged on after Applebloom.

After about an hour of walking, the two ponies found themselves at the edge of a small, unnatural clearing. Applejack let her eyes roam across the clearing, taking in the impossible sight. A gigantic metal house stuck out of the earth and a roaring fire contained within a bed of stones blazed a few yards away from it. A large mound of flesh was slowly cooking over the fire. The farm pony’s stomach did a somersault. Celestia, the smell! Applejack had never experienced such a disturbing scent. Had Applebloom mentioned her new friend’s… diet? She didn’t remember. The hide of whatever poor creature was currently roasting in the center of the clearing lay stretched out over a large boulder near the opposite edge of the camp, apparently drying in the afternoon sun.

“Well… Applebloom definitely wasn’t lyin’ about the new residents… but from space? Ah dunno.”

A familiar voice rose above the crackle of the flames: “HALT! Who goes there?” An orange pegasus filly trotted out of the metal structure, a mixture of defiance and apprehension on her young face.

“Scootaloo?” Applebloom asked, confused.

“Applebloom? You’re okay!” the purple-haired filly cried. She cantered over to the two ponies excitedly, but noticing her friend wasn’t alone, stopped. “Applejack? What are you doing here?”

“Ah could ask the same of you, missy,” the farmer retorted, glancing nervously behind Scootaloo at the shadowy entrance of the metal structure. Her eyes were drawn toward a strange painting on its side: it looked like a duck, except taller, and posed in a rather suggestive manner…

Noticing the older mare’s nervous gaze, Scootaloo smirked. “Don’t worry Applejack, Jer’s really nice! He’s not here right now, though. He had to go bury… ummm… the parts he couldn’t… uh…”

Catching the orange filly’s meaning, Applejack began to feel a little sicker.

Applebloom, not having really noticed or understood what was going on, changed the subject: “How’d ya get out here Scoots?”

“Oh!” Scootaloo forgot about finishing her explanation of Jer’s current business. “After Jer totally beat up that big, mean robber, Twilight caught me and interrogated me. I didn’t give in… until she brought me to Pinkie…” Scootaloo shuddered. “She made me take her out here so she could try and find out about Jer. She was convinced he was some sorta bad colt or something.”

Remembering the scene in Ponyville Square, Applejack understood her reaction. It had been horrifying. She’d seen blood before… but that was always from some accident. The orange mare had never seen anyone beaten so badly before… all because they had stolen from her. She turned her attention back to Scootaloo.

“… and then Twilight was holding up Fuss-Bucket with her magic: swinging him around like a rag doll so she could get a good look at him-”

“Wait,” Applejack interrupted. “Who?”

“Twilight, silly! She-”

“No! Who was she holding up?”

“Oh! She was holding up Fuss-Bucket: Jer’s friend. He’s kinda sick right now…” Scootaloo turned and pointed past the fire pit. Next to an odd, bowl-shaped object lay a bundle of reflective… stuff.

Remembering Applebloom’s description of the unconscious creature, Applejack finally decided to take charge.

“Move aside, Sugarcube,” she commanded as gently as she could. “Ah need to talk to Twilight.”

“She’s not here,” Scootaloo chirped. “She left almost an hour ago: probably to go warn you guys about Jer. Maybe write to the Princess. I dunno.” The young pegasus shrugged indifferently, not caring about Twilight’s actions in the slightest.

“Warn them?” Applebloom interjected quizzically. “Why would she warn anypony about him? Jer’s so nice…” she trailed off.

“I know, right?” Scootaloo answered, clearly nonplussed. “She’s still convinced he’s a ruthless space pirate or something.”

“Jer said that he an’ Fussy are just exterminators... they just deal with bugs an’ stuff right? Why would Twilight think he’s so dangerous?” Applebloom mused a little indignantly.

Apparently Applejack was the only pony out of the three who remembered exactly what happened in Ponyville earlier. She definitely knew why Twilight still made such assumptions about the pair of alien’s threat to the town. Until she met this ‘Jer’ character, she wouldn’t know for sure who to trust: her sister, or one of her best friends.

“Ah don’t care if Twilight’s here or not,” Applejack asserted. “Ah’m comin’ in an’ takin’ a look for mahself an’ that’s final!”

Scootaloo backed up, clearly intimidated by the older Apple’s sudden outburst. “O-Okay Applejack,” she stuttered. “Just don’t move for a second, kay? If you come too much closer you’ll get hurt.”

“Whaddaya mean?” the orange farmer asked, her eyes narrowing. She took another step forward, her hoof landing centimeters from the blue wire that surrounded camp.

“HOLD IT!” Scootaloo yelled.

Remembering the invisible blue barrier, Applebloom quickly tried to hold back her frustrated sister. “Wait! Stop Sis! Jer put up an invisible wall thingy to keep monsters out while we slept! It’s dangerous if he doesn’t put some a yer hair in the uh…”

“Database,” Scootaloo finished.

“Yeah! That’s it!” Applebloom looked around for a moment, and then brightened as she found what she was looking for. She grabbed a hapless stick that had been merely minding its business, being inanimate, a few feet away. Taking one end in her mouth, she tossed the stick over the wire. There was a bright blue flash and a loud zapping sound.

Applejack stumbled backwards and landed on her flank with a soft thump. She had squinted her eyes shut at the flash. She now opened them fully, only to see the stick, blackened and burning on one end, lying a few feet away to her left.

“See?” Scootaloo said, a bit condescendingly. Blue waves of energy rippled across the now visible barrier, dissipating as they traveled outward. The ripples distorted Applejack’s vision of the little orange filly on the other side for a moment, then disappeared, leaving nothing but undisturbed air and a faint whiff of ozone between them.

Applejack got over her surprise at the invisible wall of energy, diverting her feelings of apprehension to those of annoyance. Seeing her sister’s frustrated expression, Applebloom hopped up and yanked out a strand of her hair. Like Scootaloo had done earlier, she stuffed the hair into her mouth and daintily hopped over the wire. Applejack almost had a heart attack. She scrambled to stop her sister, but seeing that she had made it through and hadn’t exploded, stopped. The older mare watched intently as Applebloom and her pegasus friend trotted over to the bundle of reflective blankets and bowl-thing by the fire pit. The yellow filly spat into the bowl and Scootaloo pushed a few buttons on a lighted screen attached to its side.

“It’s safe now,” Scootaloo announced cheerily. She walked over to the bundle of blankets and sat down, leaning back on the sleeping alien. “You coming in or not?”

Applejack glared at the relaxed pegasus. She closed her eyes and, hesitating only for a moment, stepped over the wire. When she didn’t explode she let out a sigh of relief. The farm mare stepped the rest of the way into camp, noticing her fur stand on end for a second. She shook her mane, hoping to get a few errant, statically charged hairs out of her face. She succeeded.

She quickly made her way over to the bundled-up alien, giving the fire pit and its respective carcass a wide berth. Scootaloo moved out of her path and watched nervously a few feet away with Applebloom, who, to her credit, had become much more solemn about the whole ordeal.

Applejack grabbed onto a fold in the blanket and tore it away like a band-aid in a flurry of crackling fabric. She looked down on the alien, blanket still clenched in her teeth, and immediately paled.

“Celestia, the SCARS…”

The creature’s face was covered in long snatches of scar tissue. Pockmarks that looked like burns from lit cigars adorned its sweaty face, the largest on his left cheekbone, and another above its mouth where its left laugh-line should’ve been. A long, white scar ran down the right side of its face, passing through its right eye and marring its visage further. Its right eyebrow was broken by the scar. No hair grew on the clean, white tissue.

“How on Terra did he get these?”

An angry roar tore through her thoughts. Birds exploded out of the canopy a few hundred yards to the west of the clearing, fleeing from the source of the commotion. Applejack spun around. She had heard an animal like that only once before.

“I-Is that a manticore?” Applebloom asked, trembling next to her orange friend.

“Don’t worry,” Scootaloo tried to reassure her. “It can’t get in here!”

“B-But what about Jer?” Several muffled cracks pounded through the trees followed by a feline yowl of pain.

“He’s fine,” a deep, masculine voice answered.

Iron-gray hallways. Cold glares and various hypodermic needles. A loud beep echoed in Ray’s ears. He was sixteen again, in line behind several other scared, naked individuals. The line inched slowly forward, and the young man behind him sniffed loudly. Ahead was a small white archway. Two soldiers stood on each side of the arch, pulse rifles held at attention. They gave away no emotion.

A young girl passed under the arch. Another beep. A bright green sphere flashed from a holoprojector above the arch. The line moved forward another foot. So it went. Several others passed through the detection unit into the room beyond and, hopefully, safety. Desperation hung heavily in the air, clinging to Ray’s scrawny, unclothed skin. He shivered.

An unpleasant siren grated against the semi-silence and a red octagon flashed above the archway. The young man ahead of Ray had been stopped. The two Earth guardsmen roughly grabbed him under his arms. He fought back, pleading with them: begging to be let into the room beyond.

“Please! Oh God, please! You have to let me through! My daughter’s in there! CLARISSA!”

The man broke away from one of the soldiers, only to receive a prod with a Company-issued Electrical Discouragment Device. His body danced across the steel floor and a dark puddle spread across the hallway where he lay. He had emptied his bladder. The soldiers recommenced to drag the man through an adjacent hallway. He struggled only weakly, sobbing.

“You can’t just leave me down there! Not with those things! Please, have mercy…” the man trailed off and began weeping in earnest. His choked sobs grew faint as he was dragged slowly away. Somewhere, a door whisked shut.

No one acknowledged the altercation. Bodies shuffled forward. Someone coughed raggedly from somewhere in line behind Raymond. Another green flash. *Beeeep*

“They won’t hurt him you know.”

Ray turned to the old man behind him. He looked to be about seventy. His back was curved outward and his legs were bony and thin, like a chicken’s. When he spoke, he did so with an air of insane wisdom beyond any man Raymond had ever met so far.

“He won’t be harmed down there,” the man croaked, glancing at his feet: indicating the chaos below the floating refugee center. “He’s part of the family.” The man grinned cynically and coughed. A thin trail of blood ran from his left nostril.

Ray turned back toward the archway and stepped through. Beep. Flash. Move along.

He entered a brightly lit room packed with several other refugees. Everyone was huddled together in separate groups. Desperate humanity: clinging to each other for comfort. Ray noticed a young girl sitting alone a few feet away. She was gazing at the archway hopefully. Waiting. When she saw Ray, her eyes began to water. She swayed in her seat, holding back tears.

Ray walked up to the girl. He sat next to her and patted her on the shoulder, not knowing how to console her in any way. The girl broke down crying. Her body wracked with sobs: shaking so hard she almost fell from the aluminum bench.

Ray looked over toward the arch. The siren had sounded again, signaling the doom of another. He watched as the same two guardsmen seized the wizened old man who had been behind him in line. As he was dragged away, he looked straight at Ray, meeting his eyes. An insane smile spread across his grizzled face.

“All part of the family.”

Colors bled from the walls. The little things: sneezes, coughs, quiet weeping faded away to silence. Ray was alone. The refugees. The sobbing daughter. The soldiers. Gone. A vast black expanse of nothing stretched onward forever.

Ray sat for hours, though he could no longer see the bench he had chosen, when sound returned to him. He heard birds, the crackling of a fire, and finally, the angry howl of some wild beast. Frightened voices, not far away, cried out at the sudden roar. A female voice, clearly that of a child, drifted to him through the suffocating darkness.

“I-Is that a manticore?”

“Don’t worry. It can’t get in here!” another voice answered, still that of a young girl. Ray could distinguish a tone of forced confidence in her. She wasn’t so sure, then.

“B-But what about Jer?” Ray started at the mention of his friend’s name. Jer was there? Alive? Am I alive? Ray felt the sudden urge to reassure the frightened children, as he was unable to for the crying girl so many years ago. It was a nonsensical desire, but he held onto it nonetheless.

Several cracks rang out across the sea of darkness followed by another roar, and suddenly Ray was on his back. His left arm screamed in pain and his muscles felt as stiff as plexisteel piping.

“Those were gunshots.” Instinctively, Ray understood. Gerald was off battling some animal. Again.

Ray struggled hard against himself, and, succeeding, made himself heard over the commotion.

“He’s fine.”

Apart from the death cries of the hapless animal in the distance, Ray’s world was quiet. He felt a presence above him. Warm breath blew across his face.

“H-Hello? Are ya’ awake?” a soft voice asked. This one sounded older than the other two but was still clearly female. Ray noticed an edge of nervousness… along with an Ozark-sounding accent. The immobile man was confused. If he was alive, then why was everything still pitch-black?

“Open your eyes, Dip-shit.”

Ray struggled with his subconscious, pushing against the darkness around him with all his might. His eyes snapped open, revealing an oversized pair of striking green irises gazing down at him.

“He’s fine.”

When Applejack had heard the voice she immediately spun back to the scarred alien lying behind her. It was in the same position as when she’d first averted her attention and its eyes were still shut.

She leaned towards its scarred face, scanning its surface for any sign of consciousness. More yowls of pain drifted into the clearing.

“H-Hello?” She asked nervously. “Are ya’ awake?”

Nothing happened for a moment, and then, suddenly, its eyes snapped open. Applejack gasped and stumbled backward. The being stared at her with one piercing blue eye: its left. Its other eye was a milky white color, its surface plagued with cataracts that hid most of the creature’s pupil and iris. The creature simply stared at her from its position on the ground, betraying no emotion, nor any other signs of life.

There was a rustling sound on the west side of the camp, followed by an exhausted grunt. Applejack broke her gaze with the piercing blue… eye, and turned her attention to the new source of commotion.

“JER!” Applebloom and Scootaloo squealed. They jumped into the air and dashed toward the tired biped. Scootaloo’s wings flapped excitedly as she leapt at the creature’s waist. It stooped down and caught her while Applebloom proceeded to attach herself to its calf. The creature laughed, tossing the orange pegasus into the air and catching her. It reminded Applejack of something her father had done to her when she was small... a long time ago.

Noticing the orange mare, the alien froze, a frown creasing its previously happy face. He put Scootaloo down and glared at her.

“Y’know, the point of me putting up the defense system in the first place is for me to be able to decide who gets into my camp!” he chastised.

Scootaloo winced and put on her best puppy-dog face.

“I’m sorry Jer, but Applejack’s a nice mare. She wouldn’t doing anything bad.”

“Yeah, well the other "nice mare" that I’d heard about from you two wasn’t exactly the most courteous of guests.” He cast one more disappointed look at the pegasus before turning his gaze toward Applejack. “I assume this one brought you here,” he said, indicating the yellow filly still attached to his leg. “Right?”

Applejack nodded. She was unsure of how she was supposed to respond. She had been trespassing, just like Scootaloo said Twilight had done, and she was afraid of a negative response from the creature. Her memory of the market that morning chose to resurface at that exact moment.

“Don’t worry. I won’t kill you…”

Applejack paled slightly, but calmed when the creature stooped down and detached her sister from his calf. He smiled warmly at her.

“It’s good to see that you’re all right,” he said kindly, patting the clingy filly on the head. She immediately burst into an exuberant rant about how amazing he was for saving her sister’s hard-earned bits and beating the "meanie-pants" colt who had knocked her down.

Applejack couldn’t help but smile at his sister’s inane display of affection… as well as the creature’s reaction to it. The biped merely kneeled next to her, grinning and nodding sagely when she said anything vaguely interrogatory.

“… and that’s why me an’ the girls were gonna let you join our club! Ah’ll even get Rarity to make you a cape an’…”

Scootaloo was sitting a few feet from Applebloom, looking rather dejected at Jer’s previous outburst over her letting Applejack into the camp. The farm mare made a move to go comfort her, but the kneeling creature beat her to it. He reached out and ruffled Scootaloo's purple mane, then gently lifted her up onto his shoulders so that her chin could rest comfortably atop his head.

Jer looked up at the little pegasus, and asked, half jokingly: “Is this true? Are you two really willing to let me into your awesome club?”

Scootaloo, glum mood forgotten, smiled mischievously at her living perch.

“I dunno… we still have to ask Sweetie Belle. But I think you might be cool enough,” she answered snidely.

“You’ve always been good with kids ya’ big softie.”

Jer jumped at the sound of the new voice, nearly dropping Scootaloo in the process. He steadied himself and looked past Applejack.

The farm mare spun around to the source of the voice: the momentarily forgotten Fuss-Bucket. He had propped himself up with his left elbow, massaging his forehead and eyes while wearing a pained grimace.

Jer quickly closed the gap between Ray and himself. He knelt next to his comrade, Scootaloo still on his shoulders, and gave his confused partner a quick noogie.

“I was wondering when you’d finally wake up, Sleeping Beauty.” He really had been quite worried about his more taciturn friend. He had been unconscious in his care many a time, but never for that long. He chose not to voice his concerns, however, hiding behind a thin façade of wry humor.

“What the fuck did you give me, Jer?” Raymond responded groggily. He seemed un-amused at Jer’s petty joking.

“Whatever do you mean?” the jovial soldier inquired.

“I’m seeing little talking horses. I repeat: what did you give me?”

“Just morphine, which has probably worn off by now, right?”

Raymond nodded weakly. Gerald sighed and stood up, carefully lifting his little orange passenger off of his shoulders and onto the ground next to his pained friend. The pegasus shied away from Ray at first, but, noticing his vulnerable stance, came around quickly and struck up a conversation with the now fully lucid human.

Jer jogged up the ramp into the Duckling; sliding a bit on it’s uneven surface and almost banging his head on the way in.

“I really need to get the landing gear on this thing fixed.”

The Company issued four syringes of morphine per requisition order. Because of this, the two exterminators had been saving extras from every job since the re-conquest of Earth. They had only been forced to delve into their cache of painkillers on four occasions so they had accrued quite a lovely surplus of the clear liquid. Jer hoped there wouldn’t be reason to use much more of it.

The hinges on the first aid storage compartment squeaked loudly when he pried the it open. Jer cringed at the sound. It reminded him of young nails dragging down an old-style green chalkboard, trailing long jagged marks all the way down. Unwanted memories of his time in “Primary Education” flooded his mind.

“Shoulda bought some oil on last leave,” the human thought sadly. “I’m gonna have to get into that town again. Maybe buy some salt for preserving extra meat. Shit, all I have are Company shares! What the fuck am I gonna buy here with those!”

“Kill the shopkeeper. Take the shit.”

Jer shook his head violently. He didn’t want to think about it anymore and his inner demons were getting a little too vocal. He needed to keep himself occupied with something. Anything.

He made his way back out of the ship to find both Scootaloo and Applebloom hopping on top of Raymond and babbling excitedly about a tree house, scissors, and something called “The Wonderbolts.” Much to Jer’s chagrin, his usually infallible partner seemed pole-axed by the two fillies. He just stared at the two, his expression that of a man who had just been shot and was very confused about it.

Jer decided to let them finish their little talk. He slipped the syringe of liquid stupor into his pocket and turned his attention to the orange earth pony wearing a large brown Stetson who had settled a few yards away from the commotion by the fire pit. She wore an expression akin to that of a long time sufferer of post-traumatic stress syndrome. Jer recognized the shell-shocked equine as none other than the businessmare who had been robbed that morning during his brief jaunt through Ponyville.

“Businessmare… I’m really getting the hang of these words! I’ll be talking like a yokel in no time.”

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck…”

Jer smiled inwardly despite the repeated cursing that had bloomed in his skull. He walked casually over to the dazed cowpony. She noticed him and her eyes narrowed for a moment. The human put on his most diplomatically reassuring smile and made his best attempt at an introduction:

“Sorry ‘bout my outburst earlier. I’m just not used to peo—I mean ponies waltzing into our camp like that. That purple unicorn made herself a little too at home here for my taste. Anyway, my name’s Jer. You’re Applejack, right?”

“May Ah ask how you knew that?” the orange mare asked suspiciously.

“I’m a good listener.” Jer was surprised. He’d gotten to use that line twice today. “Your sister and her friends had quite a lot to say about… everything really.” He glanced over at the two fillies, who were continuing to assault Ray with their constant babble and the occasional shout of their club name. Ray looked at him beseechingly. Jer ignored him.

“Are you two really from… well…”

“Space?” Jer finished. Applejack nodded in affirmation.

“I guess you could say that. We hail from a conglomeration of planets held together by the tenets of an economic dictatorship. How we came to be on your nice little planet is a complete mystery to me, however.”

The mare looked at him in disbelief. “Ya seriously have no idea how ya got here?”

“Well we weren’t exactly in the position to travel here when I blacked out.” The human retorted, doing his best to keep himself as cheery as possible. Children he could handle. Older beings grated on his nerves a bit. “But enough about me. How are you? I left a bit abruptly this morning and didn’t really get a chance to see if everypony was all right. It’s the strangest thing… angry mobs of confused quadrupeds aren’t exactly appealing to me. If Ms. Sparkle’s reaction is any indicator, I think I made the right decision to get out.”

Apparently realizing that the he was talking about the “public beating” incident, Applejack’s expression of suspicion and disbelief softened and she began to look rather nervous.

“Ah’m fine…” she trailed off, pawing anxiously at the forest turf. When she spoke up again, what she said left Jer mildly stunned. “Th-Thank you fer doin’ what ya did. Twilight didn’t know it, but most a’ the mortgage payment fer the farm was in that box. Ah was plannin’ on getting’ it to the bank early after Ah’d sold my morning wares. If’n that colt had gotten away Ah don’t know what the family woulda done.”

“No sweat, ma’am,” Jer replied, chuckling uneasily. He hadn’t been expecting any gratitude at all, really. He was never good at dealing with civilians and avoided them whenever he could help it. He didn’t get many thank you’s for his work and he had no standard mailing address so he rarely got any cards relaying gratitude for his actions. “I’m glad I could help. When I saw little Applebloom bash against that vendor's stall I kinda lost it.” Jer’s eyes glazed over a bit.

“And didn’t it feel good? Wasn’t it grand?”

“Yes, but I’m not going to indulge in this conversation right now.”

“You still haven’t cleaned your knife big boy… how about some more fun?”

“Shut up. Shut up. SHUT UP!”

His eyes refocused and noticed that Applejack had backed away a bit. She gave him a worried look. Jer smiled nervously at her.

“Sorry about that.”

Applejack relaxed slightly. She appraised him for a moment before finally speaking again.

“Ah sincerely thank ya; from the bottom of mah heart. Ah’m sorry for bargin’ in on yer camp like that… Ah just needed to know what was goin’ on…”

“Don’t worry about it. You’re a lot less nosy than that Ms. Sparkle character.”

“Watch it pardner: Twilight’s mah friend. Mah nosy, fretful, book-worm of a friend.”

“I can respect that,” Jer placated despite her obvious sarcasm. “Now lets go save Fuss-Bucket before he completely loses his mind.”

“Hypocrite.”

“Dear Lord… make it stop.”

The noontide sun shone through the dappled leaves near the edge of the Everfree forest, casting undulating shadows onto the forest floor. The Immortal Spirit of Chaos basked in the ultra violet light, a tanning mirror against his chest. A contented sigh escaped his sun-dried lips and he fluttered his mismatched wings, thumping the brown trunk of his leafy perch. He had been sitting there in an old oak tree relaxing for the better part of the day. If there was anything he had learned from his last taste of freedom, it was patience.

His beautifully insectile savior, despite her unfortunate lack of a proper birthing capsule... and fertilization for that matter, had produced a sizeable clutch of leathery pustules that Discord had found absolutely enthralling. They were like huge, grimy pimples: just waiting to discharge their deadly cargo. Discord was amazed by his Queen’s versatility. Truly, she was a magnificent creature. Oh, the chaos they would spread together! But not yet. The spirit shivered in anticipation.
Soon, with the help of his newfound muse, he would be able to proliferate his most delicious bedlam yet.

Discord's imagination ran wild. Canterlot was in flames, the Princesses lay groveling at his feet, and the Elements of Harmony hung restrained above six leathery eggs. A new world would be born from the ashes. A better world… for his Queen. Discord’s wings stiffened in anticipation.

A manticore howled in the distance. The reclining draconequus drank in its squalls of misery. He smiled wolfishly and tugged at his goatee. His fantasy would be made real in time… but first he needed to compose a short letter to an old friend.
The spirit snapped his fingers, producing a quill and roll of parchment.

“My Dearest Chrissy,
I have a proposition for you…”

5: Salutations

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Chapter 5

Ray was taking this new world rather well, considering the circumstances. The deeply scarred sergeant listened intently to Jer’s explanation of their current predicament, the three colorful horses occasionally correcting his overly enthusiastic comrade when matters of Equestrian societal structure were concerned. The man blathered on about magic, whole towns populated with pegasi and unicorns, and, on a slightly different note, his abject loathing of their grounded ship’s supply of “Beefy Broth” MREs.

It was all so insane. Ray wanted nothing more than to scream bloody murder at Jer to make him see that this was all completely impossible. He wanted to scream and scream. Howl for eternity. But he didn’t. He just sat, not really listening anymore, occasionally nodding his head in affirmation of Gerald’s explanations. He was still coming to terms with the fact that he wasn’t dead. Or was he? This didn’t look like heaven… and Jer’s rather detailed descriptions of the bowels of hell weren’t on par with the sun-dappled forest he currently found himself in. Ray considered the notion that he was dreaming. Being trapped in his subconscious mind had been terrifying a few moments ago… this place seemed too happy, despite the ominous nature of the forest around him. Conclusively, the dazed man decided he wasn’t dreaming anymore either. A sudden twinge of fiery pain shot through his left arm, causing Ray to wince and screw his eyes shut, replacing the confusing world around him with comforting darkness.

“Fuck… I guess that means I’m alive…”

The already pained marksman felt a sharp poke and brief stinging sensation on his upper arm. He opened his eyes in time to watch Jer withdraw a hypodermic needle from his skin and carefully place the syringe back into one of his belt pouches.

“More hallucinogens?” Ray deadpanned. Gerald rolled his eyes.

“Morphine, you asshole,” he replied, looking down on Raymond good-naturedly. His trademark grin lazily played across his face. Ray wanted nothing more than to rip it clean off. “You’re welcome.” As Ray’s arm slowly numbed and the pain subsided, he turned his now slightly glazed eyes over to the three former figments of his imagination. He attempted an introduction, but the morphine was really beginning to addle his already strained mental faculties.

“Niysh to meetchoo,” he slurred, extending his uninjured arm out in order to shake hands… hooves… whatever. The two little ones giggled and both shook his outstretched hand together, somehow gripping his forearm without the use of fingers. This only served to confuse Ray further. He chose to ignore it for the time being, however, and instead looked to the largest of the three quadrupeds. He gave her what he hoped was a winning smile, but in his drugged stupor he only succeeded in drooling a little.

“Damn. How much did he give me?”

The orange mare seemed more hesitant than the others, but, noticing he wasn’t exactly in the position to harm anyone, she stepped forward and shook.

“Howdy there, Fuss-Bucket,” she exclaimed, all pretenses of caution abandoned. “Ah’m Applejack, and these two young ‘uns are Applebloom and Scootaloo. Ah guess, since we’re the only ones here, its our job to welcome you to Equestria… so… welcome?”

Raymond didn’t fully catch her whole greeting, so he simply smiled drunkenly at her. Had she called him Fuss-Bucket? She moved back and sat on her haunches a few yards away. He looked over at Jer who mouthed “I’ll tell you later” to him from beside the fire.

Speaking of fire…

Applejack couldn’t help but giggle at the drugged human. Despite his horrific scars and cataract eye, he wasn’t exactly an ugly creature. It looked like he could smile more, but she assumed he had good reason not to. When he had tried smiling at the fillies and her, his good eye softened. Despite the obviously unfamiliar and awkward execution of the gesture, it was comforting; unlike the mischievous glint that flashed across Jer’s gray eyes whenever he grinned.

Scootaloo and Applebloom had decided to occupy themselves by dashing around the drugged man, shouting about monsters and asking the poor thing countless questions. Fuss-Bucket just looked at the two exuberant fillies and sighed, resigning himself to his fate. Applejack couldn’t resist another fit of giggles, before slowly trotting over to help him. Before she got the chance the situation resolved itself. The two fillies were set upon by a sudden case of narcolepsy and collapsed in a heap on top of the broken alien.

“Well, they did have a long day,” the farm mare mused to herself. “Thank Celestia he was drugged, ‘er that mighta hurt somethin’ fierce.”

The sudden presence of two children in his lap seemed to sober the scarred human slightly, and he winced at something. Applejack continued over to him in time for her to catch him trying to get Jer’s attention without waking his two sleeping leg warmers. Jer was unfortunately too engrossed in the sky above to notice his feeble gestures.

“Jer!” Applejack stage-whispered. He tore his eyes away from the heavens and looked over to them. Noticing Fuss-Bucket’s attempts at contacting him, along with the sleeping fillies in his partner’s lap, he quietly made his way over and listened to the encumbered human intently.

Applejack leaned in, hoping to catch what he was saying.

“… how long… shitty cook…”

It was then that the orange mare noticed the smell. She looked back over toward the fire pit, seeing the remains of whatever poor animal Jer had caught finally break off of the metal spit and land in the flames with a loud thump, the flesh a deep charcoal black. Several brittle pieces bounced off of the barrier of stones that surrounded the pit before finding final resting places among the forest grasses and fallen leaves.

“Shit…” Jer sighed. He turned back to his comrade-turned-bed and smiled sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck. “Guess I got a bit distracted, hehe…”

The disgraced chef trudged over to his ruined dish and fished it from the flames. He held the smoking carcass at arms length and then proceeded to walk it out of the camp, passing over the wire and soon disappearing from view. Now Applejack was alone with the broken alien. She turned to ask him a question, only to find him snoring along with Applebloom and her friend, head lolling to the side. He snored softly. Applejack snorted and sat down next to them. The sun hadn’t even begun to set yet.

“Great… just great...”

She was about to let her eyes drift closed as well when a bright flash of purple light engulfed the clearing, followed by the muffled pop of a teleportation spell.

Jer crashed through the underbrush, burnt deer in hand, until he reached the spot where he had been assaulted by some gigantic winged lion. Looking back on the encounter, he recognized the fact that it was technically his fault that things got out of hand in the first place. He had neglected to clean himself off after burying the inedible deer bits, and the greasy smell of innards must have attracted the gigantic carnivore. Even so, he had handled himself pretty well and now the creature lay sprawled out near the roughly tilled earth where he had buried the deer’s guts, its lower jaw blown clean off.

Jer dumped the ruined deer carcass and gently lifted its arthropodic tail, careful not to prick himself on the most-likely poisoned barb. It was still warm. After a few grunts of exertion and much tugging, the human was able to drag the dead manticore across the leaf-littered ground. He had almost reached the edge of the crash site before he was forced to take a break. He dropped his cold, chitinous handhold and sat upon the dead mammal, panting and trying to ignore the curses and stutters bouncing around inside his skull.

He was about to resume dragging the beast when there was a bright flash of purple light. Jer flinched, thinking it was the flare of something coming into contact with the defense system. Thousands of gruesome scenes flashed through his mind. A flash that big had to have come from something much larger than a curious squirrel or small mammal, and Jer couldn’t remember if he’d informed his drugged friend of the barrier. He quickly broke into a run.

“Did I input him into the database? Shit, I don’t remember.”

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.”

The worried human burst from the forest into the clearing, taking in the scene before him in a heartbeat. On one side of the camp stood five more natives, two pegasi, two unicorns, and a regular (earth?) pony. He recognized the two unicorns as Ms. Sparkle and the alabaster unicorn he had seen drag Sweetie Belle away earlier that morning. The two pegasi were yellow and blue, respectively. The yellow pegasus hid behind Twilight while the blue hovered above the group, sporting a mane that was a living tribute to the spectrum of visible light: a fucking rainbow, if you will. The hair color probably threw Jer off the most, the fact that horses could fly not bothering him all that much anymore. Finally, the earth pony. She was a bright pink color, her mane a slightly darker shade than her fur. It stuck out in all directions and bounced a little as she hopped in place, eyes darting around camp.

On the other side of the clearing: Ray sat where he had left him along with the Apple siblings and Scootaloo. They seemed just as surprised by the intrusion of the other five as Gerald, all but proving that they had nothing to do with them getting in, which could only mean…

“GOD DAMMIT!” the ex-marine howled, falling to his knees. “WHAT THE FUCK IS THE POINT OF HAVING THIS FUCKING THING IF IT DOESN’T KEEP SHIT OUT!!!”

Eight-and-a-half pairs of stunned eyes focused on the prostrating human. The new arrivals cowered behind Twilight, save one cyan pegasus who, shaking off her initial shock at shouting alien, cast him a glare that would make a Caspairan Human Resources Clerk squirm. Ray simply stared at him drunkenly, annoyed at being awoken from his pleasant morphine-induced dreams. Jer sighed shakily, calming down after his stress-induced outburst. He wasn’t used to having camp defenses breached at all, let alone thrice in a day. Physical security had always been important to him since his increasingly fractured consciousness made mental security an impossibility.

Jer took a deep breath, counted to ten, and shifted his gaze back upward to Twilight.

“Sorry ‘bout that,” he rasped, chuckling briefly despite himself. “I’m going to have to get used to the constant breaking-and-entering on this planet.” He noticed Twilight blanch at his words, apparently realizing that she had encroached on his sense of privacy once more and remembering his previous reaction. Good.

“Oh… Oh Celestia, I’m sorry,” she stammered, “I just--”

“Wanted to show your buddies the alien?” Jer finished, smirking.

“Well…”

“Just please stop breaking into my home. If you had asked, I would have let them in. None of you look exactly menacing, anyway.” The rainbow pegasus’s indignant glare intensified. She spoke up, her raspy voice clearly betraying her annoyance and distrust of the human.

“Yeah? And what makes you so tough, huh?” She shifted into an upright position in mid-air and crossed her forelegs over her chest. Outwardly, Jer sighed and shifted resignedly to his feet. Inwardly, however, he couldn’t help but grin wickedly.

“Oooh, we’ve got a feisty one, boys.”

“Kill it. Bathe in its blood.”

“Now, now. They’re guests. It’s best to be polite.”

Jer turned to Ray, Applejack, and the two fillies. He made eye contact with his partner and the dazed man cocked an eyebrow quizzically.

“You hungry, Fussy?”

Realizing that the question was directed at him, Ray frowned, but nodded, choosing not to make use of his already taxed vocal cords. Jer walked over to the defense computer and punched in the deactivation code for the perimeter wall. He then proceeded to stroll out of camp.

Rainbow was pissed. She had woken up for weather duty with a hangover that would’ve left Berry Punch floored and had been struck by lightning from a rogue cloud, singing her left primary remiges and making her look like a foal. Now she was in the middle of the Everfree Forest because Twilight wanted them to meet a couple of “extra-equestrials.” At first, she had been excited at the prospect of meeting the, as the egghead had put it, “excitable creature” that called itself a human, but now she was having second thoughts. It had practically called her weak! The Greatest Flyer in Equestria: weak! So what if it was bigger than she was. By Celestia, Rainbow Dash would not be put down in such a way, even in passing!

But now, once again, she was unsure of herself. The human didn’t anger at her goading, but when it had looked into her eyes, she had seen into forever… frightening images of a lake, not of water, but of roiling grey flame had flitted across those eyes. A malicious glee like that of Pinkie’s when she had snapped a few years ago on her birthday seemed to radiate from them. Dash tried to hide a small shudder and failed. She glanced at her Pink friend, who was utterly oblivious to the Rainbow’s sudden discomfort, as she was now staring across camp at the other alien and… Applejack?

“Ya’ shouldn’ta done that Rainbow,” Applejack reprimanded as she slowly pushed herself up into a standing position from her place next to the other alien. “He was just jokin’ an’ you girls shoulda known better than to just barge on in here. Ah mean Rainbow Ah can understand, but you Twilight? Ah’m disappointed.”

“But sis,” Applebloom began. “Y’all did th-” she was cut off by a glare from her sister. She turned back to the five mares, ready to give Rainbow a further dressing down, when Pinkie suddenly shot past her and practically straddled the clearly dazed creature that Twilight had warned them about: Fuss-Bucket.

“He’s pretty protective of his friend, so don’t touch him,” Twilight’s voice rang out in Rainbow’s memory. “He’s sick, and was asleep when I was… examining him.”

The cyan pegasus flinched and made a move to try and stop the party pony, but it was too late.

Ray jolted back into semi-consciousness when he felt a sudden pressure on his chest. He became aware of a blur of pink and the quiet yelps of the two fillies that had originally been sitting in his lap. Almost immediately, he was beset by a pair of piercing blue eyes, much like his own… except plural. He caught a faint whiff of cotton candy and… was that ozone?

“HI MR. ALIEN GUY!” the pink mare shouted, seemingly unaware of the needlessness of such excessive volume at her current proximity. “I’m Pinkie Pie! OMYGOSH that rhymed! I love rhyming! Guy, pie, shy, try, high, why, my, tie, nigh, lie, cry, sigh…”

Raymond didn’t know what to do. He had accepted the talking ponies, but now he wished their existence was once again in doubt. His brain felt like it was slowly being crushed in a vice while having lemon juice dumped on it. The pink mare just kept going! Good Lord why?

“Pinkie!” the purple unicorn shouted. “Get off of him! He’s injured!”

“Injured?” A flare of pain traced its way up his left arm. “Oh… right.”

The pink poet, apparently named Pinkie Pie, quickly removed herself from Ray’s lap and grinned apologetically at him for a moment before resuming her previous greeting.

“Sorry Mr. Bucket,” she apologized, “I’m just really excited to throw your party! I’ve never planned a ‘Welcome to Our Planet’ party before! There’ll be games and sweets and punch and streamersandeveryponywillbeinvitedandthey’llallgettomeetyouand…” her voice grew faint as she began to bound around the clearing, completely caught up in party-planning euphoria.

“I can’t believe Gerald told them my name was Fuss-Bucket. Where the fuck did he come up with that?” Ray seethed silently, expression betraying nothing.

“Sorry ‘bout that, Sugarcube,” Applejack muttered so Pinkie couldn’t hear. “She just gets a might excited whenever new ponies… er… humans show up in town.”

Ray just nodded. He wanted more morphine… needed more morphine. Pain lanced through his arm again. He made a move to get up, but immediately found himself surrounded by every brightly colored quadruped in the immediate area, excluding Pinkie, who was still ranting and hopping around the clearing.

The pristine white unicorn held out her hoof imperiously, apparently taking it upon herself to introduce her friends.

“Good evening,” she huffed. “My name is Rarity. It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance… despite your apparent lack of fashion sense.” The unicorn began scrutinizing Ray in an almost predatory fashion, staring intently at his battered body armor. She reminded Schaffer of Chairman Yutani’s wife, Francesca. Ray had only met her once, and it didn’t really count as a meeting (more like a bit of illegal surveillance), but the similarity was a bit disconcerting. He immediately disliked her. Choosing to remain silent, the scarred human shook her hoof and listened patiently as she introduced her friends, excluding those he’d already met. The fact that Applejack and the two crusaders were already present in the clearing was temporarily ignored.

“My name’s Twilight,” the lavender mare with a twinkling star tramp-stamp held out her hoof hesitantly. “We’ve already met… but you were unconscious before, so… yeah…” Ray shook noncommittally, still focused on trying to escape this surreal situation into opiate bliss.

“What’s wrong with your eye?”

“Rainbow!”

“What? It’s an honest question! Don’t tell me you don’t wanna know the same thing!” A cyan blue snout and a pair of rouge eyes invaded Ray’s personal space momentarily, before being pulled away by a purple aura.

“Don’t you remember what I said back at the library? Don’t disturb him so much! Jer’s already in a bad mood because of you as it is, Rainbow, and I don’t want him to feel like we’re threatening anypony,” the unicorn, Twilight, chided, as she magically lifted the rainbow-maned pegasus away from him.

Ray remembered vaguely that Jer had mentioned magical energy coming out of unicorn horns. So it was against everything humanity saw as reality: whatever. Ray had seen weirder shit in Gerald’s footlocker.

Twilight seemed really nervous about her friends touching him, leading him to believe that more had happened while he was asleep than Jer had been willing to tell him. The pained human sighed quietly.

“What did he do?” he demanded, calmly, not raising his voice any more than necessary to be heard. Each of the mares, even Pinkie, who was still on the opposite side of the clearing, immediately turned their full attention on him. Jer had always told him he had a way with civilians. I guess that applied to waist-high talking horses as well.

The uncomfortable purple unicorn blushed, looking everywhere but Ray’s mismatched eyes. Schaffer had to mentally force himself not to smile. These things were so damn cute…

One of the fillies who had been using his lap for a bed earlier, the orange one, Scooter-something, finally chose to fill Raymond in.

“He threatened to cut off her tail.” The other mares flinched and looked at Twilight with a mixture of shock and pity. The blue pegasus, whom Ray now knew was named Rainbow (well that’s creative), glared at him indignantly, as if it were his fault her friend had been threatened.

“Why, Darling, whatever could have been the reason for such violence?” the Yutani-esque mare cried, clearly disgusted by his partner’s actions. Twilight’s blush only deepened and she began to shift nervously.

“She was examining him with her magic,” the filly quickly elaborated, eager to defend her new friend.

“Examining?” Ray asked, confused.

“She was holding you in the air and turning you all around. I think she was about to try and take off yer’ weird clothes when Jer came back from wherever he had been earlier,” the young pegasus elaborated.

“I was not! Well, the levitating was true. And the examination. But I hadn’t even thought of that yet! W-Well, that’s not entirely true either, I-” Twilight stammered.

“Twi!” Applejack scolded. “Really?!? Ya couldn’ta thought it through a bit more?”

Ray once again lost interest in the conversation. His arm was killing him! Leaning forward, he attempted to escape the circle of quadrupeds, all of whom were now voicing their disappointment in their purple friend. They asserted that there was no reason for such violence from Jer, however, despite Twilight’s uncouth actions. When they heard that the tail-slashing threat had been a joke, they simply glared at her in exasperation.

Ray couldn’t care less. He was halfway to his feet when a loud crashing could be heard at the edge of the clearing where Gerald had disappeared earlier.

“Finally. Some food.”

Remembering the manticore, as well as Jer’s inquiry as to his friend’s hunger, Applejack moved to explain what was going on, hoping to lessen the shock of what she assumed was going to happen next.

“Girls, there’s somethin’ ya should know about Jer an’ his friend. They eat… well…”

“Meat?” a timid voice asked from behind Twilight. Everyone turned to the source of the voice, who visibly wilted under their stares, hiding behind her long, pink mane.

“Fluttershy, how’d ya know?” Applejack asked incredulously, expecting the canary pegasus to be the most uncomfortable out of everypony upon realization of the aliens’ eating habits.

“I n-noticed his c-canines when he smiled,” Fluttershy stuttered, still hiding from her friends. “They’re longer… meant for tearing soft tissue… n-not to mention the deer skin drying on the boulder over there,” she finished, pointing feebly across camp to the deer pelt Applejack had noticed earlier.

“But, Darling,” Rarity interjected, “doesn’t that bother you?” Fluttershy stammered nervously and hunched over, trying to hide her entire body within her voluminous mane. To Applejack, it looked as though she were blushing.

“Of course not,” Pinkie answered for her embarrassed yellow friend. “How else do you think she feeds sick bears, or wild cats, or other silly meat-eatery animals? Duh!” Applejack thought she was going to die. The image of kind, gentle Fluttershy feeding… oh Celestia… it was too much. The other mares, save Pinkie, seemed just as disturbed. This only served to embarrass Fluttershy further, and she made to run away but Pinkie stopped her before she got past the fire pit.

“S-So they’re carnivores,” Rainbow reiterated, glancing nervously at Fuss-Bucket, who had given up on trying to stand, content to watch the little drama play out in front of him.

“I think ‘omnivore’ is the term, actually,” a familiar voice suddenly interrupted.

The mares jumped and looked toward the edge of the clearing just in time to see Jer drag the battered, bloody remains of a bull manticore into camp. Its once proud face was riddled with small holes and lower jaw was missing entirely. Rarity gagged while Twilight and Rainbow Dash stared, horrified, as the human let the creature’s tail fall to the ground. The human glanced at Dash noncommittally, making brief eye contact. From Applejack’s perspective, the cyan mare seemed visibly shaken.

Fluttershy fainted.

“So much for being the calm one…”

Jer smirked at the no longer airborne pegasus. She flinched fearfully away and the ex-soldier found this unbearably funny. He doubled over in laughter, his body twitching spasmodically as he fell to the ground.

“What’s the matter, Sweet-Cheeks,” he inquired between fits of whooping laughter. “CAT got yer’ tongue?” Noticing the rainbow-maned mare’s fear was only compounded by his crazed laughter, Jer did what he did best: laugh harder. “D-Don’t worry! *giggle* I won’t bite!” The human clutched his sides as he writhed on the ground, cackling like a crazy old crone. He was soon joined by bubbly female laughter. Gerald cracked an eye and took notice of the pink mare he had seen bouncing about earlier.

“CAT!” the pink pony giggled hysterically, totally disregarding the carcass lying a mere two yards away. “I get it, cuz it’s a manticore!” Jer hadn’t expected a partner in his little hysteria attack, and was glad to have the company. Unfortunately, the fun soon ended as Ray chose that moment to butt in.

“Jer, stop it. You’re scaring the natives, especially Miss Dash.”

“I-I’m not-”

“Fine,” the anarchic bug-hunter chuckled; interrupting Rainbow Dash as his laughter slowly petered out. “Scoots? Could you go get my green tool bag? You remember which one?”

Scootaloo watched as Jer spazzed on the ground, laughing at her idol. She had no idea what to do. He was laughing at Rainbow Dash. THE Rainbow Dash! The pegasus she’d looked up to her entire life! She’d even started a fan club for the brash mare… and now she was being made to look like a fool by her new friend from beyond the stars.

The orange filly understood that being a bit put off… no… really put off by the brutally carnivorous tendencies of a strange creature was normal, so she wasn’t really being made to look too foolish, but Rainbow wasn’t supposed to be afraid of anything! The cyan pegasus’s display of weakness distressed Scootaloo enormously. She knew that her feelings were hypocritical: seeing as she’d been frightened of Jer’s eating habits earlier that same day. But now… it hardly bothered her at all. Was that normal?

Scootaloo was torn. Should she defend her idol: the kind of mare she’d sought to become since she’d first arrived in Ponyville? Or should she join in Jer’s infectious laughter along with Pinkie Pie? The human had taken her in for the day: something no one else, not even Rainbow Dash, had considered. They didn’t know, nor did Jer, but… she had been hoping, maybe, they could’ve taken the time to notice. She thought that if she followed Rainbow Dash enough…

“Scoots?” The orange filly snapped to attention at Jer’s voice. “Could you go get my green tool bag? You remember which one?”

She remembered all right. The bag with the knives. The “bone saw.” Scootaloo couldn’t help but shiver, not just because of the gruesome scene that was about to unfold, but also in anticipation: anticipation of the maddening smell of cooked flesh. The orange pegasus wanted to buck herself in the face. Anything to dispel her strange desire to sit, sucking in that delicious aroma…

“Dear Celestia… what is wrong with me?”

6: Customs and Origins

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Chapter 6

Sergeant Raymond Schaffer and Corporal Gerald Hanes walked, one talking continuously while the other silently listened, down the northern road into Ponyville, following behind a certain orange farm mare. She had volunteered, after much rabid assertion from Pinkie Pie, to lead the two humans into town for their “Super-Duper-Ginormous Welcome to Our Planet, Please Don’t Zap Us Party.”

After the initial shock of Jer’s return with the manticore carcass wore off, and the downright horror of their humbling introduction to the insides of said beast, Applejack and her friends better introduced themselves to both Jer and Raymond (the name Fuss-Bucket was revealed to be a joke), though apprehensively.

The farm pony herself, though still VERY uncomfortable seeing another living thing butchered and cooked for consumption, understood that the two humans couldn’t necessarily help their dietary requirements, and, having been in the clearing to hear Jer be attacked by the beast, could forgive the giddy alien for not wasting a perfectly acceptable source of food. Their promise to cut down on meat while in Equestria, especially around the younger fillies, helped a little as well. Her friends, with the exception of Fluttershy, whom understood the cycle of life better than most, and Pinkie Pie, who seemed not to care all that much, were less forgiving.

Aside from obvious reasons, Rarity and Rainbow Dash were the most disturbed by the two aliens. Rarity, due to their vulgarity (most of the crude language they used was unintelligible to the mare, but she could tell they were obscenities) and apparently criminal sense of fashion, and Rainbow, because Jer had made her look weak in front of her friends. Twilight still seemed frightened of Jer, but was far too curious of the two beings to pass up the opportunity to study them further. Applejack glanced back at the two humans, focusing on the taller of the two: Raymond. She hadn’t noticed his height before, mostly because he had never had a chance to stand, being drugged and all.

Nopony really knew what to make of Raymond. He hardly said a word, only speaking when absolutely necessary, or upon inquiry from his jovial companion. He intrigued Applejack. She couldn’t imagine the hardship he must have gone through to have so many scars. And his eye… Rainbow had been right: the orange mare did want to know how it had gotten that way.

Ray noticed her staring and gave her a questioning look. Applejack quickly turned away, hiding an embarrassed blush and cursing herself for her rudeness. Ponyville loomed in the distance, and the Element of Honesty once again thought back to yesterday evening’s debacle in the clearing.

After everypony had been properly introduced, Jer, with the help of young Scootaloo (much to Rainbow’s chagrin and everypony else’s horror), began to cook the now skinned and gutted manticore over their small fire pit. While the beast was cooking, he also took the time to take a bit of everypony’s hair and input it into his fancy “daterbase” so nopony would be accidentally fried when he reactivated the system a few minutes later. Once it was back online, Pinkie had started occupying herself by jumping through the strange barrier, giggling at the tingly sensation that traveled down her spine every time she did.

Twilight had tried asking Jer questions, but the human had merely told her she’d “already got her three,” whatever that meant. She had tried even harder to get information out of Raymond, who seemed to be the more rational of the two, but, unfortunately, having noticed his companion’s increased pain, Jer had immediately given him more painkillers, rendering Ray incapable of answering any of Twilight’s questions.

The lavender unicorn offered to perform a mending spell on his injured arm, and, only after Raymond’s go ahead, Jer had allowed it, but not without cheerfully threatening to burn everything she loved to the ground if his friend was harmed. Thankfully, the spell left no adverse effects and Ray’s arm was fixed almost instantly. He was still hopelessly doped up, however, much to Twilight’s disappointment.

Scootaloo and Applebloom, having spent the most time in the clearing, decided to give the older mares a grand tour. Applejack was surprised at Jer’s quick forgiveness. He allowed them to explore, unsupervised, after they had all barged into his camp with reckless abandon. She wished she could understand his perspective. If anypony had broken into Sweet Apple Acres while she was away, potentially threatening her family, she wouldn’t have been so forgiving. Maybe Ray could help her understand. She’d ask him later, at the party.

The fillies had shown the six mares everything they believed to be interesting about the camp, including the interior of the human’s gigantic metal house. To the farm mare, it looked like an unstable barn with wings. Scootaloo claimed that it was Jer’s airship. How anything so heavy-looking soared through the skies was a mystery to Applejack, but everything about the two new residents of Everfree was a mystery so she was inclined to believe the orange pegasus. Even Rainbow admitted it was cool, albeit grudgingly. Fluttershy took a liking to the painting on the airship’s side: sensuality completely lost on the innocent yellow pegasus. She was just too amazed that the two space creatures knew what a duck was.

While Applejack and her friends looked around, she had noticed Jer tending to Raymond, helping him eat properly and making sure his arm was truly healed. She wasn’t the only one. Later that night, after Jer and Ray had eaten and the more sober of the two aliens had played a few songs for them on his guitar (only because the two Crusaders present insisted), Applejack overheard Rainbow Dash talking in hushed tones with Twilight while the six mares and two fillies trekked out of the forest.

“I don’t like him. The guy’s loyal to his friend… and I respect that, but that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea to bring them anywhere near Ponyville!”

“Rainbow… I’ll admit that I have some misgivings about this as well, but they mean no real harm, I can feel it. If it’ll make you feel better, I sent a letter to the Princess about them, and she will most-likely be there to ensure everypony’s safety.”

And now here she was. Leading the two aliens straight into town. Her ears pricked. Ray was talking.

“… sure you don’t remember what you put in it?

“I told you. Two fuel rods and the works… and a little americium and potassium sulfide… to make it glow purple.”

“Dammit, Jer…”

“How the fuck was I supposed to know it would open a wormhole or some shit and spit us out here!” Applejack glanced back at the pair. Jer was walking faster, his guitar bouncing on his back due to his agitated stride. Ray had slowed, good eye vacant.

“Jer… if we’re here, do you think-”

“No,” Jer cut Ray short, slowing so the other human could catch up. It seemed his previous defensive anger had abated. “No. I blew the bitch apart. You saw.”

“I didn’t see anything, Jer, and neither did you.”

“No. Its dead,” the gray-eyed human snapped, making it clear the subject had been closed.

“Now what in tarnation…”

The pair followed Applejack in silence. She returned it in kind, silently panicking at the prospect of something that had gotten Jer, the creature who had killed a manticore single-hoofedly (handedly?), so frightened.

“Ray? What the fuck are we gonna do?” Jer’s voice had become uncharacteristically quiet, despairing even.

“We’re going to fix the Duckling,” the scarred human replied, trying to reassure his distraught friend. “Then we’re going to make a break for Company space. We’ll go on ice. Maybe we’ll cross into the frontier zone before we run out of fuel… run into a deep space trading scow.” Both men lapsed into silence once more.

Leaving? Applejack didn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed. She’d only known the two bipeds for a few hours, and was still a little scared to be around them. If they left, she could forget them and everything would go back to the way it was. Peace. Confidence in being alone in the universe. But... her sister and her friends adored the two creatures, and, despite their frighteningly violent nature, Applejack couldn't help but like the pair as well. Though she didn't fully understand their plight, she empathized with them. She couldn't even imagine how it felt to be displaced in such a way: the only two of their kind in a new world.

Ponyville loomed ever closer. From Applejack’s position she could see that the streets were empty. This didn’t surprise her, recalling the ‘Zecora incident’ a year or so ago. The little town had a tradition of frightened animosity toward strange ponies.

Suddenly, Ray spoke up again. Applejack was hearing a lot more out of the tall human than she had expected she would. She had characterized him as the strong, silent type: like her hulking older brother, Mac.

“You getting a signal?”

“Yeah, but…”

“They’re pretty vocal today, huh?”

“Yes… but I can still hear it.” Applejack stole another glance back at the pair. If she hadn’t known any better, she might’ve thought Jer looked… pained, sad even.

“Tell me,” Ray commanded gently, his masculine voice overtly soothing. Jer cleared his throat.

“Hello Chicagoooooo!” he rasped, inflecting his voice in such a way that she almost turned completely around to make sure he was really the same person. His voice had taken on a quality that was completely unlike anything she had heard from him prior to now. “It’s nine ay-em and this station is officially off the grid!” His voice changed again: this time growing deeper as he spoke from the back of his throat.

“We’re the fucking bomb. Aren’t we Mike?” Higher again.

“Right you are Robby. Right you are. So… what’s the news?”

“Pigs have been moving through the lower east side, trying to stop rioting in the Threshers.” Applejack was completely lost. She understood that Jer was mimicking somepony, but she didn’t know whom.

“We aren’t giving ‘em an inch now are we?”

“No sir. Not until we see some fucking pay-dirt!”

“And who’s been hoarding the gas? Who’s been holding our fucking reserves? The mother-fucking Unionists, that’s who!”

“Don’t give ‘em an inch boys! Not one inch! Now let’s rock!” Jer switched back to his regular, raspy voice and smirked.

“They’re playing ‘Buckcherry’. I haven’t heard these guys in ages.”

“That’s pre-Weyland, Jer. Energy riots. Around 2036.”

“And I’m picking that shit up? Damn… we’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto.”

“If the broadcast is what it took for you to realize that, then I’m afraid something’s wrong with you.”

“Ray, there are lots of things wrong with me,” Jer grinned darkly at his stoic companion, sniggering.

While the two exterminators followed Applejack into Ponyville, passing by the empty homes of its residents on their way to Sugarcube Corner, another game of follow the leader was taking place just outside of Sweet Apple Acres.

Discord watched in amusement as a small brown and white shepherding dog chased a young squirrel through Everfree. The patchwork god snapped his fingers and the squirrel changed course, having been tugged subconsciously, its neurons flooded with a sudden influx of adrenaline and malicious intuition. It dove into the caverns beneath the surface of the grove of oaks in which Discord was perched. The dog followed. The spirit giggled maniacally and beamed down at the earthen hole below him. The anticipation was too much.

“Goody! I’m going to be a father!”

Ray stared at the empty houses, trying his best not to think of Omaha. Tuskeloosa. Alamogordo. The long march. So many empty homes. Empty towns. So many grown over… coated in bug paste. There were no bodies. The dead came later: when they stormed the hive.

A light tapping on his arm. Jer had asked him a question.

“Didn’t catch that. Say again?”

“Do you remember the last party we went to?”

“Promenade? When the hooker tried to stab you with her heel?”

“That’s the one.” The orange pony leading them, Applejack if memory served him, flinched and looked at Jer and him incredulously.

“What kinda party is that?” the mare asked.

“The kind that keeps ya sane, Girl,” Jer chuckled. “If you don’t mind me asking, why are you ponies throwing a welcome party for the scary aliens, again?”

“And why are we accepting?” Ray mused. "How the hell did Jer talk me into this?"

“It’s kinda like a local tradition,” Applejack answered noncommittally, as if she’d been asked that same question a thousand times. “Whenever a new pony, or in yer case, space creature, comes to town, Pinkie throws ‘em a welcome party at the bakery.”

“Aaaand Pinkie would be the nice mare who sprayed confetti at the barrier last night and almost set the uppity white unicorn on fire?” Jer inquired, hopefully.

“Eeeyup, she’s a bit crazy that way.”

“I respect crazy.”

They walked in silence for a time, passing several more empty thatched houses, shutters closed, upper windows dark. As they crossed the empty expanse of the town square, weaving among several closed market stalls, Jer chuckled to himself. Their pony guide stiffened a bit at the sound of his laughter, but relaxed quickly enough that Ray didn’t become too concerned. Jer had told him about the incident with the robber the previous morning. He thought it had been a reckless act, and Ray had told him so, but Jer ensured him that Applejack was grateful for his… intervention.

The two exterminators and their guide, having traversed the center of town, now found themselves in front of the largest gingerbread house Raymond had ever laid eyes on. A cupcake-shaped tower jutted from the center of the massive gingerbread shingles that overlaid the roof, complete with white frosting trim and a sign that hung from the east end. The sign was graced with the image of a magenta cupcake with pink sprinkles, apparently meant to represent the local confectionary. Like the other houses in town, its windows, too, were darkened. Not even the glow of a candle could be seen.

“Well here we are!” Applejack exclaimed, in a voice that practically screamed dishonesty. Her cheerfulness seemed forced and her eyes darted back and forth, looking everywhere but the two humans. Something was off. If there was going to be a party, where was everyone? Raymond silently cursed himself for not bringing any weapons. This had to be some sort of trap, or was he just being paranoid? God, why did he trust the adorable talking horses? Maybe Jer had someth-

“Where’d he go?” Jer was gone: vanished.

Ray glanced around easily, trying to uphold his clam, emotionless façade. Applejack had noticed Jer’s disappearance as well, it seemed, and she started to look around in panic.

“Wh-Where’s yer friend?” she stammered. “We can’t have ‘im go gallivantin’ around town!” The mare’s nervousness only served to increase Ray’s suspicions. If Jer had truly gotten away, maybe he could get back to the ship, grab some M4’s or maybe the dune jeep. He just had to play along and buy his friend some time.

“Oh, he’s probably just gone for a short stroll around the square. He’ll be back. He does this all the time. I assure you that there will be minimal property damage.” Ray gave her a wink, praying that she would understand the joke and just continue on with her sinister plan. He hoped that one alien captured would be good enough for them at present moment.

The mare jumped, as if surprised that he had answered her, then seemed to weigh her options. Hesitantly, she smiled.

“O-Okay then. Lets get you inside.” She stepped toward the gingerbread doorway of the bakery and opened it for him. The hinges creaked ominously. She didn’t seem worried enough about Jer being missing. Maybe there were others waiting on the road back to the forest: waiting for one of them to make a run for it.

Ray peered into the darkness, steeled himself, and ducked under the pony-sized doorframe.

Rainbow was still pissed. Today, however, it was solely due to the new arrivals: those two ape creatures. Pinkie had spent the whole day gushing about them, the party, and tons of other random things that Dash could care less about. She had hoped to avoid coming to the party, not wanting to be anywhere near the more hysterical of the two creatures: the one who had made her look like a scaredy-cat in front of her friends, but she couldn’t leave her friends with them either. So what if they promised they didn’t eat “sentient” beings. Who knew what their definition of “sentient” was? They were still space monsters for all she cared… and what they did to Scootaloo…

Rainbow shuddered, remembering the way her little orange fan had helped with… dinner. She sat behind the counter, looking around in the semi-darkness for the filly. Finally, she spotted her: she sat, fidgeting, with her two friends behind an overturned table on to her left. Voices could be heard outside, and they tensed, smiles growing wider. Her friends, excluding Applejack, were also hiding behind the counter. They, too, began physically preparing themselves for the aliens’ arrival. Dash sighed.

“A bucking surprise party. Celestia, Pinkie… why?” Her hyper friend had spent the entire morning on the party, which, for the town’s premier party pony, is really saying something. It usually took her less than a few minutes to prepare a party. Half the townsfolk had been drafted to help clean Sugarcube Corner, receiving invitations for their trouble. Pinkie even went as far as to make a special “Sunshine Order” for the weather patrol through Mayor Mare. Dash, being the team’s captain, ended up having to supervise the clearing of the skies above Ponyville: a huge pain in the flank for her since it was scheduled to be overcast that day. At least she hadn’t been struck by lightning again. She stretched her damaged wing and grimaced, promising herself that she’d have Fluttershy look at it later.

The voices got closer, and Rainbow could feel the vibrations of footsteps on the bakery porch. Excitement was so thick in the air that it could be cut with a butter knife. Suddenly, Dash realized that most of the ponies inside had no idea they were about to meet an alien. Or, at least, she didn’t remember telling anypony. This was going to be interesting.

Light streamed into the bakery as the door slowly creaked open. Dash bristled with anticipation as nothing happened for a full three seconds. Just when she began to get nervous that they wouldn’t come inside, that something was wrong, the light was blotted out and a hunched figure entered the bakery.

The lights snapped on, bathing the alien in bright, artificial light: just as planned.

Everypony yelled surprise and confetti blasted everywhere: just as planned.

Then a collective gasp, and silence: not exactly planned.

Everypony stared at the human that Rainbow identified as the one who called himself Ray with a mixture of shock and fear. Ray himself had taken up a defensive stance: crouched slightly, forelimbs poised to strike, one blue eye scanning the crowd of ponies before him. Nothing happened. The only pony who moved was Pinkie. She appeared to be looked back and forth between the two groups in dismay, unsure of how she could resolve the current standoff.

Seconds ticked by. Just when Dash was about to move away from the counter to do… something, manic laughter erupted from the back of the room.

Everypony turned to the source of the laughter and backed away in fright upon finding a second alien, writhing in merriment at one of the backmost booths, a half-finished cupcake lying next to him on the table.

“How did… what... how?” Rainbow’s mind frantically searched for some explanation of how he could have gotten inside. The back door had been locked. Pinkie had asked her to check on that personally…

Rainbow’s anxiety quickly turned to anger: not just toward the giggling human, but also toward herself. How could she not have noticed the absence of the much-loathed Mr. Hanes? She was just about to spring towards the seated human, when the bubbly laughter of a certain pink pony joined that of the maniacal creature. Pinkie hopped onto the other side of the booth, taking a moment to stuff the rest of Jer’s treat into her maw before continuing to giggle like a school filly. She was soon followed by the three fillies hiding to Dash’s left, who rolled around on the floorboards, holding their ribs as mirth wracked their little bodies.

Across the room, the other human seemed to relax. He stood straight up and crossed his arms, trying to put on a stern expression. He failed, choosing instead to smirk knowingly at his companion. Applejack suddenly appeared in the doorway behind him, eyeing the shocked ponies nervously.

“Y-You shoulda’ seen the looks on your faces!” Jer cried between peels of laughter. “Fucking priceless!”

“It was pretty funny, wasn’t it?” Pinkie snorted. The Crusaders slowly dragged themselves over to the pair. Applebloom and Sweetie Belle jumped on Jer’s lap and Scootaloo was ceremoniously lifted onto Jer’s shoulders, each still laughing to various degrees. Rainbow noticed Rarity grit her teeth and make a move to stop her sister, but Twilight held her back.

Slowly, the other party guests began to chuckle. Having seen the way the strange creature interacted with the three fillies, mares and stallions alike began to calm down and move closer to investigate the two humans. An aquamarine unicorn named Lyra, with whom Dash had occasionally conversed over at the Hayseed, was the first to fully approach one of them: Ray. Rainbow couldn’t make out what she was saying over the collective murmur of the crowded bakery, but she seemed especially interested in Ray’s claws. She even went so far as to grab one of them, earning her a quizzical look from the still standing human. After much murmuring and an explanation by Twilight as to the origins of the two “guests of honor,” the party began in earnest.

“Wow,” Rainbow mused, not knowing whether to be relieved or disappointed. “That went surprisingly… well.”

As ponies began to enjoy the party and got more comfortable, the panic that had been welling inside Twilight’s chest subsided. Princess Celestia had yet to arrive, and, in Pinkie and her haste to get the party ready, they had neglected to actually explain who (what) the party was for: a huge oversight on Twilight’s part. If Jer hadn’t broke the tension, who knows what could’ve happened? Even she wasn’t powerful enough to stop a hysterical mob of ponies with pitchforks and torches, and if the two humans had retaliated? She shuddered, trying not to think about it.

After Rarity had calmed down and accepted that her sister wouldn’t be harmed by the “poorly-dressed ruffian” as she so haughtily put it, Twilight had released her and exited from behind the counter to observe the festivities.

Applejack was attempting to detach Lyra from Raymond’s hand, becoming more frustrated by the second. Rainbow was seething in the corner, casting glares at Jer, who was currently demolishing a cake alongside Pinkie Pie. Fluttershy was at the edge of the party, sipping some punch and avoiding everypony: especially the humans. Rarity was slowly making her way towards Sweetie Belle.

“Maybe I released her too soon.” Twilight mentally sighed and made her way over to the distraught fashionista, hoping to intercept her before she caused a scene. As she approached, she was able to hear Sweetie Belle over the crowd.

“Jer! How didja get in here! You ruined the surprise!”

“You kidding? Me? Ruin a surprise? Never… I just made one of my own is all,” Jer assured her. “I’ll play you a song, if that’ll make up for it.” Sweetie displayed her enthusiasm for the idea with an excited squealing noise. The human was just about to remove his guitar from his back, Pinkie and the Crusaders watching with rapt attention, when Rarity finally made it over.

“Sweetie,” she lilted softly, taking full advantage of her practiced Canterlot accent in order to mask her discomfort. Twilight wasn’t fooled by the soft tone, and, from the look of it, neither was Jer. “Please remove yourself from Mr. Hanes’ lap. We wouldn’t want to impose on the poor soul, now would we?” Twilight flinched and gauged Jer’s reaction.

The human gave an amused smile and promptly replied:

“How, my good mare, could you possibly believe that these three exuberant fillies are imposing upon my goodwill as a gentlecolt? The only one here imposing upon my good graces, my dear, is you.” Both Rarity and Twilight gaped at the man. He had just imitated the alabaster unicorn’s accent perfectly, only hesitating on the word “gentlecolt,” which Twilight assumed had been a very lucky guess of terminology on Jer’s part. Pinkie Pie had been glaring at Rarity as if to give her a dressing down for spreading frowns instead of smiles, but upon hearing Jer’s imitation, she couldn’t help but gape as well.

The party continued uninterrupted around the small group of figures at the back of the confectionary. Finally, Jer spoke up again, this time forgoing the accent.

“If you’ll excuse me for a moment, I need to go make my head shut up.” He gently lifted Scootaloo from his shoulders and the other two Crusaders from his lap, putting them all on the tabletop next to the remains of the cupcake cup, now devoid of sugary treat, gave them a winning smile, and made his way toward the kitchen: where fewer party-goers had gathered. Once he had left, the Crusaders, joined by Pinkie, glared angrily at both unicorns. Twilight had no idea why they were glaring at her. She hadn’t done anything!

“Really, Girls?” Pinkie growled. “That wasn’t very nice.”

“Yeah!” Scootaloo piped, “What the hay was that?”

“Scootaloo!” Rarity gasped, “Language!”

“This isn’t about Scootaloo, Rarity,” Twilight cut in; trying to display whose side she was on. Rarity was her friend, but her behavior had been unnecessary and rude: not to mention totally unlike her usually well-mannered persona. “What made you think that was necessary?”

“I’m just uncomfortable with my sister being associated with such a vulgar being,” the white unicorn huffed, pointing her nose toward the ceiling. Sweetie Belle sighed exasperatedly and hopped off the table.

“He’s a nice colt, Rarity,” she said, motioning for her friends to get up as well. “He looked after us when we were out in the forest on our own, and now we’re gonna look after him here. C’mon girls.” All three fillies dashed off toward the kitchen. Pinkie got up, and, surprisingly, said nothing. She followed the three fillies with an odd look on her face, not that most of her looks weren't a little strange. Twilight chose to ignore it in order to focus on her fellow unicorn, resolving to delve deeper into Pinkie’s behavior later.

She turned to Rarity, who had visibly softened at her sister’s words.

“Rarity…”

“Save it, Dear,” she sighed, still unfailingly ladylike. “I… I don’t need the lecture right now…” With that, the fashionista left, joining Rainbow Dash in the corner. Goddesses, Twilight hated conflict. If only Celestia were here.

While she lamented the absence of her teacher, Twilight scanned the room for the other human. Though he was drugged the last time she’d met him, she could tell he was the more rational, and, perhaps, more intelligent of the two creatures. She had so many questions to ask, but, unfortunately, had been unable to get to them due to Raymond’s addled state. Finally, she spotted him. He was sitting in the shadows of the booth next to Dash’s, one blue eye shining in the darkness. The rainbow-maned pegasus was ignoring him in favor of conversing with the now depressed Rarity.

“No good could possibly come of that,” Twilight thought nervously. She watched the pair for a moment, worrying, when she noticed Applejack trot lopsidedly over to the darkened booth with two glasses of punch: one held in her mouth and the other in her left fore hoof. She hoofed the one to Ray, who took it carefully, giving the farm mare an almost imperceptible nod. Applejack smiled good-naturedly before taking a seat across from him in the booth. Perfect. Now Twilight didn’t have to work so hard to break the ice… not that that usually mattered to her anyway.

She made her way back to the counter, finding her saddlebags among the rolled streamers and displayed treats, among other party supplies. After some casual rummaging, she eventually pulled out her quill, inkwell, and a few scrolls before she headed back to where AJ and Ray were sitting. Ray noticed her coming and raised an eyebrow.

“Hello Raymond,” she beamed, trying her best at a casual re-introduction. She’d been practicing at home in the mirror and Spike told her she was getting quite good. A pang of guilt shot through her chest: she shouldn’t have insisted on him staying home. “I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions.” The human looked at her for a moment, and then gestured to the spot next to Applejack. Twilight’s smile widened. Assuming that was an affirmative, she was in!

Well… at least it hadn’t been a trap.

Raymond sat in his booth, ignoring the increasingly anxious purple unicorn across from him in favor of examining the other partygoers, along with the party itself. It was much quieter than any of the other parties Jer dragged him to, which was nice. It also seemed fit for a rather young audience: streamers, pin the tail on the donkey (still unsure about that), and brightly colored sweets that Ray half expected to come with pre-packaged shots of insulin. Not a drop of liquor or random strap-on in site.

“Ugh, that one still gives me nightmares…”

Ray knew why Jer always chose the loudest, most vulgar places to celebrate while on leave, and he forgave him for always bringing him as company. The noise helped the fractured soldier: blotted out the things in his head, at least for a time. This party was too quiet. Ray waited and watched, expecting Jer to do something, ANYTHING, to liven the place up… and he was going to let him. He needed something to smile about today, anyway.

The unsettling green unicorn with the lyre ass-blemish was watching him: had been for the past ten minutes. He could see her from the corner of his eye. She was across the room, next to a cream colored pony who was happily conversing with her: unaware that her partner’s attention was diverted elsewhere. Ray prayed she would leave him be.

A minute passed. The lavender unicorn, Sparky-something, was glaring resentfully at him. Applejack was stifling laughter and consoling the distraught mare, patting her on the back and explaining that he hadn’t spoken to anyone but Jer while fully sober and that she shouldn’t take it personally. She neglected to mention their quick conversation before entering the bakery, but the human decided to ignore it as a part of her consolation. Ray liked Applejack. She wasn’t pushy and understood the value of silence: the art of communication… without the communicating part. The fact that she’d guided them through town and hadn’t led them into a trap was also a deciding factor. Ray appreciated honesty, even when he didn’t immediately take notice of it.

Ray was still appraising the crowd when the kitchen exploded. A loud crack rocked the building and huge clouds of flour began billowing out of the doorway behind the counter. A few ponies fell down in fright, but got up quickly when five white figures stumbled from the doorway: all of them giggling hysterically. Ray couldn’t recognize the ponies, but immediately recognized the powdery being who towered over them. Somewhere, the asshole had found a lampshade and he was wearing it atop his head proudly. A fire alarm began ringing in the kitchen, and the largest of the four ghostly ponies dashed back inside to silence it, still laughing.

The other partyers, their shock having worn off, joined in Jer’s infectious laughter and the formerly quiet festivities slowly became more interesting. The only two ponies who still seemed dismayed, a sky-blue mare with a bright pink mane and a yellow stallion (the owners, Ray presumed), rushed into the kitchen after the other flour-covered pony. Moments later the alarm snapped off.

Jer, flour falling off of him in clumps or floating away in small clouds, was now giving the three smaller ponies, the fillies Jer had introduced him to earlier, a rather exaggerated piggyback ride around the room. Ponies clapped and whinnied at his antics. Applejack and Sparky chuckled good-naturedly at the scene.

“If only they knew what went on in that poor man’s head… and how much they’re helping him by cheering and running their horsy mouths.”

Suddenly, Applejack spoke up.

“That guy sure is a funny one. How in the hay did a quiet stalli—Ah mean human like you get to be friends with you?”

“Earth,” Ray answered matter-of-factly, still watching Jer prance around the room. A pink mare with splotches of flour still clinging to her appeared next to him, lightening his load one filly.

“C-Come again?” Applejack stuttered. Ray turned to look at the two mares sharing his booth. Both appeared to be in a state of shock. Apparently, neither of them had expected any answer from the stone-faced human. Sparky glared at Applejack. Was she sore that he’d answered to the farm mare and not her? Well boo-fucking-hoo. She was irritating. Applejack deserved an answer: she’d brought him a drink after all.

“I met the bastard on Earth.”

“Is… is that in space?”

“It’s in the Sol system: third body from the star, terrestrial, single moon.”

The purple unicorn was scribbling frantically on her scrolls, holding the quill with a glowing lavender aura. Jer had warned him about that magic shit. He didn’t seem too worried about it, but Ray thought it was just too unnatural. The mare stopped only briefly to cast a pleading gaze toward her friend, urging her to continue.

“Uh… couldja elaborate… maybe?”

Ray leaned back, closed his eyes, and launched into his own interpretation of the history of man, or, what he could remember of it, anyways. He began with basic governmental structure: explaining the differences between the early Western and Eastern hemispheres. The republic, constitutional monarchy, absolutism, and, eventually, socialism and communism. He described man’s rise in technological prowess, attempting to avoid stress on huge advances during wartime. Jer had warned him that these creatures were generally peaceful in nature, commenting that the fillies he had looked after didn’t recognize the word “war.” It just wasn’t in their vocabulary.

Luckily, he didn’t have to explain the concept of war to the mares across from him. Or maybe he did. They hadn’t interrupted to ask. Eventually, after he had touched on the triumph of free market capitalism after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ray came to more recent history: the rise of the Company.

“In 2035, the planet’s oil reserves were all but dry. Countries began rationing fossil fuels and there were several international conflicts over the scarce oil. Some nations even resorted to threatening nuclear war in order to assure they met the energy needs of their citizens. Oil refineries across the globe closed down, and other renewable energy sources failed to meet the needs of an ever-expanding human population: now well over 9 billion. Riots were commonplace in the 30s, especially in first-world nations where the people were used to constant electrical inundation and the ability to travel freely.”

Ray paused and opened his eyes. He was surprised to see that his audience had grown by three: the white unicorn and the yellow pegasus from the clearing had joined Sparky and Applejack on the other end of the booth, while the rainbow pegasus had pulled up a chair to his left. They were all listening politely, save Rainbow Dash, who was watching Jer from her position with barely-concealed contempt. Sparky was still writing furiously. The scratching of quill on parchment could barely be heard over the din of the party.

Ray spotted Gerald near the snack table, scarfing cupcake after cupcake next to the same pink mare from before while the crowd cheered. He allowed a small smile at his friend’s actions. The man had always had a sweet tooth… probably because sweets were hard to come by on a desert colony, even with Company tourism. Ray settled back down and continued:

“The Trans-Nuclear Reactor, 'trannie' for short, ended the energy riots. It was invented under commission by Yoshiri Yutani and Jonathan Weyland: two American entrepreneurs who had made it big as consultants for several large corporations. The new reactors were nearly sixty percent more efficient than previous uranium-powered plants and are completely safe, assuming enough coolant is applied. Just like that, humanity was saved, as if by the hands of God. No, make that two gods.”

Ray sure could talk once he got going.

Applejack listened, raptly, while the human explained how his world was currently governed. Now, she was a savvy businessmare, along with Rarity, but she could barely understand any of the “bullshit bureaucracy” that lead to the rise of “the Company” as Ray put it. Something about mergers and buyouts: not of other businesses, but whole countries! AJ guessed economic power had its perks.

“With Earth under their control, Weyland-Yutani began expanding the uses for its precious reactors. Space travel became simpler now that fuel was no longer an issue, and the Company looked toward colonization: not to relieve pressure from the already overpopulated Earth, but for economic gain. Earth wasn’t exactly full of natural resources anymore, especially after the planet’s national parks were subsidized and sold to the Company during their rise to power.”

Natural resources? He meant trees right? Applejack couldn’t imagine an entire world devoid of the most majestic of plant life. She had been distraught when she had to move only ONE of her trees across Equestria.

“Ah miss ya, Bloomberg… evry day…”

Applejack tore herself from such depressing thoughts and looked out on the party still going on around them. Somehow, Pinkie had gotten hold of several instruments (most likely the ones she’d never returned after the parasprite incident), and Jer was playing each one in turn, striking ridiculous poses, and, while playing a trumpet, dragged himself across the checkout counter on his back, much to the amusement of the attending fillies and most of the adults. At that point, the farm mare realized something.

“Sugarcube, this is interestin’ an’ all, but ya never really answered mah question,” Applejack interrupted, cutting Ray off while describing several of the innermost colonies his people had established. Twilight gave her a sharp kick and glared, apparently upset that the flow of information had stopped. Was she afraid that once he was interrupted he wouldn’t continue? Applejack didn’t think Ray was that kind of stallion. Even her brother talked amongst family, and little interruptions never bothered him. Besides, she’d asked him a question.

“I told you I met him on Earth.”

“Ah asked how ya met him, Sugarcube,” Applejack countered. The spaceman sighed.

“To completely understand how I met him would require an explanation of mankind’s greatest mistake. Our most outstanding weakness.”

“We’ve got all night,” Twilight added, hopefully. Another sigh.

“I mentioned war before… you didn’t question what it was so I assume you know?” Twilight spoke up, eager to answer the human.

“A large conflict between two groups, usually involving bloodshed. There hasn’t been one in Equestria in over a thousand years.” She mentioned the last part offhandedly, and, if Applejack heard correctly, a tad smugly. Luckily, Ray seemed to ignore it. Instead, he stared off toward Jer, who was playing a tuba with reckless abandon while Scootaloo rode the brass horn. Eventually, he continued.

“Mankind is ruthless. Willing to do terrible things in order to dominate others. We are also naturally inquisitive. When these traits are combined during wartime, man has been known to create terrifying new ways of bringing pain, suffering, and death to others. And though the Company kept the peace rather well, their goal to “build better worlds” led to… tempting discoveries in the vast reaches of space.” He paused again, his one blue eye staring straight at her. When he resumed, he directed himself solely toward the orange cowpony.

“If you had the chance to learn from the perfect organism, a creature so naturally resilient to the elements that it could survive being boiled in molten lead or being shot into the vacuum of space, would you take it? If you had the power to cultivate it and shape its will to your needs… would you?”

“Ah… um… Ah d-don’t rightly know,” Applejack stuttered, confused by Ray’s sudden switch to questioning her. “Ah guess they would make good farmhands if’n Ah could control ‘em…” Ray smiled sadly at her: the first real smile he’d given anyone besides Jer while sober. He took a sip of the punch she’d brought him and grimaced.

“Weyland-Yutani discovered the perfect organism,” he continued, gazing off into space again. “Many years before I was born in Seattle, a large city on Earth, the Company lost contact with a terraforming colony on the planet LV-426 after sending a workgroup to check out a grid reference… er… place of interest. A squad of colonial marines, Weyland-Yutani’s idea of a standing military, and a few company personnel were sent to investigate. Their ship, the Sulaco, disappeared. The official Company statement was that it crashed due to inexplicable engine failure and the power of mistress gravity… but later the citizens of Weyland-Yutani’s great colonial empire found out what REALLY happened. Unfortunately, by then it was too late.”

Applejack glanced around at her friends. They were riveted, especially Twilight, and were ignoring the party completely. Dash was almost as interested as the purple unicorn, but was much better at hiding it. The fact that she hadn’t glared over at Jer in the past five minutes was a sign in itself that she was fully engrossed in Ray’s tale. Fluttershy squeezed closer to Rarity, unable to take the suspense.

Nopony noticed the presence of a sixth listener: a regal white pony with a mane that flowed as if blown by a high-powered fan.

“After touching down on the planet, the marines were attacked by something that our species had never encountered before. Out of the fourteen marines and two company personnel, three survived. The colonists they were sent to reestablish contact with had been dead for months: over 50 families, gone.” Applejack flinched at the mention of families.

“Whole families killed? Children? What buckin’ monster would do such a thing?” She couldn’t imagine so much death. A solitary tear rolled down her muzzle, and she had to struggle not to cry openly. Images of her family disappearing, forever, flashed through her mind: endless deadly scenarios roiled within her skull. She quickly checked on Applebloom, and, upon spotting her, breathed a sigh of relief. The little yellow filly had fallen asleep next to the punch bowl.

While she had been searching for her sister, Raymond had continued his tale. Applejack refocused her attention so she wouldn’t miss any more.

“… ever heard of a bot fly?” the human finished asking. Twilight perked up and was about to answer, but Fluttershy beat her to the punch.

“Y-Yes. It’s a parasite that has its babies under an animal’s skin. Th-They grow up and eventually squirm their way out, leaving a small hole. I’ve treated a few of my animal friends for them.” Applejack was surprised at the canary pegasus’s boldness. She guessed being on the subject of animals helped her a bit. Ray nodded to the timid pegasus and continued with his point.

“The things the Company discovered on LV-426 are like huge bot flies: the men in my outfit called them 'xenomorphs.' They gestate within the host’s body, bursting out upon developing to a certain point, killing the host in the process. They were efficient, self-sustaining killing machines, and the Company wanted them.” Applejack fought to control her errant imagination. She failed, and had to resort to checking on Applebloom again. Fluttershy, who knew of bot flies from experience, was hyperventilating, teal eyes as wide as saucers. Rarity tried her best to calm her down.

“Somehow they got a hold of DNA from a Queen: basically the big mama bot fly. An entire orbital research facility was dedicated to training the creatures for their bioweapons division. The creatures escaped, leading to the destruction of the facility and further deaths. The story leaked. Eventually, even the frontier colonies knew of the dangerous new species Weyland-Yutani was tampering with in Earth’s atmosphere. People got angry. Shareholders got angry. Yoshiri Yutani’s grandson, the current CEO and Director for the corporation made a public statement that the Company would no longer look to cultivate the parasites. Even in an economic oligarchy, public opinion is important: especially when every citizen owns a number of shares in the Company, and, therefore, the government. I was seven years old.”

Applejack finally noticed the addition to Ray’s audience: she was seated behind them and she caught a glimpse of her mane at the edge of her vision. Her eyes widened in recognition of her Princess, but she kept quiet. The royal alicorn was regarding Raymond curiously, and didn’t seem to want to make a scene.

“Now, when the Company Director makes a statement people go along with it. He would be to us what your… Princess… is to you. The human desire for power, however, is stronger than most political allegiances. Corrupt men. Insane men. Some wanted to dominate; others, to worship. Scientists sought out these creatures in order to better understand them and research them. They wanted to make humanity better: alter our bodies to be more like them.” Ray’s words dripped with malice and hatred, his good eye sharp and full of wrath. Applejack watched his fist clench on the table, crushing the long empty glass of punch into an unrecognizable plastic ball.

“Infestations popped up on some colonies… on Earth. No one really knows how–because those who would are now dead—but a terrorist organization that called themselves the Ebon Knights got ahold of a clutch of xeno eggs. They planted them in different cities across the globe, protecting them, feeding them in secret. Eventually, one of their victims bore a Queen. The bugs spread like wildfire. By the time an effective evacuation could be set up, the whole continent of Asia had been lost: nearly three billion of us gone… translated to three billion of them.” Ray spat the last word out as if it tasted like a rotten apple. He leaned forward and held his face in his hands. “I was fifteen.”

Applejack wanted to reach out: console the angry human somehow… but she didn’t know how she could. Nothing she could possibly say would have made any difference. She looked at her friends and saw the same conflict in their eyes that she herself felt. Her eyes eventually settled on Celestia, who wore a look of horror unlike any expression Applejack had seen from her, even when Discord had escaped.

“It took three weeks… three weeks for rescue vessels to come from the inner colonies and aid the swamped Earth Guard, who had already lost several ships to infected refugees coming aboard. It was a disaster. A population of nearly ten billion… cut down to less than three, but not all due to the parasites. Rescue ships would relay messages to refugees, telling them to gather in city centers for evacuation. They would go, drawing the parasites for miles to attack… then Company bombers dropped nuclear warheads on them.”

The human was silent for a time, still holding his face in his palms. After a moment, he sat up again, gaze directed toward his partying friend. Jer was juggling several cooking utensils while trying to balance on a small stool. The stool fell out from under him and he landed on Pinkie Pie, much to the amusement of the other ponies in the room: especially Applebloom’s two friends who were still conscious. Just when it seemed he wouldn’t continue, Ray spoke up again.

“I met Gerald Hanes in the year 2103, just outside of London,” the stone-faced human murmured, all traces of anguish gone. “After the fall of Earth, I joined the Colonial Armada as a marksman. I was sniper support for a squad of colonial marines working outside of the city. Jer was one of them. Their job was to draw the bastards out so our air support could blow them to smithereens; mine was to cover the marines’ asses. Neither of us did our jobs right. We were dropped too close to the hive, and our air support was held up inside the city. Jer’s squad was overrun. There was nothing my spotter or I could do.” Ray chuckled and shook his head. The action startled Applejack and her friends, and they followed his gaze over to the other human, who was playing whatever instrument Pinkie Pie handed him enthusiastically, albeit very badly.

“Jer’s a maniac. He finds great pleasure in killing them: the xenos. Even as his squad mates were felled around him, some killed outright; others, dragged back to the hive to be hosts for more of the Queen’s children, Jer massacred them: laughing while he did it. Eventually it was just him, alone, pumping bullets into a wall of bugs that slowly surrounded him. My spotter and I ditched our position to help him. He had run out of ammunition when we’d finally gotten to him, and was fighting them hand to hand with a piece of steel rebar and a rusty pair of brass knuckles. I think he still has those: the knuckles, I mean…” Ray trailed off. The noise of the party and the off-key playing of a bassoon drifted all around. “My spotter was killed… acid ate through his armor and into his stomach. They tried to take him to the Queen anyway, even as his bowels dissolved and he threw up pieces of his intestine. I don’t even remember his name…”

Nausea bubbled, but Applejack held onto her lunch. She was beginning to wish she hadn’t asked about how they met, even if it was an accident. She didn’t even want to know how his eye got like it was anymore, and judging from the way Rainbow was grimacing, she probably didn’t either. Rarity, Twilight, and Fluttershy looked about the same, the yellow pegasus whimpering softly. It looked like she wanted to dive across the table and hug the storytelling human to death. The Princess looked less sickly: just a little paler than normal. Her face had become a royal mask, betraying no emotion whatsoever.

“H-How’d you get out?” Twilight asked quietly.

“Fucking dropship finally showed up… but not before Jer had a hole the size of a softball ripped out of his side. I dragged the bloody bastard onto the bird while he sang like a loon and kept shooting at the fuckers. After we pulled out they bombed that suburb for three hours. Jer was awarded a purple heart and two extra Company shares. He used the medal to make the firing mechanism for one of his 'masterpieces' and gave the shares to me. We’ve been switching custody whenever one of us saves the other’s ass. Right now I have them… er… had them. Can’t really cash them now, can I? We tried to stick together after that day, and, after the reconquest of Earth, were commissioned as exterminators by the Company.”

“An what… uh… exactly do y’all do as exterminators?” Applejack asked, reading off a scroll Twilight had hoofed her from under the table.

“We, along with several other teams of former marines and Armada personnel, investigate possible xenomorph infestation on inhabited worlds, protecting Company assets and shareholders from harm while purging the threat.” The way Ray spoke reminded Applejack of a dictionary entry. He was cold. Emotionless.

The sound of Jer’s guitar drifted over to the booth. The manic human, still coated in patches of flour, had seated himself on the display counter. He had cut the neck off of a soda bottle and was wearing it on his pinkie, running it along the guitar strings as he played, drawing out and distorting its vibrations. He began to sing in a halting voice, putting on an impeccable Appaloosan accent:

“In the time of chimpanzees, I was a monkey.

Butane in my veins an’ I’m out to get the junkie

With the plastic eye-balls. Spraypaint the vegetables.

Dog food stalls with the beefcake pantyhose…”

Pinkie sat next to him, nodding her head to the music and listening intently, as if Jer’s words were those of a wise old stallion. The mares turned to Ray, hoping for an explanation. The man simply shrugged before settling back into his seat with a frown.

“I’ve always hated this song…” he trailed off then picked up again. “With our ship damaged the way it is, it seems that we’ll be here awhile. In that case, there are some things you should know about Gerald.”

The singing continued.

“Soooooy u-un perdidor!

I’m a loser babyyyy, so why dontcha kill meee!”

“Corporal Hanes was born an orphan on the frontier colony of Jiboomi, a desert world that was settled mainly by people of Irish descent. Ireland is… well… was an island country on the Earth. Both his parents were killed due to radiation poisoning from the, unfortunately, leaky old-world nuclear power plant the colonists were forced to use. His father died four days before he was born; his mother, during childbirth. Jiboomi was a planet riddled with orphans, and several orphanages and foster services had been established since its founding in the late 2070s. Jer spent his young life in one such place. He told me he had a good childhood, and I believe him. He never told me when or how he left the orphanage. All I know is that he joined the marines soon afterward.”

“… cuz one’s got a weasel an’ the other’s got a flag…”

“He should have, for all intensive purposes, been killed twice already. The radiation he sustained while still in his mother’s womb should have killed him three times over, or at least made him into a squid monster, but it didn’t. During our service in the campaign to re-take Earth, a grenade – an explosive ball that a soldier throws – exploded next to his head. We were clearing an office building that was serving as the hive for the bugs, and a piece of metal from a thing called a 'computer' pierced his skull and lodged itself in his temporal lobe. He was legally dead for three minutes, but a shock to the chest with one of our medic’s defibrillators brought him back. He was deaf for a few days, but other than that he was fine.”

“… and my mind is a piece of wax, floatin’ on a termite.

He’s chokin’ on the splinters…”

“That brings me to my final warning about him. If he ever seems distracted, distant, or you see him beating his head against a wall, either leave him be, or pleasantly distract him. He has a mild case of schizophrenia, meaning there are voices in his head: voices only he can hear. I read about the disorder in a medical textbook while on leave. Luckily for Jer, his case isn’t debilitating. He doesn’t suffer from hallucinations or private delusions, or, at least he says he doesn’t, and can communicate like a regular human being. He just hears voices, and, thanks to the hunk of metal in his head, picks up radio waves, making the poor man’s skull an even more crowded place.” Ray must’ve noticed the look AJ was giving to him, because he quickly explained.

“Radio is an invisible wave of energy that my species has used to transmit information and music for centuries. Since this wave can travel great distances through the vacuum of space without dissipating all that much, he still gets it, though more faintly. Unfortunately, due to the great distance, the broadcasts he gets are from way before our time. The metal in Gerald’s head picks up these old radio waves, and the tiny vibrations stimulate his temporal lobe. He’s constantly plagued by music, advertisements, or news of some sort to go along with the imaginary voices. So if he seems a little distracted when you see him, now you know why. Its more than likely you won’t see him all that much, unless you visit us in the clearing that is.”

The conversation the two humans were having on the way to the bakery made a little more sense to Applejack now.

While Ray was talking about his anarchic comrade, Applejack had noticed Rainbow Dash becoming more somber. Every once in a while she would glance at the singing human, pity weighing heavily in her eyes. The orange mare would be lying if she said she didn’t feel the same way, and she hated lying.

Jer finished his song about being a loser and his audience cheered, though, Applejack was fairly certain they had no idea what they were cheering for. Some ponies began yelling “encore.” Even Rainbow cheered a little.

“Prolly just bein’ polite. That song was awful strange.”

The human stood, gave a jaunty grin and a bow, and whispered something in Pinkie’s ear. The party pony smiled then whipped out an electric version of his precious guitar along with a speaker, seemingly from thin air. Most of the ponies who knew Pinkie had learned not to question this sort of thing, and Jer seemed to be no exception. Unfazed, the human picked up the instrument and began tuning it restlessly. Once finished, he began playing anew.

He played quickly and melodiously, fingers jumping across the frets with ease. The tune undulated, rising, falling, quickening and slowing in tempo, until, finally he began to sing:

“To seek the sacred river Alph.

To walk the caves of ice.

To break my fast on honeydew,

And drink the milk of Paradise…”

Ponies quieted down throughout the bakery and listened as the music reverberated about the mock gingerbread house. Twilight finally noticed the Princess and quickly exited the booth to make her way over to her teacher. Applejack watched her bow then look around at everypony else, a small frown on her face. The lavender unicorn opened her mouth to speak, probably to protest that nopony was paying their proper respects to the Princess, but was silenced by a bright golden aura clamping down on her jaw. Celestia eyed her favorite student mischievously then turned her attention back to the biped with the guitar. Jer had increased the tempo further and began singing much louder, almost shouting, his eyes screwed completely shut.

“I had heard the whispered tales of immortality,

The deepest mystery.

From an ancient book, I took a clue.

I scaled the frozen mountaintops of eastern lands unknown…

Time and man alone!

Searching! For the lost! Xanadu…

Xaaaa-naaaa-duuuu-u...”

He began playing quietly again, hunched over. Applejack could swear she heard bells tolling in the distance, but that was impossible… the bell at town hall was being repaired after an unfortunate accident involving Rainbow Dash and something she called the “Lightning Strut.” That pegasus sure had a hard head. It couldn’t have been the schoolhouse bell either. Classes had been let out early for Maremorial Day.

“Must’ve been a trick of the wind…”

“To stand within the Pleasure Dome,

Decreed by Kublai Khan.

To taste anew the fruits of life.

The last immortal ma-an…

To find the sacred river, Alph.

To walk the caves of ice!

Oh, I will dine on honeydew,

And drink the milk of Pa-aradise!”

The orange farm pony was absolutely enraptured with Jer’s music. The lyrics were strange, but they made more sense than the other song he’d played. She glanced at Ray. He was asleep.

“Ah guess he’s heard this’un before.”

Jer’s voice softened and began to quaver a bit as he sang.

“A thousand years have come and gone but time has passed me by…

Stars stopped in the sky:

Frozen in an everlasting view.

Waiting for the world to end…

Weary of the night, praying for the light…

Prison of the lost Xanadu.”

The sorrow Jer portrayed was heartrending. Even the Princess seemed affected… especially the Princess… was she tearing up? It wasn’t that moving, was it?

“Held within the Pleasure Dome,

Decreed by Kublai Khan.

To taste my bitter triumph! As a mad immortal man…

Never-more shall I return!

Escape these caves of ice!

For I have dined on honeydew,

And drank the milk of Paradise!”

It was there that Jer ended, screaming the last few lines and playing like a mad-pony (man?). When he finished, the bakery erupted with wild cheering: REAL cheering this time. The human had played a few songs when they’d met the night before in his clearing, but they hadn’t been so… loud? AJ didn’t know, but she liked it.

Once the cheering died down, Gerald placed the guitar on the counter and scooped up a sleepy Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle, carrying them over to the booth while Pinkie trailed along behind with Applebloom. Someone had accidentally spilled punch on the sleeping filly, and now she was a sticky mess.

“Somepony needs a bath,” Pinkie giggled, depositing the filly in question into Applejack’s lap.

“Ah’ll take care of it when Ah get ‘er home,” the orange cowpony sighed, smiling lovingly at her little sister. Jer placed the other two fillies in Ray’s lap and they immediately dropped like stones.

“How’s it feel to be the most comfortable bed in the land?” Jer teased, smiling.

Ray gazed pensively at the two fillies for a moment then shrugged. The human was just settling back for what was probably going to be a long shift of “bed duty” when Twilight decided to walk up with the Princess.

“That was quite a performance, Mr. Hanes,” the royal alicorn praised, eyeing the two humans like an archaeologist eyes a particularly intriguing fossil.

“No one’s called me Mr. Hanes since I worked the Company complaints office on Jiboomi… well either Mr. Hanes or flaming cunt-hole…” he trailed off and cocked his head as if listening to some distant sound. Celestia waited patiently for the man to continue, and, eventually, he did. “You can just call me Jer.” The human held out his hand to shake, and the Princess took it, Twilight watching apprehensively. Applejack was just as worried. The Princess didn’t seem offended by the familiarity the alien was showing, but she was known for her ability to hide her distaste in ponies. She had to deal with Blueblood after all…

“Jer, this is Princess Celestia. She rules Equestria along with her sister, Luna,” Twilight explained, continuing to eye the pair nervously.

“Cool beans,” Jer answered. Smiling mischievously, he turned to his buddy, the comfiest bed in the land. “Hey Fussy, I heard there was a bar across the Square. Wanna get shitfaced?” Ray seemed to consider the proposition for a moment before giving a quick nod. He lifted the Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle from his lap, handed them to the Princess, and exited the building alongside his friend. The seven ponies gawked as the two creatures left.

Rainbow was the first to recover.

“What the hay just happened?"

7: Lost Dog

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Chapter 7

Dreams aren’t supposed to hurt.

A house at the edge of the Whitetail Woods stood wreathed in flames. Flickering light seared the young pony’s retinas as windows shattered and once-yellow paint blackened under the pale moonlight. Snow was falling.

The filly was rooted to the ground, several yards from the threshold of the burning home: forced to watch as everything she held dear crumbled before her on one peaceful winter’s night. Her small orange wings strained and flapped, but to no avail. She remained exactly where she was, hooves nailed to the frostbitten yard, sole witness to the beginning of her future.

A terrified wail tore through the night, rising above the whistling of the winter wind. The young pegasus opened her mouth to scream, but no sound escaped. It was as if somepony had cut her vocal cords. The frightened wail devolved into a squeal of pain as the thatched roof of the forest dwelling caved inward, sending sparks flying into the cold night air. The whole structure shuddered before finally collapsing inward, muffling then cutting off the tortured cries of her past.

Now that her fate was sealed, she was allowed to scream. And scream she did, crying out in anguish, hate, and fear… but mostly anger. Anger at the flames that stole her carefree life away from her. Anger at the Mare in the Moon, the sole witness to her plight: ever silently watching from the heavens. Unmoving. Mocking her with her own insignificance. Anger at herself: her inability to twist out of fate’s cold, uncaring hooves and save whom she had held most dear.

Her screams spiraled into one final wrenching sob:

“Mo—“

“—mmy!”

Scootaloo jolted awake, small body shivering in response to the winter of her subconscious. She looked frantically around, unsure of where she began and the dream ended. She half expected soft cooing and the feathery down of her mother’s wings as the gentle yellow mare comforted her like she had always done when Scootaloo awoke in fear. Unfortunately, her other half was more accurate.

She was in a vacant booth at Sugarcube Corner. The great "Welcome to Our Planet, Please Don’t Zap Us" party had ended, though some of the more enthusiastic guests had yet to acknowledge the fact. Pinkie Pie zipped around the few remaining ponies, simultaneously cleaning up after her guests and stuffing her face with any leftover treats that had somehow escaped her notice earlier. Scootaloo couldn’t help but smile at the pink mare. She was fast… for an earth pony. And she did throw pretty awesome parties.

Her friends were gone: more-than likely taken home by their siblings. Scootaloo tried not to resent them for what they had, choosing instead to feel grateful for the love they gave her. Ever since she’d managed to enroll herself in Ms. Cheerilee’s class two years ago and officially met them at Diamond Tiara’s Cute-ceañera they had been a daily source of support for the orange pegasus... emphasis on the word “daily.”

At night she was alone: her only company being the glaring, hateful moon shining down from the inky blackness of space.

“And don’t even get me started on its little twinkly minions…”

Scootaloo grumbled disconsolately, attempting to drown her sorrows with irrational hatred. As she extricated herself from the corner booth and slunk out of the bakery she almost succeeded.

Almost.

She trotted sullenly across Ponyville Square, pointedly ignoring the raucous singing and merry-making coming from the bar several yards to her right as her heart slowly sunk into her hooves. Icy talons clawed her insides and she gazed up at the night sky, unable to hide behind anger anymore as she tried to hold back tears.

Giving up, the orange filly slowly made her way toward the edge of Sweet Apple Acres. She sobbed openly, confident that nopony was awake or lucid enough to notice her. They never had before. A trail of tears followed her to the Cutie Mark Crusader’s clubhouse, glistening in the impartial light of the moon.

Dreams aren’t supposed to hurt… but some do anyway.

Sugarcube Corner had emptied for the night. Splotches of flour and the occasional musical instrument were scattered about the naturally festive building.

Pinkie Pie lay on her back in the center of the dining section of the bakery, reflecting on the success of Welcome Party #7,856. The Cakes, her employers and landlords, were a bit distraught with her for the flour bomb going off in the kitchen, as well as bringing a pair of aliens into their bakery without first warning them. They had left for the second floor to check on the twins an hour ago, and the pink mare could only assume they’d gone to sleep.

Pinkie wasn’t yet tired, but she knew it would be unwise to go bother them if she wanted to keep her penthouse at the top of the bakery and their generous stipend for property damage.

“You know what they say!”

“What?”

“Don’t let sleeping griffons fly, silly!”

“Ugh… Just go to the bar already…”

“Why would I do that?”

“You know exactly why, now move your flank!”

“Okie dokie lokie!”

After the two humans had left, Twilight did her best to apologize to the Princess for their disrespectful behavior. The monarch had simply waved her off and told her that it was quite all right: they were rather amusing after all. The Princess then went on to caution the six mares to keep an eye on the two creatures, confident the Elements of Harmony would be enough to keep them in line should they become unruly and dangerous. She doled out everyone’s respective element necklace and Twilight’s tiara then left without another word.

Twilight, of course, was confused by her mentor’s terse answers to her concerns… and the glazed look that stole over her once vibrant violet eyes. But, if the Princess was confident their powers could keep the humans in line, even after the stories they’d all heard about their weapons from Raymond, then Twilight would have to respect her judgment.

Pinkie looked down at her own necklace and giggled. She rarely wore jewelry of any kind, but the blue balloon-shaped gem suited her fine. It matched her eyes. Though, lots of things matched her eyes: the sky, robin’s eggs, forget-me-nots, Rainbow Dash… the sky.

Pinkie visibly twitched, bringing herself back to the task at hand. She hadn’t set foot in the Hail and Hayseed Bar since last cider season. She usually abstained from alcohol for glaringly obvious reasons: waking up in Applejack’s barn with half of her product soaking into the ground, strange symbols carved into the wooden beams, and very thirsty residents of Ponyville waiting outside not once, but twice, was enough for her to realize that moderation wasn’t simply a guideline anymore. Even she couldn’t fix the frown on Rainbow’s face after those two days.

That was of little consequence tonight, however, because she wasn’t planning on drinking… well… maybe. Pinkie crossed the square slowly for once, taking a moment to glance upward at Luna’s moon. A familiar cackling drifted out of the bar, causing her already bright smile to widen. At least one of the aliens was still conscious. The pink mare silently thanked Luna for letting it be the one she wanted to talk to.

“And why do you want to talk to him?” Pinkie stopped, cocking her head to the side and frowning.

“Cuz he’s fun! Duh!”

“Yeah… sure.” Pinkie’s frown deepened.

“What’s your problem today?”

“No problem… just go buck the giant monkey you met just yesterday and leave me why don’tcha?” The once bubbly earth pony turned her gaze away from the moon and crossed her eyes, attempting to give her forehead an icy glare.

“Now you’re just being a meanie! I’m not talking to you for the rest of the night!” she huffed, continuing her journey to the Hayseed. Nopony saw her, and, even if they did nopony would pay her actions any mind. Any behavior was supposedly "normal" behavior for her.

She looked up at the bar, a small structure, thatched, much like every other building in Ponyville. A wooden sign hanging from the doorpost depicted a rather caricatured pony holding a mug of cider, the words Hail and Hayseed written underneath in flowing script. Warm, amber light flowed from the building’s small windows. A piano played somberly inside and somepony was singing. The sorrowful tone and strange accent seemed antithetical to the perceived warmth that seemed to radiate from the bar.

There was something familiar about that voice… despite the strange inflection of the words…

“In blood and death ‘neath the screaming sky,

I lay down on the ground,

And the arms and legs of other men lay scattered all around…”

Men? Pinkie pushed open the solid wooden door that stood between her and the inside of the pub and peeked inside. Jer, the giggly human whom she’d taken to calling “Jerry,” was leaning against the only instrument within the establishment: an old yet miraculously well-kept grand piano which was having its ivories tickled by an old grey colt with a bubble-pipe cutie mark. A sad smile twitched at the corner of Jer’s mouth and he took a swig from a half-full mug of cider before continuing his song. The human looked like he was quite a ways down the road to drunkenness, but kept his composure rather well.

“Shum cursed, shum prayed. Shum prayed then cursed,

Then prayed and bled shummore.

An’ the only thing that I could see

Was a pair of brown eyesh that was lookin’ at me.

But when we got back, labeled parts wun to three,

There was no pair of brown eyes waiting for me.

An’ a rovin’ a rovin’ a rovin’ I’ll go!

For a pair of brow—”

The tipsy human hiccupped and stumbled backwards from the piano. Pinkie gasped and lunged through the door to help him, but his friend, Ray, (the human that reminded Pinkie of Big Mac, except maybe a little taller… and less red) beat her to it. He caught Jer under the arms and dragged the giggling human over to the bar, helping him sit on the pony-sized stool.

“I’m fine Ray,” Jer gurgled lazily, eyeing the bottles of cider stacked up behind the counter. “Fuckin’ dandy!”

The other patrons seemed unfazed by the two lumbering aliens. Some looked rather annoyed by them, but none were frightened. Most of them had probably been at the party and had seen how they’d acted there, accepting them as less of a threat than they had previously thought. Two ponies in particular seemed to be getting very friendly with the two humans: a forest green unicorn stallion who sat to Jer’s right and a light purple earth pony mare who had begun leaning back against Jer’s chest the moment he’d taken a seat at the counter. Ray just sat back and watched, nursing what looked to be his first mug of cider. A veritable mountain of glasses stacked the counter behind Jer.

Pinkie had no trouble identifying both ponies who sat with the two humans. The one currently talking to Jer was Cymbal Crash: the colt who played drums here on comedy night. The mare, who had gotten even more uncomfortably close to the drunken human, was Berry Punch: a regular at the Hayseed. Pinkie’s stomach clenched a bit when the purple mare wrapped her tail around his leg and leaned in a bit closer. Jer took notice and gave Berry a confused look before turning back to Cymbal.

“So yur a drummist?” Jer hiccupped, reaching for another glass of cider only to have his hand swatted away by his more sober friend. Jer gave him a pained look and completely missed Cymbal’s response. Pinkie didn’t care. She was too busy watching Berry, growing more dismayed by the second. The intoxicated mare leaned closer to Jer and began whispering in his ear. His eyes widened and his drunken grin left him for a moment to go use the little smile’s room. He sat, apparently processing what Berry had said for a few seconds, before braying with laughter and falling forwards onto the barroom floor. Berry, who had attached herself to his arm, fell with him.

Ray and Cymbal watched from above. Cymbal was laughing his flank off at the scene while Ray watched with a bored look on his face. Pinkie tried her best to keep calm as she watched from the door, but then Berry took advantage of Jer’s new position to climb on top of him.

“NO PARTIES FOR BERRY PUNCH! EVER!”

“A bit possessive of the monkey, aren’t we?”

“NO!”

“Yeah? Then why are you suddenly banning parties for whoever touches him?”

“That isn’t JUST touching!”

Pinkie argued furiously with herself as she weaved her way around ponies on her way to the bar. When she finally made it over, fully prepared to blast Berry Punch into next week with her party cannon, she found Jer snoring peacefully while a still tipsy Berry prodded him in the side.

“Hey! Shwake u-up! I washn’t finished wit my kwesshtion,” the purple mare slurred. Before Pinkie could do anything, Ray got down from his stool and hefted his unconscious friend onto his shoulder. He nodded to Cymbal and walked past the Pinkie towards the door. Cymbal began counting out bits and placing them on the counter. Apparently he’d agreed to pay the tab. Pinkie had always seen him as a rather generous stallion. Never once did he ask for payment whenever she asked him to perform at one of her parties. Unfortunately, Cymbal was not the pony that was commanding her full attention.

Berry got up and tried to stumble after the two bipeds, but Pinkie got in her way.

“What were you saying to him?!” Pinkie growled menacingly. Berry skidded to a halt in front of the enraged pink pony and blinked groggily.

“Who?”

“Jerry!”

“The shleepy alien? I ashked why he was wearing so much clothshh and why he didn’t jusht take ‘em off. He’s kin’a shexy fer a big, pink diamond-dog thing,” Berry replied wistfully. Pinkie had been wondering much the same thing about Jer and his friend. She’d assumed it was because they didn’t have any fur except for on top of their heads. The colored patches and shiny metal pins on Jer’s jacket were especially interesting. She was going to have to ask him what they were for someday. It was several seconds before Pinkie registered Berry’s last remark. She immediately felt her blood boil.

“Why do you care?” Pinkamena asked herself.

“I… I don’t know!”

“Listen to me! You. Don’t. Care. Just leave!”

“You’re right… you’re always right…” Pinkie calmed herself down and quickly left the bar. She almost slammed right into Ray as she darted out the doorway. Quickly dodging left, Pinkie barely avoided colliding with the back of the tall human’s upper thigh. He was stooped over, trying to gently shake Jer out of his alcoholic stupor. He had propped his companion against the outer wall of the building. Pinkie steeled herself and put on her favorite “greetings” smile. She hadn’t really gotten to know the quiet human very well, but she was confident he would love her. Everypony did.

“HIYA FUSSY!” she shouted. “Fussy” flinched and turned, staring at her with his one blue eye: the same shade of blue as her own. She couldn’t tell if he was looking at her with his other, “ghosty” eye. The faint, black pupil wasn’t visible in the dark outside the Hayseed. The startled-looking human raised a questioning eyebrow in her direction.

Not pausing to think of a response, Pinkie trotted past him and up to Jer and began poking his nose with her hoof. The unconscious human snorted and chuckled in his sleep, trying to swat her away. Drool dribbled from the corner of his mouth. Berry was right… he was cute while he was sleeping.

“Wait, wait, wait… where did that come from?”

“What?”

“Nevermind…”

Suddenly, Pinkie knew exactly how she would make friends with Fuss-Bucket! But she’d have to go get a few things first. She dashed back home as fast as she could.

Of all the creatures Ray had seen in his travels, the pink mare who had followed him out of the Hail and Hayseed was by far the strangest. She smiled even more than Gerald did, and not just with her mouth, but her whole body. Even the way she got around radiated joy. It was almost as if simply walking was too boring for her so she hopped everywhere she went. She reminded him of Gerald in some queer fashion. Jer was one of the few people or things that brought him genuine amusement. As he watched the excitable mare poke and prod his shit-faced comrade he began to think she’d take second place in that regard. He was just beginning to forgive her for using the nickname “Fussy” when she broke nature.

She stopped prodding Jer long enough to cock her head to the side, eyes upturned as if contemplating something. Then she was gone in a blur of pink color… only to return four seconds later with a pair of cymbals, and an air horn. Ray had no idea how she did it, and frankly he didn’t care. She woke up Jer, scaring the living hell out of him in the process, and that’s all that really mattered. He would re-evaluate Newton’s laws later.

Pinkie (he recalled her name from when she’d straddled him yesterday afternoon) offered to help support the still very intoxicated human. Ray accepted, and Jer ended up pseudo-riding the mare out of town while Schaffer kept him from falling off and took some of the weight. Pinkie looked like a strong one, but drunks are heavy loads. He didn’t want her to overexert herself.

Pinkie talked nonstop the whole way to the camp, seemingly unafraid of the foreboding wood that was Everfree. Jer nodded drunkenly to everything she said, giggling every once in awhile at any perceived jokes. Ray just let the babbling wash over him. He was surprised that Jer hadn’t fallen asleep again. Pinkie’s voice was almost as soothing as white noise. Sure it was a little high-pitched, but still…

The marksman couldn’t really blame Gerald for getting too drunk to support himself on his way home. He had gone drinking with him enough to know why he did it. A good buzz does wonders when your head’s an overstuffed suitcase.

“I-I’ve always wanned ta ride a horse,” Jer snickered, nearly falling to the left. Ray steadied him and Pinkie giggled.

“I’m a pony, silly!” Jer’s mount corrected.

“Same *hic* diff’rence.”

When they’d almost made it back to the clearing, Jer began to sing again, though much more discordantly than before.

“An’ a rovin’… I’ll go! Fer sum brown eeeeyeds…”

He always sang that song when he had too much to drink. Some things never change, even on new worlds.

They passed through the forest and into camp without dropping Gerald more than twice. Raymond lifted Jer off of his pink steed and helped him into the Duckling, placing him in the single pull out bed across from his workbench. It was much more comfortable than the cryo-tubes, and Ray had decided he was going to sleep outside anyway.

The taller human exited the downed ship and lit a small fire. It had grown cold and he wanted to keep warm. The crackling flames were more than a creature comfort for Raymond, however. Despite the electrical defense system, he had never felt safe without a fire. Nature’s night-light and all that jazz.

Ray sensed another presence in camp. He turned to find that Pinkie was still there, eyeing him… cautiously? He had yet to see anything other than a giddy smile on her face, but he had only known her for a day or so. When she saw he’d noticed her she finally spoke:

“CanIstayheretonight?” she bolted out, wincing and peeking at him with only one eye as if prepared for a verbal assault. The scene was so comical the human nearly burst out laughing. Instead, he nodded toward the open troop bay doors. Aaaaand the smile was back.

“Thanks Fussy!” Pinkie squealed, hugging him furiously. Ray felt like he was being given the Heimlich maneuver. He was surprised his eyeballs stayed firmly nestled within his head as the grateful mare squeezed the living daylights out of him. Thank God he wasn’t in a cartoon. “Nighty-night! Don’t let the parasprites bite!” Releasing him, she happily bounded through the hatch and out of sight.

Ray turned his gaze back up toward the night sky. He admired the clarity in which he could make out the unfamiliar stars. It was nothing like the Earth skyline: too much light pollution there. Jer had said something about one of the country’s rulers apparently being responsible for the night sky, but Ray was skeptical. Then again… he was on a planet surrounded by mythical creatures where apparently physics had less of an effect, if any at all. He sighed. Why did his life have to be interesting?

A sudden thought struck Raymond as he gazed upwards into the heavens: a thought that would cause him to lose quite a bit of sleep.

“What the fuck is a parasprite?”

The next two days melded together, becoming a blur of space-time for the two humans. The morning after his drunken escapade, Ray was forced to reassure a rather distraught and hung-over Jer that he, in fact, did not fornicate with Pinkie Pie, who had deigned it necessary to sleep as close to the grey-eyed human as possible that night. Once assured that Pinkie’s innocence was secure, they both had a good laugh and Jer spent the rest of the morning escorting her back to Ponyville. Ray noted that the mare seemed reluctant to leave, but he assumed it was merely because they were exiting from the relative safety of camp. Although… she hadn’t been all that concerned the night before.

When Gerald returned from town, they enjoyed a pair of complimentary muffins from Sugarcube Corner, which were given to Jer by the Cake’s for taking care of Pinkie the night before. They sure were close for being her landlords. Gerald told him that they’d given him three muffins, but after a run-in with a gray pegasus with depth-perception issues he inexplicably lost one. After breakfast, the two humans began repairs on their ship. Needless to say, there was much cursing involved.

Corporal Hanes spent two hours prying the steering column from the wall next to the cockpit door while the sergeant attempted to rewire the shredded front console. The electronic manual didn’t work because the dropship’s holorecorder had been damaged in the crash, so Raymond was forced to use the old, wrinkled wiring manual. He’d found it in the dune jeep’s glove compartment, of all places. After several more hours of work, one of the humans had an uncomfortable realization.

“Ray… the viewport’s shattered.”

“What’s your poin—oh… fuck…”

“They don’t make duraplex here, man, and I don’t trust regular glass.” Ray was silent for a moment.

“Do you think we could get one of those unicorn ponies to… enchant something?” he finally asked.

“I don’t trust that magic shit either, Ray. We’re talking vacuum here… blood boiling and organ shriveling shit…”

Neither human had an answer to their problem, so they settled for covering it with an emergency blanket to keep out the wind and rain, and resolved to tackle the issue some other time.

For the two days that they worked on their craft, both humans remained in their clearing, choosing to avoid going into town again: Ray, because he didn’t want to encourage Jer to leave and get drunk again, and Jer because he just hadn’t thought of it yet. Unfortunately on day one, sometime around noon, Ponyville came to them.

While Gerald was moving the two vehicles out of the dropship to inspect them for damage in the sunlight (the internal lights on the Duckling were still on the fritz) and Sgt. Schaffer was drudging his way through miles of colored wire, a bright, purple flash illuminated the camp.

Twilight was back, and, unfortunately, she wanted answers. Once again, she didn’t get them.

Raymond kept his upper body wedged within the console and didn’t give any inclination that he was even hearing the poor mare. He silently wished that the inhabitants of this planet had spoken a different language. The fact they spoke perfect English wasn’t a coincidence that was completely lost on him, but he decided that thinking about it was unnecessary, like so many other things about the perverse wonderland they’d landed in.

Jer spent his time ignoring Twilight’s increasingly frustrated questions and tinkering with the jeep’s drive shaft, which had come loose during the crash into oakasaurus and the subsequent landing after coming loose from the gigantic, grandfatherly tree that towered on the edge of the clearing. He had no intention of paying attention to her… that is until he noticed that she hadn’t come alone.

“He-Heey! It’s tanning lizard,” he chuckled as he pulled himself out from under the jeep. The large, tubby reptile whom he’d seen on the balcony of the town library gave a start and almost fell off Twilight’s back. He’d been gazing in wonder at the painting on the side of the human’s ship and looked at Jer with equal parts guilt and amazement.

“Y-You know who I am?” he asked hesitantly.

“Saw ya on my first trip through town,” the human replied, eyeing him in an almost predatory fashion. The green and purple lizard gulped and looked to Twilight for assistance. She was too happy that Jer was talking to care about her assistant’s plight.

“You’re the baby dragon that lives with Purple, here, right?” the grinning human questioned. The dragon swallowed again before answering.

“Y-Yeah… my name’s Spike…” he stuck out his claws to shake and closed his eyes, waiting for a response. Sweat began to bead and run down his green crest. He would never admit it, but Jer’s canines scared the manure out of him. He had fangs, himself, but he was more into jewels than red meat. He jumped nearly a foot in the air when he felt Jer’s hand give his own a good-natured slap.

“Good to meet another guy with opposable thumbs,” the human sniggered before turning and sliding himself back under the jeep. Spike and Twilight watched him in disbelief for a few seconds before the lavender unicorn let out an angry sigh. She knew better than to try and ask him anything once he’d gone back to work, so she deposited her reptilian assistant next to the prone human and went to go try again with Ray.

Spike watched Jer’s legs twitch as he worked for a few minutes before crawling under the vehicle himself.

“So… what is this thing?”

Jer told him.

Twilight and Spike left an hour later… to return the next day with Applejack. The orange cowpony had been able to get Ray talking at the party so the curious unicorn deduced that she would get the same result if she brought her friend along.

The purple mare wanted desperately to know what the calmer human had meant by the words “shoot” and “shot” two days ago. She was familiar with the use of magic to accelerate items in the form of projectiles, but they had never explained what exactly they used that was so deadly. A variation of Pinkie’s party cannon, maybe? She needed to know just what they were capable of. The two humans had yet to fatally harm or even hurt another pony since the incident in the marketplace, but that didn’t exactly put them at ease. Even Princess Celestia’s assurance that they would be perfectly fine as long as they had the Elements with them didn’t make her feel any better.

Unfortunately for her, Applejack had a hidden agenda.

Jer had stolen the dirt bike and Ray was unhappy. Not angry per se: just unhappy. Sure, the more unstable of the two humans had disappeared, leaving Raymond to continue the repairs alone, but he wasn’t angry. No… not at all. At least he knew that both vehicles worked now.

Ray was sitting cross-legged atop the left wing, paintbrush in hand, fixing the damage done to his once pristine pin-up when the clearing flashed purple again. Ray mentally sighed and continued painting, mentally preparing himself for another barrage of questions. What he got was, thankfully, very different.

“Howdy Raymond!” The distinctly southern twang of the Apple family’s head mare could not be mistaken. The cheery tone of voice, however, seemed forced, and Ray detected a desperate undertone. His eyes narrowed.

Sparky had set this up.

“Clever girl…”

Steeling himself, Ray spun around at a deliberate pace and gave Applejack his full attention. The orange mare was standing where the Duckling’s wingtip lay against the soft forest turf. Her smile was nervous and she kept glancing back at the purple unicorn behind her.

Sparky made excited “go ahead” gestures with her hoof, a scroll and quill held in front of her by a distinct lavender aura. Spike, the little dragon Jer had told him about the night before, was napping on the unicorn’s back in between a pair of tan saddlebags with Sparky’s tramp-stamp sewn into them.

Eventually, the apple farmer spoke up again, and it apparently wasn’t what Sparky wanted her to hear.

“Winona’s gone missin’.” *SMACK*

One lavender hoof contacted one lavender snout… hard.

Ray ignored the distressed unicorn and raised a questioning brow toward her blonde-maned friend.

“She’s my dog,” Applejack explained. “Well, the family’s dog. She ran off a few days ago, by mah brother’s estimate, an’ we haven’t seen hide nor hair a’ her since…”

“We didn’t eat her if that’s what you were going to ask.” Applejack flinched, and even Sparky stopped feeling sorry for herself long enough to look uncomfortable.

“A-Ah wa’n’t accusin’ nopony,” the farm mare placated, running a hoof up and down her foreleg awkwardly. “Its just… Winona’s been one a’ mah best friends since Ah was a filly, an’ Ah was hopin’… maybe… you had some sorta trackin’ thing-a-ma-jigger…”

Applejack’s face fell as Ray gently shook his head in negation. She looked down at her hooves and tried to hold back tears. Several made it past her defenses and flowed down her freckled cheeks, soaking into the soft ground below. The stoic human frowned: that was unacceptable.

Ray strode over to the distressed mare and lifted her chin with his finger. He wiped a lone tear from below one of her large, green eyes and gave her his best smile, which, unfortunately, was never really all that good.

“Why didn’t you tell me about this earlier!” Sparky piped, clearly irritated with her stubborn friend. “I’m sure we’ll find her.” Ray nodded in her direction and held up a finger in the universal “gimme a second” gesture. Though… universal gestures were no longer entirely universal when almost every sentient being around had hooves.

He jogged into the Duckling and rummaged around in one of Jer’s footlockers before finally hitting pay dirt: a gleaming, steel dog whistle. The two exterminators had discovered long ago that the high-pitched tone frustrated xeno drones to no end, and Jer carried one on every job. Ray looped the metal chain attached to the whistle around his neck, grabbed his sidearm from its place on Jer’s workbench and quickly rejoined the girls.

As they walked out of camp, Twilight finally noticed that only one of two bipeds were present.

“Where’s Gerald?” she asked nervously, checking the clearing for the gangly, smiling human. For once, Ray answered her:

“Out.”

Some say loneliness is like cancer. Scootaloo didn’t really know how that applied to her, however, since cancer, once discovered, was fairly simple to remove through magical intervention. But Scootaloo wasn’t a unicorn… and she wasn’t about to ask Sweetie Belle for help. Her friends were happy believing what they did, and Scootaloo wouldn’t want to burden anypony with her troubles: especially them.

But as she slowly made her way down the muddy orchard rows of Sweet Apple Acres, she silently cursed herself for her silence. Applebloom was off with her siblings, doing something or other (probably “family bonding” of some sort) and the lonely orange filly hadn’t seen her all day. Sweetie Belle had gone to Canterlot with her sister, Rarity, for the day. They still weren’t on the best of terms since the party and it was probably an attempt at reconciliation by the older mare. Whatever it was, it translated into some serious alone time for Scootaloo.

She had been tempted to go see Jer, but was unwilling to trek through the Everfree Forest again without an escort: even in daylight. And Rainbow Dash was probab—huh…

The orange pegasus stopped in her tracks, struck by the oddity of having thought to go visit the aliens before spying on her multi-colored hero even came to mind. It was probably nothing…

The sun beat mercilessly down on the orchard grounds, slowly drying the muddy soil and burning Scootaloo’s withers. She’d once had the chance to swipe some sun block, but decided against it, choosing instead to rely on her thin layer of orange fur for protection against the sun’s rays. Scootaloo silently cursed Celestia for making it so bright today, and herself, for not snatching the jar of ultra-violet protection when she’d had the chance. Sighing, the pegasus filly once more began trotting through the sea of apple trees, careful to avoid small puddles and the occasional crab-apple.

As she came upon the edge of the grove, the CMC clubhouse finally came into view. Large piles of tree branches, some still sporting lush, green leaves, were scattered around the clearing around the quaint, little tree-house. Some were small: teepees made from seven or eight twigs that were barely large enough for Applebloom’s dog, Winona, to fit under. Others towered above Scootaloo, piled like log cabins or shaped to look like weird bits of modern art. It had taken the Cutie Mark Crusaders nearly an entire day to finish these natural masterpieces, and, unfortunately, there had once again been nothing to show for it.

The week before the humans fell from the sky, Ponyville’s weather team put on a massive thunderstorm: the direct result being loads of broken branches littering the ground around their clubhouse. Once it was safe to go outside again, Cutie Mark Crusaders Landscape Architects was born. Scootaloo remembered that week well. She had weathered the storm at Carousel Boutique, Rarity’s dress shop, using the excuse that it was too dangerous to fly to Cloudsdale. Being friends with the younger sister of the Element of Generosity had its advantages.

As Scootaloo mounted the ramp leading into the tree house, she couldn’t help but notice that many of the branch-sculptures had fallen over… not that she really cared. Landscape Architecture wasn’t her special talent. She knew that now. It had been pretty windy lately, anyway. They probably just blew over.

The now further disheartened pegasus sighed mentally and entered the clubhouse, head hanging dejectedly. She prepared herself for another long day of staring out the window, watching the wind whip the canopy of the Everfree forest.

Ever since she’d broken her scooter while doing some idiotic stunt (she couldn’t even remember what she’d been attempting anymore) Scootaloo had taken to watching Equestria flow by from her window vantage point. The scooter had been her only link back to her old home, and now it was a twisted, shattered heap, hidden in a ditch near the edge of the forest. Her friends hadn’t even asked what happened to it. Her heart still broke a little every time she thought of the hunk of blue wood she’d rode into Ponyville on, no matter how many time’s she told herself she was over it.

Fortunately, before she could feel too sorry for herself, she realized she wasn’t alone. The repetitive flapping and snapping of the pull-down screen she and her friends often used for presentations snapped her out of her depressed nostalgia. She spun around, scanning the actually rather spacious interior of the CMC base of operations. The screen had snapped closed and the frantic flapping of the cloth handle against the wall behind it slowed to an ominous scraping sound. The tree house was empty, and if anypony had snuck in while Scootaloo was there, she definitely would have noticed… right?

“Boo.”

Scootaloo screeched and nearly fell out the window behind her, but even as she began backing away along the wall toward the door she knew who it was.

“JER! WHAT THE HAY!”

Maniacal laughter echoed throughout the clubhouse, and the air before her began to shimmer. Eventually, a form began to take shape in the center of the room. As the young pegasus had predicted, the shape turned out to be a highly amused human in a gray jumpsuit and helmet. She couldn’t see his face behind the dark-blue visor, but if his electronically amplified laughter was any indication of his demeanor, then she knew exactly what his expression was under all that metal.

“Celestia, I hope this doesn’t become a recurring thing with him,” Scootaloo thought, annoyed at the still chortling alien. Her hopes of his scaring spree ending after two rounds were dashed shortly, however.

“That was even better the second time!” Jer crowed, slowly calming himself down enough to sit up straight. He still had his helmet on so his voice continued to sound like somepony talking out of a PA system. “Who knows, maybe three really will be a charm, eh?”

Scootaloo let loose an exasperated sigh and trotted over to the sitting human, immediately forgiving him for his rather uncalled-for entrance. She was just happy to have somepony else to talk to.

“What are you doing here, Jer?” she asked happily, hoping to start some sort of conversation. She had been expecting a lonely day of silent introspection and possibly bird watching, along with other totally un-awesome things, and was glad for the distraction. Though she had last seen him only a day-and-a-half ago, looking at him attempt to stand up in the filly-sized clubhouse, Scootaloo realized that she had missed the scrawny biped.

“I was bored with fixing stuff so I decided to do some exploring,” the now hunched over human replied as he removed his helmet. *Pop-hisssss* “I happened to come by this little tree house and thought it would be a neat place to start.”

“Well you’re on Cutie Mark Crusaders private property, Mister!” Scootaloo mock reprimanded, pointing a tiny, orange hoof at him accusingly. Jer gave her a hurt look, but Scootaloo could see the smirk hiding in his grey eyes.

“But I thought I was in your little club,” he whined, giving a rather good impression of Applebloom’s puppy-dog eyes. The expression looked so strange on the twitchy alien’s face that Scootaloo almost laughed out loud. With great effort, she was able to sustain her stern expression as she pretended to scrutinize him closely.

“We-elllll,” she trailed, “We still didn’t ask Sweetie Belle, but I think she’d say you’re fine.” Scootaloo giggled at the human’s relieved expression. He really was a talented actor… for the most part.

The two Crusaders lapsed into companionable silence and looked out the clubhouse’s small window together, the human bobbing his head ever so slightly. The sun was a little lower in the sky, but lacked none of its earlier intensity. Scootaloo’s expression screwed into that of annoyance. Sunscreen. Swiping immediately. Burns for a pony were unnoticeable to the naked eye because of their light topcoat of fur, but they still hurt. She glanced over at the human next to her, especially taking notice of the bare skin of his neck and face. The rest of his body was covered by the rough, grey jumpsuit: even his hands, but his head was exposed just above a metal collar attached to the suit’s thickly woven fibers.

The orange pegasus couldn’t even imagine how a sunburn would hurt, or even look like, on the human’s bare skin. Was that why they wore clothes all the time? Did they have sun-block? Scootaloo doubted it. If they did then they wouldn’t cover themselves up so much, right? She promised herself that once she got a hold of some she would share with the silly creatures.

Deep in thought about clothes and the sun’s harsh rays, Scootaloo didn’t notice Jer staring at her until he cleared his throat.

“Ahem…”

“What?” she asked defensively.

“Where’re your friends?”

“Oh…” Scootaloo trailed off, torn between fabricating something or telling him where her friends were. As she debated, she realized how silly it was to lie about it. It was perfectly normal for her to be out here alone, considering the circumstances. They were just off with their sisters. No biggie.

“Applebloom’s probably helping on the farm, and Sweetie Belle went to Canterlot with her sister for the day.”

“The castle-thingy over there?” Jer inquired, pointing out the window to the west of the Everfree forest. In the distance, sure enough, was Canterlot Castle: a huge purple sphere surrounding the Equestrian capitol city. Funny, she hadn’t noticed the sphere there before…

Jer was giving her an odd look, so she tried to stammer out an answer without looking too surprised by the new scenery.

“Erm… y-yes?”

“What the hay is that?”

Jer stared out at the distant castle for a moment, seemingly ignoring her botched response. Finally he turned back to her, focusing his deep grey eyes upon her own, slightly larger, purple ones.

“Why are you here?” he asked, tone soft and… sad?

“W-Well Fluttershy told us that when a mare and a stallion love each other very much—”

“No. I mean why are you here? In this clubhouse? Alone?” he specified.

No pony word could describe Scootaloo’s distress at the lanky human’s seemingly concerned inquiry. So she used one she’d heard often in the company of two non-ponies:

“Shit.”

Pain: mindless, endless, without remorse. That, along with a strange swimming sensation in the space between her eyes, greeted Winona as she suddenly came-to: deep below Everfree Forest.

She lay on her side on the cave floor, unable to feel her legs. Slowly, sight began to return to her throbbing eyes and the darkness that had previously been invading her senses retreated to the edges of her vision like water pouring down the top of a grassy hill. But did her eyes really hurt? Or was it just her whole head? Winona didn’t care. All she wanted was something to soothe her raw, parched throat.

Dim light flowed into the cavern from the moderately-sized hole above. When was it? Had the Golden Ball passed mid-sky?

Wait… where was she?

With great effort, the immobile canine glanced around the cavern. Dark, ovular shapes clung to the walls, floor, and ceiling, but the most interesting sight lay obscured by the edge of her snout, half in and half out of the sunbeam streaming into the cave from the forest above. It was yellow… and spindly…

Winona whimpered as a wave of fresh pain seared her throat. Pushing the fiery soreness towards the back of whatever rational mind she possessed, the confused herding dog tried to make herself move by force of will. After nearly a minute of intense effort, Winona tilted her snout to get a better look at the partly illuminated yellow… spider?

Suddenly, memories began gushing forth, feeling like punches to the head in their intensity and speed of recollection.

The squirrel. The chase. The living pustule. The spider. Choking on… on…

Winona was scared out of her mind. Adrenaline rushed into her bloodstream, preparing her body to either run, or fight. Escape was no option: the spider was too close and she still couldn’t move her legs in any more than a simple twitch. There was only one thing she could do in this situation:

“BARK! RUFF! SNARL! BARK! YIP! BARK!”

The brown and white dog’s throat felt like it was being ripped apart, and dizziness overtook her… but only for a moment. She continued her menacing tirade well after she realized the spider was no longer able to come for her, too caught up in the repetitive, instinctual act of intimidation she rarely took part in: barking the shit out of the world around her.

Finally, she was broken out of her crazed vocalizations by an annoyed squalling to her left. Twisting as much as she could, Winona caught a glimpse of a long, serpentine creature stomping in her direction, an angry, puffy-eyed glare directed right at her. She recognized the look quite well, if not the strange, mismatched creature wearing it. Old Pony often gave it to her when she accidentally woke her up from her afternoon sleep. The creature itself looked like something out of one of Bow Pony’s drawings: a strange amalgam of colors, shapes, and species.

Well… she’d come this far… she might as well keep it up. Angry barking echoed through the cavern once more, louder this time. The creature’s eyes narrowed maliciously, and it began rubbing its long, goat-like snout in annoyance. It was standing right above her, partially blocking out the light coming from the cave entrance. It smelled masculine: testosterone assailed her nose in endless, livid waves.

After standing above her for several minutes, obviously pondering her fate, the patchwork beast looked down on her, a malevolent glint in his eyes and an unnerving smile on his lips. He raised his yellow, scaly left arm and held it up. Light streamed around the poultry-esque arm, causing a shadow to form on the cave floor in front of her.

The creature stared.

Winona barked louder.

His arm rose higher, as if preparing to slash downward, spilling Winona’s innards. The surprised dog winced, expecting painful evisceration. Then something completely unexpected happened.

The creature snapped his claws.

8: Lost Dog II - The Most Amazing Dog on the Planet

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Chapter 8

Sound waves of the nearly inaudible sort reverberated throughout the Everfree Forest, disturbing many a slumber, but, unfortunately, not yet having the desired affect.

Raymond Schaffer removed the small, steel whistle from his mouth and scanned the dark thicket ahead of him. The forest was eerily quiet. Not the “wilderness” sort of quiet where there was the occasional birdcall or chirp of some small bug, but the kind of quiet you get used to when you visit a morgue: not a sound. There was only the wind that rocked the canopy and Ray’s whistle.

Somepony shifted behind him. Ray glanced over his shoulder at the huge red stallion who had accompanied him down the southern half of the forest’s edge: Applejack’s brother. The quiet colt came up to Ray’s shoulder, but could probably stare Gerald right in the face at his height. Raymond had been surprised at first when he’d met the behemoth of a quadruped: he looked almost like a regular draft horse due to his size, large enough to ride off into the sunset… not that he’d do that, of course.

Despite his size, the scarred human knew he would like the stallion moments after he’d met him. It seemed he too knew the value of silence. He hadn’t gotten much more than two words out of the aptly-named Big Macintosh since their meeting and subsequent partnership in the search for the Apple Family dog. Luckily, Applebloom talked for the both of them.

“Why do ya keep stoppin’ and puttin’ that thing in yer mouth?” the little yellow filly questioned, a little put off by both of her companions’ silence at a time like this. “We need ta keep movin’ if we’re gonna find Winona!”

Ray simply grunted and tried the whistle again. He questioned Applejack’s reasoning behind pairing him with the filly. Macintosh he could understand: they had several common traits and Raymond found himself genuinely enjoying his company. Applebloom, however…

“I think she just sees me as a bed…”

They had been searching for well over an hour. Applejack and her friends (those other locals he’d met at the party including Sparky and Pinkie Pie) were searching the northern edge of the forest past Sweet Apple Acres, while Raymond, Mac, and Applebloom scoured to the south, closer to Ponyville. Still no sign of the Apple mutt. Ray hated to admit it, but if the Forest was half as dangerous as these ponies made it out to be then he doubted they would see the canine alive, if at all. An uncomfortable grimace crossed his usually neutral features whenever he caught sight of the little Apple filly’s desperately hopeful expression.

If they found it dead he had no idea what he’d do. Gerald told him he was good with civvies, but children? It didn’t help that the inhabitants of this damn planet were thrice as cute as anything he’d ever seen. Oh God, if the filly cried…

Ray dispelled all thoughts of that very likely tragedy from his mind and kept walking, stopping intermittently to blow the whistle. Applebloom called for her dog constantly from her perch atop her big brother’s huge wooden yoke, and every once in a while Mac would do the same. His deep, booming voice pounded through the trees, reverberating and echoing back into the small group. Ray had been under the impression that forests didn’t produce an echo, but hey: he had also believed in the basic laws of nature before he’d met Pinkie Pie, so… yeah.

The quiet human now thought he understood why the equally quiet work-horse rarely said more than two words to anyone: he could feel that yell in his chest! Ray repressed an involuntary shudder at the thought of being chewed out by the red colt. He would take a dozen pissy staff sergeants on rather than face Mac in a shouting match.

The search went on like this for an unknown interval of time: Apples, young and old, shouting, while Ray occasionally stopped to blow his whistle. They were getting uncomfortably close to the town, much to the dismay of the scarred soldier, and the sun was closing on the horizon. Despite everything Jer told him about himself and civilians, Raymond was still uncomfortable around anyone without a uniform. Even though he was technically no longer affiliated with the Armada, or any branch of Weyland-Yutani’s private military for that matter, he still considered himself a soldier of the Company, and as such, apart from civilian life.

Even though Weyland’s “Exterminators” were mainly comprised of former members of the military, they were labeled as a privatized civilian outfit: therefore paid through a separate pool of Company shares meant for loan to “entrepreneurs of the future” as Director Yutani reportedly called them. Knowing this, citizens of even the most backwater colonies treated them as if they were Internal Affairs Officers, door-to-door salesman, or some other bullshit like that. They didn’t hold onto that image for long, however. Not many door-to-door salesmen tote nukes.

Now, Ray hated having to deal with them, but Jer was right: on the off chance that he did speak, civvies listened to him. Maybe it was the eye. The deep scarring sort of drew attention to his face. The former sergeant didn’t care. Whatever it was, it worked.

As the sun descended below the tree line, Ray couldn’t help but think about what a waste of time this was for him. He missed Earth dearly, but getting off this obscenely colorful planet wasn’t really urgent business in itself for the tall human. Earth wasn’t going anywhere, and this place was pleasant enough, despite certain disturbing qualities. Even so, he didn’t feel right being there. He wasn’t accustomed to so much... decency? These creatures threw them, two possibly dangerous aliens, a fucking party for Christ’s-sake! If they had been on leave on Cyra, or even Earth, someone would’ve tried to break into their ship at dry-dock, or mug the two humans on their way to one of those loud clubs Jer liked. Maybe this decency was a result of Ponyville being a small rural township with only a single bar (and zero brothels from the looks of it), but Ray didn’t care. He didn’t want to give himself enough time to see any more of the fair planet at the risk of accidentally tainting its innocence. If their reaction to the failed robbery only a few days ago was any clear sign of these ponies resistance to malice, then the scarred human was certain that keeping himself and his eternally trigger-happy companion planetside too long was a horrible idea.

“And you let him leave. Nice going, Sergeant. Shouldn’t you be panicking right now?” Raymond’s conscience hissed. Suddenly feeling rather distressed by his friend’s absence, the scarred soldier almost didn’t hear it: the sound for which the three-member search party had been hoping (or in Ray’s case, dreading) for several hours.

Somewhere further inside the darkening forest, a dog was barking.

Everything froze. Ray looked to his two pony compatriots and immediately all thoughts of Gerald’s whereabouts left his mind.

The filly was going to make a break for the forest. Ray could see it in her eyes. She was going to bolt, and he was too far away to stop her.

Shit.

“WINONA!” Applebloom screeched, likely distressed at the hoarseness of the barking creature. The little country filly dove from Mac’s yoke, narrowly avoiding his grabbing hooves, and darted straight into Everfree Forest.

Trying his best not to think too hard about it, Raymond sprinted in after her. Mac called ineffectually from behind and attempted to give chase as well, but his exceptionally broad build slowed him down to the point where he had no hope of catching them. As Ray pursued the yellow filly ever deeper, even the red stallion’s most earth shattering yells of “COME BACK!” and “AY-BEE SO HELP ME I’LL WHUP YER FLANK!” began to fade. Still, the little Apple filly galloped toward the ever-growing sounds of a canine in distress.

“WINONA! Oh, Celestia, please be okay! Please!”

“Motherfucking dog! Are you running away from us?! Because that’s the only reason I can think of that explains us not being able to hear Mac as we go deeper!” Ray ducked under a low overhanging branch and wove his way around several closely packed willow and spruce trees, trying to keep up with Applebloom. The damn kid had quite the advantage over Raymond at the moment: her size. While she could simply breeze under and around the thickets and berry bushes that hugged the ground wherever it wasn’t occupied by a tree, Ray was forced to vault over them, or try to trample through the dense foliage. “Crazy girl! Fucking slow down and think for a sec—Oomph!”

The exterminator’s right boot became entangled in the thin, springy branches of a choke-cherry tree, twisting his ankle and wrenching him downward halfway through his short flight over said tree: making it all the shorter. As his upper body began its descent to the forest floor, Ray instinctively threw his arms out in front of him to try and cushion the blow.

*CRAC-CK*

“SON OF A—AAUGH!” Ray bleated in anguish, clutching his re-fractured left arm and holding back tears of agony. Through the haze of pain that threatened to take his consciousness away from him, Ray was aware of frantic cries and the incessant barking of the damn dog that had gotten him into this mess.

He chanced a look at his damaged arm, remembering at the last second that looking at an injury made it hurt even more.

Oh, the regrets.

Splintered bone poked out of a small tear in his service jacket: stark white clashing with the dark leather of his unadorned clothing. In the three seconds it took for the agonizing human to take in the damage, blood began to seep through, marring the pristine white bone with bright rivulets of maroon fluid. Profanities born of pain and a sudden onrush of light-headedness danced through Ray’s consciousness like roiling flame. One thought stood out above all the others, however:

“I fucking hate dogs!”

Did he hit his head? Each urgent bark seared his senses, causing a deep, throbbing pressure in the back of the human’s skull, like a blood pressure cuff to the spinal cord. The sounds of a canine in distress were fading, and Applebloom was fading along with them. Thoughts of losing the country filly in such a compromising environment immediately snapped the injured human out of his pained stupor. He swung himself forward onto the balls of his feet and stumbled forward, ignoring the jolting pain in his arm and throbbing ache in his ankle. Turning in the direction of his prey, the hunter half ran, half stumbled his way after them, each step threatening him with collapse.

As he came nearer to the source of the frenetic noise, Ray checked his hip to make sure he still had his sidearm.

“This had better be the most amazing dog on the planet, or I’m going to shoot it and make it into a hat.”

The few moments that Winona couldn’t breathe were by far the longest in her life. Unlike the breathlessness she felt when the giant yellow spider was violating her face, this suffocation felt complete. It was as if her lungs, as if her entire body, were wiped from existence: torn apart effortlessly into millions of tiny pieces and flung across a huge distance. When the Goat-pony snapped its claws, for an instant, Winona saw everything. The vastness of the universe. The futility of life. Past, present, and future colliding at speeds greater than light itself. She was everywhere and nowhere at the same time. All was seen, and all was comprehended. Winona, for the first time in her privileged existence, wished for death. Anything to make the visions stop.

Oh, Great Lights, the pain! Winona couldn’t remember when she’d last felt this way. The closest she came was the birthing of her last litter. Last. That word, no, that feeling had new meaning for her now. She knew she would never create life naturally again, somehow. The understanding forced its way into her through the pain and darkness, just as the visions of all that was, is, and could be did the same. Something was going to happen to her. Something grand…

The vision was marred with pain, but she knew it was a grand thing she would do. She had to live! Get away from this place! Away from the Goat-pony and his giant baddog spiders!

All of this happened within the span of seconds, but for Winona the pain and suffocation lasted a thousand years. She came to be once more exactly as she left: without warning. Her everything snapped together with a loud pop, atoms rearranging to form tissue, blood, and bone instantaneously. The frightened dog would have gone into shock if not for her resolve to live and the meddling of some outside force.

Winona came into being once more five feet above the turf of the Everfree Forest. The weight of her own body came crashing back to her, and, never having traversed between levels of gravitational pull, she was wholly unprepared. Her stomach tied itself in knots and her intestines jostled within her. She spent a full seven seconds preparing to hit the ground before she realized the full weight of her predicament: she was floating… like no canine ever should.

The airborne animal’s stomach settled just long enough for her to vomit. Very little came out besides bile, but the action itself was therapeutic, and her nausea passed quickly afterward.

As her body began to calm, despite the fact that she was hovering, Winona felt an extra weight settle in her chest. It was a heavy, ominous feeling, but Winona had little time to dwell on it before more pressing matters pushed her to change focus.

Winona was flying. She had no control over her flight path, but that did little to change the fact that she was now weaving among the leafy trees of Everfree with the ease and grace of a rather well practiced feather-pony. The distressed canine struggled to move, straining against her inert muscles and whatever strange force that was holding her aloft.

Eventually, having floated aimlessly for several minutes, Winona gave up. Panting from her exertion, she decided to revert to her tried and true fallback plan. It had yet to actually fail her in practice, so Winona decided to go for broke.

“BARK! BARK! YIP! SNARL! BARK! BARK! SNARL…”

“Man’s best friend my ass,” Raymond sneered to himself as he tried desperately to close the distance between himself and the increasingly audible dog and pony show ahead of him.

The pain in his arm had lessened to a dull ache as endorphins flooded his system, inundating his pain receptors and cutting off communication of grief to his brain. Unfortunately, due to its extended use while chasing Applebloom, Ray received no such reprieve from his ankle. Every step ground into him like a pestle on unsuspecting kernels of corn. It was all Raymond could do not to cry out with every step.

Schaffer had no idea how deep inside Everfree they’d ran, but he could’ve sworn the sun was still above the horizon only a few moments ago. A premature twilight had fallen around him, and the underbrush was getting thicker. Ray was forced to rely on the scarce sunbeams filtering through the canopy and that insufferable barking for direction. Due to his many years of experience as a soldier for the Company, the stumbling human was able to split his concentration effortlessly between pursuit of his two charges and thinking up creative ways to kill Applejack’s beloved dog.

“I’ll drown it in energy waste from the jeep. Then I’ll skin it for a rug to put in the cockpit of the Duckling… yeah… that’ll work.” Ray tripped on a downed tree branch, cracking his broken arm against a gnarled oak. An angry hiss escaped his lips. “No. Not painful enough.”

Raymond was halfway through a rather colorful scheme involving Jer’s stash of caustic chemicals, several wooden stakes, and a canister of plasti-seal he had been using to patch up the front console of the ship when he noticed that the barking had stopped. The momentary relief at being rid of the irritating din was quickly pushed aside by a surge of gut-wrenching fear: he couldn’t hear Applebloom either.

He was again struck by the absolute silence of the forest around him. He wanted to throw up. He’d lost them… in this hostile place. Ray began to pray for a sound, barking, anything! He was startled by a shuddering sigh, but quickly realized it had been him letting out a breath. He was unaware he’d been holding it.

The scarred human checked his hip, but found no relief in the WY-3.4 Standard-Issue .45 Sidearm nestled there.

“This isn’t a weapon. I might as well throw rocks at whatever mythical monster comes crashing through these trees for me. Why didn’t I bring my fucking pulse rifle?” Ray wiped nervous sweat from his brow and broke into a quick, loping jog, hoping against hope that the two Apples were still among the living. He didn’t have to go far before he had his answer.

Winona’s inevitable re-acquaintance with the ground came suddenly, and the loudly protesting canine had no time to react as her body, once again subject to the law of gravity, fell six feet to the forest floor. Her furious barking was cut off with a surprised yelp.

Something jostled painfully in her chest and her head pounded sickeningly, but other than the continued paralysis of her legs, Winona was relatively unharmed by the fall.

The downed canine checked her surroundings, having been too distracted by her own frenzied yapping to get a good look around.

She was in a small clearing, though very little light shone inside. The trees surrounding the clearing leaned oppressively inward, as if preparing to rain punishment upon her (baddog!). Their lush, yet strangely threatening branches overlapped above the clearing, serving as an effective barrier against the Golden Ball.

Using whatever dim light that managed to pierce her leafy umbrella, Winona was able to make out several large mounds of clay and what looked to be dead twigs clustered near the center of the clearing, just a few feet to her left. Several white feathers lay shed upon the loamy earth near the mounds, some drifting lazily in response to Winona’s haggard panting. One drifted by so closely that it brushed off her snout.

Fresh chills swept down Winona’s body. She didn’t smell anything on the feather. That wasn’t right. Not right at all.

A prickly, tickling feeling settled into her legs, and when Winona tried to shift them, and was rewarded with a stuttering twitch in her haunches and lower legs. Unfortunately, there was no time to celebrate her victory, small though it was.

“WINONA!”

Bow Pony. The frightened canine had heard her following and had tried to warn her away, but she kept coming. The little pony was disregarding her barking as a cry for help, maybe? Winona didn’t know, and she didn’t care: all she wanted was for Bow Pony to be as far away from the clearing as possible. Her maternal instincts kicked in, and she tried desperately to get her legs to move more than an inch. She needed to get up. Now.

Those feathers…

They nagged at Winona even as Bow Pony came crashing into the dim clearing, shouting her sweet little head off.

No smell. What did that mean? She knew it was important. The only things she wasn’t able to smell were those see-through things on the side of the farmhouse and that dark fire-lizard that followed Talky Pony aroun—wait. Lizard.

She couldn’t smell Crazy Pony’s water-lizard either. Feathers. Somewhere deep within Winona’s conscious, something clicked.

A yellow, red-maned filly wearing a large, pink bow suddenly dominated Winona’s vision.

“Winona! Thank Luna yer okay!” the bleary-eyed filly cried, trying to gather Winona up in her hooves. Winona growled at her and snapped, trying desperately to get her to leave: to warn her off somehow. Bow Pony backed off slightly, clearly frightened and a little indignant at Winona’s actions.

“What’s gotten inta you!” She yelled, tears replaced by a fierce glare. “Why’d ya run like that! Ah’m tryin’ ta help y—” A loud, angry hiss cut her off.

Ray stumbled into the clearing, eyes immediately locking onto Applebloom and a brown-and-white dog that was growling menacingly. The usually quiet human felt anger swell within him, and, concern for their safety completely forgotten, prepared to tear into the stupid filly. Maybe he would get to use that plexi-seal on the mutt after all.

“Applebloom, you scared the living hell out of me! Get away from that dog so I… I can…” Raymond had limped his way around to face the little filly, who stood stock-still, wide eyes fixed on some distant point in space. He was trying to put himself between her and the snarling dog when he fully noticed the filly’s total lack of response. She just stood there, staring at nothing. The kid didn’t even seem to be breathing.

Ray’s impromptu rant died in his throat. Applebloom wasn’t yellow anymore. Her dark red mane lay frozen against her neck, now the color of Jer’s eyes. In fact, her whole body had turned a dark shade of gray. Not even her oversized, formerly pink bow was spared.

“What. The. Fuck,” Ray murmured. He knelt down and reached forward slowly, hoping to evoke a response. Applebloom didn’t even blink. Spurred onward by his growing fear, Ray poked her in the nose, nearly jamming his finger in the process. Her once furry snout was as unyielding as a steel wall.

Sergeant Raymond Schaffer, a seven-year veteran of the War of Extinction and survivor of the Earth Hive, barely suppressed the urge to scream like a little girl.

Applebloom was a paperweight.

Either that, or she was kidnapped by a very meticulous sculptor and this was his calling card: a perfect replica of the victim. To a man who had a hard time grasping the concept of magic, both scenarios were equally likely, though the former was much more distressing. A kidnapper he could deal with. Crazy Medusa shit? Nu-uh.

The dog quit barking; instead letting slip a long, low whine. Raymond was descending into a mild hysteria when the hissing started.

It was a brisk, ominous sound: ululating in pitch, yet strangely calming like waves lapping upon a beachhead. Fatigue washed over the former soldier. He wanted to sleep. Needed to sleep… but he couldn’t: not until he’d turned around and found the source of that godly sound.

A brief nagging feeling stopped the now relaxed human from standing. This was wrong. He needed to get Applebloom and himself out of there now. That instant, in fact, or something horrible was going to happen. The feeling needled him from the back of his mind, but soon vanished under a tide of euphoric sleepiness.

Ray stood up straight and began to turn, not really paying attention to the action itself, but the way the foliage blurred and spun around him. The sharp pain in his arm dissipated into a dull throb, and his ankle felt like a million bucks. Everything was going to be all right: he was sure of it. Never mind the dog, or the filly. They would be fine, just like he was. Fine. Wonderful.

The illusion of peace left as quickly as it came.

Ray found himself drowning in the blood red eyes of a giant chicken… attached to a dragon. If he hadn’t been so enthralled by the creature’s eyes, the exterminator would have done a double take.

The reptilian poultry flapped a pair of leathery, green wings, tipped with ruby-red claws, and croaked. It stood nearly as tall as Raymond, and as it flapped, several white feathers detached from its downy chicken head. It even had the red crest of a barnyard hen. All this was perceived out of the corner of Ray’s good eye, which was still fixed to one of the pupil-less red orbs of the croaking beast.

A stinging sensation spread downward across the surface of the human’s wide blue eye, much like the feeling of sweat flowing into them during a particularly taxing activity. Dull pressure began to mount behind the same eye, mounting into a throbbing headache that threatened to split his consciousness in two. His right eye saw nothing but the usual blur of color, spared the pain of looking into the fiery eyes of the poultry hybrid. That small relief felt inconsequential to Ray, however, as his feet began to freeze solid.

Or, at least, he thought that was what was happening.

He almost didn’t notice it at first: those terrifying eyes kept him rooted in place, as if time had frozen and all that mattered was gazing deeper into his own damnation. Ray couldn’t move, not even an inch. Every muscle in his body was tensed to the point of near exhaution. He was dimly aware of trying to reach for his gun, but couldn’t recall if he’d succeeded in that endeavor. All of Ray’s senses seemed to fade away until he felt nothing, heard nothing, smelt nothing, saw nothing… nothing but the eyes. Then the soles of his feet were unbearably cold.

The pain was instantaneous and beyond intense. If he could describe the feeling, Ray would have said that it resembled having the atoms in his feet torn away and immersed in liquid nitrogen, one at a time, from the soles of his feet up to his ankles, slowly creeping onward and upward.

As the biting cold spread to his lower calves, Ray tried to scream. Failing that, bitter helplessness settled deep in his heart.

“I’m finished. I’ll never see Earth again. No more walking under the electric glow of Budapest. No more searching for parking, and losing my goddamn car in twenty stories of cement and transparisteel. No more haggling with clerks. No more Eastern food. I haven’t had nearly as much sex as I would’ve liked…” The freezing sensation crept halfway up his shins. “I survive this long just to be killed by a fucking chicken. Great.”

Ray’s self-pity soon dried up, and his increasingly muddled thoughts took on a more somber note:

“Goodbye Jer. I’m sorry I left you on this fucked-up planet. Goodbye Duckling… Wrath. You served me well. Goodbye Applebloom. Sorry I couldn’t save you, or your damn dog. Applejack. Macintosh. I failed you. Goodbye.” The beast hissed, glare intensifying. Ray glared right back, his face becoming a mask of embittered resolve.

“Mom and Dad. Gloria. I’m coming.”

The painful cold had almost reached his kneecaps, and the tired soldier had finished his last, never to be heard, goodbyes. He stared straight into the chicken creature’s eyes, face twisted in grim defiance to the very end. Ray knew he was done, but he wouldn’t give the beast the satisfaction of knowing that it had broken him. He must’ve made a rather imposing site, because, in that moment, the clucking dragon’s stare diminished and an expression of unease flitted across its downy features, but only for a fraction of a second. Ray would’ve smirked if he weren’t so goddamn terrified.

Then, the unthinkable happened: a petite ball of snarling brown and white fur barreled straight into the monster’s groin.

The beast let loose a startled warble and immediately broke eye contact with the feigningly defiant human, turning its attention to a more poignant threat: the little whelp attempting to tear off its testicles.

As soon as those blazing ruby eyes broke contact with his functioning blue one, Ray felt as if the force of gravity had suddenly doubled. He felt unbearably heavy, like having buckets of water hanging from his clothing, sloshing and shifting as he moved. His broken arm screamed in pain, no longer diminished by whatever restraining power resided within the monster’s gaze. Pain associated with the beast’s stare itself, however, vanished. The thudding pressure in his skull had dissipated, and his lower legs no longer stung from bitter cold. Now they were just numb from the knees down.

Almost toppling sideways from the feeling of extra weight, Ray scrabbled for his gun, trying desperately to detach it from the holster at his right hip. He felt a rush of air and was dimly aware of a yelping fur ball breezing past his left ear. Something crashed and skidded behind him.

The dazed human finally managed to rip the handgun from his hip, and looked up just far enough to see the lower half of the creature’s body, hoping to God that he wouldn’t meet its eyes again and that he would be able to get off at least one shot before it barreled into him.

One of his prayers was answered.

Ray looked up into a sea of jagged, green scales. They glinted lustrously despite the darkness of the clearing, and the ex-soldier could make out the finest details of every iridescent keratin plate.

Time seemed to slow down. Raymond’s arm swung lazily through the tight space between the two beings, as if the air was laced with molasses. Before he could bring his sidearm to bear, he found himself on the ground, his last breathe pushed violently from his lungs. Afraid of being trapped by the monster’s intense glower, Ray screwed his left eye shut and relied entirely on his gravely cataract right.

The sprawled man aimed at the shifting blur of green and white towering above him. He was suddenly struck by the notion that he’d forgotten to switch the safety on the well-worn weapon to “off,” nearly forgoing pulling the trigger to check. The blur hissed and descended towards him.

“Fuck it.”

*CRACK*

…

*CRACK-CRACK-CRACK-CRACK-CRACK…*

Ray emptied an entire clip of explosive rounds in the beast’s general direction, aiming on instinct, hoping the monster’s proximity would diminish any chances of missing his target. A warbling screech pierced the clearing, nearly deafening the still firing human, until it was abruptly silenced with one final crack of Ray’s pistol.

The blur slumped to the forest floor… right on top of the downed soldier, gun now empty.

Raymond’s broken arm ground into the turf under the added weight, causing the protruding bone to leave a shallow furrow in the loamy soil and bringing on fresh waves of pain. Ray clenched his teeth in agony, biting his tongue in the process. He tasted blood (hopefully his own) and spat, trying to get the raw, metallic taste out of his mouth.

Ray opened his good eye.

There was no hope of escaping the smell: spent gunpowder and spilt blood. Ray could feel the thick, crimson liquid of life seeping into his fatigues. He was slippery with the substance. Slick. Jer would have been reveling in this…

Grimacing in disgust, Sergeant Schaffer heaved the dead chicken creature off of himself and sat up. He stayed there, gasping for breath, and admired his handiwork.

Ray had no idea how many of his shots met their intended target and how many just whizzed past the strange hybrid, embedding themselves in the surrounding greenery. However many actually met their mark didn’t matter to Ray in the slightest. All that mattered was that the damn thing was dead.

The beast was lying on its back; leathery wings splayed outward after having settled there when Ray rolled it off of himself. Oozing blood soaked into the soil from several tennis-ball sized holes in the creature’s scaly abdomen, propelled by gravity acting on the already stiffening body rather than a beating heart. The shaken soldier noticed two holes in its left wing… and one rather large hole where the upper half of the monster’s feathery cranium should’ve been. There was nothing more to fear from the beast’s deadly gaze: both of its ruby eyes had been vaporized by an explosive-tipped round. Raymond took note of the ragged, torn scales between the creature’s legs, and felt a twinge in his own set of family jewels.

“The dog…”

A few crimson-stained feathers floated lazily in the still air.

Ray twisted at the waist, looking behind him, past the Applebloom statue, for the canine that had saved his life. The straining warrior caught site of a small mound of bloody, nappy fur curled at the base of a gnarled oak. He couldn’t tell if it was breathing.

Abruptly, an angry, yet disturbingly familiar screech sounded to Ray’s right.

Raymond started at the sound and staggered to his still numbed feet, wobbling at a sudden, painful shifting weight in his knees. Something was wrong with them.

Another furious cry reverberated across his eardrums. No time.

The grim human tossed his weapon to the side. It was of no use to him now. He glanced around the clearing for anything he could use as a makeshift weapon. Immediately, the sturdy hillock of mud and branches in the clearing’s center caught his eye: a nest.

Lumbering footsteps crashed through the underbrush. Momma’s home.

Ray stumbled clumsily toward the nest, surprised at how difficult it had become to lift his legs. He felt (and heard) the skin below his left knee tear sickeningly as he raised his leg to take another step toward the clearing’s center. Another screech: this time much closer. No time to rest, check his torn leg, or look back.

The ex-soldier’s vision tunneled, darkness creeping at the edge of his vision until all he could see was the nest… so far… star systems away from him. Ray’s clumsy stumble became a faster, yet equally clumsy, shambling run. The skin below his knees stretched painfully with every stride. Pain seared the back of his upper calf. No time.

No time.

“No time.”

None.

And suddenly he was there; staring down at three mottled eggs nestled in a bed of soft feathers, damp mud, and small clumps of dead, earthen brown grass. The sight gave him pause, despite the rather dire situation.

One would think he was contemplating the observed tranquility of the nest: the sense of peace conveyed by the three unmoving orbs below him. Or perhaps one would assume it to be wonder: awe at the beauty of the developing life he had stumbled upon. Nature’s beautiful gift.

His thoughts addled by pain and desperation, Ray gave pause for less romantic reasons:

“Dear Lord, think of the omelets…”

A worthy thought indeed.

Ray came to his senses shortly afterward: spurred to action by the agitated flapping, stomping, and screeching at the edge of the clearing, approximately six yards behind his right shoulder.

The human stooped down… and almost fainted from the shift in equilibrium. Somehow, after several seconds of frantic scrabbling, he managed to latch onto one of the eggs with his blood-slicked fingers. Ray jumped upwards in victory, reveling in his perceived achievement.

“YEAH! I got you, you damned egg! Now I’m gonna… uhh… gonna…”

*CLUCK-SCRREEECH*

“Oh… yeah…”

Schaffer twisted around, closing his good eye and holding his prize aloft. A blur twice the size of its counterpart was bearing down on him from the edge of the clearing.

“Why are the female monsters always so fucking huge?!”

It seemed that mere possession of Momma’s unborn child was not enough to stave off the coming attack, so Ray made a split-second decision: chuck the egg.

The throw went wide, sailing the mottled orb to the creature’s far left. Ray saw the humongous green blur dive for it, but stooped to quickly grab another egg before he saw if the egg was saved from shattering against the ground. Apparently, the beast’s attempt at saving its progeny failed, because when Raymond straightened up, it was once again advancing on his position at the center of the nest.

*CRUNCH-SPLAT*

“Two down; one to go.” When Momma Lizard turned back to him from its second rescue attempt Ray was ready for it. He held the egg above his head, motioning as if to smash it on the ground at his feet. Momma tensed visibly, despite being but a blur, and took a lumbering step forward. Her wings were spread wide in agitation, but she didn’t attack. It was a Praetorian Standoff: Raymond in the center of the clearing, the giant, angry hybrid in between him and where he originally came in.

“Okay… o-okay... plan. What’s the plan? Circle around, toss the egg as far as possible, then make a break back from where I came. Perfe—wait no shit no! I can’t leave Applebloom… o-or the dog… DAMN IT ALL! I SHOULD NEVER HAVE AGREED TO THIS!” Schaffer, still toting the egg, began to slowly circle to the right of the creature. Every step was painful and labored, and his feet made an unusually heavy thudding noise. It took every ounce of Raymond’s self control not to take his eye off the gigantic blur several yards away and look down at his legs. The increasingly concerned exterminator told himself that he just needed to hold onto his wits long enough to escape, and then he could panic to his discretion.

Whenever Momma Lizard took a step too close, or in the wrong direction, Raymond swung the egg downward a bit, reinforcing his threat: come near me and Jr. gets it. Slowly, Ray forced the beast to sidle away from the statuesque farm filly, her most likely dead dog, and freedom.

“That filly’s going to be too heavy for me to carry in this condition, but I can’t just leave her,” Ray worried to himself, watching the blur from his cataract eye as he took another small step to the right. He winced as pain seared in a circle around his upper calf, just below the kneecap. Fabric tore. Momma and Ray had almost completely switched places. She stood just in front of the mud nest, and the injured human stood opposite her, freedom to his back. Raymond tensed and prepared to make his move. “Oh this is going to hurt…”

Ray reared back, and then pitched the egg as hard as he could. Without looking, the ex-soldier put his back to Big Momma, opened his good eye, and made a break for Applebloom. Reaching the stone filly, Ray hooked his right arm under her torso and heaved her onto his shoulder. Glancing frantically back and forth, Ray finally spotted the Apple mutt again at the base of a tree not far from where he entered the clearing. The exterminator quickly winced his way over and dug the fingers of his left hand deep into the scruff at the base of the canine’s neck. Pain lanced through his fractured limb, but Ray ignored his body’s protest and tugged the unconscious dog along behind him as he attempted escape.

“You’re lucky you saved my life, Mutt, or I’d have left you to rot.”

Raymond tore through the forest, ignoring everything that didn’t have to do with getting as far away from Mother Hen as possible. Brush crackled and clothing tore, and Ray tried to forget how far away he was from the edge of the forest.

Every step felt like an amputation. The tissue under his knees tore with every footfall, and Ray thought he heard the creak of straining bone but dismissed it as imagination. It felt like he was carrying concrete cinderblocks in his boots. The strain on his upper thighs was immense, but he still couldn’t feel anything below the torn skin under his knees. Deeply disturbing as that was, Ray didn’t have the luxury of complete panic… yet.

The rage-filled shrieking slowly grew fainter, but Ray wouldn’t slow down. Hell no. Not until he’d gotten out of that God-forsaken forest. The trees were thinning, and the bushes and other such low-lying shrubs that had caused him so much annoyance and pain earlier were becoming sparse. He was almost there. The orange-tinged light of the setting sun shone openly through the canopy. It was almost over!

*SNAP-RIIIIIP*

Abruptly, Ray’s right leg caved under him. His body twisted sideways and he landed on his back, right shoulder jarring against one of Applebloom’s granite hooves.

The sergeant’s scream stuck in his throat and his eyes bulged from his sockets. His mouth stretched open, no sound escaping but the erratic ebb and flow of his breathing. Gravity fought his every movement, and Ray almost didn’t manage to lift his head far enough from the ground to look down his prone form. He finally had time to see what was wrong with him, and what he saw finally released the scream trapped within his chest.

His right leg had been torn from his body. The limb lay at an impossible angle, rent from the knee down and just barely attached to the rest of him by a thin strip of cloth from his fatigue pants. Oh… and it was made of stone now.

Raymond’s lower legs, from the tips of his combat boots to just below his knees, were coated flawlessly with granite. No. Not coated. Ray looked down to where his leg had been torn off. Stone. All of it. Every molecule of tissue in his legs had been replaced with grey rock. Raggedy chunks of flesh and cloth clung to the snapped end of his right leg, giving texture to the smooth, polished cross section of stone that had once been muscle, blood, and bone. Splintered, white bones jutted from the center, calcium slowly becoming granite the closer it was to stone shin. Blood spurted from Ray’s still living section of leg and marred the pristine white tibia. The cloth clinging around the edge of the stone leg was similarly stained.

Ray’s left leg was much the same, except it remained attached to his body, stone almost seamlessly coinciding with living tissue. Blood seeped in a ring below his left knee, flowing through rips and tears in his fatigue pants and running in thick rivulets down the rumpled granite pants that covered an equally stony pair of shins and calves.

Voice hoarse from screaming in agony and disbelief, Ray let his head fall back to the forest floor. He willed himself to black out, but relief would not come so easily for the soldier. After what felt like an eternity of screaming into the twilight sky, darkness began to close in around him. A huge red shape suddenly loomed above him, and Ray thought he heard shouting.

His last thought before falling into the inky black of unconsciousness was not of Earth, the home he lost long ago, or how much sex he was going to miss out on, but of something more practical:

“Lost… my fucking gun…”

The sun finally set on Schaffer’s troubled mind.

As Celestia’s sun drifted below the horizon, the wind at the edge of Sweet Apple Acres picked up, and the orchard became a roiling sea of leaves interspersed with the occasional shiny, red apple. Orange rays of sunlight painted the green treetops, giving the well-groomed fields of trees the impression of early autumn. It was beautiful, but Scootaloo was too excited to properly enjoy it.

The little orange pegasus trembled with anticipation as she followed the ambling giant she had become so attached to. He was walking so slowly! Taking forever to tease her with his promised surprise. “Something awesome,” he had said. Scootaloo’s thoughts drifted to the awkward conversation that took place several minutes ago. The human had been extremely perceptive: surprisingly so.

Jer stopped and looked out over the orchard beyond, head cocked slightly to the side, eyes distant. Scootaloo knew what that meant. Applebloom had told her about it yesterday. She’d learned about Jer’s “condition” after eavesdropping on her siblings while they were getting into the hard cider barrel in the cellar. Voices. He heard imaginary voices in his head. Applebloom had said her sister thought that the human’s condition made him dangerous. Looking at him now, after what he’d said, Scootaloo knew that couldn’t be true.

“Why are you here?” Jer asked, tone soft and… sad?

“W-Well Fluttershy told us that when a mare and a stallion love each other very much—”

“No. I mean why are you here? In this clubhouse? Alone?” he specified.

“I… because… u-uhm… I like being l-left alone sometimes,” Scootaloo floundered, “Is that so wrong?” She tried to sound indignant but failed miserably.

Jer looked at her a long time, slate grey eyes locked on her own violet pair. Scootaloo looked away first, unable to make eye contact any longer. She could still feel his gaze boring into the back of her head. Eventually, he spoke again:

“Y’know when I was younger I used to try and find time to be alone too,” he whispered, raspy voice calm and collected, yet rife with emotion, “But… looking back on my old home, at everyone I’m never going to see again in this life, I wish I’d spent more time with the ones I loved. It was never a conventional place to live, and I never had a normal family, but now, all these years later, I realize that I don’t care. It was MY home out in that horrifying desert, and they were MY family: if not in blood, then in spirit. They’re gone. Dead. My home was destroyed. I miss them every day…” Jer trailed off.

Scootaloo turned to try and meet his eyes again. She tried to read what emotion, exactly, he was conveying… but he was looking out the window again, eyes focused on distant thoughts. The orange pegasus didn’t know what to make of the human’s emotional rambling. He lived in a desert? Normal family? Th-They died?

“Ray is my family now,” Jer rasped, startling Scootaloo a bit. The contemplative human met her eyes again and gave her a meaningful look. “If you need a place to stay, you’ll always be welcome… while we’re still here.” The man stood up (which wasn’t very dignified: the clubhouse ceiling being meant for fillies and all) and hunch-walked, helmet in hand, to the doorway. After he squeezed through, he turned back and gave her another compassionate look. “Talk to your friends about it. Being strong is nice, but there's a fine line between wanting help… and needing it. Besides,” Jer turned and gingerly stepped down the ramp, “they may not be around forever.”

Scootaloo sat, dumbfounded and a little frightened, and watched the alien walk away. He knew. She didn’t know how, but he knew exactly what was wrong. He didn’t blatantly say it, but he told her all the same.

Jer had done something nopony had ever done for her before: offer her a place to stay… care enough to really notice that she had no one.

“No… not no one.” Scootaloo looked at a small photograph stapled above the window. It depicted two small fillies in a wagon, both wearing helmets. The helmet on the pure white filly sat skewed upon her head because of her horn, while the one protecting the yellow earth pony was adorned with a bright pink bow. They were being pulled down the orchard rows of Sweet Apple Acres by a little orange pegasus on a scooter, also adorned with a helmet.

Scootaloo raced out of the clubhouse and down the ramp.

“Wait! Jer!”

The slowly walking human turned to face her once again, waiting expectantly.

“C-Can I stay with you and Ray? F-For a little while?”

Jer smiled.

The agreement had been made… and then Jer tempted her with the surprise.

The uncharacteristically silent human was still looking out over the orchard… or was it past the orchard? Onwards and upwards toward Canterlot, maybe? The capitol city was still encased in a giant purple bubble, making it look like the biggest snow-globe ever. Right now, however, Scootaloo could care less about the Equestrian capitol.

She snuck up behind Jer and pounced, lightly head butting him behind his weird, backward knee.

“Terra to Jer! Come in, Jer!” she needled playfully. “Where’s the surprise?”

Jer jumped a bit, then looked down at her and smirked.

“Impatient are we?” he teased. Scootaloo stuck her tongue out and gave him a raspberry. Jer returned fire and chuckled. “All right. This way you little orange pain-in-the-butt.”

“Umm… butt?”

“Never mind.”

Jer walked over to the edge of the orchard, stopping when he reached one of the Cutie Mark Crusader’s landscaping piles. That particular piece of work had vaguely resembled a big rabbit, but must have fallen down in the recent storm. Now it just looked like a rumpled pile of branches.

The human crouched down near the pile and reached his arms under several of the large supporting branches. He lifted them up and flipped the whole mess over to reveal a strange, red contraption. Jer lifted it up for her to get a better look.

It was big, but longer than it was wide, and it stood on two, black wheels: one in the front and one in the back. The front wheel appeared to be attached to a two-pronged steering device, much like the one Scootaloo had on her old scooter. Shiny metal tubing and a couple of ridged metal boxes twisted around or just sat in the center of the narrow contraption. Two saddlebag-like packs sat on either side of the strange device, just below a black saddle that adorned the bright red chassis. Jer was rifling through the right-hand pack on the side, muttering something to himself.

Scootaloo trotted closer to the two wheeled cart, which was only standing up on two wheels with the help of a small metal bar that protruded from its side and wedged into the ground. If this was a cart, it looked pretty useless to her. It couldn’t even stay on its own two wheels! How was this supposed to be a surprise for HER?

“Um… Jer?”

“AHA!” the rummaging human shouted, jumping up and raising a shiny metal object into the air with a rather effeminate flourish. A key. Jer leaned forward over the impractical cart and stuck the narrow end of the key into a small slot just behind the steering column. There was a soft, whirring noise and suddenly bright light came streaming from a glass box attached to the front of the handlebars. Wondering what kind of magic powered the strange beacon, Scootaloo didn’t notice Jer standing next to her until he began whispering conspiratorially into her ear:

“I leave the keys in it,” he winked at her, “Don’t tell anyone, okay?”

“Any-PONY.”

“Sigh… whatever.”

Moments later, Scoots found herself seated on the two-wheeled cart’s handlebars, staring down at a colored display just beneath the machine’s keyhole while Jer straddled the vehicle's saddle across from her. A bright green bar spanned the circular, lighted panel, three-quarters of the way between the Equestrian words for “empty” and “full.” Jer tapped the small display twice and a soft, artificial-sounding mare’s voice emanated from a perforated section of red chassis surrounding the lighted screen.

“Fuel levels optimal. Engine temperature optimal. Coolant levels at fifty percent: suggest replenishment before extende—”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Jer interrupted airily as he tapped a flashing icon on the display. The mare’s voice faded out of existence, still spouting some sort of warning.

“Jer… what’s a ‘coolant’?”

“Nothing you need to worry about, Scoots,” Jer reassured her. He grinned and looked at her like he knew something that she didn’t. “Ready for a wild ride?” Scootaloo immediately brightened and went back to studying the impractical cart, not noticing the human replace his helmet with a faint click.

“YEAH! But how are you gonna make it a wild ride? You don’t seem like a fa-a-a-AAAAAAH!” Scootaloo’s statement devolved into a terrified scream as the odd cart tore forward, spewing dirt and blades of grass behind them.

The sudden lurch forward caused the surprised pegasus to smack face-first into Jer’s chest, to which she clung frantically. She squeezed her eyes shut and prayed to Celestia that Jer’s grey jumpsuit didn’t tear.

Not having spontaneously combusted, been thrown off, or died for any other inexplicable reason, Scootaloo chanced opening her eyes. Best. Decision. Ever.

Apple trees whipped by at blinding speeds, and mud spattered off to either side of the magic cart, painting the air in odd brown muck. Scoots slowly twisted her body around to face forward, gripping Jer’s clothing as best she could from her position. Cautiously, she inched forward on the chassis, pointedly avoiding the lighted display and protruding key in order to grip the steering column: right where the handlebars attached to the column itself. She looked out ahead of her, her smile threatening to split her head in two.

The wind whipped her mane wildly and pushed against the skin of her muzzle, stretching her already wide smile comically. This was a million times better than her stupid scooter! How fast were they going?!

"This is so AWESOME!"

Struck by a sudden idea, Scootaloo spread her wings as wide as she could. The air flowing through her feathers felt unbelievable! It was like she was flying. Really flying! The elated filly wondered briefly if this was how Rainbow Dash felt, but quickly dismissed the question; of COURSE this was how she felt! Scootaloo whooped with joy as the Apple Family orchard sped by, soon to be left behind.

The cart burst out of the orchard and raced past the Apple farmhouse, kicking up dust on the extensive front walk. Jer gently steered the vehicle away from Apple property, toward the edge of the Everfree Forest. The human leaned back sharply, popping the front wheel into the air. Raised higher by the maneuver, Scootaloo squealed in excitement. The air caught her wings for a second and she nearly left the machine for a short flight. Luckily, Jer stayed her ascent with a gentle hand on her withers.

Gerald turned the bike southward, toward Ponyville, staying close to the forest’s edge in the fading light. The magic light in front of the vehicle cut a swathe through the descending darkness, suddenly illuminating five very startled mares. Jer passed them with ease, and Scootaloo couldn’t help but wave excitedly as they went by. She looked back just before cresting a small hill and was surprised to see them being pursued by all five of them: one in particular gaining fast.

“RAINBOW DASH!” Scootaloo squealed, waving at the cyan blur that appeared alongside of Jer’s speeding cart. Her idol glanced at her and grinned cockily before speeding ahead. An obvious challenge.

Scoots looked back at Jer. She couldn’t see his face behind the darkened visor, but she imagined he wore much the same expression as her idol. The human twisted his hand downward on the right handlebar and the “Super Scooter” immediately leapt forward.

They had been slowly gaining on Rainbow when the fun suddenly ended.

Out of the forest ahead, a huge, red stallion stumbled into their path, carrying a bulky-looking bundle of sorts. The headlights shone on his impassive green eyes for a split second before Jer swerved out of the way, flipping the cart on its side and sending it into a skid. Before Scootaloo could be thrown from the wreck, Jer grabbed her and wrapped her in a protective embrace.

Mistress Gravity then threw Jer and Scootaloo unceremoniously from the vehicle. Scoots felt a sharp jolt, and her wings pressed painfully against Jer’s chest. A few short seconds later it was over.

“…krrkrtztkr… –y girl, my girl. Don’ lie to me. Tell me where didja sleep last night? In the pines; in the pines: where the sun don’ ever shine. I will shive-er… the whol—bzztstkrrrrr…”

An unpleasant ringing sounded all throughout Jer’s head. He opened his eyes to a twilight sky. The stars were just coming out, but there was still just barely enough light to see by. Pretty.

Something stirred against his chest. Jer looked down and was met by a swatch of violet hair and orange fur. A little pegasus was nestled up against his chest, eyes screwed shut, and mouth twisted into a frightened grimace. He would’ve been struck by how adorable the filly was if it weren’t for the situation at hand.

His bike lay several yards away, headlight still activated and rear wheel spinning lazily. If not for the torn grass and skid marks along the ground it looked like it had just fallen down in the absence of a kickstand: no worse for wear.

“You all right, Scoots?”

The filly nodded and he released his hold on her. She stood up on his chest and wobbled a bit, but there didn’t appear to be anything broken, and there were no leaking fluids as far as he could tell.

“Too bad. Poultry is delicious…”

“She’s not poultry you prick!”

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck…”

Gerald suppressed his anger. Time for a self check-up.

Scootaloo hopped off Jer’s chest, allowing him to sit up. He swung himself forward, spine popping back into place with a loud, wet click.

Judging from the shallow scrape that marred the ground at his feet and continued several feet onward, the two joy riders had skid for several feet on Jer’s back before coming to a rest. The sitting human took a look at himself. He looked fine. He FELT fine…

The sound of frantically flapping wings briefly postponed his self-examination, as a rainbow-streaked pegasus came barreling in.

“Omygoshomygoshomygosh, SCOOTALOO! Are you okay?!” a frenetic, raspy voice cried from behind Jer.

“I-I’m fine,” came a shaky reply. “Jer kept me safe.”

“SAFE?!” Rainbow cried. “His recklessness almost got you… you…” she trailed off. “Y-Your back…”

Jer tensed and attempted to bite back his anger.

“Recklesness? RECKLESSNESS?! She challenged me to a fucking race!”

“The gun. Where is it?”

“The cycle.”

“Get it.”

“NO! SHUT U—” Jer paused, having looked past the downed bike toward where he’d swerved to miss… miss…

“FUCK!! Oh God, please no!”

Rainbow was yelling, but Jer didn’t hear. He jumped to his feet and, tearing of his helmet in the process, sprinted towards the large maroon stallion standing above a profusely bleeding bundle of clothing: Colonial Armada fatigues.

“C’mon girls! Move yer flanks!”

Applejack crested the hill, Twilight, Pinkie, and Fluttershy trailing behind her, and took in the scene below.

After one of the humans (Applejack was sure it was Jer because Ray was off searching with her siblings) sped by on a two-wheeled doohickey with Scootaloo aboard, Rainbow had been off like a shot. Unsure of what was going on, and in need of Rainbow to help in the search, Applejack immediately raced after them.

Now, as she looked down on the drama unfolding at the base of the hill, she was extremely grateful for that decision.

“WHAT HAPPENED?!” A stallion’s voice, screaming in a mixture of anguish, sorrow, and unfathomable anger. Applejack could see her brother, standing resolutely with what looked like Applebloom on his back, between his two saddlebags. “YOU ARE NOT FUCKING DYING ON ME YOU HEAR!” Jer. He was down there, several yards away from the vehicle he’d been driving, fretting over a bundle. No… a body. A very tall body.

Raymond.

Applejack’s breathe caught in her throat. She turned back to her trailing friends and screamed:

“For the love of the Goddesses, MOVE YER BUCKING FLANKS!”

Three loping mares nearly had heart attacks and were looking at her like she’d just bucked each of them in the head, but Applejack didn’t see, nor did she care. She was already halfway down the hill, running full-out and praying she wouldn’t be too late.

“TALK TO ME, DAMMIT!” Jer’s shouting found her again, sounding increasingly desperate. Rainbow was darting back and forth above the two humans, Scootaloo in hoof, sporting an expression Applejack didn’t often see on her face: fear.

“OMYGOSHOHMYGOSH! WHAT HAPPENED?!” the flying mare yelled, covering Scootaloo’s eyes with a free hoof.

“SHUT UP AND DO WHAT I TOLD YOU!” Jer howled, still focused on the man lying under him. The ground around the two humans had taken on a considerably darker hue; the color slowly spreading outward towards Big Mac, who had removed a muddy Applebloom from his back and was prodding her cautiously.

“B-But…”

“MOVE!” the raging human screamed, glaring at the Rainbow mare with his fiery gray eyes that spoke of a violent, messy death. He looked back down on his friend, and immediately those eyes changed. No longer hard and cold, but sorrowful and very, very afraid.

A rocket of prismatic colors shot from the scene, blowing past Applejack and knocking off her hat as she sprinted to the bottom of the hill. She was immediately met by the broad, red chest of her brother, blocking her view of the two humans and her entrance to the scene.

“Mac! You let me by now ya hea—uh! Wh-Whoa!

The farm mare attempted to push past her brother, but slipped on the slick grass at the edge of the hill. She landed in a heap, and when she attempted to pick herself up again she couldn’t, landing on her back and sliding into Mac’s forelegs. She looked down at her hooves and found them coated in thick, crimson blood. The red liquid practically covered the ground, no doubt soaking into the orange fur of her back that very moment.

Applejack’s jade eyes widened, and her pupils receded to mere pinpricks. She slowly looked up to her brother, whose mask of neutrality had been cast aside to make room for the fear she could see welling in his eyes.

“W-What… *squelch* … Oh dear Celestia!? *hur-hurk-k*” Applejack vomited into her lap, just barely hearing her older brother try and explain.

“Applebloom ran inta the forest cuz she heard Winona barkin’,” Mac started, deep voice barely wavering despite the situation. “Raymond ran in after her, but I couldn’t keep up with ‘im. I lost ‘em, and searched fer almost an hour afore he went runnin’ right past me toward Everfree edge. I caught up tah them, but Raymond’s leg was broken an’ he was blacked out an’… an’ Applebloom…” A single tear ran down his massive muzzle. “They musta ran inta a cockatrice…”

“I-Is Applebloom—”

“She’s fine: just turned to stone.”

“Fine!” the country mare yelled, furious. “Don’t ya dare lie ta me! Our sister’s a paperweight an’ all ya can say is she’s fine?!” Applejack scrambled to get up, terrified panic gripping her more firmly with every failed attempt to stand. Her sister was a rock! She was never going to get her cutie mark. She was never going to finish school, get married, or have fillies of her own. Applebloom was nothing more than a fancy lawn ornament.

After a few seconds of struggling, she was brought back to the present by her brother’s not-so-gentle hoof.

*SMACK*

“Ah don’t lie!” He boomed, jarring Applejack even further than the slap. “Miss Twilight survived being turned to stone and so will our sister! She probably knows a spell or somethin’ like that ta help… but Raymond…” Big Mac hesitated, then stepped to the side, revealing a crumpled bundle of bleeding tissue that once was a proud, tall alien being.

“His leg… its… Oh my Luna.”

Gerald crouched over his friend, breathing heavily while he frantically tried to stem the bleeding. He had fashioned a crude tourniquet from strips of Raymond’s campaign jacket that he had cut with a cruel looking blade that was currently stuck tip-first in the ground. The cloth strip was twisted around Raymond’s lower right thigh, just above the knee. It was above the knee because nothing lay below it but ragged, torn muscle and a single protruding vein. The blood highway had been filled in with stone, the red and white cells flowing through it having congealed into gray rock before the outer membrane had a chance to follow suit. The rest of his leg sat a few feet away, completely sealed in stone.

There was a slick popping noise as Jer forced the bone sticking out of Ray’s left arm back beneath the unconscious man’s skin.

Several things happened simultaneously:

Three out of breath mares stumbled down from the small hill, slipping in the carpet of blood and getting a good look at the grievously injured human.

Hysteria ensued.

Applejack threw up again.

“EEEEP! What… h-h-h—”

“There’s blood everywhere!”

“WHEEEE! It’s like a slip ‘n slide!”

"PINKIE!"

“Is he alive?! Please tell me he’s not dead!”

“Tear me some more cloth for a new tourniquet.”

“But, Jerry! His leg! It—”

“I know about the leg, damn it! Get the damned cloth!”

“This… a cockatrice…”

“He’s not breathing!!”

“FUCK!” … *Thump, Thump, Pound, Thump* “Someone do the breaths!”

“Oh dear. Oh dear. Oh dear…”

“Ah got it.” *Puff… Puff* *Pound, Thump, Pound, Pound…Puff… Pu—*

“GASP!”

“He’s breathing! He’s breathing!”

“Jesus! Where the fuck is Rainbow Dash!?” *CRASH*

“HERE!! I GOT IT!”

“Give it here!”

“Fluttershy, what’re you doing with tha— OH!”

“Uhm… you don’t think that was a bit too forceful, do you?”

“Y-Ya stabbed ‘im in the throat! That can’t be right!”

“I’m… I th-thought…”

“No. She did it right. Twilight, can you reattach this?”

“WHAT!? I… I don’t—”

“Do it, Egghead!”

“Somepony press it back in place.”

“Slippery!”

“PINKIE! Hold it still!”

“There’s blood in my feathers!”

“Urr-Grre-AH!” *Zap*

“Is it on straight?”

“How am I supposed to know?! He’s nothing like a pony!”

“Mac, are there any bandages in those bags? No?”

“Here!”

“Where… how?”

“I keep bandages stashed all over the forest, in case of—”

“Twilight! His arm is broken in the same fucking place!”

“I… huff… told him not *gasp* to strain it!”

“Um… everypony…”

“Fucking fix it!”

“Girls…”

“I can’t *gasp* just ‘fucking fix it’! I’ve used up too much magic getting *wheeze* it reattached!”

“GIRLS! Aren’t we forgettin’ somethin'?”

“…”

“‘Yay, You Got Your Hoof Back’ Party?”

“They’re still made outta stone! An’ so’s mah sister!”

“T-Twilight…”

“I know, Fluttershy…”

“What?”

“…”

“What aren’t you telling me?”

“Speak up, Twi!”

“Well… we kind of need the *wheeze* cockatrice to undo the spell…”

“You can’t be bucking serious.”

“Th-That’s how I f-fixed Twilight…”

“Stop the bleeding.”

“Jerry… where are you going…”

“There has to be some other way! We can’t just go looking through the forest in the dead of night for a giant chicken!”

“I don’t know!”

“Jerry! Where are you going!?”

“You haven’t got anything in that purple head of yours that’ll help!?”

“Even if I did *huff*, I can’t cast anything without my *pant* Starswirls rupturing!”

“Jerry!”

“What is he carrying? Where… WHOA! HOLD IT BUDDY! You aren’t going in there!”

“If yer goin’ Ah’m comin’ with ya.”

“Eeenope.”

“Jus’ try an’ stop me, Mac!” *THWACK*

“JER!”

"Y-You can't just do that!"

“Eeyup. Thank ya kindly, human.”

“U-Ug-g-ghh… mah head…”

“There has to be SOMETHING!”

“Jerry, NO!” *grunt* “You are staying right here! No! You will COOPERATE!”

“Ow… Ow… Ow…”

“Wh-What about Zecora? Couldn’t she do something?”

“Fluttershy! You’re a *wheeze* genius!”

*Grunt* “Well then what’re y’all waitin’ for!? Mac, you grab Applebloom. Ah’ll take Raymond. We’re burnin’ moonlight, ponies! Twilight, grab mah hat, will ya?”

“Jerry! Stop! Zecora can fix it! Listen! You don’t need to go! Please, listen!”

“Blood.”

“No, Jerry.” *Grrr* “No murdering! Look at me when I’m talking to you, Mister!”

“…”

“If you die in there you’ll miss Fussy’s ‘I’m Not A Statue’ Party.”

“…”

“OHMYGOSH! Jerry… what happened to your back? Why are you bleeding!?”

“I tried to tell him…”

“Dashie! What did he do!?”

*THUMP*

“JERRY!”

Canterlot was beautiful. Rarity Belle was beautiful. They were the perfect match for each other.

The Equestrian Capitol City glowed like a beacon of light in a sea of darkness. A lighthouse sitting on the mount, beckoning to weary travelers and warning away Equestria’s enemies: lest they dash themselves upon the shoreline of Celestia and Luna’s resolve.

Ponies of every shape, size, and color (mostly unicorns), trotted the well-lit streets. Conversing under the luminaries, eating hay d'oeuvres, enjoying the night, or hocking their wares from row upon row of open shops. These last citizens of Canterlot were first and foremost on Rarity’s mind as she trotted along, her younger sister following closely while eating some ice cream. Rarity was a mare on a mission.

Giant towers of ivory stone rose above the market district, tearing at the night sky above like giant teeth. Why comparisons such as that dared to enter Rarity’s mind she would never know: but it was true. They looked like the jagged teeth of a bull manticore, gnashing and gouging at Luna’s nighttime canvas… and the dome. It was unfortunate that Princess Luna’s masterpiece was marred in such a garish fashion, but, Rarity assumed, there must be good reason for such a heinous crime against nature.

The alabaster unicorn grimaced, reminded of another manticore she’d had the displeasure to become intimately acquainted with several days ago. Maniacal cackling invaded her memory.

Yes. The dome was definitely necessary.

“Finally! Some peace and quiet… wait… what am I saying?”

The caverns below Everfree were deadly silent. Not even the sound of dripping water or hushed breathing could be heard. Neither occupant was required to draw breath… and dormant children rarely cry.

The dog had been an experiment. Nothing more. He had much bigger plans beyond a single drone growing inside some loud, filthy mutt. Just a precaution: a test of his Mistress’ fertility. Viable offspring were a must, after all. It wouldn’t be a problem to check up on the dirty, little canine after birth, just to make sure. If his Queen’s first child proved itself capable, the 3,024th would practically conceive itself!

The Eternal Spirit of Chaos cackled quietly to himself, and fluttered around the cavern, weaving in and out of clumps of leathery eggs. He mentally patted himself on the back for the dangerous little prank he’d played on Honesty’s family and the tall, muscular chimp. Discord couldn’t let such a perfect opportunity to spread a little anonymous chaos go to waste. Doing nothing was really burning him up on the inside; he didn’t want to lose his touch, and leading them on a merry chase through the forest had been so fun! The cockatrice’s nest had been a nice touch, in his humble opinion.

The fact that ‘Winona’ would birth in the presence of an Element of Harmony didn’t distress the spirit all that much. Maybe it would kill her! That would definitely complicate things for Celestia, and tear Magic’s little friends to pieces! Delightful!

Even if those chimps, Misters Schaffer and Hanes, found out, it would be of little consequence. If Discord played his cards right, they wouldn’t be able to do a thing about it. Soon, Equestria would be his. But until then he would wait. Wait until all his ducks, ponies, and turtles were in a row…

Discord had seen the castle: his old haunts, encased in a transparent, violet dome. How he wanted to turn it upside down. Literally.

Celestia must’ve found his empty pedestal. That was the only explanation for the shield. It was a wonder the Good Captain’s wedding hadn’t been cancelled. Though, judging that nopony was panicking in the streets, Celestia must’ve thought it prudent to keep a lid on his absence, and canceling the wedding would only raise suspicion. Discord’s cackling increased in volume. This was just too perfect!

He had taken the liberty of providing a blushing bride for Magic’s older brother: one much more experienced than that young ditz, Cadenza. The ancient draconequus’s laughter reached its crescendo… then he remembered where he was.

Silence descended once more. Discord hated quiet as much as the next Insane God of Chaos, but she loved it. Discord couldn’t fathom why, but he facilitated her wishes nonetheless. That was the reason he’d gotten rid of the dog, if nothing else. Leading the monkey into the cockatrices' nest was a bonus.

Seconds ticked by, and Discord sighed, beating his frustration back to the farthest reaches of his mind. Patience: Tartarus’ Virtue. Waiting is eternity, but the payoff will truly be something to witness.

In the meantime, Discord would have to occupy himself in some other way.

A lecherous smile tugged at the newly occupied chimera’s muzzle. He floated slowly toward the deepest, darkest corner of the cavern, eager to caress the smooth, ebony carapace of the creature that made his plans possible. His Mistress. His Queen.

“Time for a little chaos.”

“Wyrm Flesh.” It was there, rubbing again, awakening her from her slumber. This was the third time that star-cycle… but she wouldn’t complain. The Wyrm was annoying, but she needed it. It was useful, and, until her children were born, would continue to be so. She could wait. Patience was a virtue, after all. “It will be sufficient to nourish my children, when the time comes.”

“Sis? I-Is he gonna be all right?”

“He’ll be fine, Applebloom… go on now. Get some shuteye.”

Applejack sat back on her haunches and sighed forlornly. The dirt floor of Zecora’s oddly decorated hut was cold and unyielding, but comfortable nonetheless for the exhausted mare. Yesterday had been tiring to say the least, and it was looking to be another grueling haul today: the witching hour had long passed, and the moon would soon no longer be visible as it sunk below the treeline.

The room was small and sparsely furnished: speaking to the zebra mare’s ascetic lifestyle. Zecora’s hut was the interior of a hollowed out willow tree, and the only light inside was that of flickering wax candles and moonlight streaming through the small windows bored through the tree’s knobby trunk. Despite the gloom, Applejack could make out a small willow table that jutted from the floor and a bookshelf brimming with musty parchment and bark scrolls that was similarly structured. The only furniture that wasn’t one with the home itself was a thin reed mat, Ray’s cot, and a decorative mask that hung by the window.

She glanced at Jer. The snoozing human shifted constantly upon the threadbare mat, occasionally bumping into the table. He’d fallen asleep about an hour ago after observing his friend’s treatment and watching over him deep into the night. When it became clear Raymond wouldn’t wake up for a long while, Pinkie and Rainbow had forced Gerald to take a rest. He’d been out like a light two minutes later, and now he moved in his sleep. It looked like he was fighting somepony, perhaps in a dream.

Or a nightmare…

A shuffling noise sounded behind her. In the doorway next to a retracted partition of bamboo and bulrushes Applejack heard somepony sniffle.

“Ah didn’t mean tah run off like that!” a small yellow filly sobbed, distraught and nearly heartbroken after being reanimated nearly an hour ago to find Raymond once again in a coma: this time from shock and extreme blood loss. “Ah… Winona… Ah just couldn’ h-help…”

Applejack stood and went to comfort her crying sibling, stopping just short of the partition and spreading her hooves. Applebloom leapt into her big sister, spilling hot tears on the blonde cowpony’s fur. Applejack hugged the sobbing filly tight and stroked her withers, whispering soothing words.

“Hush, Sugarcube. It wasn’t yer fault. What’s happened is happened. There ain’t no use cryin’ ya hear? Now you need ta get some sleep.”

“C-Can I stay here?” the filly pleaded, “P-Please?” Applejack didn’t answer. She merely took Applebloom in her muzzle and trotted her to Ray’s cot: a makeshift bamboo rig with a tarpaulin stretched across its thick, pliable shoots. The older mare carefully lay her sister in the crook of the injured human’s arm, next to the snoring ball of fur who started this whole mess in the first place. Applebloom dropped off to sleep almost immediately. Jer’s raspy voice echoed briefly in the orange mare’s head:

“… the most comfortable bed in the land…”

Applejack briefly imagined herself switching places with her young sister: sleeping soundly against the tall, stoic human. Watching his chest rise and fall as he drew breath…

The farmer snorted and stifled the strange thought, slightly annoyed with herself. It was a silly notion. But still…

Applejack looked down on the human. His odd clothing had been removed, all except for a stained pair of white undershorts. When they’d taken his clothes off, the six mares had been surprised to find several more burn-marks splotched against his strange (but not unattractive) musculature. Looking on those scars in the moonlight, both on his face and chest, Applejack tried not to think of all the pain Raymond had suffered: both in the distant past and more recently…

The farm mare couldn’t help but feel that she was partially to blame.

Winona and Applebloom snored contentedly at his side, the dog having jumped up on the bed shortly after Ray was treated for his injuries. Raymond must’ve done something rather impressive to gain the loyal canine’s trust so quickly. Applejack smiled sadly at the sight. They all looked so peaceful together. She wished it were under better circumstances: preferably with herself thrown in somewhere.

“Stop that!”

Raymond’s legs dangled off the end of the small, jury-rigged cot, bending in that inverted way of theirs. They were submerged up to the knee in a mid-sized cauldron of bubbling yellow gook. His left arm lay across his chest, a tight bandage of gigantic, waxy leaves soaked in a sweet-smelling salve wrapped around the break. Fading moonlight shone through a small window in Zecora’s tree, illuminating glistening drops of sweat that drenched the comatose human’s brow. Applejack went to the table, stepping over Jer to grab a small rag. She then proceeded to gently wipe the sweat away, keeping it from flowing into his eye sockets, possibly seeping beneath his eyelids.

This alien... this MAN had gotten her sister out of that Celestia forsaken forest along with her oldest friend. Without him they may have stayed lost, maybe forever. He almost DIED for her family: ponies he didn’t even know. If half of what Big Mac said was true, then staying here for him while he recovered was the least Applejack could do. As she continued to look down on Raymond, however, she felt like it wasn’t nearly enough.

The cauldron at the foot of the bed spat and sputtered. A few drops of yellow potion flecked Applejack’s matted, orange coat. The substance smelled like wet dog, bananas, and crabapples, but had reverted Applebloom back to her original tissue density in a matter of minutes. The same potion was being applied to (well, more like soaked into) Raymond’s legs. It was taking quite a bit longer, however. Not knowing anything about the ailing exterminator’s physiology, Zecora decided to give him a much less potent dosage of the sticky brew.

Applejack chuckled to herself, remembering the look on the Forest Enchantress’ face when she’d burst through her door, covered in blood, a big, two-legged monster on her back, yelling her Pappy’s hat off about cockatrices and broken bones. Looking down at her hooves, the farm mare noticed she was still covered in Raymond’s (and probably some of Jer’s) blood.

The zebra’s expression had been even more memorable when the others arrived, Applebloom and another passed-out alien in tow. Somehow she stayed calm long enough to treat everyone.

While she’d been mixing her brew, Zecora had instructed Rainbow, Mac, And Pinkie how to treat for shock, which, apparently, Jer had slipped into due to a combination of serious friction burns, stress, and… well… shock. Raymond’s glee-ridden friend had mangled his back pretty badly when he crashed on that cart of his. His gray jumpsuit had a huge hole torn through the back, and most of the skin below had been rubbed off. Several lacerations ran down his spine where he’d encountered small rocks or fallen branches during his trip across the ground.

Jer’s treatment had been simple enough. Rainbow and Pinkie had applied several creams and ointments of Zecora’s devisal along with a swathe of tan, opiate-cured bandages, while Mac had crushed up a red flower (something Zecora called “Mind Fuck.” Applejack was pretty sure it was obscene, but refrained from commenting on the name) and forced it up the human’s nose. His eyes snapped open almost immediately, screaming something about the “porticos being on fire,” whatever that meant.

Meanwhile, Twilight, Fluttershy, and herself had done their best to keep Raymond from losing any more blood. His breathing and pulse rate were erratic, but they avoided performing CPR again that night. Applejack frowned, disturbingly disappointed.

The orange mare looked out the window. She couldn’t see the moon anymore, but the sun had yet to rise, and in the silent hours before dawn millions of stars twinkled across the heavens. Applejack’s eyes began to droop, but a wave of pain rocketed through her skull before she could fall completely asleep.

The throbbing ache radiated from an upraised bump on the back of her head, mostly hidden by her silky, blonde mane. She rubbed at it and winced as the ache became more violent. It was where Jer had hit her.

Applejack shifted her gaze over to the shorter human, watching him as he tossed and turned. She couldn’t bring herself to be all that angry with him. He had been looking out for her best interests, if not his own. He’d told her why a few hours ago:

“When I get angry, I forget myself. If you had come with me your safety would’ve been the last thing on my mind. Lucky for you, it was the ONLY thing on your brother’s mind.”

“Ah can handle mahself!”

“That may be true, but your opinion doesn’t matter. Your family needed you. What’s done is done, and I’m not sorry for what I did.”

Applejack wasn’t sorry either, or angry, or whatever… just sad. Sad that Jer felt the need to keep everypony else safe: not from monster’s like what Ray and Applebloom had encountered in the forest, or those “zee-no’s” Ray talked about at the party, but from himself. He was honest with himself and everypony else. Applejack respected that. What she didn’t respect, however, was the fact that he’d tried to go rushing into Everfree anyway, right after he’d brained her for trying to endanger herself by following.

She didn’t respect that at all, and she’d let him know. He took her grief with an unsettling grin.

“Deep down we’re all hypocrites, My Dear.”

Applejack could hear hushed whispers coming from the next room. The other mares had decided to stay the night, and AJ was surprised they hadn’t fallen asleep yet.

Rainbow went to the human’s clearing to check on Scootaloo several hours ago, after dressing Jer’s back. She’d left the little orange filly there temporarily when she was getting morphine from their ship. Applejack didn’t know if the rainbow mare was back yet, but she suspected she was, most likely having taken Scootaloo home and put her to bed.

A rustling. Applejack looked down on Raymond once again. His eyes flickered beneath their lids and the tall human let out a long sigh, followed shortly by a frightened whimper: something that seemed totally uncharacteristic for the stoic creature.

Applejack leaned closer, studying his deeply scarred face and wondering.

Wondering.

“Ah wonder what he’s dreamin’ about?”

Ray was dreaming about Hell on Earth.

Seattle burned, and the dark, early morning sky was choked with the thick smoke of flaming high-rises.

Ray was crouched behind a crashed compact, the turquoise Model Six having wrapped its front bumper around a COM landline, which now leaned drunkenly against the Company Pharmacy Depot. The rusted metal column was one of many that lined the streets of lower east side Seattle, Washington.

Shattered glass lay upon the asphalt at his feet, and Ray tried to avoid cutting himself on the sharp fragments. As he looked at the car, an adolescent Raymond couldn’t help but hear the “Weyland Motors” slogan tease his thoughts.

“We-eyland Motors. Building better cars~”

The jingle in Ray’s head was punctuated by terrified screams, crackling flames, the occasional squeal of skidding tires, and the unearthly screeching of skeletal, ebony nightmares.

Raymond crawled to the back bumper of his hiding place and peeked around the edge, past a bumper that gaudily proclaimed the message: “shit happens.”

Judging how Raymond’s morning had gone, the sticker was most definitely correct in that statement.

Down the street, a group of several men, women, and children were retreating into a flaming hotel, disregarding the flames due to the hissing monstrosities hot on their tails. A black woman, wearing a faded pair of blue jeans and an orange tank top, didn’t make it. She was pounced in the street, just off the curb. She had been limping: bleeding from her right calf. Falling behind.

A man’s voice rose above the chaos:

“DETTA!”

There was a bright flash, followed by a sharp crack. The hissing black monster, a “Xeno” it said on the news, jerked backwards off of the struggling woman, tearing off a swatch of her dark hair. It twinged and spat sizzling yellow blood onto the sidewalk before levering itself upright with it’s wicked tail. Another flash seared the air, and a huge, muscular man stepped from the safety of the hotel, 12-guage scatter-rifle leveled at his hip. The hotel doors slammed behind him.

Despite being shot twice by the angry bull of a man, the xeno just got back up. It bared it’s shiny silver teeth at him, seeping yellow blood from several holes in its thin torso. The lone monster was soon joined by its brothers. The woman named Detta and her husband were surrounded.

While her husband fired his gun indiscriminately into the closing ring of creatures, Detta blindly scrambled backward, but was halted with a shriek as the scythe-like tail of “Twice-Shot” thudded into the pavement… straight through her already injured right leg. The bleeding xeno screeched in triumph, before having its banana-shaped head blown to pieces by another flash of gunfire. One of “Twice-Shot’s” brothers quickly took its place, ready to finish the job.

The huge man was holding off several of the beasts, but was looking increasingly desperate. Several xenos had gotten between him and his wife, and Raymond could see the feral energy draining from his body with every shot. How much ammunition did he have left? Ray heard a loud *pop* and the tinkle of falling glass. He whipped around, half expecting to see a long, snake-like tongue shooting towards him, sharp little teeth glistening madly in the firelight, but it was only an exploding streetlight. The heat and pressure from the fire in a nearby fast food shop must’ve been too much for it.

Raymond turned back to the bloody siege at the Marriot.

A car swerved around the corner, an old station wagon, coming from the south. It skid and slipped on the charred blacktop, avoiding stalled vehicles and corpses. It was heading straight for the hotel, and, unfortunately, the steadily growing swarm of xenos and two defending humans in front of it.

Detta screamed, and frantically pulled on the sharp, black tail that was pinning her to the street. Another xeno, ignoring his fallen counterpart, leapt forward, pinning her back to the ground.

The car hit both of them, plowing through two other monstrosities before crushing Detta’s ribcage with one screeching tire. Raymond stared on in horror as blood exploded from her mouth in one huge stream, gushing like the sprinklers Ray had played in as a boy when he visited his grandmother in Tucson. The bug that’d tackled her was thrown a few feet forward, smashed by the vehicle’s grille.

The station wagon kept going, crushing the downed xeno with its left front wheel. Acid ate through the thick, metal-laced tire, popping it and sending the car careening to port. It sped past Ray’s hiding place, forcing him to duck backwards farther in fear of being hit.

An ear-splitting crash soon followed, punctuated by a bright explosion of fire where leaking gas met the flaming fast food joint several hundred feet to Raymond’s right.

Ray felt the skin on his arms flare with the increased heat, and scrambled under the car, hoping to shield himself from the rising flames. He couldn’t see the hotel from his position, but he didn’t need to see. Not anymore…

Several more shotgun blasts shattered the morning air, but soon the squeals and hisses of skittering, scuttling monsters drowned it out. Ray could hear the unmistakable snapping sound of xeno tongues against flesh and bone. They weren’t even bothering to take the bodies.

The bastards.

Glass shattered, and more shots were fired: this time something smaller, like a pistol or small caliber rifle.

Soon that too was drowned out, and all that was left were the screams.

Those gut-wrenching screams.

Raymond wanted his mother, but he knew that was impossible now. Everyone was dead. He was dead. Earth was dead. It was OVER!

Ray closed his eyes and cried. Another explosion rocked the car above him. Ray jumped, cracking his head on the small Weyland-Yutani reactor on the underside of the Model Six.

Darkness took him.

9: An Offer You Can't Refuse

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Chapter 9

Rainbow Dash was conflicted.

Anger, fear, and betrayal laced her scattered, frantic psyche as she sped above the foreboding canopy of the Everfree at night. Luna’s majestic orb reflected off a large pond passing below her, for an instant depicting a mirror image of a pegasus in flight. It was during nights like these that Rainbow loved nothing more than to just fly around lazily, not caring about speed (or being completely bucking awesome) and just enjoy the feeling of air flowing through her feathers. Tonight, however, enjoyment was the furthest thing from her mind.

Nearly an hour ago, she’d left Zecora’s hut to check on Scootaloo, whom she’d left in the human’s clearing after getting the syringe of morphine from their airship. Her plan had been to take the little filly home to her family and get back as fast as she could, not wanting to leave her friends alone with the humans and that creepy zebra for too long. She’d come zipping into the camp, passing through the invisible barrier so fast that she didn’t feel the strange tingle that the electric wall usually elicited, and was met with a rather disconcerting sight: a roaring campfire, hunks of meat from an unknown source slowly roasting on a spit, and one little orange pegasus sitting at the fire’s edge, preoccupied with… cooking.

“S-S-Scootal-loo?”

The orange filly looked up from preparing the evil-smelling meal revolving above the flames and immediately brightened. She leapt to her hooves and cantered over to Rainbow, who, disturbed as she was by the scene, backed away slightly. She wasn’t afraid! No way! She’d seen Gilda eat meat once and hadn’t gagged TOO much. Rainbow Dash wasn’t scared of a little filly! Not in the slightest! She wasn’t freaking out, wondering where she got the meat itself, or where she learned to cook it. Nope. She wasn’t frightened! Just… bewildered… and… OH CELESTIA SHE’S NOT STOPPING!

“Rainbow Dash!” Scootaloo practically tried to tackle her, backing the sky-blue mare into the bowl-like device that powered the invisible wall. “Where’re Jerry and Ray? What happened? What’s going on!?” The filly’s eyes grew wider with every question, and she was clearly afraid for the human’s wellbeing. Her distress and obvious concern for them, especially Jer, would’ve annoyed Dash if she weren’t too busy hyperventilating and avoiding Scootaloo’s touch.

Eventually, after strange, frantic game of tag, Scootaloo got the message that Rainbow didn’t want to be touched and sat several feet away, staring up at her expectantly, her violet eyes wavering every so often. Rainbow didn’t meet her gaze, instead choosing to stare at the speckles of blood that flecked the orange pegasus’s hooves.

“You… b-blood… c-cooking m-m-m—” Scootaloo blanched and interrupted her before she could finish, waving her hooves around in an attempt to distance herself from the acts she had been caught performing.

“Oh! Yeah, ummm… I was just getting dinner ready for when Ray and Jer get back… I thought they’d be really hungry c-cuz they probably haven’t eaten since lunch and… I-I wasn’t, uhhh… I mean I didn’t… hehe…” Scootaloo trailed off, watching Rainbow sheepishly.

Dash just looked at her, trying to interpret what she’d said. Was it just her making dinner for the humans? Rainbow could’ve sworn she’d seen the orange and violet filly lick her lips when she’d first flown in.

If she was just cooking, Dash guessed that was rather nice of her. Rainbow felt a pang of jealousy twinge in her chest. Scootaloo was HER biggest fan, and these things were encroaching on her territory. Jer didn’t deserve this adoration. Ray seemed cool and had practically saved half the Apple family, so he was neutral in Rainbow’s book, but Jer… he was dangerous. His past didn’t matter; nor did his condition. She’d been sympathetic before, but after the incident with the two-wheeled cart Dash was firm in her decision: Jer was bad news, and had to be kept far away from her friends, Scootaloo included. It wasn’t jealousy. It wasn’t! She wouldn’t let Scootaloo stay near that crude, loud, abrasive, overconfident… loyal…

Horseapples, that sounded familiar.

No! She was nothing like him! He’s a psychopath! Rainbow Dash is not a psychopath…

Scootaloo had said something.

Dash looked down on the anxious-looking orange filly. Her wings twitched restlessly and she was looking up at her with huge, frightened eyes.

“I— *cough-cough* I’m sorry, Squirt. What’s up?” Rainbow asked, voice obviously catching due to the smoke in the air, not because she’d accidentally glanced at the orange filly’s bloody hooves again.

Scootaloo looked up to the rainbow mare, anxiety scrawled across her face as if by a quill dipped in an inkpot of liquid trepidation.

“Are they okay? When are they coming home? W-Was it really that bad?” The already anxious filly began to hyperventilate and her pupils began to shrink. “Are they dead?!?”

Rainbow fought the urge to tell her biggest fan that her newest infatuations had perished, and quickly moved forward to comfort her, steering the filly away from the fire and its foul-smelling contents. She was partway through a calm explanation of what happened, her quick thinking and heroic rescue of the two unconscious humans being a major part, when a certain word Scootaloo had mentioned earlier struck her as rather abnormal.

“Scoots,” she paused in her epic recounting of the first aid prowess of Rainbow ‘Danger’ Dash as she raced to save the totally lame alien’s spine from falling out, and locked eyes with a completely amazed and engrossed orange filly. “You said ‘home’ earlier. You meant the alien’s home, right?”

“Umm, yeah? What else would I mean?” Scootaloo’s look of awe quickly morphed into one of perplexed unease.

“Oh-kay then, well as I was sa—”

“I mean Jer did invite me to stay so I guess this is MY home too, but—”

“WHAT?!?”

Scootaloo flinched and looked up at Rainbow fearfully.

“H-He told me that if I needed a place to stay I could l-live here—”

“NO!” Rainbow Dash’s mind had kicked into overdrive, her body following close behind. She flared her nostrils and her wings stretched outward aggressively. This made no sense! Home? THIS place? There was no way in Tartarus Dash was going to allow her number one fan to stay with that crazy… thing!

The cyan pegasus swept forward and picked Scootaloo up in her hooves, tucking her neatly under one foreleg as she got ready to take off.

“I’m taking you home right now!”

“This IS my home!” squealed the violet-maned filly as she struggled to break free. Dash tightened her grip.

“No, it’s not. I’m taking you to Cloudsdale, and when we get there I’m going to tell your parents exactly where you’ve been hanging out these past few days.” Dash started to flap her wings, quickly rising off of the ground and moving toward the edge of the clearing.

“Rainbow! You don’t get it!”

“I ‘get it’ just fine! You ran away to spend time with that big, stupid, crazy son of a mu—” Rainbow’s left wing cinched up after a quick jabbing pressure struck it near its base.

That little hail-stone! She bucked her!

“FUCKING PUT ME DOWN!”

Rainbow tensed and her head began to whirl. Had Scoots just cursed in human?

*jab*

The multi-colored pegasus immediately dropped to the ground, both wings cinched tight to her sides in an attempt to avoid further punches. Scootaloo broke free from her grip and cantered away, closer to the fire. Rainbow chased after her, but kept her distance, remembering the blood covering the feisty filly’s hooves.

“Scootaloo! What the hay’s the matter with you!”

“Everything!” The pony in question screamed, tears streaming down her face. Dash backed away slightly, unprepared for the shouting pegasus’ answer. The orange filly stalked closer, glaring daggers at her and crying openly through her rage. “I used to think you were the greatest mare ever! You were always so strong and confident and you never let anything stand in your way.” Scootaloo’s voice lowered and became an almost feral-sounding growl, made somewhat comical by her squeaky, underdeveloped vocal cords, yet still retained its intimidating nature. “But now I see what you really are: a selfish, pushy, bragging, meanie!”

Suddenly, the orange filly collapsed, landing on her hindquarters with a soft thump, and began sobbing uncontrollably. Rainbow made a move to do… something, but was stopped when Scootaloo began speaking again, voice straining through her tears.

“I watched y-you practice e-every day! *sob* A-and you never even a-asked! N-Never bothered to ch-check on little Scootaloo. You never e-even offered to walk me h-home or give me a flying lesson! *gasp* W-Well fine! You can teach me to fly at my funeral, because I never wanna see you again as long as I live!”

Rainbow could only watch, stunned as her biggest fan, the filly who made a club dedicated to her only a year ago, fled into the human’s metal airship, still sobbing. She considered chasing her for a moment, but was immediately discouraged by a slowly ascending wall of metal, closing off the entrance to the shining behemoth with a loud screech, similar to that of a poorly oiled hinge.

The only sounds left in the clearing were the crackle of flames and the occasional sound of a mosquito meeting a quick end against the defense system. Dash looked briefly at the hunks of meat hanging above the campfire and snarled. She leapt into the air, leaving the unnatural meal to burn.

Zecora’s tree grew closer on the horizon, and Dash sped ever onward by the light of the moon. Jer would pay for what he did to that sweet little filly. Rainbow didn’t know what it was, why Scoots was so mad, what Rainbow could’ve possibly done to spurn her so. It had to be more than just not paying enough attention to her. It had to be Jer’s doing. It was all HIS fault!

Lights shone in the ragged windows of the zebra witch-doctor’s home, growing larger by the second. Rainbow Dash pushed herself harder than she had all day, wings pumping and slicing through the frigid night air. When she got there, that bucking nutcase was going to pay...

Raymond jolted awake, a startled shout racing from his throat, only to be stopped by a light orange, blood encrusted hoof. Heart pounding from a sudden onrush of adrenaline, Ray followed the hoof upward with his good eye. He soon found himself staring into a pair of huge, emerald irises… again.

“This had better not become a recurring thing…”

The owner of the bloody appendage that was restricting his capacity to scream, Applejack, gazed down at him concernedly, her iconic headwear casting shadows across her face in the moonlight and guttering light of a small candle on a nearby cabinet. She didn’t say anything; just watched him while he tried to control his breathing. Her concern seemed distant to the human, and her eyes wavered slightly, as if frightened or depressed. Ray would’ve asked her what was the matter, but her hoof remained in his mouth, so speech would have been rather awkward. She didn’t seem to notice and kept looking down at him, a deep sadness in her glistening eyes, so Raymond took advantage of her momentary lapse in awareness to take stock of his surroundings.

From his position, the newly awakened human could see a small, round window carved into the wall to his right. Moonlight flowed through, and the sounds of Everfree’s nocturnal inhabitants drifted inside: the keening howl of a wolf, crickets, and a distant roar that made Ray tense involuntarily.

The air smelled of rotten fruit and wet dog: muggy like the endless rainforests of Sulara. Brief flashes of memory from his time on that tropical “paradise world” bounced across his vision. So many trees… the job there had been one of the worst experiences of Raymond’s short life (emphasis being put on “ONE of the worst).

“Where the hell am I?”

Ray tried to recall what he’d done that day. Jer had run off to go terrorize some poor soul, leaving Schaffer behind to finish work on the damaged shipboard computer and navigation system. He’d fixed the NAV computer, rerouted power to the distress beacon (he hadn’t turned it on yet), and, in a fit of procrastination, began repainting the pin-up on the Duckling’s side: Dulce. Jer had named her… he remembered the christening day fondly.

He had happily painted, only a little vexed by Jer’s absence by then, when Sparky and Applejack showed up to ask for his help in finding—

“The dog!”

Everything came rushing back to him at blinding speeds: looking, the chase, the giant chicken, his… his legs! Ray’s eyes widened and he started hyperventilating again. He frantically tried to sit up, desperate to catch a glimpse of his damaged limbs. He couldn’t lose his independence like this! Not to some fucked up poultry!

After several seconds of struggling, Raymond realized he was making zero progress, and soon found out why. A heavy, firm weight pressed against his chest, preventing him from bending forward at the waist. Applejack, no longer shoving her hoof in his mouth, but rather covering it to keep him quiet, was holding him down, using her whole upper body to keep him planted on whatever taut fabric he was laying. She whispered anxiously, trying her best to be soothing.

She wasn’t doing a very good job.

“Shh-shh. It’s all right, Sugarcube. C-Calm down.” She removed her hoof from Ray’s mouth and he gasped for air. The orange pony then proceeded to hesitantly stroke his side, giving a very poor smile of reassurance. “Yer’ safe. It’s okay. J-Just don’t move too much, okay Pardner?”

“Fuck that!” Ray tried to sit up again, but Applejack just shoved him back. Torn between being ashamed at his current weakness and being angry at the pony holding him down, the frightened human gave his captor a menacing glare. The orange mare flinched, a mixture of fear and guilt replacing the sad look she had been giving him, and eased up on him slightly, but didn’t budge more than an inch or two.

“It’s fer yer own good,” she whispered. “If ya move too much yer… legs won’t h-heal right. Please just calm down.”

“My legs are fucking lawn ornaments!” Ray screamed within the confines of his head. “Nothing, and I mean nothing, is going to stop me from moving to loo—” A soft nudging and rustling atop his right arm gave the ex-soldier pause from his thoughts.

“R-Raymond?”

“God damn it…”

“Ray! Yer awake!” Yellow. Everything was yellow. “Thank Celestia yer okay! Ah’m so sooo sorry.” Applebloom, who had been quietly and inconspicuously tucked at his side, ousted Applejack from her position above the prone human, and was now sitting on his chest, looking down on him with wide, remorseful eyes. Her red mane, still tucked into the big pink bow he’d seen earlier, was frazzled, a fair bit having come loose and covering her left eye.

“She’s alive! How in… How?! She was a stat… a statue…” Applejack’s admonition drawled through his head once again:

“… If ya move too much yer legs won’t heal right...”

They healed Applebloom, so he was fine, right? Right?

Raymond still wanted to check, but restrained himself. The filly on his chest remained motionless, still looking at him expectantly and a little apprehensively.

Ray smiled carefully, hoping to relay as much forgiveness and goodwill into the unfamiliar gesture as was humanly possible. He couldn’t blame the filly, well, he COULD, but that would get him nowhere. What happened, happened, and everything was resolved… or, at least he hoped so. He still wanted to get a good look at his legs. They were still quite numb.

Now, looking up at the yellow farm filly weighing him down, Ray was just glad she was all right.

“Glad you’re okay” Ray rasped, his voice dry as a bone though not nearly as strong. Applebloom’s guilty look diminished immediately and she leaned forward, gingerly wrapping her forehooves around his neck in a hug. “You’re a heavy little girl, ya know that?” The yellow filly quickly let go of him and stuck out her tongue playfully, warranting a weak laugh from the broken sergeant.

“Speak fer yourself, human.” Ray flicked his eye left to find Big Macintosh standing above his resting place next to Applejack, a knowing smirk twitching the wheat stalk between his lips. He hadn’t even heard the gigantic stallion come in.

Trying to match the giant pony’s joking smile (and most likely failing), Ray lifted his arm and held out a hand to the red workhorse, palm turned upward and fingers outstretched. Seemingly familiar with the gesture, Big Mac gave him his hoof and they shook firmly.

“Thanks,” Raymond rasped. Dear Lord he needed some water…

“Ah should be sayin’ the same ta you,” Mac answered, smirk morphing into an uneasy smile. His eyes flicked toward Ray’s legs, and he would’ve sat up to look at them, if not for the sudden appearance of a filly-sized, wiggling, ball of fur that hopped up from the same spot Applebloom had previously occupied at his side, lathering his face in dog spittle and yapping excitedly.

Raymond’s first reaction was to strangle the mutt.

His second: skin it and boil it alive.

Finally, he settled on merely pushing the creature that nearly got him killed, then subsequently saved his ass, aside, and pat its head, scowling.

He hated dogs, always and forever, but this one was all right… for now.

Suddenly, muffled voices grew louder from the next room and several more natives streamed inside. Ray recognized most of them as Applejack’s friends, so he skimmed over them with his eyes, only to fixate and be momentarily taken aback by what looked like a small zebra… with a mohawk. He simply chalked it up as another strange thing he should totally disregard, lest he loose his sanity.

Pinkie was the first to reach him, thankfully kept partially at bay by Big Macintosh as she babbled happily:

“Fussy! You’re awake! I’m sooooo glad! Everypony was really scared and at first we were all like “Oh no, he’s dead,” but then Jer was all like “Not if I can help it,” and we wrapped you in bandages and brought you here and Zecora fixed you all up cuz she’s an evil enchantress and now Applejack doesn’t have to worry anymore becau-OOMPH-mmm mhm mmmnmhm…” A bright orange hoof stifled the rest, the owner of said hoof blushing and glaring menacingly at the pink pony still hovering over Raymond.

The only thing Ray really got out of that whole thing was that Jer was here somewhere, hopefully not losing his mind or running through the forest looking to kill Mother Hen. From his position, Schaffer could barely make out a dark shape on the floor nearby. If he could just sit up a little—Purple.

“It’s good to see that you’re okay,” Sparky hesitantly declared, glancing nervously at the crumpled form near the other side of the room. “We were all really worried…”

“I’m sure you were. Afraid of what Jer would’ve done if I’d died, huh?” The lavender unicorn’s relieved expression when he smiled was enough to confirm his suspicions. As long as the victim doesn’t blame her, his insane friend won’t, right?

“Wrong. But we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it, if there is one to cross in the first place.”

The zebra with the funky hairdo came closer, a pair of humongous, gold hoop earrings swaying gently from her ears as she strode over. She had a dignified, wise air about her, which, to Ray’s amusement, totally contrasted with her manner of speech.

“I am gladdened to see that you are awake,” the striped pony began, moving past Sparky toward the foot of Ray’s resting place. “Now let us see if my brew, a hold, did take.”

Rhyming zebras. Eh. Not all that strange anymore.

The rhetorically whimsical quadruped began fussing over something behind Applejack, near where his legs should have been. He still couldn’t feel a damn thing below his knees, and that worried him to no end. Raymond tried to sit up to get a better look, moving Applebloom off of his chest and to his left, careful to avoid putting any pressure on his broken arm. The pain in his snapped limb had reduced to a dull throb, and Ray was surprised by the neatness of the leafy bandages that wrapped around his forearm.

The injured human was halfway up on to his right elbow when Applejack pushed him back down. The orange mare was beginning to get on his nerves.

“Darn it Ray, stop movin’!” she hissed, green eyes flickering somewhere between frustration and anxiety. “Y’all aren’t gonna heal right if ya keep this up!”

“Applejack, I hardly see how, ummm… nevermind…” Sparky’s interjection quickly lost steam under the farm mare’s piercing glare, and she trailed off, shuffling her hooves nervously. Big Mac was looking between the two, clearly debating with himself over something while still managing to look rather impassive.

Raymond briefly considered trying to overpower his captor, but quickly rejected it. He was too weak at the moment, and he really couldn’t bring himself to be angry with the mare. She was just trying to look out for him, in a strange, exasperating way.

“Why do I always end up in situations like this?”

“AAUGH!”

A gut-wrenching scream rang out through the small room, eliciting several gasps and a high-pitched squeal from Fluttershy. The canary yellow pegasus was the only pony who had yet to talk to Ray, having hid behind Macintosh immediately after entering. Ray didn’t mind her avoidance. If the poor thing was scared of him it wasn’t his problem. Hopefully, he wouldn’t be around much longer to frighten the fragile-looking pony.

The dark shape near the back of the room jolted upward, revealed to be a wild-eyed ex-marine.

“Jerry!” Pinkie happily cried, scrambling away from Ray’s bedside and wrapping him in what looked to be a rather uncomfortably tight hug. She was talking so fast that Raymond didn’t even attempt to follow what she was saying, instead watching his fellow human with growing unease.

Jer’s grey eyes were glazed over, showing no sign of conscious thought or awareness whatsoever. A solitary tear ran down the side of his nose, dripping off onto Pinkie’s back. The poofy-maned pony remained unaware of Gerald’s distressing state, and continued to babble mercilessly about bandages.

Gerald Hanes was having the dreams again. Ray knew he was: there was no hiding it. It had started up several years ago, when they had still been deployed in the re-conquest of Earth. The psychotic soldier would awake screaming at all hours of the night, often waking up the rest of the squad, and then become unresponsive. Oftentimes, Ray found him sobbing silently afterward in his bunk on their transport frigate, the Ontario, dead to the world.

He’d tried to talk to Jer about it, but, for once in his life, the man kept his mouth shut. Five days after the eradication of a small hive in what used to be the Midwestern Provinces of China, the dreams stopped altogether. Ray hadn’t witnessed a recurrence since.

Now they were back.

Ray quickly glanced around at the others. All the natives save Zecora, the zebra, were staring apprehensively at the unresponsive human. Pinkie finally noticed the recipient of her hug wasn’t returning the gesture, and had stepped back slightly, frowning worriedly at the impassive human.

“Jerry?” The pink mare prodded him gently with her hoof. “Jerry!?” She began to poke him harder, her voice taking on a panicked undertone, but Gerald remained dazed. More tears seeped from his eyes and followed the first down the bridge of his nose. “Jerry, snap out of it!”

Pinkie’s increasingly frantic cries finally caught the attention of the zebra “enchantress” at Ray’s knees. She looked up from whatever she was doing down there and quickly trotted over to the pink mare and her expressionless ragdoll, trying to pry Jer from Pinkie’s grasp.

“Bother him you must not, pink one, lest you awake a creature much less fun.”

“His eyes! There’s something wrong! Something really, REALLY wrong! Oh Jer, please don’t be comatose!” Pinkie’s mane was slowly deflating, and a wild light shone in her sky-blue eyes. She began to shake Jer back and forth. “Wake up!”

“Stop.” All eyes turned back to Raymond. He took a moment to feel grateful that that still worked, despite how painfully dry his throat was. He stared the pink baker down, putting as much weight into his words as possible and trying to ignore that her mane was deflating like a life raft stabbed with a combat knife. “Just give him a second.”

Pinkie sheepishly complied, but remained close to the staring human, watching him anxiously. Applebloom shuddered on top of Raymond, having repositioned herself after his ill-fated attempt at rising. The little filly turned away from the scene unfolding across the room and met Ray’s eyes, the orange orbs quivering with concern.

“I-Is Jer all right?”

“He just had a bad dream, ‘Bloom.” Applebloom gulped at Ray’s attempt to assuage her concern for the first alien she’d ever met.

“Must’a been real bad to make him act like that…”

Ray grimaced.

Across the room, Gerald began to stir. His eyes slowly refocused and he looked all around the enclosed area, surprise evident on his face. The room watched with bated breath.

“Hey, Pinks,” he finally began, “What’d ya do with your hair?”

Everyone sighed in relief and Pinkie’s mane immediately re-inflated, much to Jer and the pink mare’s mutual amusement.

“Well… that went better than expected…”

The tears that had been running down Jer’s cheeks quickly evaporated, and, after giggling on the ground for nearly a minute while everyone else awkwardly watched, Jer finally met Ray’s eyes… er… eye. He was on his feet and across the room in an instant.

“Sarge!” he cried excitedly, pulling in next to Applejack at Ray’s bedside. “You’re awake! The zebra told me you’d be fine but I… and you… well…” Schaffer’s excitable comrade sighed, and looked back up, away from Raymond, eyes lacking their usual light and exuberant life as they glazed over once more. “I thought I was gonna be alone again.” He snapped out of his daze and met Ray’s eyes again, waiting expectantly.

“Don’t call me ‘Sarge,’ Asshole.”

Jaws dropped and silence reigned, aside from a strange spluttering noise coming from the foot of Ray’s bed. The former soldier felt all eyes on him and Jer, and shock permeated the air. Slowly, a huge smile spread back across Gerald’s face.

“Well fuck you, too… SIR,” he cackled, breaking the tension in the small, increasingly claustrophobic space that was the zebra shaman’s home. “You’re lucky I’m around to keep you from shitting yourself while in you’re in your little ‘comas.’” Ray raised an eyebrow at his joking partner.

“You were asleep,” he choked, throat still parched.

“Yeah, well, the zebra drugged me.”

“I only did what was necessary, you were pacing about and becoming harried.”

“It was a joke, Ma’am.”

“He also hurt his back rather badly,” Sparky chimed in; intent on getting in her two-cent’s worth, while unwittingly adding to the rhyming scheme. “We—um, I mean, Applejack took good care of you while Jer got his rest.” Ray gave Gerald a quizzical look, and his compatriot merely shrugged.

“Don’t worry about it,” he assured. “The worst part is the hole in my Grayle suit. You got screwed much, much harder.”

Ray winced and tried to crane his neck above Applebloom and Applejack to catch a glimpse of his shins, the latter mare still holding him down even after he’d stopped moving earlier. Damned annoying. He still couldn’t see anything.

Sensing his discomfort, Zecora spoke:

“Worry not strange creature from the stars,” she assuaged with a tender smile, “your odd hooves will be fine, for my brew has gone far.”

Despite him being told this by a talking zebra, Ray felt his anxiety over losing all independence dissipate. He would walk again. Good.

“H-How did it happen?” a soft voice squeaked from behind Twilight. A swatch of pink mane shuddered from behind the lavender unicorn’s withers, revealing an extremely nervous Fluttershy. “I m-mean if y-you want to tell us. I mean i-if it’s o-okay with you…” she trailed off, every other creature in the room looking at Raymond expectantly. Applebloom shifted off of his chest and onto her haunches next to Winona, whom hadn’t left her spot next to Raymond throughout the whole scene. The yellow filly, having removed herself from his person, looked down on Ray with questioning eyes.

Ray let loose and exasperated sigh.

Then he began.

The moon was slowly approaching the horizon, but Applejack wasn’t tired. She felt too horrible to sleep. She didn’t deserve rest. She didn’t deserve anything… or, at least that’s what she told herself.

Applejack had been sitting in the room adjacent to Ray’s for the past twenty minutes, having left with a poor excuse about using the little filly’s room. In reality, the suddenly sick mare had left because she could no longer look the injured human in the eye. As she’d listened to Raymond quietly recount his tale, Applebloom filling in during the parts she was conscious for, the orange farm mare felt more and more guilt press down on her like a carpenter’s vice.

“… tripped over a bush and my arm… dog mangled its dangly bits… ummm Fluttershy? You should probably leave… threw the egg past… ran until my leg snapped clean off… lost my motherfucking gun…”

It hurt to listen. She could have prevented this! If only Applejack had kept him in her group like she’d originally planned. If only she’d dealt with the problem on her own instead of swaying the big, quiet alien with her tears. Sure, her oldest companion had been found thanks to asking for outside help, but her newest friend had almost died in the process, and it was her fault! Now, the proud being she had come to know these past few days may never be able to walk right again. Applejack didn’t deserve his friendship. She didn’t even deserve to wear her own hat.

In a fit of anger, the blonde cowpony tore her iconic headwear off and threw it at her hooves. She raised a hoof to stomp on it, but quickly restrained herself, not wanting to draw any attention from the next room, where Ray’s story appeared to be reaching its end.

“Then Mac must have showed up, because I don’t really remember anything else… where were you anyway, Big Guy?”

Applejack heard a guilty sigh that could only have been her brother:

“Couldn’t get through the buckin’ trees,” came a low mumble, which was soon followed by raspy chuckling.

“Don’t lose any sleep over it. I guess there are some disadvantages to being huge,” Jer’s voice wafted through the doorway.

“I’m surprised you got as far into the forest as you said without a path,” Applejack overheard Twilight exclaim. “That must’ve taken a lot out of you!”

“Well… umm… T-Thanks Miss Twilight…”

“Mmhm. Well it’s been a long night, and I should probably go check on Spike.”

“Oh! I left Angel all alone since lunch! What… What if? I forgot to lock the shed! Eeep!” A pink and yellow blur sped past Applejack’s position, squeaking something that might’ve been a farewell.

“Party. Tomorrow. Lots of cider and pain medication. Got that, Fussy?”

“OHMYGOSH why didn’t I think of that!?!? I gotta go plan!” There was a loud crash and the sound of something smashing into the floor, followed shortly after by manic giggling that Applejack presumed to be Jer.

“Pinkie! Get some sleep tonight! Please? Oh dear, Celestia… that mare’s been living off of caffeine for the past week!”

“D-Did she jus’ go through the window?”

Applejack could hear somepony grunting and muttering angrily in a foreign language. It sounded like Zecora, but… those words didn’t rhyme very well. The orange mare thought about seeing if she could help, but decided against it after Twilight said something about the dangers of over-caffeinating and offered her assistance to the striped mare. Applejack assumed that the decorative mask (creepy as all Tartarus) had fallen from the wall during Pinkie’s glorious exit.

“Are you going to be okay with them for the rest of the night, Zecora?” Twilight.

“Go, seek out your assistant who has yet to enlarge,” the zebra shaman answered, sounding much less angry now that whatever fell because of their friend’s negligence had been replaced. “They will survive the night while I am in charge.”

“Okay… Goodnight everypony!”

“G’night Sparks.”

“Goodnight, and thanks…”

“Goodnight Miss Twilight.”

“You’re welcome Raymond… Oh! And Big Mac?”

“Eeyup?”

“Drop the ‘Miss Twilight’ thing. Just ‘Twilight’ is fine. Pleasant dreams everypony!” Applejack heard watched the doorway as Twilight emerged, hooves making a muffled clopping noise as she started to walk past. She stopped short when she noticed her observer.

“Oh!” Twilight started. “Hey Applejack. I was wondering where you...” She looked at the hat at Applejack’s hooves, then met her eyes again. “What’s wrong? Why are you just sitting out here?”

“That was fast.” The orange mare let out a long sigh and gave a strained smile. “Nothin’s wrong. Ah-Ah’m fine, really.” This wasn’t going to work.

“You’re a terrible liar, Applejack.” Yep, not working.

“No manure, Shetlock,” the farm mare bit back her retort. She was suddenly ashamed for trying to lie in the first place. Twilight was one of her closest friends, for gosh sakes! Applejack averted her eyes, and, trying not to look too downcast, told the truth.

“Ah can’t go in there, Twilight, not after what I’ve done to him.”

“What are you talking about?” the lavender unicorn asked, raising an eyebrow skeptically.

“Yer kiddin’ me, right? It’s mah fault he’s all banged up! He might not be able to walk anym—”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Twilight interrupted. “He came with us of his own accord, and if you’d stayed in there to hear him retell what happened you would have seen that he didn’t blame anypony but himself.”

“Ah heard the story just fine, Twilight, but it’s still mah fault! What about his le—”

“They’ll be fine!” the unicorn interrupted again, all smiles. “Zecora says he’ll be walking normally in three days or so.”

Applejack felt some of the weight drop from her shoulders. He would walk? Not even with a limp? Great! The weight dropped back on shortly afterward. But how can he possibly have forgiven her?

“B-But it’s still—” Twilight’s next interruption was in no way unexpected.

“Ugh! It’s not your fault! Just listen to them!” the exasperated unicorn gestured to the next room with her hoof. “I’m sure if you listened in on them a bit th-then… ummm…” Twilight’s right ear twitched toward the door, her pupils shrinking. Applejack quickly switched her attention to the conversation happening in the next room.

“… you and Sparky, huh?”

“Eeenope.”

“Oh come on! I saw the way you looked at her!”

“Jer, leave it be.”

“I’m just tryin’ to help the guy out. C’mon, you can be straight with us!”

*sigh* “You were pretty noticeable, Big Guy.”

“Was it really that bad?”

“Dude, when even Ray notices something like that, it’s gotta be REALLY obvious… what? It’s true, man. You’re not the best at this sort of thing.”

“And you are?”

“Comparatively.”

There was silence for a few seconds. Applejack had been watching Twilight as the conversation went on. The poor girl was blushing and shuffling her hooves awkwardly: most likely torn between staying to listen in and fleeing into the night.

“You should go talk to her.”

That did it. Twilight was gone in a lavender flash of magic.

“Are ya sure? Ah mean… what do Ah say?”

“Just mention something about stars, or books, or don’t even say anything! She’ll probably just start asking you a whole bunch of questions about your farm, anyway.”

“You’re losing your chance the longer you stay here, Mac,” Applejack heard Raymond softly add.

“Ah want to go… she’s so nice, always helpin’ out whenever she comes by the farm…”

“Her ass isn’t half bad either.”

“Jer. Shut up.” Twilight had left just in time. Applejack couldn’t help but wonder why Applebloom wasn’t participating in this. She was probably asleep. Or just too mortified by her brother’s choice of love-interest to speak. Come to think of it… why wasn’t Applejack freaking out?

Oh, yeah. She was attracted to an alien. Or was she? Gosh darn it! It’s not like it mattered anyway. Raymond was never going to forgive her for what happened: no matter what Twilight said. Applejack contemplated going in and gathering Applebloom, and perhaps ending the awkward conversation with her presence, until Zecora decided to make herself known:

“I must agree with the loud primate, Miss Sparkle’s flank has grown attractive of late.”

Applejack threw up in her mouth a little.

“But Ah just don’t want ta mess up…” Macintosh continued, seeming to ignore the human and the zebra’s previous statements… or maybe acknowledging them. Applejack shuddered violently at the thought.

“C’mon, Mac! Be a man…” Jer’s voice faltered and he paused for a second. “Stallion.”

“If anyone deserves a good girl, its you. Twilight’s nice. Annoying, but nice.”

“Says the guy she fondled while he was unconscious.” Ray didn’t even bother to tell Gerald to ‘shut it.’

“Go on.”

“Git’!”

“Okay… Ah’ll try. Thank ya, Humans…”

“Make haste! For on this night there is little time to waste!”

“Yeah. Females to conquer and all that.”

“Good luck, Bigs.”

Applejack watched from the corner of her eye as her older brother trotted out of the other room. He was giving the ground in front of his hooves a determined glare and muttered quietly to himself.

“Hey Twilight… no. Nice night tonight, huh? No…”

“Just ask her about her favorite constellation.” Big Mac froze in his tracks, halfway out the front door of Zecora’s tree, and stared at her warily. Slowly, a small smile spread across his muzzle.

“Thanks, AJ.”

“Y-Y’all gonna hafta owe me one,” Applejack responded, trying to sound nonchalant and confident. She didn’t know why she helped him, or why she didn’t tell him Twilight had overheard their conversation. Mac just looked so… resolute. Like he knew he was doing right. Applejack wished she could be the same way.

The big red workhorse gave Applejack a knowing look and nodded almost imperceptibly. The mare’s eyes widened, unable to hide her surprise. Did he know?

“Eeyup.”

Ray was right. Her brother deserved a nice mare.

Several miles away, said nice mare was probably having quite the breakdown, but Big Mac didn’t need to know that yet. He gave her one final look, nodding slightly in the direction of the next room, before clip-clopping out into the early morning darkness.

Applejack winced as the door slammed behind him.

She needed to go in, but she couldn’t. Staying at Ray’s bedside while he was unconscious was fine, but now that he was awake… No. An apology was in order, and, even if he refused her, she would do it anyway. Besides, she couldn’t just go home without Applebloom, no matter how much she trusted Raymond… and even Jer, with her. She had other reasons to see the two humans, but she tried not to think too hard about them. It would just spiral her even further into depression.

Lifting her Stetson from the floor and replacing it on her head, the orange mare carefully made her way over to the doorway leading into the recovering human’s room. Despite her resolve, Applejack almost turned back. The air seemed to grow thicker as she approached the reed partition that partially covered the entrance. Images of Ray’s legs, the scars criss-crossing his body, and the huge puddle of blood drying outside the Everfree forest filtered through her mental barriers. So much blood. The guilt-ridden mare fought the urge to cry openly, her heart quickening with every step. After one thousand years of torturous travel she reached the door and peeked inside.

Zecora stood over the pot of boiling yellow muck, seeming not to have moved since she first entered upon Ray’s awakening almost an hour ago. She was whispering something to Raymond, who was sitting up on the cot, Applebloom tucked into his right arm. The tired filly was sound asleep, just as Applejack had suspected, and so was Winona, whom lay peacefully under Ray’s cot. She briefly forgot her sorrows to revel in just how adorable the scene was… until Zecora lifted one of the human’s legs out of the boiling pot, shattering the moment.

“Oh Godesses… Ah did that.”

The stone was slowly receding from his shin, but still clung adamantly to the lower portion of his leg in small, ebbing clumps. Strips of cloth from his pants hung limply from the stone, having returned to their natural state while in the pot. When they’d stripped him earlier, they hadn’t even had to cut his pant leg off where it met granite. All of the running he’d done had ripped most of it off. Now what was left of his pants flapped against the small patches of rock that remained, laying bare the skin below his knee.

Ray’s pale skin looked like it had been sandpapered. Red, raw patches splotched his leg where the granite had been removed, and several blisters dotted his shin, most-likely a side effect of Zecora’s treatment. The zebra lowered his leg back into the pot of boiling goop, and Ray flinched, screwing his eyes up a little before letting loose a breathy sigh. He looked like he was in terrible pain…

Applejack steeled herself, trying desperately to believe Twilight’s claims. If he never wanted to see her again, that was all she deserved… but she couldn’t bear the thought of it.

“I just wanna see him smile one more time before he sends me away. Just once.”

“Hey Applejack!” an overenthusiastic voice sounded immediately to the orange mare’s left.

“Horseapples!” she grunted, both surprised and angry at being discovered so soon. She slowly turned to find Jer sitting in the strangest position: he was balanced on his forelegs, the appendages the humans and Spike called arms, and had crossed his back legs around them, Buffalo style. Jer’s eyes were the second things that caught her attention. Applejack told herself it was the flickering candlelight of Zecora’s dim home and not the glint of madness flashing across those grey pools. Ever since Ray had told her about Ray’s condition she’d been a little more cautious of the shorter human. She felt bad about it, after how nice he’d been to her, but, despite Ray’s assurance that he was harmless to ponies, memories of that colt in the market a few days ago kept cropping up.

She wanted to say the thief deserved what he got. She really, really wanted to, but… his face: the fear in his eyes still got to her. The crook genuinely thought he was going to die, and Applejack had thought much the same.

“But he didn’t die,” she told herself for the thousandth time. “Jer said he wouldn’t kill him an’ he didn’t. B-Because there were fillies around…”

“You here to get ‘Bloom?” the insane alien yoga enthusiast calmly inquired, simultaneously disentangling himself and flashing a disturbingly delighted grin. Applejack noticed Zecora nod in approval from her spot at ray’s bedside.

“’Bloom?” A pet name? “No. A nickname.” Applejack mentally sighed. No matter how nerve wracking it is to be around him, Applebloom was undoubtedly close to the human, and Applejack would have to deal with it. He was unstable, sure, but true to his friend and her sister. He practically saved Ray’s life, keeping everypony from freaking out and becoming useless. Applejack was nervous about it, but she trusted him. “Yeah, Ah’m here ta take her home, but... can Ah ask ya a favor?”

“Shoot.” Applejack winced at his choice of vocabulary.

“Ah was wonderin’ if Ah could talk tah Ray alone fer awhile.” The farm mare glanced at the other human, who gave her a confused look, Applebloom still snoozing in his arms. Applejack smiled weakly, and turned back to Jer.

“Uh oh…” Applejack began sweating. Now standing at his full height, Gerald looked down at her suspiciously, his arms crossed over the breast of his grey jumpsuit. He wasn’t as tall as Ray, but the height was still intimidating. She was just about to make a hasty defense, trying to reason with the clearly unhappy intergalactic exterminator, when he snorted and slapped her good-naturedly on the withers, suspicion replaced with raspy giggling.

“Sure thing Ms. Apple,” he winked, “I’ll just mosey on outta here.” With that, the lanky human tapped Zecora gently on the back of the neck and they both began their exit. Applejack tried to ignore Zecora’s probing eyes as she and Jer left the room, pulling the woven barricade closed behind them, no doubt to listen in on the conversation from the other side.

“Is everything a joke ta him?!” Applejack reeled slightly at his abrupt swing in demeanor. As if reading her thoughts, a cough sounded behind her, and Ray spoke up in a voice choked with drought:

“Sorry about that. He means well.” He was smiling. Applejack’s heart soared for a moment, only to come crashing back down when she noticed how strained and awkward it was. She tried to tell herself that was the way his smiles always were, but couldn’t. There was no point in her even trying to apologize, but, finding strength from looking at her slumbering sister, she tried anyway.

“No. Ah should be the one apologizin’.” Ray raised an eyebrow, exposing the milky white film over his eye further. He placed Applebloom gently in his lap and stared, eyebrow still raised quizzically, and motioned for her to continue. “Ah shouldn’ta made ya feel like ya needed ta help me, but Ah did, and now yer all battered up and… Ah just…” Eyes squeezed shut, hot tears started running down the orange equine’s cheeks, forming thin trails and spidery veins across her soft fur.

Suddenly, spots of cold, placid pressure traced down the side of her neck, gripping her behind the head and pulling her into a firm, but gentle embrace. She felt something stirring beneath her, and found Applebloom stirring restlessly below, still asleep. Ray was hugging her?

Applejack looked up, finding herself in rather close proximity to the human, who was giving her a stern glare. He wiped a fresh tear from her cheek, causing Applejack to tremble slightly, he looked at the tear as it rolled down his ‘finger’.

“Unnacceptable.”

Applejack stared at the human, disbelief quickly overpowering sorrow. Still crying, she gave the most intelligent reply she could think of:

“Wut?”

Ray stopped glaring critically at the tear long enough to give her an awkward smile, but said nothing. He winked his good eye, still smiling awkwardly, and pushed her gently away. Applejack couldn’t believe it. Was he really not angry? Looking at his nervous, but very sincere grin, she knew he wasn’t.

“Ah guess Ah owe Twilight an apology,” she mused, recovering quickly. “Though, Ah may wanna give her a few days. Ah wonder how Mac’s doin?”

“Miss Twilight? Are ya home?”

*creak*

“Erm, h-hello Big Mac. W-What can I do for you at this early hour?”

“Ya got a second?”

“Exactly one.”

“Uhh… what?”

“Goodnight Mac!”

*slam*

“Buck!”

Raymond nodded once, face having reverted back to the blank slate Applejack had become accustomed to over the last few days, actually, over her whole life when she thought about it. Ray’s face was unnervingly similar to Mac’s. Applejack nodded back, smiling warmly through the last of her tears. They understood each other perfectly, and sat in companionable silence for a time.

The silence was soon shattered, however, when the loud crack of splintering wood sounded from Zecora’s main living quarters, next door, followed by a tinkling shower of broken glass.

“WHERE IS HE?!? I’M GOING TO KILL HIM!”

The conversation in the next room was absolutely the most heartwarming thing Gerald had ever heard involving his former sergeant. He was going to give him sooooo much shit for it later.

Jer and Zecora sat right behind the woven partition, ears pressed to the bamboo and reed blockage as they listened to the teary-eyed apology being made in the next room. The zebra shaman was leaking her own silent tears as the rather one-sided conversation came to a close, smiling sadly at the stereotypical happy ending. The grey-eyed human didn’t understand what was so moving about the whole thing.

Applejack was a nice pony, but she was way too emotional. Seriously, why would she think Ray blamed her at all? Even Jer acknowledged that it was his sergeant’s own fault for deciding to go on that ill-fated search expedition in the first place, and he usually was the one to jump at the first chance of blaming something or someone else for his troubles and the troubles of his friends. Jer was a man who acknowledged his faults.

“Rape the zebra.”

“Ignoring.”

Silence in the next room. Aside from the occasional sniffle, not much was happening, and Jer was getting bored. He was in the forest, so he couldn’t pick up a radio signal either. Oh Joy.

“Don’t you want a taste? It’s exotic.” Jer slapped himself, hoping to distract his thoughts with a little pain. He noticed Zecora looking at him strangely, so he gave her his best “don’t question it” smile and slapped himself again, harder this time. A little pain wasn’t working well enough, but Jer wasn’t about to repeat the “burning fiasco” again. Sure, the intense pain had kept him fairly distracted, but he couldn’t work for several weeks and nearly succumbed to cabin fever after that particular incident. The voices returned all too soon afterward, anyway.

“Go for the eyes first, and you’ll cut straight into her soul.”

“Now that’s just cliché.”

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, shit, fuck, fuck…”

“Oooh! New curse! Variety!” The conversation in the next room had officially lost Jer’s attention, and he began to scan his surroundings for something to occupy his time. Zecora seemed to be preparing to re-enter Ray’s chamber, presumably to check on his legs. Gerald shuddered inwardly. The treatment looked painful as all hell, but was necessary. The zebra knew what she was doing, and after the work she’d done on his back, Jer trusted her to bring his friend back to health. He’d already thanked her profusely, but needed to find some way of repaying her in kind. Jer continued to look around, noting various inconsistencies in the structure of the home, along with some spooky tribal art.

Ray could paint her something. She’d like that. But what could Jer do? His eyes passed over several pony-like masks and settled on the front door.

“I could… fix something? Mayb—”

*CRASH*

“WHERE IS HE!?! I’M GONNA KILL HIM!”

“Fix something it is!” Jer finally decided as splinters of Zecora’s former front entrance rained down upon him. A sky-blue pegasus had just careened through the closed door yelling like an inflamed Viking, sailed over a gigantic bubbling cauldron in the center of the room, and crashed into a large shelf on the opposite wall. Glass shattered and tinkled against the floor, the contents of several sturdy looking jars spilling all over the shelves and splattering the mare who broke the vessels in the first place. Despite being upgraded several colors, Jer immediately recognized her prismatic mane and tail.

“Hey Dash!” he called, giving her a small wave.

“You!”

“Me?”

“Yes, you!”

“My… my home… W-Why w-would?” Jer looked to the zebra sitting awestruck next to him.

“So you CAN talk without rhyming!” The excited human was about to congratulate Zecora on overcoming his speech impediment, but was interrupted by a sudden blunt trauma to his chest, propelling him straight through the bamboo partition and into the next room.

The makeshift doorway was immediately knocked over with a splintering crash, and Jer felt pain explode across his already injured back as he slid into something else. A loud yelp sounded somewhere to his left, along with a pained wheeze and loud thumping noise. Jer just had enough time to see a little yellow filly sailing through the air before his spine impacted the far wall, soon after followed by his head. Pain momentarily blinded the completely bewildered human and he squeezed his eyes shut. Loud barking filtered in through the ringing in his ears.

“What the FUCK?!”

“When you open your eyes, you had better kill something.”

Jer opened his eyes, and what he saw made his blood boil.

The room lay in shambles. Ray’s bunk had been overturned, dumping Jer’s friend upon the floor. The cauldron his legs had been soaking in was knocked over, the boiling yellow sludge inside slowly spreading across the wooden floor. Ray hissed and wrenched an arm backwards as the mixture reached it, barely avoiding a serious burn from the looks of it. Applejack rushed over to the other human, wincing as she crossed the growing pool of burning substance. Sporting a rather large bruise, she crossed the room quickly and began helping Ray lug himself away from the burning substance, his legs dragging uselessly behind him, coated in yellow slime, crumbling stone, and red burns.

Jer gritted his teeth in anger.

“Hahahahahahaha!” the deep voice in his head screamed righteous laughter, only serving to piss him off even more. It took everything he had to not to completely lose it then and there.

The barking noise that could only be that cute little dog Ray risked his hide for receded slightly, and Jer looked around, trying to find the source. His eyes lit upon the brown-and-white canine, who was busy pulling on a red tail protruding out from under a heavy wooden mask that had fallen from its lofty perch upon Zecora’s wall. The mask settled with a quick *thunk* as Applebloom Apple was pulled out from underneath. The filly looked barely conscious, reeling on her hooves as she tried to sit up on her haunches while Winona looked on, expressing more concern than thought possible for a mere canine.

Seeing the youngest Apple mare in such a state, Jer finally snapped.

“Who the fuck hit me!?!” A multihued blur invaded his vision. Jer refocused his eyes, tunnel vision locking onto Rainbow Dash, who was hovering above him, leering down and yelling something unintelligible. Bits began to leak through his ringing ears.

“—t did yo—o her?!? What did you tell her?!? Tell me or I’ll hit you again!”

“Bingo.”

Jer’s hand shot out, firmly latching around the flying pony’s throat. Dash tried to gasp, but couldn’t get any air. Grimly satisfied by her choking and the frantic hooves that beat at his upper arm, the enraged human slowly stood up and held the suffocating mare at arm’s length. If he could have looked into his own eyes, he would have seen the murder shining deep within. Jer glared at Rainbow Dash, and she stopped struggling in order to glare right back… once he’d loosened his grip, of course.

She was a brave pony, but that didn’t change the fact that she was going to have the shit beaten out of her.

“What the fuck was that for?!” Jer yelled, putting as much venom as possible behind his words. Rainbow gagged on her response, so he loosened his fingers just enough for her to say her piece.

“You did something to her! *cough*” The blue pegasus hacked a string of saliva onto his wrist. “Alien mind tricks or something!”

“I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about,” Jer responded, tightening his grip around her throat once more. “You’re lucky I have a good memory, or I would just choke you out right here, but I remember the good you’ve done for me and Ray, even if you may have reversed some of it.” He glanced behind him, catching Ray giving him a stern look. “Considering that, I’ll give you a chance to apologize to everyone in this room before I do some very ugly things.”

“Me? Apologize to you?” the rainbow mare stared at him, honestly incredulous and still fuming with hatred. “Ever since you showed up you’ve done nothing but beat ponies senseless, TRY to ruin my reputation, and put Scootaloo in danger! Apologize?! I’m going to beat you to a pul—agck!”

Jer had heard enough. He smiled thinly at the struggling pegasus.

“Fine. More fun for me.”

“Wh—ack! What are ya gonna do? Kill me?” Dash growled, voicing action that the demons in Jer’s head had begged for her many a time, and were lustily crying for at that very moment. Ironic? Maybe. An intelligent course of action? Hell no. Tempted to do it anyway? Definitely. With a soft grunt, the former corporal slammed Dash into the wall behind him, knocking her head against the oddly grained inner cortex of the giant tree. Her wings splayed out awkwardly, flapping and blustering the air around her in an attempt to garner movement.

“I want you to take a good look at what you’ve done, and apologize,” Jer calmly dictated, moving sideways so she could see the whole room while still keeping a firm grip on the pegasus, “so you’ll remember it when your eyes are swollen shut.”

Her eyes remained locked with his.

“Defiant? I like that in a woman. It makes the screams all the more rewarding,” Jer mused.

“Of pleasure? Or pain?” a dark voice responded, forcing Jer to do a double take on his previous thoughts.

“You’re disgusting…”

“I’m you, Fuckface. You just don’t want to accept it.”

Jer lifted his right leg and slid his fingers into the gap between his combat boot and his right ankle until he felt cold, smooth steel. He allowed himself a cruel smile.

Playtime.

At that point in time, approximately 3:39 a.m. Canterlot time on the 31st of Mayne, one month after the second Summer Sun Celebration held in Ponyville, Rainbow Dash was scared shitless.

She hid it rather well, though.

“Nice toy. You must spread butter like a bucking champion.”

“Oh Goddesses, I’m going to die!” Rainbow’s façade never faltered as she stared down the alien pressing her against the wall. The tip of his wicked looking weapon nicked at her throat, and the pegasus felt a sharp stinging pain and the slow trickle of blood across her blue fur. She’d seen him use that knife to butcher a fully-grown manticore, and now it was pressed against her.

“Now hold up a minute here,” the loud twanging of a familiar voice interrupted Rainbow’s fixation on the psycho alien’s knife. “Let’s work this out all civil like.”

“I can handle this nut job myself, AJ,” Rainbow interjected, her mouth no longer taking orders from her brain.

“Don’t you dare let me handle this nut job myself, AJ!”

“You most certainly can NOT handle the situation yerself, Sugarcube,” Applejack retorted, voice faltering slightly.

“Thank Celestia…”

“Jer,” the farm mare entreated, “whatever’s goin’ on can be fixed without yer knife.” The sharp implement pressed deeper into Dash’s throat and she was forced to hold her breathe.

“So this is how I die? Bucking lame…” Applejack’s voice took on a more frantic tone.

“Hun, please. Ah know she knocked everyone up pretty badly when she pushed you through the room, but Ray’s fine. Ah’m fine. Applebloom’s fine. Nopony is seriously hurt,” her eyes darted upward for a second, “‘cept you, Hun.” She turned, looking back toward the battered entrance. “Zecora, could ya go get more bandages? Jer’s back’s opened up again.” It was then that Rainbow saw the huge bruise forming on the side of her orange friend.

“When did…” She glanced left and noticed the other human, the somewhat cool guy with the granite hooves, propped up against the wall while clutching his left forearm. An overturned cot lay sprawled next to him and yellow ooze was slowly drying on the ground from an overturned cauldron. Applebloom entered from the right, stumbling a bit on her hooves and nursing a rather large bump on her noggin. She hopped into Ray’s lap, wincing at the change in pressure in her tiny head. “Was that me?”

An accusing glare and the pressure of Jer’s Tartarus-worthy butter knife were all the answers she needed. Guilt crept in on her, but she pushed it away. It wasn’t her fault; it was his! If Jer hadn’t landed in their country, none of this would have happened! She would be asleep right now, and her number one fan would be turning out to watch her practice later in the afternoon. No bogus nutcases around to ruin her reputation and warp her life out of whack.

“Just put the knife down, Sugarcube. Nice an’ easy now. There are fillies present, remember?” Rainbow watched as some of the murderous light in Jer’s eyes died out. Anger still shone brightly behind his grey irises, however, and the knife remained against her throat.

“Bring it, Monkey Boy. I’d like to see you tr—”

*CRACK*

The hilt of Jer’s knife made Rainbow’s head ring, and her vision blurred momentarily. She was dimly aware of the sharp edge of a blade pressing back into her throat. An orange blur was leaning up against the much-loathed biped before her. Dash assumed that it was Applejack, trying to get him to let her go. The sting of cold steel and another trickle of blood told her exactly how that was turning out.

“Buckin’ hit me… I can’t… Ahowhowhowooooch!” Dash caught the sound of her nemesis’s voice through the ringing pain in her head, but just barely.

“Why the hell did you do that, huh? Violence only leads to more violence, and you just tried to punt a me, a man raised on bloodshed, across the room? Are you a feeb?” The alien’s voice bordered between incredulity and seething rage.

“What did you tell Scootaloo?” Rainbow coughed, giving her best defiant glare to try and counteract the oversized monkey’s idiotic monologue. “You think you’re hot horseapples? I’ll show you.”

“What do you mean? I’ve been talking to Scoots for the past four days!”

“You turned her against me! Against her own family! I show up at your camp to take her home and find her cooking meat! Do you realize how disturbing that is? Ponies don’t do that! Even Griffins are cool enough not to go preparing small animals to be munched on around us!” Rainbow yelled as loud as she could, wincing at the pounding in her head. “I try to take her home to Cloudsdale, but she refuses and punches me in the wings, then yells at ME for not paying enough attention to her! She never used to be this way! WHAT DID YOU DO?”

Rainbow panted out her final yell, waiting for Jer to respond. The human glared coldly at her, but Rainbow Dash didn’t care anymore. She’d said her piece. Now Jer would pay for his crimes.

“I told her she didn’t have to be alone.”

“What?!?” The blue pegasus’s glare deepened, but Jer continued nonetheless.

“She had no family to speak of, let alone betray for me. Even I could see that, and I don’t pay attention to much besides my small, broken family. Are you creatures really that naïve? That you didn’t notice when one of your own was suffering? Or are you particular ponies just stupider than the rest?”

“You lie!” Rainbow cried, struggling feebly due to lack of oxygen to kick the human in his exposed stomach. Seeing that her meager attempts at violence weren’t even hitting their mark, Dash instead turned to the walking lie detector in the room. “He’s lying, right?”

Her orange cowpony friend, having backed away from Jer while Dash was shouting, simply sat, staring at the human, jaw agape.

“Ah… Ah can’t believe… Ah had no idea…” Applejack couldn’t seem to finish whatever she planned to say, but it mattered little. Rainbow got the gist of it.

“No… no no no no no! That can not be true!” Rainbow cried out in her head, only to be interrupted by the confused voice of the youngest pony in the room.

“S-Sis? Scootaloo’s an… an orphan? Like us?”

“Oh dear Celestia…”

“We ain’t orphans, Sugarcube. Ma an’ Pa are just… out…”

“B-But—”

“No ‘buts!’” Applejack practically shrieked, causing half the room to jump and Applebloom to burst into tears, scrunching closer to the only being who had yet to say anything. Ray was looking at each and every pony in the room curiously, finally settling on Applejack, who was busy wringing her battered Stetson in her hooves and trying to compose herself.

“Gerald?” he finally spoke, addressing the human who still stared at Dash with the same cold expression.

“Morphine when we get back. Gotcha. From what I hear, Scoots has breakfast ready.”

“You didn’t…” Ray sternly admonished. Jer let out a soft sigh, his cold expression faltering.

“Yes I did. She’ll be staying with us for awhile.”

“Jer, we are LEAVING,” Raymond voiced his displeasure through clenched teeth. “We are not taking a child with us. We don’t even know if we have enough fuel to make it to the frontier! And if the Company gets a hold of her—”

“I know! Company pricks…” Jer hissed, cutting Ray off mid-sentence. “I’m working on it. She’ll have a home here before we get off this rock.”

“Why?” All eyes turned back to Rainbow, who had been watching the conversation unfold before her from her position at the end of Jer’s grip, struggling to hold back tears. “Why do you care? I’ve known her ever since she came to Ponyville… why did you notice and not one of us?” It was a silly question. She knew what he was going to say: they were stupid and naïve… caught up in the throws of life in paradise. Celestia knows he would be right. The answer she got, however, was far different from her expectation of the explosive ingrate of a man.

“She reminded me of someone. Someone I knew a long time ago.” All of the wrath left his eyes, and Rainbow watched as his slate irises glazed over and the fingers wrapped around her throat loosened. The knife left her throat, leaving behind a small cut that still oozed blood as she slid down the wall and to the floor. “I’m… I’m done…”

Jer walked unsteadily to Ray and slumped against the wall next to him, sheathing his knife in his right boot as he did so and leaving a slick smear of blood on the wall at his back. Applebloom crossed the distance between the two humans with a quick hop and nuzzled his chest. Jer absent-mindedly patted her on the head, eyes still staring into the distance, and crumpled her ever-present bow. The filly didn’t seem to mind, however, and just kept trying to make him feel better.

Dash imagined the Applebloom being replaced with a small orange pegasus and her heart broke further. It wasn’t Jer’s fault. It never was. It had always been her.

“Wow, Rainbow Dash! Can you show me how to do that?”

“Sorry, Squirt. Next time. I gotta make feather for Twilight’s place.”

“Oh… Okay! Next time then, right?”

“Sure, Squirt. Next time I’ll take ya for a wild ride!”

There was never a ‘next time.’ She’d always found some excuse not to teach her, and Rainbow didn’t even know why she did it.

No… that was a lie. She knew why she did it.

Her time was more important. It had always been more important.

“I watched y-you practice e-every day!”

She was too cool to give flying lessons…

“W-Well fine! You can teach me to fly at my funeral, because I never wanna see you again as long as I live!”

Rainbow looked around the room, taking note of all the damage she caused: the smashed furniture, injured beings, and irate zebra. It was all her. She was to blame.

“I’m a horrible pony…”

Lifting herself off of her flank, Dash slowly made her way toward the two sitting humans. Applejack moved to intercept, but stopped halfway to her and simply began observing her progress across the room. The quiet human, Ray, watched her approach guardedly, but relaxed when he saw her wet, pleading look. A soft grunt escaped his lips and he turned his attention elsewhere. Applebloom watched her come forward with trepidation, and Jer didn’t notice her until she was right on top of him. The disdainful tone in his voice returned immediately along with his consciousness as he left whatever faraway land his attentions had drawn him into.

“I’m done with you, Pride Parade,” he grunted quietly. “Fuck off.”

“I… I’m sorry…” Rainbow murmured, guilt and grief outweighing her desire to flee. The human’s glare intensified.

“I’m not the one you should be apologizing to.”

Rainbow winced. An image of orange and violet flashed through her mind.

“I know, but you deserve one too… and everypony here, t-too,” Dash stuttered, on the verge of a very un-awesome emotional breakdown. “Zecora, I’m sorry I broke your house. Applejack, Applebloom, and Ray? I’m sorry I knocked into you guys. Jer… I’m sorry I blamed you for everything… and punched you… and was mean to you this whole time… can you forgive me?”

The room was deadly quiet. The only sound was Rainbow’s ragged breathing and the calls of wild creatures on the early morning wind. Jer just continued to hurl daggers at her with his eyes.

“You think saying ‘sorry’ to me is going to make everything all right? That I’m going to just forget all of this and start over?” the glaring human inquired, voice icy with malice.

“No…” Rainbow slumped down onto her barrel and covered her head with her wings, defeated. She finally let the tears run freely down her cheeks. Of course he would never forgive her! What was she thinking? Stupid, stupid, stu—

“Okay,” a cheery voice suddenly giggled from Gerald’s general area. Dash looked up to find a totally changed biped, sitting up straight with a huge, dopey grin on his face. His slate eyes had lost all their malice and now somehow conveyed a calming jocularity. The crying pegasus had no idea what was happening anymore.

“Wh-Wha-a?” she sniffed.

“You’re forgiven,” the grinning human quipped merrily, earning an eye roll from his counterpart and several incredulous looks from the room’s other occupants, especially Dash. The seemingly bipolar alien got up, passing Applebloom back off to Ray, and began straightening up the room; starting with Ray’s overturned cot.

“You f-forgive me? Just like that?!” Dash squeaked, unable to comprehend Jer’s dramatic reversal in mood and behavior. He was acting like he did three days ago, when she’d first met him in the clearing (except he wasn’t trying to frighten her with the corpse of some huge animal).

“Hmm?” Jer looked up from mopping at the yellow ooze on the ground with a white rag that had been lying nearby. “Oh! Yeah.”

“No… no punishment?”

Jer looked up again, a lopsided grin on his face.

“Not from me. I think you’ve been punished enough.” He glanced at Zecora, who was sitting across the room, eyeing the exchange warily. His grin morphed into a knowing smirk. “But that’s just my opinion. Zecora, here, will decide what to do with you.”

Applejack visibly paled in the corner of Dash’s eye, and when the pegasus turned to her, the farm mare gave Rainbow a sympathetic look. The blue pegasus suddenly felt much more nervous. It couldn’t be that bad, right? I mean this was Zecora they were talking about! Whatever the zebra dished out was probably going to be less punishment than she deserved. She looked at Zecora, who now, too, was smirking playfully.

“I have something in mind for this fine, athletic mare,” she slowly announced in that strange dialect of hers, addressing Gerald but staring straight at Dash (but not in the face, mind you). “Give me but a few days, and her punishment I’ll prepare.”

“…”

*Gulp*

“There is no rock,

There is no God like our God.

No other name

Worthy of all our praaaise…”

The sun shone down through the trees in the human’s clearing, and Jer jilted and swung around the fire ring, hefting a toolbox the size of Scootaloo over to the twin thrusters at the back of the Ugly Duckling. The fuel couplings that fed the two massive rockets were on the fritz, and Ray had been pushing him to take care of it for the last hour or so. Jer couldn’t help it that Scoots wanted an escort into town, and the jeep needed an oil change, and he fucking hated engine repair… but whatever. Ray missed Earth, and couplings needed couple-ing and so on to get there.

“Rock of salvation

That cannot be moved!

Experience shown to be faithful and tru-ue…”

Jer had been picking up a gospel station since eleven in the morning, right after he’d discovered the receiver on the jeep’s AM-band radio still worked, and that the antennae could obtain a signal through the forest canopy. All he had to do was flip a small switch on the back of the jeep’s CB transmitter, and his temporal lobes were doused in auditory distraction. Why he no longer picked up the pirate radio from the notorious Mike and Robby in Chicago, Illinois, Jer didn’t know. All he knew was that he’d been listening to God Rock for four straight hours, and damn was it catchy. It sure as hell beat listening to the voices curse and spit in his head. That was, at least, certain.

As he reached the back of the Duckling, Jer’s muffled singing devolved into a thin, reedy whistling, matching the tune playing in his head rather well. The troop bay door stood open, and Jer could just see Ray’s lower half sticking out of the console on the upper deck, past a small flight of stairs and nestled deep within the ship’s cockpit. White bandages swathed his lower legs, mostly to keep the burns he’d received from the zebra’s treatment clean and covered. Jer had caught him trying to run that morning and had forced him to slow down and keep his leg movement at the bare minimum. The danm thing had been snapped clean off only yesterday, after all.

Fucking magic. Jer didn’t trust the hocus pocus, but it sure was helpful. Ray could still walk because of it, and had gotten his arm fixed… again! Even so, not straining his legs and arm just yet was probably the way to go. He’d have to watch Ray like a hawk for the next week or so to make sure he didn’t do anything strenuous… or until they were already on their way home: whichever came first.

To either side of the open hatchway, two rather large, gunmetal grey thrusters jutted from the Duckling’s titanium hide, surrounded by several smaller thrusters of the same general design. Nestled so close to the entrance of the ship, the main aft rockets weren’t activated often: usually only running when entering or leaving a planet’s atmosphere. Any other movements, precise or otherwise, were conducted with smaller versions of the two back thrusters.

When in use, the flames exuded by the aft rockets burned in excess of 6000 degrees Fahrenheit, cooled radiatively throughout the combustion chamber so the casing itself didn’t melt. The mouth of each thruster was just big enough for a man to fit inside on his belly, allowing for the emission of a long, thin stream of blue-white flame. Jer could roast a weenie on those jets from across the clearing, and in order to get at the coupling, he had to crawl inside each one up to his knees.

He was beginning to understand why Ray gave him this job in the first place.

Meh. At least if the engines inexplicably activated (which was more than likely, Ray fiddling with the wiring in the central console like he was), Jer would be vaporized almost instantly. That was comforting. With a quick roll of his shoulders, Corporal Hanes plunged into the port thruster, soft whistling echoing down the blackened tube into the combustion chamber, reverberating tinnily to anyone who may have been listening outside.

As he worked on restoring the thrusters to their former glory, Jer’s mind wandered back to yesterday’s rather painful fiasco. He grimaced as he stretched the skin on his back while trying to reach for another tool from the box resting between his knees. He was still tender back there, and probably wouldn’t be able to wear clothing without bandages underneath for another week.

The real tragedy was the damage done to his Grayle suit. The hole torn in the backside left a huge blind spot for projection on the front of the suit. Now, not only could the bloody patch of skin on his back be seen, but a grey patch of cloth in the exact same shape appeared on the front whenever the suit was activated. Without the microscopic cameras woven into the fabric in the back, the projectors on his front half didn’t know what to show. His illusion of transparency was shattered, and there would be no fixing it until they made it back to Company territory (IF they made it back). Hunting would be slightly more difficult now; giving Scootaloo a little scare when she got back from town, even harder.

Scootaloo. Jer needed to find her somewhere more permanent to stay. After they’d cleaned up as much as they could at Zecora’s that morning and the placated zebra had given Jer detailed instructions on taking care of Ray’s legs (in verse, of course), the two humans had limped their way back to their clearing for the night with the help of a rather enthused Applejack. When they’d finally made it back they’d found the little orange filly fast asleep next to the campfire, a burnt leg of manticore meat and some granola bars lying next to her. The bars were most likely stolen out of Ray’s compartment. Jer didn’t remember ever showing her where that was, but he didn’t question it. The fact that she tried so hard to make them something to eat for when they returned was too heartwarming for him to think of trivial things like that.

After snacking on the little meal, Jer had wrapped the filly up in an emergency blanket and slept out under the stars with her, letting Ray use the bed inside the Duckling. Jer slept well. He could recall no dreams.

Unfortunately, sleep didn’t last nearly as long as Jer would have liked… and that morning had been loud. Who knew such a small kid could yell like that. Gerald had almost knifed her he was so surprised when she tackled him in his sleep and yelled something about “Goddesses” and Rainbow Dash. There was a preponderance of the word “dead” in her happy little yelling fit, and Jer learned that Rainbow may have alluded to their early demise the night before.

Silly. He wasn’t going to kick the bucket that easily. There were still bugs to eradicate, and they had Gerald’s name carved into their slimy, black hides.

After Scootaloo had been thoroughly assuaged of all concern, and she’d taken the time to chide the two humans about being more careful (the cutest thing Jer had seen in ages), they’d had a modest breakfast of more granola bars and some berries Scootaloo helped gather. After that she’d asked to go into town to play with her little friends, and, having successfully escorted her there while avoiding the townsfolk, he was able to return to the clearing: unmolested and free of irritating, clingy civvies. Now there Jer was, knee deep in a rocket engine. A rather pleasant morning if he said so himself.

Still… Scoots needed somewhere else to call home before they left, which, at this rate, would be pretty soon. Ray, bless his soul, didn’t nag him about it, but the looks he had gotten were enough to remind him of his earlier promise.

Most of the ship’s computer systems were back online, and, once Jer fixed the fuel couplings, rerouted all the coolant into two of the four cryogenic tubes, and fixed the lower rockets to get them off the ground, they would, theoretically, be able to make orbit. The two humans had even figured out a solution to the broken stern viewport issue.

Every Company ship was required to have at least two pairs of vacuum suits when traveling through space, charted or otherwise. The Duckling was no exception. Ray and Jer were going to wear the suits into orbit, having mended the viewport with a thin layer of glass shielding (soon to be purchased in town by Applejack) that would do very little to keep the vacuum of deep space at bay. Once outside the atmosphere, having plotted a course for the frontier and activated their distress beacon, they planned on freezing themselves in their cryo tubes, relying on the tube’s air filters to keep them alive while in stasis. If they were lucky, a freighter might pick up their beacon well into the frontier territories. If not… well... they’d thaw out in about eighty standard years.

But the fun didn’t end there, boys and girls! Then they’d suffocate.

It was a viable plan, albeit relying too heavily on chance. Space was big, but Ray thought they would make it, and that was good enough for Jer.

“Just one more *grunt* radiation shield…” Jer stretched back down to the toolbox for a can of sealant to spray behind the lead shielding. Hopefully the heat of the engines would help cure the mixture and fix the plate back in place. Jer’s whistling ground to a halt as he worked, the song having ended rather abruptly, the aged voice of one Reverend Gaffigan replacing the music.

“You’ve been listening to De-entro Christian Radio: where the flock comes to… rock…” The good reverend clearly wasn’t comfortable with using such terminology. Jer giggled to himself as he began fixing the new RAD-plating into place. “Coming up next: Father Cronin’s reading of today’s Gospel and a sermon on the immoralities of self gratification. Go with God, and may the light of his love shine upon you all. Go in peace.”

“Love you, too, Gaffers,” Jer mumbled, not really listening anymore. That damn plate wasn’t fitting in quite right…

“Why thank you, Mr. Hanes, but I am afraid I can’t return your sentiments,” a soft, soothing voice sounded nearby, tone like that of a mother speaking to her young child. Jer yelped and tried to sit up, slamming his forehead into the radiation shielding directly above.

*BANG*

“Fuuuuu-uu-u-u-u-uuuuck…” the working human moaned, slowly squirming his way back outside. The plate he had been trying to fit in place came loose and caught him once again, right between the eyes. Jer didn’t even bother to curse that time, opting to just groan and slide out of the thruster using the power of gravity alone.

He slumped to the ground, blinking rapidly to clear his blurred vision. A tall, regal native stood before him, smirking from behind an ethereal mane that billowed on a nonexistent wind. The pony had both wings and a horn, overkill if Jer had ever seen it, and looked teasingly familiar. He’d seen this pony before. The pictogram of a burning sun adorned the recognizable mare’s flank, tempting a recent memory up from the depths of Jer’s head. There was no doubt in the dazed human’s mind that it was so. The large mare had an unforgettable air about her.

“How the hell did she get in? Did I forget to turn on the barrier?” Jer questioned himself, more confused than angry at all the trespassing at that point. He glanced again at the extra-long, spiral horn that adorned the top of the pony’s head. “Damned magic…”

“Good afternoon, Mr. Hanes. I trust you slept well after last night’s incident?” There was that calm, motherly voice again. She sounded like Sister Mara, a matron, long dead now, that had once cared for children of Gerald’s age group at the orphanage on Jiboomi. Was that why she was memorable? No. It hadn’t been the voice. She looked familiar. “I never got a chance to ask how you enjoyed your party. Pinkamena always puts together the most interesting celebrations.”

It finally clicked: this was that “royal” pony Twilight had been so eager to introduce. Princess Celeste or something like that. Jer frowned to himself as he watched the stately mare carefully. Why hadn’t he immediately figured that out? What was different? Once again, it clicked: she had been wearing a crown-type thing then. Now she was devoid of all signs of rank. Should he bow? Gerald immediately dismissed that idea. She had no authority over him. Handshake then? Meh.

Jer finally settled with a neutral greeting, mentally preparing himself to be cheated, robbed, and lied to. All politicians were the same to Jer. Whether trained in government or business, those with power couldn’t be trusted. He would have to be on his guard.

“Greetings Ma’am,” Jer smiled quickly, “how can I help you?” The tall, white pony tilted her head left and smiled warmly, eyes twinkling in the summer sunlight that stretched and squirmed through the treetops above for the privilege to shine upon her. Jer felt a faint tingling: an icy tendril of intent slithered within him. THAT was new.

“I merely wanted to thank you for your intervention, yesterday,” she tinkled. “With the Apple family.” Jer felt the icy probing once more, this time flowing up his neck, tapping at the base of his skull. Was this her working around inside him? Or was he just hallucinating again?

“Don’t thank me,” the suddenly defensive human stated plainly. “Ray found the dog. He was also the one who found the Apple filly. I would let you talk to him, but he’s sleeping right now, and I’d prefer that he got his rest.” Jer turned and gestured toward the open hatch, stealing a quick glance inside. He had put all his trust in Raymond at that point, hoping he had heard the conversation and was already halfway back from the Duckling’s small motor pool (which doubled as an armory on high-risk jobs) with a pair of pulse rifles. His legs were no longer visible from under the main console, and Jer relaxed visibly. He turned back to Celeste, gathering from her unchanged expression that she hadn’t noticed his relief.

The cold squirming in his skull dulled slightly, disappearing almost entirely after a few seconds. There was still something there, but it seemed more subdued. Jer ignored the feeling, choosing instead to focus on the suspicious mare before him. He wouldn’t be surprised if the feeling was just his body fucking with him. Stranger things had happened: far stranger things. Back to his uninvited guest.

“I understand his need for rest. Much was accomplished yesterd—”

“Enough bullshit,” Jer cut straight to the chase, growing impatient with the princess standing before him, but not letting his frustrations show. He wanted her royal ass gone before she enchanted him with her warm, caring voice. Damned old women and their damn charms always got to him eventually. He was again briefly reminded of Sister Mara, and gagged a bit at the memory of all the chores she’d somehow talked him into doing. The way she said things made it seem like Gerald had a choice in what he did with his time, but he almost always chose to do the chores she suggested. Old people were crafty, and this mare practically oozed aged wisdom. “What do you really want?”

“Straight to the point?” the white mare asked, matronly tone abandoned as her mood became more businesslike. “Good.” She looked around camp critically, eyeing the tools and other items strewn about the clearing. Finally, she settled on the open hatch behind Gerald.

“Shit…”

“You will be leaving Equestria soon, I take it?”

“That’s the plan.” Cold stirred in the back of Jer’s mind.

“Unfortunately, your ‘plan’ will have to be delayed,” the royal pony decreed, voice never faltering as she took a step closer to the ship, and by subsequent position, Jer. She stared openly at the miniature pin-up painted ceremoniously above the hatchway: a smaller version of the busty, anthropomorphic duck above the ship’s wing.

“And why would that be?” Jer snarked, raising an eyebrow and dropping his neutral façade. This mare was beginning to set off several very pertinent red flags within Jer’s mind. Where the hell was Raymond?

“I recall Mr. Schaffer mentioning that your previous profession was that of a soldier: a keeper of the piece.”

“What of it?” Jer growled.

“The almighty God of Chaos and Entropy has escaped his prison, and the wedding of the Captain of the Solar Guard is in less than a week. I require several able-bodied ponies to secure the event and make sure everything runs smoothly.”

“We aren’t ‘ponies.’ You have no power over us. Deal with your own damned problems. We’re going home.” Jer made to turn around and walk calmly into the ship, hopefully to find Ray just around the edge of the bay doors with a weapon, when the “pegacorn-whatever-thing” began laughing. Jer bristled. The tinkling laughter wasn’t haughty or condescending: it was the kind of laugh someone used when they knew something someone else didn’t.

“Ray, where are you?!?”

“How are you planning on getting ‘home’ exactly?” the white mare asked, having finished chuckling at Jer’s expense. “You won’t survive three minutes outside of Terran skies.” Gerald grinned, failing to notice a cold tendril of invisible force leave his body. Maybe she didn’t know anything after all! He spun back toward the demanding noblepony, smiling hideously.

“What kind of people do you take us f—erk!” Jer choked on his planned comment and immediately began panicking. The sounds of the radio became distant in his ears as the voices in his head roared in utter disbelief. Somehow, he was able to retain a single coherent thought against the madness of what he was seeing and hearing.

“No! Not possible! That is not possible!”

Floating in a dull gold aura were three vacuum suits: the same two suits they had been relying on to get them into orbit, along with the emergency suit, which had been hidden in a special compartment of the Duckling’s titanium decking. The stark white material and dark, ultra-violet shielded helmets contrasted against the faint golden glow of unicorn magic exuding from the white pony before him.

“H-How the hell? Give those back!” Jer yelled, taking a shaky step forward, fists clenched and ready for a fight. He felt a hand grip his shoulder, pulling him back, and suddenly Ray was next to him. The scarred human limped a step ahead of Jer, leveling a pulse rifle at the thieving mare with the sun stamped on her rump.

“All right! Get her, Sarge! Wait… where’s my gun?!”

“Put those down!” Raymond barked, good eye burning with hatred Jer hadn’t seen since the re-conquest of Earth. The mare merely smirked, eyeing Ray’s gun critically. Growling ferally, Raymond took another step forward. “We are leaving this planet. Soon. Drop them, or we’ll test how well you fucking impossible horses do magic while full of holes.”

The standoff lasted another three seconds.

“I am NOT letting you stand in the way of my home,” Ray snarled “Sorry, Bitch.” A hail of gunfire rattled through camp, and sixteen explosive shells blazed through the air towards the royal pony. That smirk never faded, even as the golden shield forming around her body did, and sixteen scorched bullet casings fell to the ground. Every single round had been stopped, each exploding harmlessly a foot away from her body.

Seething, Ray pumped the tube under the rifle barrel, preparing to launch a small grenade at the leering noblemare. Jer pushed him to the left, throwing his aim off and sending the grenade across camp where it exploded harmlessly against the blue defensive wall.

“No! You’ll damage the suits!” Jer yelled, snatching the rifle from his former sergeant’s fingers. For once, the clinically insane exterminator was the one thinking more clearly.

“Are you ready to talk?” The Princess was still there, not having moved throughout the entire exchange. She had that motherly look on her face again, and Jer used every ounce of strength not to try and blow it off.

There was no shooting her… and grenades would damage their only chance of escape from that obscenely colorful planet. They couldn’t win. Jer glanced at Ray, who was giving the thieving horse a look that would’ve killed a Xeno Queen. He turned his milky, cataract eye toward Gerald, looking at him with his dim, barely visible pupil. Defeated, he gave Jer a grudging nod. Jer dropped the rifle to the ground with a soft clunk.

“All right… let’s talk business.”

Extra: Punishment

View Online

Punishment

The following is a series of recordings taken in the ‘Ponyville’ area, prior to the Invasion of Canterlot.

POWER GRID ACTIVE.

STARTUP INITIATED. WELCOME <USER NAME HERE>

“Sup, Mother. Ya miss me?”

PLEASE PROVIDE THE PROPER CREDENTIALS.

“Love you, too… lets see… jay-ee-arr aye-ess aye-doubleyou-ee-ess-oh-ehm-ee sixty-nine.”

PASSWORD ACCEPTED. WELCOME BACK <SEXY MUTHAFUGGAH>

“Good to be back. Now let’s see to them probes, heah.”

ACTIVATE AUDIO RELAYS Y/N?

“Aaaand… Poink!”

AUDITORY RELAYS ACTIVE. RETRIEVAL IN PROGRESS.

/--/ COLLATING…

/--/ AUDIO RETRIEVAL COMPLETE.

“Hmmmm… two days ago… probe one.”

YOU HAVE SELECTED AUDIO CACHE ONE. PROCEED? Y/N?

BEGINNING PLAYBACK.

→/←

“Skrrtzzzt-t-t—Hey! Uhm… I mean, hello? Is, uhm, anypony home? Zecora?” *bang-rap-bang* “Hello?”

*creeaak*

“Ah, good morning pegasus of mane so fair. What is your purpose here at my lair?”

“Jer sent me…”

“…”

“He said you had something planned as… punishment?”

“…”

“Zecora… you’re kinda creepin’ me out… could you look me in the eye please? Zecora?”

“I… apologize, Miss Dash, if my greeting seems rather rash. I’m not accustomed to such fine company. Especially not from somepony so… shapely.”

“Umm… Yeah, s-sure. About the punishment?”

“Don’t fret my dear. You’ll see soon enough: you need not fear.”

“Ohhh-kay… so just follow you, then?”

“…”

“Okay.”

*clip-clop-clip-clop-clip-clop-clip-clop-clip…*

…

“WHAT IS THAT USED FOR?!?!”

→/←

FURTHER DIALOGUE FOREIGN IN NATURE.

PROCEED WITH PHONETIC TRANSLATION? Y/N?

“—ahahahahaHA! Oh, God that’s… that’s… AHAHA—”

PROCEED WITH PHONETIC TRANSLATION? Y/N?

“Au-Audio—snrktahaha! P-Probe t-two. Heh… hehe…two days ago… heehee…”

YOU HAVE SELECTED AUDIO CACHE TWO. PROCEED? Y/N?

“Get on with it, Mother!”

BEGINNING PLAYBACK.

→//←

“… and then Rose told me that he didn’t even send her a letter afterward!”

*GASP*

“The horror!”

“But that’s not even the worst part! At the spa, yesterday, Goldie told me that…”

PLAYBACK FAST FORWARD.

/--/ →→

→

PLAYBACK RESUME.

“… went to that party last weekend, right?”

“The one with the two giant monkey things?”

“Yeah. That ‘un.”

“No, but I met them in the Hayseed afterward.”

“After your set? How’d Chuckles do?”

“Fine, as usual. The crazy colt just keeps coming up with new stuff. I just wish more ponies came out to his show, y’know?”

“Yeah, I know. If that indecisive, marshmallow mare hadn’t taken so long to pick a stupid pair of curtains down at Q & S I woulda made it out to see ‘im.”

“You don’t need to make excuses, Davenport. It’s fine.”

“I know, Cymbal… what were we talkin’ ‘bout earlier?”

PLAYBACK FAST FORWARD.

/--/ →→

→

“… then what happened, Darling?”

“Well, I kind of slammed the door in his face.”

“What?!? Twilight, dear, this is Big Macintosh we’re talking about! Big FREAKING Macintosh!”

“Rarity!”

*ahem!*

“Your orders, mademoiselles?”

“Oh… yes. Terribly sorry, Stablesworth. I’ll have the garden salad and… Twilight?”

“The same.”

“Thank you, mademoiselles. I vill be right back vith your orders.”

*clip-clop-clip-clop-clip-clop*

…

“I… I’m sorry about that, dear. It’s just that… he’s so… BIG!”

“I realize that, Rarity. His name sort of implies, umm… size.”

“Why are you not taking advantage of this?! The most coveted stallion in town is practically yours!”

“I just… I’ve never thought about anypony like that before.”

“Please, please, PLEASE just talk to him! You shan’t regret it!”

“Fine. He… is rather handsome, after all.”

“You’re blushing~!”

“Shuddup, Rarity…”

PLAYBACK PAUSE.

“Hehe… Nice job, Mac. Future’s lookin’ bright. Lets see what else we got here. Hmmm… probe three, yesterday.”

YOU HAVE SELECTED AUDIO CACHE THREE. PROCEED? Y/N?

BEGINNING PLAYBACK.

→///←

*tinkle-jingle*

“Heya, Twilight! What’s up?”

“Hi, Pinkie. Have you seen Rainbow anywhere? I’ve been meaning to ask her about what happened a few days ago and I can’t find her anywhere.”

“Didja ask Applejack?”

“Yeah… she won’t tell me anything. She kept saying something like: ‘she up and got herself whupped’. I’m afraid she might have hurt herself or something.”

“Well… I did get a tingly in my tummy yesterday morning. That usually means either it’s gonna rain, or something weird happened to Dashie.”

“Something… weird? Nothing specific?”

“Silly Twilight: it doesn’t work that way! I have to shower leftways, second!”

“Whuh? What is that supposed—you know what? Nevermind. She’s not hurt, right?”

“Nopey-lopey!”

*tinkle-jingle*

“Heya, Carrot Top! Here for your ‘special’ carrot cake?”

“Pinkie. How many times have I told you? My name is Golden Harvest.”

“Here ya go!” *clunk*

*sigh*

“Thanks, Pinkie…”

*jingle-jingle*

“…”

“You do know ‘Carrot Top’ isn’t her real name, right?”

“Sorry Twilight, I can’t hear you. You’ll have to speak up.”

“Wha—”

*jingle-ring*

“Heya, Fluttershy!”

“Hi Pinkie. Hi Twilight. Umm… I found Rainbow. She said she’d be over in a bit, but when she gets here, don’t mention the giant—”

*ring-a-ling*

“SNAKE!”

“PINKIE! I said don’t mention—”

“It’s okay guys, really…”

“Rainbow… why is there a python wr-wrapped around your midsection?”

“Is he your new pet? Ohmygosh! Gummy has a new playmate!”

“Snakes and crocodiles don’t generally get along very well, Pinkie.”

“Twilight. You’re mumbling again. You really need to work on that if you want ponies to understand you.”

“Rainbow… you look terrible… what is that brown gunk?”

“W-What happened to you?”

“Zecora’s hut…”

“Why were you at Zecora’s hut? Is that where you met Mr. Wiggly, here?”

“H-Her name is Doma… and yes. I was there as punishment for smashing Zecora’s door and breaking half of her medicine flasks… along with some other things.”

“Um… if you d-don’t mind me asking… what was your p-punishment?”

“So… so much POLISHING! Why would she even have a ‘rack’? Those weren’t even used during Discord’s reign…”

“Rainbow?”

“…and the syrup! Why! That’s not even fun anymore! It’s just sticky! I’m gonna have to shower for a whole day!”

“Ummm…”

“I can’t even walk right anymore… I was bent over for hours…”

“Celestia, Rainbow! Z-Zecora did WHAT to you?!?”

“I don’t even know where she got half those things… where to you buy something that big! Prob *hic!* Probably found it somewhere... or got it in Zebrica, I guess.”

“I… I didn’t know Zecora was like that…”

“Coming-Out Party!”

“Pinkie! Not now! Dash? Are you all right? Do we need to… get somepony, or something?”

“Nah, I just need a bath. It wasn’t even really that bad now that I think about it.”

“Ummm... R-Rainbow. If you don’t mind, c-could you, maybe, tell us exactly what happened. Because, umm… it kinda sound like you and Zecora… ummm…”

“I didn’t know you were like that either, Dashie! Good for you! Maybe we can make it a Double-Coming-Out Party! Are you two together now? Or was it a one time thing?”

“Huh? What do you mean ‘like that’?”

“Rainbow. When you say ‘punishm—”

“So, Dashie, is Zecora any good?”

“Eh, I’ve seen better.”

“Really? Who?”

“Well, Fluttershy, for one.”

“EEEP!” “WHAT?!?!?”

“Whoah! Luna’s crown, calm down! What did I say? *erk* Ey! Let, up back there, Slippery!”

“Fluttershy? Is… is this true?”

“TRIPLE COMING-OUT PARTY! THIS IS THE BEST DAY EVER! I’M GONNA GO PLAN!!!”

“N-No! P-Pinkie! I didn’t—eeep!”

“I have no idea what’s going on anymore. I have to go take Doma over to Redheart’s to make anti-venom. She bit Boaris while we were feeding all of them yesterday. Weirdest punishment ever. I swear.”

“Wait, wait, wait… what was your ‘punishment’?”

“Uh, I had to help her take care of her animals all day… what? It’s harder than it sounds, what, with all the poisonous snakes and pissy Everfree creatures.”

“I… I thought…”

“Awwwww! No Coming-Out Party?”

“Y-You said I-I was better… at taking care of animals?”

“Well, duh! What did you guys think I meant?”

“I… never mind. Don’t ask… wait… you said she had a ‘rack’! Like the torture device?!”

“Yeah. She needed me to crack her back. It takes two ponies to operate that thing, y’know.”

“And… the syrup?”

“Sad Simba likes sugar… and hugs, apparently. Need a shower…”

“Oh… phew… haha… that’s a relief.”

*ring-a-ling*

“Where’re you off to, Flutters?”

“Oh… um… just to go, umm, checkonAngelbye!”

*jingle-jingle-jingle-jingle!*

“Pinkie. Put those party supplies away. No. Just no.”

PLAYBACK PAUSE.

“Where are you off to, Dearie?”

YOU HAVE SELECTED AUDIO CACHE ONE. PROCEED? Y/N?

“Fast forward a bit…”

PLAYBACK FAST FORWARD.

/--/ →

→

*knock-knock-knock*

“Zecora?”

“Hello Ms. Fluttershy, apple of mine eye. I ask you, kind mare. How do you fare?”

“You can drop it, Stripey, dear. Nopony’s here but us.”

“Oh, thank Docaro. I was stuck talking like that all day, yesterday.”

“I heard. No funny business with Dash.”

“Haha! You think me unfaithful, Mistress Fluttershy?”

“I don’t know, slave. Let’s test your faith… um, if that’s okay with you…”

“Let’s go ‘crack my back’. I know that’s your favorite, Mistress.”

PLAYBACK PAUSE.

“M-Mother... set probe one to self destruct. Oh God…”

AUDIO CACHE ONE SET FOR SELF DESTRUCTION. PROCEED? Y/N?

/--/ COMPLETING…

PROBE ONE TERMINATED.

“I think I need to lie down…”

YOU HAVE SELECTED AUDIO CACHE FOUR. PROCEED? Y/N?

“Buuuut I should probably check on Scoots first…”

BEGINNING PLAYBACK: REAL TIME.

→////←

“… ank flank AND you don’t have any parents? You really are the lowest of the low.”

“Yeah. I heard orphans don’t even get their special talents. Something about the magic of family.”

“I…*sniff* I…”

“Leave her alone, Diamond Tiara! Who asked you anyway?!”

“Shut up, Sweaty Belch. No one has to ask me. I’m gracing you blank flanks with my opinion. Go back home to your sister’s tacky little boutique.”

“H-Hey! Leave her outta this!”

“Scootaloo, don’t! It’s not worth it!”

“I would say that my dad could beat up your dad, but… Oh! You don’t have one!”

“You wanna say that to my face?!”

I just did, stupid! Where have you been sleeping, huh? An orphanage? The hospital? I bet you’ve always lived someplace for poor families, even when you did have parents! Pshh. My dad wouldn’t even have to fight yours. He could’ve just given him a couple bits to beat himself up!”

“Graa!”

*scuffle-thump-scrape*

*vroom… vroom-vroom-vroooooooooooooooo…*

…

“Jer? Why is Mother on? Jer? … Audio cache? Jer set up probes?”

“I’ll *pant* tell my father about this, Blank Flank. Whatever orphanage or whatever you’re staying at is so getting shut down!”

“Fuck you, *huff* Diamond Tiara! Your father is a stuck up piece of shit!”

“Ha! Did you even go to school before you came here? Those aren’t even words! Everypony knows you say bu—”

“Children! What is the meaning of this!”

“Scootaloo started a fight, Ms. Cheerilee!”

“She did not!”

“Stay OUT of this, Sweetie! I… I c-can handle—”

*ooooooooooooooooooooooooo-skreeetch!*

“What are you supposed to b—oof!”

“M-Mr. Hanes! What are you doing! Unhand that child, immediately!”

“J-Jer?”

“Hey, Scoots. Just one second, kay?”

“P-Put me down! My fath—”

“I’ll kill your father with my bare hands, then eat him along with the rest of your pompous, sniveling family.”

*whimper*

“Mr. Hanes!”

“Back off, pony! I’m having a discussion!”

“Tiara! What’s going on?!”

“Come here Silver Spoon. Stay behind me.”

“Jer! Please don’t hurt her! She’s just a bully!”

“Not now, Sweetie Belle. The adult is talking.”

*shink*

“PONIES DON’T TALK WITH KNIVES, MR. HANES!”

“I’m NOT a FUCKING PONY!”

“Shit… Mother, power down.”

*thump-thump-thump-thump-thump-thump-thump*

→////←

POWER GRID SHUTDOWN.

DO YOU WISH TO LOG OUT? Y/N?

Y/N?

10: Approaching the Deadline

View Online

Chapter 10

Five Days to Employment Deadline

The moon cast its silvery rays upon the path leading to Ponyville, lighting the road in its luminous glow. It was a beautiful night, and Gordon was just over halfway home after a long day of foraging. Soon, the larvae would be fed, and his mate, Sheila, would invite him to sleep. It had been an average cycle, really.

Gordon scuttled along the path to his hovel, carefully avoiding a precarious looking pebble-formation and observing the night with a pair of beady, compound eyes. It was Sheila’s day to do the foraging, but Gordon had taken the opportunity to himself since the larvae needed turning that morning. He hated turning the children… almost as much as regurgitation to feed them.

Almost.

Larvae are heavy bastards, especially his overfed little spawn. Sheila coddled them way too much. She got them fat; therefore she was in charge of the weekly turning. Can’t have their underdeveloped insides congealing now can they? Heavens nooo…

Personally, Gordon thought a little congealing would help build some character in those little maggots. Chittering heavily, he looked up at the round, shining eye in the great blackness. It wouldn’t be long now. Home was just over the next dirt outcropping, hidden right at the edge of the enormous desert path among a clump of spongy-rocks and thin-trees. Exoskeleton creaking, he slowly began crawling again, following the faint pheromone trail he’d left that morning.

He was getting way too old to do this. Seven cycles was a long time. His father had been retired at eight light cycles for crying out loud! If Gordon had any vocal chords to speak of, he—

The earth shook.

Gordon froze as the quake subsided, quietly choking on a cloud of sediment as it sifted around him, displaced by some unknown force. He didn’t dare move, doing his best to become as small as possible against the dirt. It was the only thing he could do.

Nobug ever outran a Titan.

The landscape around him was cast in shadow, the light of the glowing white eye above blotted out by something of tremendous size. The trembling insect cast its gaze upward, his eyes meeting an unforgiving wall of black, rushing towards him in the cool night.

Copulate… vigorously.

*CRUNCH*

A figure wreathed in shadow walked the path toward Ponyville, a small satchel swinging at his side. Occasionally, the strap would slip off the figure’s padded shoulder, giving the traveler pause as he re-adjusted the bag with a soft rustle. The quadruped’s town grew larger as he strode onward, the memory of a motherly voice giving stern instruction swirling in his head.

“You will go disguised as entertainers from far away, so as not to cause unnecessary panic. The wedding will be a huge event, and its success rides on the cooperation of thousands of my subjects: subjects who must be calm and collected in order to do their duty.”

He hated that voice. The smooth, caring inflection of the words was a lie, and Gerald Hanes knew it. One doesn’t deal with Company bureaucrats and not learn the subtleties of the spoken word: the language of politics. Jer knew a lie when he heard one.

“In five days, Twilight will arrive with a letter inviting you to the wedding. You are to be ready for your task by then.”

The Princess of a nation of sweet, gentle pony-folk had stolen away their one chance at going home. Not that Earth was Jer’s home, really… but then nowhere was if he actually thought about it. He had no home, and no real family other than Ray. So with his quiet friend he remained. Earth was Raymond’s home, Raymond’s life, and Jer wanted him to resume that life. If not for that damned pony…

“You will be tasked with protecting the Elements, guarding them with your lives against Discord and his tricks…”

Guarding. Protecting. Jer kicked a small stone out of his way as he continued down the path.

She wanted them to be glorified bodyguards. It would be laughable if it weren’t also infuriating. Here they were: two former members of the Colonial Military, survivors of the Earth Hive, and all-around badasses… demoted to security duty.

Gerald snorted.

Okay. It was kind of funny, but Jer most definitely wasn’t going to tell that to his thoroughly pissed off friend.

“… with your lives…”

Celestia’s decree echoed through his mind once more. Guard a bunch of natives with their lives? Really? What kind of danger did she think they were in? A wedding! They were guarding a bunch of ponies at a wedding, and these ponies weren’t even a part of the ceremony! Shouldn’t they be guarding the bride? Or the groom? Weren’t they the ones most likely to be targeted?

What wasn’t she telling them?

An icy, prodding sensation wormed into the back of Jer’s skull. He felt… violated. The traveling human halted in his tracks and turned his gaze upward, scanning the sky for anything out of the ordinary. His eyes lingered on a small cloud, silhouetted against the sea of light streaming from the unsettlingly familiar pockmarked moon. He could have sworn that he’d seen an equine figure posing atop the condensed water vapor.

“Celestia…” he guessed to himself, not amused by the white pony’s presence. Glaring heavily at the sky, he raised his left arm above his head, extending his third-most finger and presenting it to whomever may have been watching from above. Satisfied with his small gesture of defiance, he continued down the path.

Maybe, just maybe, he could find a way to make everyone happy and get retribution at the same time. The thought was a little idealistic on his part, so he dropped the idea, settling for vengeance alone. He’d come up with something; he was sure of it.

In the mean time, however, Jer had probes to plant.

“I do not find this course of action to be exceptionally wise, Dear Sister,” the self proclaimed Goddess of the Night asserted as she watched the strange, bipedal creature make its way toward Ponyville. Its thoughts were tainted with the malicious desire to spill blood, most of which belonged within the body of the Goddess of the Sun: her beloved sibling. “Why did you choose to anger this creature so? Can you not sense the anarchy lurking beneath its naked skin?”

A soft breeze wafted to Luna’s left, rustling her deep blue feathers and prompting a small shiver. Celestia had landed next to her. The two alicorns were situated upon a darkened cumulus floating lazily above Ponyville—the home of her sister’s fair pupil, Twilight, and her companions.

“You remember how easily my student and her friends were corrupted, Luna,” the Sun Goddess’s voice lilted. “Discord revels in the desecration of harmonious creatures, but Chaos cannot defile itself. If they are angry, they will give into the madness you are sensing, and Discord will have little power to sway their minds.”

“But how do you know they wilst not simply join him?” Luna queried, raising her voice slightly in exasperation. “What stops them from turning against us for our actions?” Celestia was silent for a moment, and Luna watched as her sister observed the biped travel toward the sleepy town below. Finally, she spoke:

“They understand morality… that much I have seen. Their comprehension is twisted and seeded with irrational hate, but it is still there. The aliens will do what they see as right. We can only hope that vengeance does not follow.”

“I still suggest we incarcerate them,” Luna huffed. “They will influence the populace: they will bring change your little ponies haven’t seen for countless centuries.”

“Our Little Ponies, Luna.”

“Yours, Sister,” Luna mumbled, turning her back on her taller counterpart and the small burg of Ponyville. “They’ve always been yours: it simply took one thousand years of exile for me to accept it.”

She spread her midnight wings and took flight.

Four Days to Employment Deadline

The Hayseed had seen better nights.

Hearty Chuckle had just finished his set, and, though he was always an outwardly agreeable stallion, Cymbal could tell he was pained on the inside. Not many ponies had turned out that night, and the pink-and-blue comedian walked off stage with little more than a couple drunken cheers.

His smiles were starting to look forced, and Cymbal worried about him. He sat several stools to the left, away from his unhappy friend and employer, in case he needed someone to confide in. The green unicorn didn’t think Chuckles would ask—he was too proud—but he would be there nonetheless. He levitated his drink to his muzzle, sipping carefully as he eyed the comedian from down the bar. The frothy liquid soothed his dry throat after the two-hour comedy set, though, he just played the drums.

“Chuckles always gets water to sip… but he is the ‘talent’, so I guess that makes sense. Why don’t I do that again?” Cymbal Crash pondered his lack of preparedness as he took another sip from his mug. “Aaahhhhh… I remember now. Cider tastes better when you’re bone dry.”

Apple Cider. The good stuff: Sweet Apple Acres Vintage ‘82. Liquid Gold knew how to take care of his acts, that was for sure. Cymbal had asked Macintosh Apple if the family wanted any extra help during Cider Season that year, but the benevolent workhorse had gently declined. It was a shame really. The bar didn’t get much action during Cider Season, and Cymbal needed the bits. Mac’s sister wasn’t bad looking, either. Cymbal’s father had always stressed that intangible benefits made a job all the more rewarding, and, having had the privilege of watching Applejack work, the green stallion was inclined to agree with him.

The creak of the Hayseed’s double doors did nothing to distract the green stallion from his daydreams, and he didn’t notice the stranger waltz inside until he was right on top of him.

“Well hello there my good pony!”

Cymbal jumped, spilling a few drops of precious cider and jarring thoughts of the Element of Honesty’s flanks from his mind. He was about to turn around and give the pony interrupting him a piece of his mind, when he noticed the few patrons still in the building had fallen silent and were staring at the spot directly behind him. Cymbal slowly spun on the barstool, coming face-to-face with one of the aliens he’d met a few days ago. The creature was standing at his full height, his short, brown mane almost brushing the ceiling tiles. The oil lamps hanging behind the bar glinted off the brightly colored pins adorning his rough, green jacket, and shined brightly against the alien’s wide grin. Cymbal silently tried to remember which one the biped in front of him had been: the quiet one, or the weird one.

“Why do they have to look so alike? Are all members of his species the same color?”

“Mind if I sit down?” the biped asked, smirking as he glanced around at the bar’s other patrons, all of whom were staring openly at the tall creature. Cymbal nodded slowly, still trying to figure out how to act around the clothed ape. With a faint creak the alien settled onto the stool next to him. “What’s good on tap?” he queried, eyeing Cymbal’s mug in a predatory fashion.

“Canterlot Orchard’s Apple Cider is all Goldie’s got on spigot, but if you want anything good I’d go with the local brew,” Cymbal offered, trying to act nonchalant and unafraid. He had felt much safer when the bar had been full of excited ponies (safety in numbers and all that), but now that he was practically alone with the guy, aside from Chuckles, Goldie, and maybe two other patrons, Cymbal was a little nervous. The mischievous grin and distant look in the creature’s grey eyes weren’t helping the green unicorn feel any better.

Seeming to shake himself out of a waking dream, the alien waved Liquid Gold, the Hayseed’s aging earth pony barkeep, over to them. The brown stallion had been standing over by Hearty, cleaning a mug with an old dishrag. He didn’t look all that frightened, and, now that Cymbal thought about it, if he were confronted with the best customer his bar had seen in weeks he wouldn’t be all that skittish either. The unicorn drummer remembered how much the biped sitting next to him had drank the week before… mostly because he’d had to pay for it. Watching the hunched creature eye Goldie now, however, Cymbal wasn’t about to ask for reimbursement anytime soon.

Liquid made it over in record time, setting his favorite polishing mug down with a soft clink.

“What can I git’ ya?” he drawled, maintaining a convincing mask of boredom that almost fooled even Cymbal. He’d been working for Liquid Gold long enough to notice the bartender’s visual cues, no matter how small. The brown stallion eyes kept flicking to the brim of his hoofball cap (Yeah Mareami Maulers!): something the scruffy pony often did when he was nervous.

“I’ll have what he’s having,” the creature replied, gesturing toward Cymbal’s almost empty mug. The new drink was in his hands in record time, and the alien downed it almost as fast, amber rivulets of cider dripping down his odd, flat muzzle. He slammed the mug down on the wood countertop, sending several drops of precious cider flying through the still air of the bar before once more turning his gaze toward Cymbal. “So you’re a drummer?”

A brief flashback of a drunken biped from several nights ago flitted through the unicorn musician’s mind:

“So yer a drummist?”

Jer. That was his name. He was the one Berry had fawned over half the night before moving on to Caramel.

“Yeah… I play for the comedy act,” Cymbal responded slowly, confused by the alien’s sudden interest in him. “Why? What do you want?”

“Straight to business! You’re an alien after my own heart,” Jer answered, giving Cymbal an appraising look. “I got a job offer over at the capital and I need someone who can play,” he continued, once again getting a distant look in his eye and sporting a thin grimace. Liquid Gold nervously tried to refill the biped’s mug but was immediately waved off. “Sorry, I’m on the clock tonight,” he said, his grimace morphing into a small smile as he sent Goldie on is way. Turning back to Cymbal, he persisted with what the green unicorn realized was a job offer. “The pay will be pretty good. Your Princess commissioned Ray and I for the entertainment at some wedding. I’ll just need you to memorize some tablature for our set and the show practically does itself… you in?”

Playing at the capital? This was definitely too good to be true, but…

Cymbal glanced over at Hearty Chuckle, who had chosen to ignore the attention his musical accompaniment was getting and nurse his drink, and made up his mind. He looked Jer dead in his grey eyes, having to crane his neck a little to get to the alien’s eye level.

“Sure: under one condition.”

“Shoot… er, I mean go ahead.”

“I’ll play if Chuckles over their gets a chance to do his comedy act for a few minutes.” Jer looked at the oddly-colored stallion across the bar.

“He do Celestia jokes?” he asked, simply.

“A few…” Cymbal conceded, a little perturbed at the tall alien’s suddenly angry expression.

“Perfect. He’s hired.”

Jer reached into the folds of his green jacket and produced a thin, metallic tablet: one side a deep black and the other a pristine white. He placed it on the counter and slid the book-sized object over to Cymbal. Each barroom oil lamp threw a soft glare off the tablet’s reflective surface, looking almost like a pair of dark sunglasses would on a bright summer’s day.

“Just tap the front,” the alien said, carefully extricating himself from the pony-sized barstool. Cymbal opened his mouth to ask what he meant, but Jer was already halfway out the Hayseed’s double doors, his long pant legs rustling with every stride.

Cymbal looked down at the flat object. He hesitantly touched a hoof to the glossy, dark surface. Immediately, his jaw dropped on its hinges. Bright flashes of light and color leapt from the tablet’s dark surface, weaving into a striking display of images that floated in the air right next to Cymbal’s wide-open muzzle: it was beautiful.

The amazing lightshow was almost enough to make Cymbal forget that Jer had left the bar without paying. Again.

He’d just put the bits on his tab for now…

Three Days to Employment Deadline

The target was just two yards behind the choke cherry tree. It wasn’t exactly hard to spot: the towering walls glinted metallically in the dim sunlight filtering through the canopy of the Everfree. An even taller flagpole jutted from the structure’s roof, its weathered, red banner dangling limply due to a distressing lack of wind. The forest encampment’s entryway yawned menacingly, having no doors to speak of, and dark, formless shadows dominated the inside.

All she had to do was capture the objective and she was free. Piece of cake.

One hoof in front of the other, she crept toward her goal. As she got closer, the inner shadows of the fort receded, and she was able to make out her target: a tin canister adorned with the depiction of a fluffy, white cloud rent asunder by a multicolored thunderbolt jutting from its base. She was so close… and the structure looked practically deserted.

The creeping pony allowed herself a small smile. This was just too easy.

Suddenly, the absolute silence of the forest around her registered with her racing thoughts. There were no birds calling; no distant roars of some frightening beast; not even the wind made a sound. The previously confident young mare froze, eyes darting about the tree trunks surrounding her objective. They were here—she knew that much now—but where?

A shadow fell over her, and she looked up to find two dark silhouettes barreling into her from above. She didn’t even have time to scream.

“Gotcha!” shrieked the two fillies as they butted into her from above. A flailing ball of limbs, wings, tails, and one horn tumbled past the scraggly choke cherry tree and knocked into the fort, toppling the rickety wooden ramparts and sending the emergency blanket they’d used as a cover for the walls fluttering away. The flagpole toppled, the gnarled branch it had been made from cracking and vibrating as it struck one of the downed deadwood walls of the makeshift fort. Scootaloo missed the continued destruction of three hours of work, the crusader cape they’d used as a flag having draped itself over her eyes.

The fact that her objective, a tin can with Rainbow Dash’s cutie mark crudely painted on its side, had rolled right into her hooves, wasn’t missed, however, and the orange filly quickly grasped the old container and shoved herself out of the filly pile with a triumphant shout:

“Victory! Hoo-yeah! Take that, Applebloom!”

“Whaddaya mean ‘victory’?! We caught you fair and square!” came a defiant response from a small yellow earth pony as she struggled to get up. “Sweetie Belle, gerroff!”

“Sorry!” squeaked a little white unicorn as she stumbled off of her friend. Ignoring her, the other two fillies continued their argument.

“I got the can, so I win. That’s how it works,” Scootaloo needled, sticking out her tongue at her earth pony compatriot.

“Nu-uh! We caught you first, so we win!” Applebloom retorted. “It’s in the rules. You said so yerself!”

“Yeah, well, Jer told me that as long as the in-infiler-intfultrainer—”

“Infiltrator,” Sweetie Belle corrected quietly, sighing to herself.

“—Yeah, right, if the infultrader gets the ‘flag’ in the end and gets rid of it they still win!” Scootaloo finished. With a flourish, she threw the can into the woods, where it struck an invisible wall of energy with a loud zap and explosion of blue light.

“Yer’ just saying that,” Applebloom countered, clearly skeptical of Scootaloo’s explanation. “Jer didn’t really tell ya that rubbish. Yer’ just twistin’ the rules! An now we can’t play anymore since ya’ zapped the can!”

“He did! I swear to God he said it!” Scootaloo tried to defend herself, crossing her heart with a hoof, and doing the rest of the motions for a “Pinkie Pie Swear” for good measure. Luckily, the argument seemed to stop there.

“Um… God?” Sweetie Belle asked, casting her pegasus friend a confused look. “Which one?”

“Oh… hehe…” Scootaloo blushed and rubbed her foreleg sheepishly. “It’s just something I heard Jer say this morning.”

“As in, like, the Princesses?” Applebloom queried, forgetting their argument for a second as a strange revelation kicked in. “You mean they have ponies that raise the sun and moon where they come from, too?”

“I… I dunno,” Scootaloo stammered, beginning to trot toward the edge of the protected area of forest that Jer had set up for them a few hours ago. “When I asked him about it he just laughed and said that ‘our gods died when Earth fell’ or something weird like that.” They neared the edge of the blue wire designating the end of their protective barrier. They passed through the wall with an electric tingle, and, just a little over two feet later, passed through the main defense system barrier and into the human’s clearing: Scootaloo’s temporary home.

“But, if they died, then who raises the sun?” Sweetie Belle countered, honestly confused and maybe even concerned. She always looked concerned about something, and Scootaloo often found it hard to tell when the unicorn sincerely felt worried or sad for somepony else. She looked sincere this time, though, and Scootaloo could understand why. Not having a night or day must really suck.

“I don’t know. I wanted to ask, but he seemed kinda busy so I left him alone.”

“What’re they doing, anyway?” Applebloom inquired, tilting her head and looking across the small clearing toward the human’s spaceship.

Jer was lugging some piece of machinery across the camp, bobbing his head to some unknown beat while he did so. He had just made it around the fire pit, where the remains of that morning’s breakfast—oatmeal that Applejack had insisted on bringing over when she had dropped off Applebloom—sat cooling in the noon air, when Ray came down the ships ramp in the “jeep”. The three fillies stared in awe at the growling monstrosity the humans had brought with them. Carefully driving past Gerald, the taller human parked the ponyless cart and hopped out, moving along to the back end of its tan chassis with a screwdriver in hand.

A sudden screeching noise startled the observing fillies, prompting Sweetie Belle and Applebloom to hide behind Scootaloo in fright. The orange pegasus huffed in annoyance at her two skittish friends. She understood that they weren’t used to this place yet, but even she hadn’t been that jumpy the first couple of days.

“Girls,” she soothed, something she would rather not be caught doing by anyone other than her friends, “calm down. It’s just Jer’s cutty thingy.” She gestured over toward the ship, which Jer had already crawled under with his sparking and whirring diamond saw blade. The two humans had fixed the shiny behemoth’s landing gear yesterday morning, and since then, Jer had been working on reactivating the bottom thrusters. He took several breaks throughout the day yesterday, though: retreating into the bowels of the ship and playing guitar with “Mother,” the magic voice that he said helped run the ship. How he played an instrument alongside a limbless magic voice, Scootaloo could only guess.

Just as quickly as the screeching began, it stopped, and Jer scrambled out from under the ship, jacket smoldering from the deluge of sparks.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” he exclaimed waving his hands back and forth as he shuffled over toward Ray and the “jeep.” “What are you doing with the rotary!”

“Removing it,” mumbled Ray, just loud enough for Scootaloo to hear over the bolts he was holding in his mouth. The scarred human was holding onto an oblong, heavy-looking set of hollow rods melded in a circle in one hand, while unscrewing several more bolts at the objects base with the other. The object was set on a stand at the back of the human’s vehicle, and apparently was meant to pivot around to point in any conceivable direction.

“And why would you do that?!” Jer asked, clearly exasperated.

“Unnecessary.”

“How do you know?” Jer countered. Ray looked up from his work and raised an eyebrow at his overzealous counterpart.

“Okay, I get it, but we should bring it anyway! It isn’t like any natives will freak out about some heavy weaponry. They don’t even HAVE guns here! If we don’t bring it, something’s gonna happen, and we’ll regret not having it.”

“It’s an unnecessary hassle.”

“Well boo-fucking-hoo! We already discussed this!” Jer fumed, climbing up onto the jeep, reaching past the “rotary,” and pulling the bolts out of Ray’s mouth. “I have to do a damn show for those two big-wig lovebirds, so you have to deal with the actual equipment. That means taking every possible scenario into consideration. We’re taking it.”

“You have a plan, don’t you?” Ray murmured, placing his hands on his hips and narrowing his eyes at Jer, who had taken the screwdriver and was replacing the bolts his comrade had removed. “Enlighten me. We should be conserving ammunition and yet you want to bring our most wasteful weapon to a Bee-Jee Op. Why?”

“No, I don’t have a plan,” Jer stated calmly, not a hint of deceit in his voice, “ or, at least, not yet. I just want to be prepared for any eventuality. You were the Boy Scout: I thought this was your thing, Sarge.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Sure thing, Fuss-Bucket.”

“Jer—”

“Am I interrupting something?” The two humans froze, looking across the clearing. Scootaloo turned her gaze over toward the new voice, finding its source.

She wasn’t pleased.

Rainbow Dash stood at the edge of the clearing, a concerned look on her stupid, fat face. Scootaloo fumed quietly and glared at the older pegasus. What the hay was she doing back here?

“Um… I brought your wheelie machine back from Sweet Apple Acres, but I can’t get it in with the shields up so… yeah,” the blue mare grinned sheepishly and rubbed her foreleg.

Well. She wasn’t here to try and take her away again. That was a relief, but that didn’t mean Scootaloo didn’t have to be mad at her anymore. Oh heavens no. The orange pegasus and her two friends watched as the humans looked at each other. Jer shrugged his shoulders and jumped off the dust-hued chassis of their vehicle, ambling over to the Defense Database. A few seconds later, the shield was down, and Scootaloo felt a slight breeze blow through camp, stirring up dust and the scent of stale apple-cinnamon oatmeal.

“All yours, Pride Parade,” Jer announced, resting his hands on his hips. Dash stood up a little straighter and opened her mouth in protest, but eventually hung her head in defeat, turning tail and trotting into the trees. She was back moments later, lugging Jer’s scratched “motorbike” into the clearing.

“Here?” the prismatic mare asked, straining under the load but nonetheless giving Scootaloo’s guardian a careful look.

“Here’s fine,” Jer soothed, smiling nonchalantly as he took the heavy vehicle from her. He flicked out a metal rod from the side of the two-wheeled vehicle and leaned the entire thing upon it. The soft click of a key turning in a lock hailed the illumination of the lighted screen on the machine’s upper body, and Jer began mercilessly tapping on it.

Scootaloo looked back at her two friends. They knew what the machine was, the orange pegasus having told them about her ride on the contraption before they nearly ran into Raymond and Big Mac, but still watched in rapt attention as Jer fiddled with the controls.

Suddenly, Scootaloo felt watched. The hairs on the back of her withers stood on end, and she felt a soft chill run down her spine. Looking back over at Jer, she caught Rainbow Dash staring at her. The pegasus filly glared at her former idol with as much venom as she could muster, and Dash winced and looked away, eyes downcast. Before Scootaloo could capitalize on her victory—maybe yell at her some more—a reverberating, electric hum filled the clearing.

“Haha! Baby’s still workin’!” Jer shouted, the level of glee in his voice far beyond the norm for a… creature of his age. The ecstatic human reached over the bike and ruffled Dash’s mane. The rainbow mare flinched at his touch, but quickly recovered, smiling happily at the kind attention. This development only served to make Scootaloo angrier.

Jer didn’t seem to notice, however, and began wheeling the bike toward the Duckling, when Ray decided to speak up again:

“We bringing the bike, too?”

The wheeling human stopped a moment, eyes glazing over in thought.

“Canterlot’s a big city, right?” he finally answered. “It might be useful… I mean the jeep’s great and all, but it doesn’t corner all that well.”

“I’m just thinking about fuel…” Ray intoned as he finished re-attaching the rotary to its stand atop the jeep.

“We have five rods, man,” Jer reassured offhandedly, giving their huge silvery ship a casual gesture. “That’s more than enough for a couple burns out of the atmosphere, plus one extra to cut for emergencies.”

“Wait wait wait…” Rainbow interjected. “When are you going to Canterlot? And why?” The rainbow mare looked genuinely confused, and Scootaloo could tell she was still rather nervous around the humans. She began to feel suspicious about the nature of the “talk” Jer had said he’d given the older mare.

“Don’t ask.” Jer dismissed Rainbow’s question with another wave of his hand. “Just rest assured that we aren’t all that excited about it.”

“Oooh ooh ooh! Can we come?” Applebloom and Sweetie Belle evacuated the area behind Scootaloo and started hopping around the two humans, pleading excitedly. “Please?! Can we? Huh? Pleeeease?!”

“Uh…” Jer gave his partner an uncomfortable look, and Ray simply shook his head before going back to his work. “I don’t think so girls… you’ll have to wait and see.” Raymond looked up and gave his faltering friend an exasperated glare. Jer grinned and stuck out his weird, short tongue. “Give it about three days and then ask your sisters, but be sure to wait it out, okay?”

“Yes Jer!” Scootaloo’s two friends chorused, not disheartened in the slightest by their reduced chances of going. The orange pegasus joined in their answer as well, even though she knew she was probably going. They wouldn’t just leave her in the clearing alone, right? She resolved to ask them later, so as not to make Applebloom or Sweetie feel left out should she be allowed on the trip.

Her former idol’s earlier question resurfaced in the forefront of the small filly’s mind. Why were they going to Canterlot, anyway? And why the talk of “heavy weapons?”

When she thought about it, Scootaloo didn’t really care. It was a free trip to Canterlot! The capital! She would get to see the Castle, roam the famous Canterlot merchant District, and maybe even catch a glimpse of the Wonderbolts! Wouldn’t that just make Rainbow Dash jealous, the selfish cloudstain.

Another breeze rustled the foliage at the edge of camp, kicking up the cold ashes of last night’s fire. With a soft sigh, Scootaloo trotted over to the Database and reactivated the shield: something she’d learned to do on her first day there and had to repeat quite often whenever her two pseudo-parents forgot to reactivate it. The orange and violet filly found comfort in knowing that she was completely safe within the invisible barrier, watched over by two big, frightening beings from far away. She’d decided that she loved her humans a little while ago, even though they were often forgetful and didn’t have all that much time to spend with her.

They had given her a safe place to sleep, food, and actually seemed to care about her, even Ray, and that was more than enough. Scootaloo just wished it didn’t have to be temporary. She sat by the database and watched as Applebloom hopped up onto the jeep to join Raymond and Sweetie Belle followed Jer as he wheeled his sputtering vehicle up the ship’s ramp.

“C’mon Sweetie; lemme’ show ya how to play the harmonica,” the scrawnier of the two bipeds drawled, poorly mimicking—maybe purposefully—a country accent. “Ah think Mother has one ‘r two good songs on archive.” Sweetie Belle squealed happily and dashed up the rest of the ramp after him.

Things were about to get a little noisier. Not that Scootaloo minded all that much, of course. She was often an accessory to lots of loud, dangerous stunts alongside her to friends. Still… Ray had been a bit impatient lately, and she should probably make sure that Jer doesn’t go overboard… like with the cooking incident the night before.

Scootaloo shuddered at the memory of Jer’s attempt at making pony-friendly food.

“Never again.”

The orange pegasus shook the thoughts from her mind and trotted toward the ship’s access ramp, ignoring the boring eyes of a certain Rainbow Dash. That mare just couldn’t take a hint, now could she? Scootaloo glanced left, avoiding Rainbow’s gaze, and watched Applebloom work a screwdriver with her mouth while Ray looked on. The raucous sound of a beginner in the musical art of the harmonica practicing her newfound craft made the scarred human wince, but the pained look was temporary. He had his own student to focus on, after all.

Scootaloo felt a tug of jealousy, but quickly smothered it with another shake of her head. She would get plenty of time with the humans later. Her friends deserved to hang out with them as much as she did, even if the humans were kinda… sorta… almost…

Well… like parents to her. Scootaloo wanted to hold onto them, and her heart clenched a bit whenever Jer left the clearing to go wander the forest or Ray’s bad leg started acting up, giving the taller human a bit of a limp. She wanted them to be safe so she could keep them for herself: so she wouldn’t be alone again. Was that so wrong?

Watching Ray and Applebloom work on the jeep, and hearing Sweetie Belle giggle from inside the ship, Scootaloo knew it was. Like she’d told herself earlier: they would get plenty of time together.

When her friends left for the night, Jer would try and teach her to cook some more, just like yesterday. And after dinner, Jer would practice his guitar by the fire and Raymond would tell her stories about where he used to live—wiping a thin rag over the metal pieces of his “rifle” all the while. It was a happy routine, and Scootaloo wouldn’t trade it for all of Equestria. No, she wouldn’t grudge her friends for wanting to spend time with them, too.

That sounded like something Rainbow Dash would do, anyway, and Scootaloo no longer wished to emulate that prismatic brush-off.

Ray’s deep, reverberating voice rumbled throughout camp, prompting the contemplative filly to pause at the top of the ramp and look back.

“Wrong direction, Bloom.” Applebloom blushed brightly and began turning the screwdriver in her mouth on the right bearing.

Raymond was a quiet man, but once he got to talking about his home planet he was quite the storyteller. He enthralled the tomboyish filly with his tales, but also succeeded in making her a little sad.

Ray told those stories so well, so longingly. Scootaloo pitied the poor alien, but a darker part of herself was also pleased. If the humans weren’t back home they were here with her. The feeling was selfish and she knew it.

Maybe she and Dash weren’t as different as she would have liked them to be...

“No.”

With the sound of laughter and the squeaky notes of a small harmonica tickling her ears, two scarlet eyes branding her in the withers, and adamant denial in her head, Scootaloo made an about face and trotted into the Duckling.

She didn’t look back.

Two Days to Employment Deadline

The rhythmic chirping soothed the human’s scattered, angry thoughts as the full moon slowly crept across the alien night sky. He had no idea how the cricket got past the security barrier, but he was thankful nonetheless, and continued to listen, memories of Earth rattling around in his head. The small cleaning rag felt good in his weathered hands—roughened before their time by xeno blood—and the scent of gun oil wafting in the stagnant air of the fire-lit clearing was almost as comforting as the softly warbling cricket.

Two days until payday. Two days until leaving planetside became a reality. Two days to the ol’ freezerino. He’d scouted possible infestations for far longer. This wasn’t long: this was nothing.

So why did it feel like an eternity?

A concerned, raspy voice invaded Raymond’s peaceful insect sonata:

“Ray, you’ve been cleaning out that rifle for two hours. Get some sleep, man: we’ve got packing to do tomorrow.”

“Done.”

“Eh?”

“Gear’s packed,” Ray grunted, taking one last look at the shine he’d put on the barrel of his rifle, “Wrath.” “Maybe just a little more oil.” “Well, at least my half is.”

“Body armor? Helmets?” Jer quizzed, taking a seat next to the polishing human with a soft thump.

“In the jeep.”

“Ammunition?”

“Four clips each for the rifles, two for the Peacemakers.”

“That it?” Jer asked incredulously. “How many did we bring for the N.I. job?”

“Five or so leftovers and the usual Company allotment… so, about twenty.”

“Grenades?”

“Small bandolier for each of us.”

“Smartgun?”

“We already have the rotary and two full canisters, Jer.”

“Point taken…” The two human’s sat in contemplative silence for a time, Ray continuing to rub on his gun and going through the plan once more in his head. A question arose.

“So… if you’re going up on the train, and I’m driving the gear, how’s that drummer you said you picked up getting there?”

“I dunno,” Jer quipped. He had picked up a small twig and was scratching something into the soft peat of the clearing, a wistful grin gracing his features. “He said he’d take care of his own stuff, so I’m not going to worry about it. Chances are we’ll get outta’ here before I actually have to perform anyway, right?”

Ray nodded carefully, watching as the stick in Jer’s hands furrowed the ground. The scarred human’s companion smiled a little wider, not noticing the attention Ray was giving him.

“What’s got you so happy?” Ray inquired, hesitating slightly. Honestly, Jer’s crazy grins and maniacal laughter didn’t frighten him nearly as much as that happy little smile he was wearing just then. It was unnerving.

“It just feels good to be on the clock, y’know?” Jer didn’t even bother to look up from his ministrations while he talked. “I miss work.”

Ray grunted. Work was fine, but the ex-marksman would have preferred to be doing it for his own kind on his own world instead of being coerced by that gigantic, white, talking jackass with wings. The job they were doing shouldn’t have even been considered work by Jer’s standards! Still… Jer hadn’t gotten to tote his rifle in awhile, and Ray guessed that any excuse to get out and about with a good P.R. and several clips of ammunition was a good one.

Maybe they’d even get to use them.

Ray looked to his left. Jer was gone, having left while his taller counterpart sat deep in thought. Down at the base of the stump Jer had been sitting on, between two faint boot prints, lay the twig Jer had been drawing with, along with the ex-colonial marine’s masterpiece.

It was a boot, descending upon what appeared to be a rather embellished caricature of a frightened cockroach. The little beast was depicted with limbs held high in an attempt to protect itself from the falling footwear.

A soft chuckle escaped the homesick human, and he went back to cleaning his weapon. The cricket’s chirping reached a fever pitch from somewhere near the edge of the clearing: the sound becoming far less melodic, and, consequently, not as pleasant as it had been earlier. A sudden flash of blue light and a loud zap swiftly remedied the issue.

The clearing was plunged into peaceful, nighttime silence.

One Day to Employment Deadline

“Lounge Lizard!” a jovial voice rang out in greeting.

Spike shook his head back and forth, eyes squeezed shut, as he tried to banish the dizziness that always accompanied one of Twilight’s teleportation spells. It also got the faint whiff of ozone out of his sensitive nostrils, so that was a plus.

A loud thump coming from just above his head caused the baby dragon to jolt from his recovery. He opened his naïve, jade eyes to find that he was, indeed, in the humans’ clearing: just as Twilight said he’d be. Standing a few yards ahead of him was Gerald, the jollier of the two creatures, and, oddly enough, Ditzy Doo, the local mailmare. The grey mare wound up like she was about to throw a hoofball while she hovered shakily next to the human. She squinted her lopsided, gold eyes in concentration before flicking her right hoof forward and spinning around midair in one, quick motion.

Another loud thump sounded just above Spike’s head. Slowly he looked up to find a shiny metal dart embedded in the trunk of the tree to his back, not two inches above the young dragon’s thin, emerald crest of scales. Several more of the metal points stood out around it, forming a small forest of colored plastic fins and cold metal.

Spike’s eyelid twitched.

They were hurling darts.

Ditzy was hurling darts... right above his head.

“Nice throw, Double D.” Jer congratulated, giving the hovering mare beside him a hoof bump before his beady eyes narrowed in challenge. “But let’s see how you compare to the master.”

With a loud yelp, Spike scrambled away from the arboreal target the two players had set up: just in time, too.

Spike felt a puff of air pass behind his crest, followed by the deafening crack of something striking the human’s electrical wall.

“Dammit!” the small dragon heard Gerald curse as he continued to move away from their line of fire. “I guess you win, eh?”

“Yeppers! You owe me a muffin!” Ditzy bubbled happily, folding her wings at her sides and dropping to the ground.

Spike looked back toward where Jer’s last dart went. Blue ripples spread out across the seemingly empty air before fading back into nothingness. He briefly wondered how that would have felt—to brush up against the humans’ barrier—and empathized with the most likely warped and scorched metal plaything.

Then he remembered who threw it.

“What the hay!” the baby dragon shouted indignantly. “You almost—huh?” Spike’s planned castigation sputtered to a halt. “Were those there before?” Jer cocked an eyebrow at the young dragon, munching on a still steaming chocolate-chip muffin. A whole pan of the piping-hot treats sat on an old stump between the two dart-throwers.

Spike could have sworn they weren’t there when he’d arrived. The two other beings in the clearing didn’t seem to mind the small stitch in reality, however, and both of them were tearing into the breakfast pastries with reckless abandon—especially Ditzy.

“Yah. ‘S this loophole Pinks taught me,” Jer mumbled through a mouthful of chocolate indulgence. “Sh’ calls it ‘reaching’.” The human swallowed loudly before speaking further. “So… what’s up?”

“Oh!” Spike sat up a little straighter, momentarily forgetting the impossible muffins as he remembered why he was there. “Twilight teleported me over to tell you an’ Ray that you were invited to her brother’s wedding in Canterlot!” Closing his eyes, the baby dragon crossed his arms and smiled smugly, waiting for sounds of excitement at the news he’d brought. Even an incredulously happy “Really?” would do.

When nothing happened for several seconds he opened his eyes, and was disappointed to find Jer simply staring at him, one eyebrow raised in what looked to be heavy skepticism.

“And?” he prompted before taking another bite of muffin.

What did he mean? Spike wracked his brains for an answer, and, after several seconds of staring, he remembered the conditions of the two human’s attendance to Shining’s wedding.

“Oh, yeah! Uhm, I forgot to mention! The Princesses requested that you play a song or two at the reception, y’know, cuz she liked that song you played at Pinkie’s party last week?”

“Phew. Glad I remembered that.”

Jer just continued to give him the same skeptical look.

“Uh… you do know what a wedding reception is, right?” Spike ventured, suddenly recalling the humans’ alien nature. “You have matrimony where you come from, don’t you?”

“Yes,” Jer answered, strangely curt for some reason. Spike had been dragged to the clearing with Twilight enough times to strike up an odd acquaintanceship with Gerald, having hit it off when he was fixing the humans’ “jeep,” and he knew how his fellow biped normally acted. This definitely wasn’t his normal behavior. Ditzy seemed to notice it too, and had refrained from further muffiny indulgence to watch.

“Then… what is it?” Spike asked nervously. Twilight had sent him there on a whim, and he had no way of getting back magically. He wasn’t in the humans’ database either, which meant running wasn’t an option. Spike thought he knew Jer well enough to gauge his level of anger, and the clothed biped didn’t look violent, but the dragon couldn’t help but feel trapped.

“Why didn’t Twilight come tell us herself?” Gerald slowly inquired, moving the muffin tray aside and sitting on the tree stump they had previously occupied.

“She…” Spike began before trailing off. “Uh, well, she isn’t exactly happy about all this.” Well, that didn’t really do the situation justice… Twilight was furious. After he’d brought her the letter she’d left her Friday picnic early and stomped all the way back to the library. She’d then locked herself in her room for over an hour, presumably packing, before finally coming back downstairs to tell Spike to “inform the humans” of their “duties” and zap him with her magic. “She was too busy packing and ranting to herself about her ‘inconsiderate BBBFF’ to come out here herself.”

“She the overprotective type?” Jer asked, slowly dropping his suspicious pretenses and focusing on eating once again.

Spike answered with a relieved chuckle.

“You have no idea.”

“So when is it?”

“The letter said we should be there tonight, so Twi bought everypony tickets for the 5 o’ clock train out of Ponyville.” Spike remembered the teller at the ticket window giving his caretaker a dirty look after handing over the ticket slips: the lavender unicorn’s bad mood carrying over into her everyday transactions and making everypony that had to deal with her a little grumpy.

Jer looked at his watch.

“That gives me about five hours or so,” the human sighed. “Better call Ray… Ditzy? Would you grab my helmet from inside? It’s the grayish bucket-thing on the workbench in the back.”

“Okay!” the blonde-maned pegasus agreed, and she flew clumsily into the troop bay of the human’s ship. Spike had always been a little amazed that she could fly at all, considering her eye condition, but Ditzy Doo was the best mail carrier in town and made surprisingly few mistakes. The fact that she was in the humans’ clearing in the first place was rather strange, though…

“Hey, Jer?” Spike spoke up again. “How’d she get in here, anyway?” Jer looked down on Spike from his stump and smirked.

“The crazy pony crashed into our barrier bringing us Scootaloo’s grade reports,” he began, “She shook it off and flew straight back into it afterward. I’ve never seen a more determined postal worker.”

Spike stared after the grey pegasus in awe.

“She flew into it twice?!” the purple dragon murmured in astonishment.

“Three times before I shut it off, actually,” Jer stated before his eyes glazed over and he hunched over in thought. “I wonder who got Scoot’s grades before. Did she forge an address or something? How the fuck did nobody notice that?”

Spike was too busy staring at the doorway Ditzy had disappeared into, a new feeling of appreciation and respect for the local mailmare weighing heavily on him. HE was fireproof, a trait all dragons boasted, but even he feared getting zapped by the human’s electric wall.

“So what happened after that?” the amazed dragon asked. Jer’s brow un-furrowed itself and he gave Spike an amused grin.

“I apologized and put some of her hairs in the database so it wouldn’t happen again, then we got to talking—”

“And you started singing that tune,” Ditzy suddenly interjected, flapping out of the gaping troop bay. “How’d it go?” She cleared her throat and sang throatily. “Wait! Oh yes, wait a minute Mrs. Postmare~”

“Wai-ai-ai-ai-it Mrs. Postmare~” Jer continued, chuckling. “Yeah, and I already had the dart board out for my knife so we just started playing… then she decided to make a friendly bet.” The human emphasized the word “friendly” by extending two fingers from each hand up in the air in front of his face, bending them in unison.

“HEY!” Ditzy scolded, “You started that bet!”

“Quit complaining,” Jer shot back, sticking his tongue out. “You won, didn’t you? Now gimme my helmet.” The pegasus quickly complied, bucking the object mid-air: straight into the human’s stomach. Jer let out a quiet “oof” and fumbled with the helmet before finally getting a good grip. He gave the still airborne pony a mock glare. Ditzy just stuck her tongue out at him.

“I swear to Celestia,” Spike thought exasperatedly, “they’re even more childish than I am and they’re supposed to be adults!”

Spike watched Gerald slip the helmet over his head, the darkened visor obscuring the human’s face. It looked like a black, fattened “T” against the light grey material of the rest of the helmet. After a few seconds of silence, the human finally spoke up, the external speakers projecting his voice tinnily:

“Raymond, you copy?”

There was a brief period of static, followed by a sharp “crack” and what sounded like cheering.

“I copy,” Raymond, the quieter of the two humans, finally answered. His voice projected from the helmet much like Jer’s except much more distorted. “We rolling?”

“Yeah, train station at 1700,” Jer replied, “Meet there?”

“Copy,” there was another muffled ‘crack,’ “I’ll bring the girls.”

“Sounds good, over and out.”

“Jer, no one says that anym—” Raymond’s voice was cut off as the other human yanked the helmet off of his head, frizzing his short, brown hair.

Well, that was weird… it almost seemed like… no, that wouldn’t make any sense. Spike narrowed his eyes at the Gerald as he stood up: it was like he had already planned for this. The other girls had been sent into a complete tizzy and had rushed off to prepare when he’d presented the news earlier, but this alien seemed like he could care less… like he had already prepared everything.

“Uh, what is he doing?” Spike asked, crossing his arms, “and why do you sound like you’ve already planned for this. We just found out about the wedding today!” Jer simply smiled, and pat Ditzy on the back. The pegasus’s gold eyes rolled into the back of her head and she mumbled happily.

“Ray’s off showing the crusaders how he got his cutie mark,” he stated, as if an alien being showing three fillies his flank was the most normal thing in Equestria. Seeing Spike’s look he sighed heavily and chuckled weakly. “Don’t ask.” He stepped away from a contented Ms. Doo, and approached the Defense Database at the center of camp. Stooping low, he picked up a small, rectangular object with a brightly colored plastic cover. “As for your second question, being exterminators, preparedness is a habit of ours. We always bring a little more material than necessary.”

The human’s smile had grown considerably wider as he was talking, and now stretched to obscene proportions across his face as he stood up, holding the strange rectangular object. He flipped back the bright, plastic portion from the device, revealing a small, metal switch.

“For example,” he continued, “Detcord.” He faced away from Spike and held the metallic device up above his shoulder. “You may want to cover your ears.”

“What?” Spike asked, watching as Jer flipped the switch with his thumb. The baby dragon realized too late that taking the alien’s advice was probably the best decision as the world before him erupted in a blinding flash of white flame and an immense, deafening roar.

Extra: Tats

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Tats

One Day to Employment Deadline

“… bi-i-ites, but so do I! Yeah, so do I-I…”

The radio crackled in the front of the jeep, playing an old metal track. Despite the music’s apparent age, it was unfamiliar to Raymond, who was busy double-checking the contents of the loading tarp in the back of the combat vehicle, nestled under the heavy rotary cannon.

He may not have recognized the track, but Raymond couldn’t help but tap his fingers against the vehicle’s tan chassis as he inspected its cargo.

“… r lips so pale and vicious:

you’re foaming at the mouth.

You’ve suffered in the darkness.

I’ll suck the pain right out…”

“Detcord, rifles, armor, both helmets, patched Grayle suit, explosive rounds, grenades, Jer’s guitar, Jer’s rucksack, one canister for the rotary, one EXTRA canister for the rotary, my rucks—”

“MISTER RAYMOND!”

Ray jumped, letting out a yelp that was rather unseemly for someone of his age, and turned to the source of the outburst. Three young fillies fidgeted before him, meeting his baleful glare with pleading grins and the biggest puppy dog eyes he had ever seen.

The human tried to keep up his mock glare, but failed miserably, conceding a small smile. Applebloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo perked up immensely and the little unicorn started bouncing impatiently on her hooves.

“Well, c’mon AB! Ask him!” she whined, looking insistently at her friend.

“God help this planet if they figure out how cute they are,” Ray thought to himself, watching the display. “They could rule the world.”

“Um, Raymond?” Applebloom started, shuffling a little bit with her hooves in the dirt. “Can we ask ya somethin’?” Ray’s heart almost gave out at that, it was so damned adorable, but something wasn’t right.

“She’s nervous? That’s… odd. Oooh, this is going to be an awkward question, isn’t it?” Ray groaned inwardly. He remembered having several uncomfortable conversations with his parents about… things, and they usually ended with his dad saying something like: “And that’s how ya came outta my dick, son.”

Ray didn’t want to talk about that with a bunch of little horses. It was more along Jer’s line of expertise, really.

Wait… scratch that.

Sighing, defeated, the former armada-man hoisted himself onto the jeep’s back bumper to sit, leaning heavily on his thighs. “Ask away.”

The Crusaders grinned excitedly and Applebloom stepped forward.

“We were wonderin’, well, if it ain’t too much trouble that is, if ya could maybe—” she began before being unceremoniously cut off by Scootaloo, who looked even more impatient than Gerald when there was work to be done.

“Howd’ja get your cutie mark?”

“Whenamommyponyandadaddypon—wait, what?”

Applebloom glared at Scootaloo. “What Ah was tryin’ ta say was: we were wonderin’ if ya could tell us yer’ cutie mark story.”

Well, that was a relief. Ray took a couple deep breaths and considered the girls’ question. He knew what a cutie mark was—having listened to Scootaloo spout on and on about it to Jer over the past two days—and, like nearly everything else on this reality defying planet, Raymond chose to ignore it.

Tattoos that appear on your ass when you find something you’re good at? Bullshit.

Still, he couldn’t leave them empty-hooved. “Sorry girls, I don’t have one. Humans don’t get those kinds of things.”

“Yer lyin’!” Applebloom spouted indignantly. “Ah saw it when you were all bandaged up at Zecora’s! There was a picture on your flank!”

“Yeah! I saw it too!” Scootaloo chimed. “When you were changing in the ship, I saw a black picture on your right side!” Ray stared at the orange pegasus, perturbed that she had been watching him dress. Lack of nudity taboo aside, it was a little disconcerting. He knew exactly what they were talking about, though, and he needed to set them straight:

“That is not a cutie m—”

“Oh, come on Ray! Just show them your special talent already!” Ray glared at the source of the new voice: Jer, who had just walked back into camp with a sack of wild edibles slung over his shoulder. “Take that pole outta your ass and show ‘em!”

“You have a pole in your ass?” Sweetie Belle queried, shooting Raymond a concerned look. “Do you need to go to the hospital or something?”

“No, Sweetie,” Ray groaned, “it’s just a figure of speech.” He turned to Jer, growling at his interrupting comrade. “The one time you get me plastered you drag me to a tattoo parlor.”

“Why would Jerry cover you in drywall?” Applebloom muttered, furrowing her brow in confusion. “An’ what’s a ta-two parlor?”

“Forget I said anything,” Ray mumbled, holding his face in his hands. “Ugh, fine. I’ll show you.” He slid off the jeep’s bumper, the suspension giving a little rock back and forth, and began to undo his belt. He quickly stopped himself, remembering the age level of his audience. “I’ll uh… I’ll just draw it in the dirt.”

With the snap of a button, Raymond withdrew his Company-issued combat knife from its sheath on his belt and crouched down next to the three fillies. He jammed the blade in the ground and dug a rough outline of the tattoo he’d had done several years ago in Siam, one of the first areas completely purged of xenomorphs during the Earth Campaign. It was true he’d been drunk, but he couldn’t completely blame his friend. It had been Ray’s idea, really.

Finished.

“Uh, what is it?” Applebloom asked, tilting her head to the side to get a better view.

“S’at a banana? What’s that weird circle thingy?” Scootaloo added as she walked around to Raymond’s left side, likely trying to see it from his angle.

“Yeah, and what do those scribbles mean?” Sweetie Belle finished the line of questioning pointing a hoof at the word written in the space beneath the Ray’s picture:

מדביר

“S’Hebrew for ‘exterminator’,” Jer answered for him, mouth full of some blackberries he picked from the sack of wild eats. “It’s an old language, and has to do with his family’s beliefs.” He directed his gaze towards Raymond. “Right?”

Ray gave a brief nod. “It also means 'sanctuary'. My father taught it to me.”

“Okay, so the picture has to do with your job? What does exterminating have to do with bananas?” Scootaloo questioned, giving the humans skeptically.

“It’s a metaphor. Apparently, I think I’m really clever when I’m drunk,” Ray heaved. “The circle is a ‘crosshair’, and means that banana won’t be alive for very much longer.”

“Bananas aren’t alive, Ray,” Applebloom piped, managing to sound condescending despite the squeakiness of her voice. “Ponies don’t eat living things.”

“Well, if we’re gonna get into technicalities here…” Jer began, but silenced himself when Ray gave him a glare. “Hehe, never mind. How about you girls run along with Ray so he can show you how he got his cutie mark, eh?”

“Jer…” Ray warned, “We don’t have ti—”

“Oh Ray please can we? Please?” Applebloom pleaded, cutting the human’s protest short.

“Don’t look. If you look it’s all over.” Ray looked. “Dammit…”

“Fine, lets go be snipers for a few hours.”

“CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS SNIPERS, YAY!!!!”

After they left, Jer started laughing, and didn’t stop until a grey pegasus crashed into their defense barrier.

The air deep in the orchard of Sweet Apple Acres was crisp and clean, and the sun hung brightly in the sky, casting but thin shadows on the grassy orchard rows. Atop a fence post near the edge of the orchard, a lone apple sat waiting. It was of the red delicious variety, the majority of the bumper crop for that season—or so Applebloom claimed—had comprised of these delectable fruits, so there was quite a bit to go around.

Ten yards further along the fence, another apple sat, and another, and another. Like soldiers at attention they remained still and steady upon their pedestals, even as their brothers vaporized before them.

The COM in Ray’s helmet crackled from where it lay next to him: “Raymond, you copy?”

A loud crack split the peaceful, afternoon air, and one of the apples disappeared in a mist of juice and white, pulpy flesh. Two fillies cheered, while another moaned unhappily.

“I copy. We rolling?”

There was a sharp, electric crackle over the COM. “Yeah, train station at 1700. Meet there?”

“Copy.” Another apple exploded in the afternoon sun with a sharp noise, like a walnut split asunder. “I’ll bring the girls.”

“Sounds good, over and out.”

“Jer no one says that anymore…” Ray noticed too late the call had ended and sighed. He directed his attention to the other beings with him. “Status?”

“Hit,” Scootaloo groaned. She sat slumped on her haunches, wings drooping, and sighed heavily. “Can we go do something else now?”

“Wind speed?” Ray asked, ignoring the complaints from his least enthused spotter.

“Uh… eleven knots… um… west?” Applebloom answered back, clearly guessing at this point. He’d shown the three fillies how to work the tripod-mounted scope he’d brought along with him, but it was complicated. The only one who actually knew what she was doing was Sweetie Belle, and the other two fillies wouldn’t even let her get a word in edgewise.

“That looks right, AB,” she sighed. The white unicorn trotted around Raymond’s prone form and sat next to his head. Her hooves tapped hollowly on the wooden boards of the Apple Family Hayloft, the perch the four snipers had decided on when they’d escaped the boundaries of Everfree Forest. “Raymond, why don’t you give us another chance, huh?”

“Nope.”

“Please! It wasn’t like we were aiming for Winona!”

“Sorry, Sweetie, but I am not going to be responsible for you three killing anyone.” “Besides,” the human thought to himself, “I need the practice.” Ray swiveled left, pointing the barrel of his rifle further south out the gaping window in the Apples’ loft. He was aiming at the Gala on the next fencepost, angling his shot so the round would bury itself safely in the ground behind the fence. “Next target.”

“Ugh… clear,” Scootaloo mumbled, throwing a foreleg over her eyes as she lay back against the wall, not even looking through the scope anymore.

Ray squinted his good eye as he looked through “Wrath’s” scope, zooming in with the toggle at his thumb. A red and yellow-splotched apple grew in size until it filled the window, its center perfectly lined up within his weapon’s crosshair. Bypassing the trigger guard, Ray lightly pressed his finger against the metal lever that would spell the end for the unsuspecting fruit.

“Firing…” Ray stated calmly, slowly depressing the trigger. He was on the threshold of making the shot when his scope was dominated by orange fur. The human quickly relaxed his trigger finger, grunted angrily, and slowly zoomed out. “Scootaloo. I though you told me that uh… um… woah.” Ray’s jaw unhinged.

“Mother of Ass…”

A sudden flash of light erupted from the south, followed closely by an explosive roar. Ray flinched at the unexpected stimuli and his finger tightened. The but of his rifle slammed into Ray’s unprepared shoulder and he hissed in pain. He knew he fired, but the sound of the shot was lost in the ringing of his ears.

Raymond froze.

“Wow! What WAS that!” Scootaloo cried, as she rushed to the window, pushing the Wrath’s barrel out of the way. “Holy Celestia! That tree is flying!” The other two fillies quickly joined her, each shoving to get a good look.

“I’ve never seen that many birds scatter all at once!”

“I don’t think those are all birds, Sweetie Belle.”

“What in Terra’s name could have possible done that?”

The girls’ babbling slurred into one huge mess of droning sounds, and Raymond stared blankly ahead, praying to the Company that what he thought happened didn’t.

“Hey, Applebloom, isn’t that your sister?”

Ray tensed. His knuckles glowed white from clenching his rifle.

“Yep, I guess it is!” Applebloom answered, cheery. “Hey Applejack! Watcha doin’ coverin’ yer head like that?”

“Oh shit… Oh SHIT!” Ray jumped to his feet and fled from the loft, sliding down a conveniently placed rope dangling from the rafters. He hit the straw-laden ground running, ignoring the sharp pain he felt in his shins, and burst from the barn doors. “APPLEJACK!”

The blonde farmpony in question was several yards away, sprawled twitching on her stomach with her forelegs firmly wrapped above her head, covering it with her battered Stetson. Ray skidded to his knees next to her and immediately tried to flip her over.

“Fuck! Applejack! Say something!” The panicking exterminator attempted to pry her forelegs away from her hat, but he was swatted backwards. Surprised, Ray fell on his spine, knocking his head against the ground. “Ack!”

“Oh gosh! Ah’m sorry Raymond! Are you alright?” a familiar voice broke through the ringing in his ears. Ray opened his eyes to find Applejack standing over him, her blonde mane cascading around her face due to a snapped red hair tie. A look of genuine worry tinged her emerald eyes, and she leaned in closer, her mouth forming words that Rays ears caught several seconds late. “Raymond! Raymond speak ta me!”

Her head seemed intact: no blood, no brain, no bone. Raymond glanced at the fencepost behind her where the apple he’d been aiming for once sat, now gone. He looked back at Applejack her face strained and upset—honestly afraid for his safety—and laughed.

Eventually, the upset mare joined him, and they both rolled around in the dirt, giggling hysterically at nothing. They looked at each other and shared a warm smile, and Ray noticed that, sometime during their laughter, her hat had fallen off. Spotting it, the human reached down and picked it up, running the fabric through his fingers for a moment. It had a nice feeling to it: an interesting texture. Turning back to Applejack, he carefully placed the hat back in its rightful place.

The orange mare’s cheeks tinted red, and she looked down at her hooves. Ray quirked an eyebrow, and was just about to ask what was wrong when a shot rang out above the echoes of their previous laughter.

The fencepost behind the pair exploded in a shower of white splinters, and Raymond dove on top of the mare beside him, trying to shield her from further gunfire.

“What in the hay was that!?!?” She screamed, once again hiding beneath her hat. Ray grimaced, and directed his attention to the barn. A gunmetal grey barrel poked out of the loft window, swiveled erratically for a moment, then disappeared as another shot smote the air.

Several yards away, a low hanging branch from one of the orchard's many apple trees exploded.

Ray closed his eyes and tried to calm himself. Sure, he’d left three fillies in the loft with a veritable hand cannon, but, God forbid he say it, things couldn’t get any worse, right? Suddenly, an indignant shout rent Ray’s thoughts asunder.

“Human! Just what do ya think yer doin’ with mah sister!”

There was another gunshot, and a geyser of dirt sprayed the exasperated man in the face.

“Fuuuuck…”

Several Minutes Earlier

“Just a teensy bit more, Mistress, please! I can’t take much more of this!”

“Quiet slave! Uhm, I mean… please quiet down while Mommy cracks you like an egg.”

Yellow hooves pushed and pulled, and the great wooden wheel underneath Zecora’s hollowed tree creaked under the strain.

“Uhn! Mistress!”

“Shuddup and rhyme to me!”

“Nngh! Oh pegasus soft as a newborn—erk! Duck! Pl-Please hurry along so we can—”

An explosion of epic proportions rocked the Everfree Forest, shaking the hut to its foundations.

“EEEP!” Fluttershy squeaked, accidentally jerking the tension wheel in her hooves a little too far. The ropes that kept Zecora pinned on the torture device under her tightened. The loud crack of bones rearranging themselves brought the butter yellow pegasus back to her senses, just when the ropes holding her friend down snapped.

Zecora fell forward, slumping to the ground and letting out a loud groan.

“… oooooooooooo…”

“Oh no oh no, Zecora! Are you okay?! Please be okay!”

“…ooooooooooh Celestia that felt good.”

“Zecora… no! I am still your mistress, hey! It’s not time for hoovsies yet! Eeep!”

Miles away, Cpl. Gerald Hanes felt a nagging feeling in the back of his mind:

“Y’know… maybe just flying the jeep out would have been easier.” He glanced at the now almost completely repaired Ugly Duckling, nestled against the giant oak at the edge of the clearing. “Nah.”

11: The Longest Sentence

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Chapter 11

“I spent all of yesterday laying out that shit,” Jer murmured contentedly. “So worth it.”

The defense barrier had done its job perfectly, and, as Gerald watched the blue waves of energy dance across the air in front of him he felt a twinge in his loins. The satisfied human smirked to himself. It had been awhile since he’d blown anything up, let alone got an erection from it.

Today was going to be a good day; he could feel it.

As the visual feedback from the defense barrier faded away, Jer was able to assess the effectiveness of his efforts. There was very little smoke, and only scattered patches of flame, for the blast had been mainly concussive in nature. There was no sense in burning the whole forest down, now was there? Sure, they would’ve been fine in their shielded clearing, but still…

Scorched branches were scattered about—especially around the defense barrier—and a wide furrow had been cut through the soft earth of the forest floor as far as the eye could see. Trees lay splintered and uprooted on both sides of the impromptu pathway, and torn-up plant life lay indiscriminately about, bleeding sap and green chlorophyll ichor.

“Fucking beautiful,” a voice growled in the back of Jer’s head, “Again.”

“Heh, yeah…” Jer began, staring down the avenue of destruction he’d just created, “and no, we’ve got work to do.”

“Wh-Why?” came a stuttering voice from behind the destruction-sated human. Jer turned to find Lounge Lizard, Sparky’s dragon slave, gaping at the aftermath of Jer’s carefully laid explosives. “Why did you… how did you… nuh?”

Ditzy Doo sat next to the baby dragon, her expression much the same, if not more horrified than Spike’s. The human felt a slight twinge at that, but quickly suppressed it. He liked Ditzy. She was carefree and childish, something Gerald admired in an adult. He was comfortable around her like he had been with Pinkie and the crusaders before, but, even so, her face was just too priceless for him to feel bad. Jer laughed openly at Spike and Ditzy’s incredulity—it was kind of cute, really. They were like he was when he’d first joined the Marines: utterly awed by the level of power that he, along with his other squad-mates, was being allowed to wield. This was no time to be nostalgic, however. There was still so much to do, and he needed to move.

“Let’s load up!” he cried, striding confidently over to his two guests and sweeping them up in his arms. “Gotta get going if we want to make the train.”

“It doesn’t leave for five hours!” Spike complained. “And you didn’t answer my question!” Neither he nor the grey pegasus struggled in his grasp, whether from fear or awe Jer didn’t care. As long as they came along he wasn’t worried about it. “Are you listening to me? You just destroyed half the Everfree Forest!”

“I did no such thing,” Jer grunted out as he lifted the two natives into the passenger set of the jeep. “Though, if me an’ Ray weren’t trying to conserve our fuel it wouldn’t be difficult to do.” They were staring again, horrified. “How did you think I was going to get the jeep out of here? Fly? The trees are too thick to just drive through, and I doubt Sparky could magic it out without hurting herself.”

Yesterday morning, Gerald had gotten up bright and early and grabbed a roll of detcord he’d pawned his old helmet and a dried xeno-tongue aphrodisiac for on a quick stop at Sansara, the capital city of the colony on Jiboomi. The cord was about two centimeters thick, covered in thin, yellow rubber that would rip apart when the potent, explosive plastique inside went off. The stuff was normally used in mining operations, and was heavy as all hell on the industrial roller he was forced to use. Laying it all the way to the edge of the forest had taken nine hours, and Scoots, curious as to where he’d gone and using the wire as a guide, had followed his trail and joined him with food later in the day.

Though inconvenient, actually laying the wire hadn’t been all that difficult, but that wasn’t to say there weren’t any obstacles. For the bigger trees in his way, Jer had wrapped the cord around their trunks as close to the ground as he could, hoping to fell them and push them out of the way with little extra effort later. The occasional boulder was dealt with in the same fashion, albeit with more explosive. When he’d made it near the edge, the tired human had simply stopped laying cord. The trees were spread far enough apart by then that he could easily drive around them, and he didn’t want it to be too easy to find what he was about to make. There were no paths to their ship, so Jer made a road.

Spike furrowed his brow, trying to accept Gerald’s justification for such chaos, and Ditzy just stared silently at the cavernous hole in the foliage across camp. Jer walked around to the back of the jeep and tightened the straps around the canvas bundle held down below the scaffold for the rotary cannon. Confident that it was secure, he strolled to the database in the center of camp, set it to “delayed” deactivation, and went back to the jeep.

He had one minute to get going before the shields went back up.

Hopping in the driver’s seat, he glanced at Spike and Ditzy. Ditzy was shaking her head left and right, perhaps to stop her head from ringing, but Spike was smiling and had a familiar gleam in his eye: a gleam Jer often saw when he looked in the mirror.

Good: at least the walking fax machine recovered quickly.

“That. Was. Awesome,” the reptile slowly enunciated, his smile growing even wider. “I don’t know how you did it, and I don’t care. I don’t even like Everfree all that much: too many monsters. Destroy as much of it as you like… just don’t let Twilight find out.”

“Heh, fine by me. Ditz? You okay?” Jer asked. The wall-eyed pegasus smiled weakly and nodded. Jer guessed power of that kind just didn’t sit right with her. Too bad. “All right then, let’s get going.”

With that, Gerald Hanes stuck his thumb in the starting mechanism of the jeep: a shallow depression with a tiny hole in the center. A small needle shot from the hole, pricking his skin and drawing drop of blood. Two seconds later, a button on the dash lit up, and Jer pressed it with the same thumb. The vehicle roared to life, and the exterminator immediately pressed the pedal to the floor.

The jeep sped into the hole made by Jer’s explosives, rocketing down the new forest road. Thirty seconds later, the human’s barrier flickered to life once more.

“God Dammit!” Spike watched the human pace back and forth in front of the gigantic tree blocking their path. Apparently, Jer’s magic forest-destroying weapon wasn’t as potent as was necessary, and had merely toppled the enormous, wooden ancient down the middle of his path. “I wrapped you five times! Five! Fuck you, Nature! Fuck you!”

“Jer!” Spike sighed, poking him in the calf with a claw. “Calm down, man! Let’s just go get Twilight. She’ll levitate the jeep over it.” The pacing human froze and stared at Spike, his lips curving into a smile he didn’t quite like. “Wh-What?”

“Hey, Loungey… Buddy…” He crouched down in front of Spike, putting himself level with the baby dragon. “You can teleport things, right?”

“Uh, no, I can’t,” Spike answered warily. “I’m a dragon, dude. We can’t do things like that.”

“Oh, yeah? Then what about those fire-letters ya send, eh? What do you call that?” Jer crossed his arms and smiled in smug victory.

“That’s an enchantment Twilight put on me and it wouldn’t work in this case!” the small dragon countered.

“And why not?”

“Because the things I send go directly to Princess Celestia, and nowhere else!” Spike finished, having had enough of Jer’s line of questioning. “Besides, it’s not me sending it that scares me, but somepony sending it back! I’m not big enough to cough THAT up!” Jer didn’t look sympathetic. In fact, he looked quite far from it. His smile had taken on a malicious air.

“Goes straight to Celestia you say?” he mused, directing his words carefully at Spike, who, unfortunately, was the only one there since Ditzy had left when they’d first stopped to move a smaller tree out of the path. She’d said something about her daughter and being late for lunch, and had given both males a peck on the cheek before flying off. “I’m sure she would understand, Little Man. C’mon, for me.” Spike just eyed him suspiciously. “I’ll get ya one a them gem-cakes Pinkie makes.”

Spike waged an internal battle: one that lasted all of four seconds.

“Fine… but you’d better get me the emerald kind. I’m not settling for any of that jade mino-manure the Cakes peddle,” Spike conceded, still trying to sound menacing and in control. “Oh,” he added as an afterthought, “and if Celestia gets angry, you forced me to do it.” Grey flames danced in the grinning human’s eyes.

“I wouldn’t dream of implicating you,” he assured, and, for some reason, Spike believed him. There was something about the way he was smiling that made the young reptile afraid, but not for himself. Jer’s malice was directed elsewhere, and Spike thought he knew for whom.

With a soft sigh, he walked up to the torn base of the gigantic arboreal wall. Spike took a deep breath and flexed the small slit in the back of his throat, releasing a cold liquid down his throat. The liquid began to react with his saliva, and when he breathed out a solid jet of green flame gouted from his toothy maw. As the flames touched the fallen giant, it dissolved into a green mist, and flowed through the canopy toward Canterlot. He moved along the tree until he had engulfed the whole thing with his breath, leaving behind its impression in the loamy ground and nothing else.

Spike turned to find a completely dumbfounded human sitting behind him.

“How do you do that?”

“Twilight took me aside and told me how the whole ‘breathing fire’ thing worked when I was younger, but I didn’t really listen,” Spike chuckled. “As for the fire messaging? I understand magic just about as much as the average Earth Pony, so don’t ask me.”

“Fair enough,” the human settled, jumping to his feet. “Thanks Spike, I’ll grab you that cupcake from Pinkie when we get to Ponyville.”

“Eh! Hold on! You said ‘cake,’” the dragon snarked. “I expect a rich, crunchy, emerald cake.”

Jer sniggered. “Fine, just get in, man.”

The smug dragon walked over the passenger side of the jeep, and, with a little help from Jer, pulled himself into the rather uncomfortable seats. He reached behind his back and grabbed his tail, pulling it around his body and clutching it to his chest so he wouldn’t crush it on the seat back behind him. The machinery inside Jer’s vehicle revved, and the jeep shot down the path. Trees sped by at frightening speeds, and Spike was reminded of how it felt to get a pegasus ride from Rainbow Dash.

After about a minute of roaring through Everfree, Jer spoke again:

“I forgot to ask... how old are ya? Scoots said you’re a baby dragon, but you’ve got quite the vocabulary for an infant.” Jer glanced at him, then focused on the road again. “Sorry if that’s offensive or some shit. Just wanted to know.”

Spike didn’t mind. It was a sensible question, especially for someone who’d never met a dragon before. “No, it’s fine. I’m sixteen in pony years.”

“And in dragon years?”

“Eh, those vary according to what kind of dragon you are. It’s a long story.”

Jer flashed Spike a grin. “Well, we have a few hours, and I don’t mind learnin’ a few things.”

The sixteen-year-old reptile smiled back.

“Okay… it all has to do with greed…”

The train station was crowded, but, out of the immense crush of individuals, Rarity only had eyes for two of the departing ponies. Why? Because they weren’t. Ponies, that is.

“So what yer tellin’ me, is that the more gold and jewels and stuff a dragon has the bigger he gets? And when people gave you a bunch of shit for your birthday, you turned into a big hulking greed monster that destroyed town?”

“Yep! *Mmnmpf* Tha’s right. *gnom*”

“That really makes no sense, but whatever.”

“*Mnomph* ‘Kay.”

“Slow down with that thing, Bud. You’re going to burst and I’m gonna have to clean you off the station floor. Besides, if you get sick I’ll have to deal with a very angry unicorn later.”

“Ugh, don’t remind me! I don’t understand what’s gotten her so riled up! Her brother’s getting married for Luna’s sake!”

“You should probably go give her a hand with packing, Little Bro.”

“Yeah… you want the rest of this?”

“Um… no… but thanks anyway.”

Spike and Mr. Hanes had been lazing on the bench by the ticket booth for an hour, and hadn’t noticed Rarity listening to them from around the corner. It amazed her how comfortable her Spikey-Wikey was with him, but, then again, her off-and-on assistant did make friends easily. She heard him leave the platform, crunching on a green-tinged cake that she’d glimpsed when she’d nearly ran into them around the corner.

Luckily she’d backed away before they’d noticed her, and, because of that, she was able to eavesdrop in peace.

Through the bustle of ponies walking to and fro, a quiet humming drifted around the corner—erratic, yet melodious in its own right. The human was alone on the bench. Rarity bit her lip and shifted restlessly on her hooves. Applejack had visited her Boutique two days ago, after she’d come home from Canterlot with Sweetie Belle, and had informed her of what had happened while she’d been absent.

Needless to say, it was the worst possible thing.

Just when she thought she could justify not liking them, those two creatures had to go and completely change her opinion of them. Raymond saved Applebloom’s life, and Gerald adopted Scootaloo, something Rarity kept telling herself she would’ve done had she known about the little pegasus’s predicament. It made her think about how she’d treated them, Jer especially. She didn’t know whether to be frustrated or grateful for that, but she was going to make things right. Steeling herself, Rarity ran a hoof through her perfectly coiffed mane, checked her make-up in a nearby puddle, and turned the corner.

There he was: the alien who was generous enough to adopt a filly of a completely different species without complaint. He was staring at the platform, watching ponies walk by with their luggage, lovers nuzzle each other as they parted ways, and the three o’ clock train pull into the station. Leaning forward on the joints of his forelegs from where he sat, he hummed quietly all the while with an ugly grimace stretched across his thin lips.

The fact that Gerald wasn’t smiling caused Rarity to falter a bit. Was now a bad time? The alabaster unicorn briefly considered turning back, but quickly decided against it. All he needed was somepony to talk to, and she was by far the best pony to do it with.

Rarity continued her approach, subconsciously swinging her hips and giving her mane a quick flip before correcting herself with a blush, noting the looks she was getting from the other colts in the station. She needed to work on controlling that. Gerald was of a different species, anyway, and she had no real interest in him. The sultry walk had been mere habit, and she didn’t want anypony getting the wrong idea.

“Gerald, Darling!” she called, approaching the bench. The human gave a light jolt, and, noticing her, quirked an eyebrow. He didn’t smile. “Ooh… not a good start.”

“Hmm?” Gerald enquired unenthusiastically.

“I w-well uh,” Rarity stuttered. She hadn’t really thought this through very well. “H-How are you, Darling? It’s been days since we’ve seen each other, and I just wanted to know how you’ve been settling in.” The alabaster mare smiled nervously, trying to better gauge the human’s mood.

“We aren’t ‘settling in’,” he answered distantly, scanning the crowds of ponies departing the recently arrived train from Dodge Junction. Was he expecting someone? Mr. Schaffer, maybe? “Our ship’s pretty much fixed, so as soon as this wedding’s finished we’ll be on our way.”

“Oh…” Rarity trailed off, surprised. They were leaving? So soon? But… no! She hadn’t properly apologized to them yet and—the fashionista’s eyes widened at a sudden realization and she scowled angrily. “Wait! What about Scootaloo? You can’t seriously be considering bringing the poor dear with you!”

“No,” came Jer’s distracted reply. He didn’t even seem to be watching the crowd anymore. Now the hunched creature was just staring at… well, nothing.

“So you’re just leaving her all alone again? Cad! I can see it now!” Rarity leapt onto her hind legs and threw a foreleg over her eyes. “The lonely orange waif: wandering the streets of Ponyville without a home, having grown slight from lack of food and drink!” The pale unicorn was dimly aware of being stared at by passing ponies, but at that moment she didn’t care. “The pseudo-father she loved so dearly, though he was of an entirely different species, left her for parts unknown like a careless, unfeeling—”

“I’m finding her a proper home before we go,” the victim of her rant stated, still not looking her in the eye. “There are a few things I have to take care of, and that’s priority number two.”

Her torrid speech so rudely interrupted, Rarity didn’t know how to feel about the human’s remark. “Two?” she finally asked, torn between anger and confusion. “What could possibly be more important than finding that filly a home?”

The human turned, finally meeting her eyes, or, more accurately, staring through them. “The job,” he deadpanned.

“Playing music… at the Royal Wedding?” Rarity stared, mouth agape. “That’s more important than Scootaloo’s future?” Jer quirked an eyebrow, eyes still scanning some distant horizon.

“Sweetie Belle.”

“Pardon?”

“Where’s she staying while you’re at the wedding?” the human continued dryly. “She certainly wasn’t invited, and the filly told me herself that her parents are in ‘Hoofington’ for the weekend.” Rarity’s mouth snapped shut. She hadn’t even thought about what to do with Sweetie Belle! And she was already at the train station! The porcelain mare began to panic and turned to dash back to the boutique, but was stopped by a swift tug on her perfectly styled tail. “I took care of it,” Rarity heard Jer assure, almost offhandedly. “She’s out with Ray and her friends. They should be here any minute.”

Rarity let out the breath she hadn’t known she was holding and sat on her haunches. Quickly checking to make sure her tail hadn’t been skewed by his abrupt yank, the white unicorn turned back to Gerald.

“I wasn’t aware the crusaders were staying in your clearing today…”

“Mhmm...”

“… how did they get there? They didn’t go through the forest on their ow—”

“You doubt my ability to keep the children safe?” Gerald’s voice darkened, and he finally focused his full attention on Rarity, prompting her to back away slightly. “Scoots wanted to see her friends. I escorted them back personally, along with Big Mac for as far as he could squeeze in.” The human went back to looking at the crowd, snarling. “If I can’t protect a child I don’t deserve to be in my line of work, or even continue living for that matter.”

This wasn’t how Rarity had pictured this conversation at all. She stared open-mouthed at the grimacing human, aghast at the suicidal—yet noble, even bordering on romantic—implications of his recent statement. Her plan had been to apologize, and now, because of her overreaction, they were back at square one.

“Look, Gerald… I didn’t mean to offend you or anything,” she began after a brief pause. “I had originally planned this out as an apology for my attitude earlier. At the party… I should never have dismissed you like that, and I’m truly sorry for judging you so harshly. The fact that you took in young Scootaloo so unexpectedly, out of the kindness and generosity of your heart, proves that I was wrong about you. Can you find it within yourself to forgive a judgmental young mare of her wrongdoings?”

“Myeh,” Jer grunted. “Probably.”

“That’s it?” Rarity stumbled, unsure if she was hearing him right. “You forgive me? Really?”

Gerald broke away from his crowd-watching once more and grinned cheekily at her. “Yeah. You didn’t really do all that much to upset me, anyway.” The unicorn blinked.

“B-But… no!” Rarity cried, inching closer to the seated human who had so easily accepted her apology. “That simply won’t do! I’ve been a terrible pony and I absolutely MUST make it up to you!” Jer scooted further away from her and shot the distraught mare a bemused look.

“Uh, no. I’m fine, thanks.”

“I will not take no for an answer,” Rarity scoffed. “Please, just let me make you and Mr. Shaffer some clothes becoming of the ceremony you’ve been invited to. I promise you’ll be the most handsome humans there!” She gave the man a pleading look, hoping he wouldn’t remember that he and Mr. Schaffer would be the only humans there. After a moment, a genuine laugh escaped the seated biped.

“Whatever floats your boat, lady.”

A companionable silence descended on the pair, and Jer moved over far enough on the bench for Rarity to comfortably sit alongside him. The alabaster mare watched Gerald stare into space for a time, wondering what was going on in the poor creature’s head, before deciding on another attempt at conversation.

“So, Gerald… Who have you been looking into?”

“Hmmm?” the human replied, seeming to pull himself back into reality. “Looking into?”

“I mean as parents,” the unicorn prodded, “for Scootaloo?”

“Ah, yeah. That,” Jer muttered, grimacing. “My first thought was the schoolteacher, but we didn’t really hit it off all that great at our first meeting. She’s still high on the list, since dealing with kids is kind of her thing, but…” he trailed off, looking directly at Rarity with those grey eyes of his. “Well, she had the most contact with Scoots, and she didn’t notice her…” Jer waved his hand in the air, searching for the right word, maybe?

“Predicament?” Rarity offered.

“Yeah,” Gerald’s lips twisted into a snarl. “She mailed her grades for Pete’s sake! How the fuck did she not notice when they didn’t go through?”

“You do know who our mailmare is, right Darling?” Rarity conceded that Gerald made a good point, but, knowing Ditzy Doo, those grade reports could have gone anywhere. Besides, she knew that wasn’t the reason Mr. Hanes and Ms. Cheerilee hadn’t hit it off. Sweetie Belle had informed her of the incident of their first meeting, and the human hadn’t made an excellent impression. Granted, Diamond Tiara hadn’t been hurt in the affair, but Cheerilee was known for being very protective of her students: even the insensitive, rude, spoiled, brats who dared hurt her little sister’s feelings. “I was informed of the circumstances of your and Cheerilee’s first meeting, and I’m fairly certain I understand her trepidation.”

Gerald smirked, flashing her a quick wink. “Yeah, well, I did overreact a bit,” he chuckled. Rarity didn’t understand how he could take the affair so lightly, and, noticing the look she was giving him, Jer explained a bit better. “Some people just don’t understand the difference between the ‘flat’ and the ‘blade’ of a knife. ‘Save your anger for the bugs’ I always say.”

“Ah,” Rarity mouthed. “I understand.” She didn’t, but that didn’t matter at the moment. There was something else she was more curious about. “Applejack told me that Filthy Rich paid you a visit shortly afterward…”

“The pink one’s father? Yeah.”

“How did that, eh, as Rainbow would say, ‘slide’?”

“Oh he was angry at first,” Jer answered airily, leaning back on the bench and stretching his legs. “But then we got to talking. I found out he was something of a ‘business stallion’ and I gave him some advice, along with a short history lesson…”

“And you’re certain that’s how this ‘director’ of yours took over your nation’s government?”

“Yep, and the first step is getting rid of all unnecessary distractions. I would spend a few weeks indoors, send your daughter to boarding school far away, or maybe even take up meditation. Also, it’s good to have a partner: someone who you could easily manipulate while also giving your company the illusion of cooperation between two firms instead of looking like a dictatorship. What was that pony’s name? Bronze Spoon? Hit him up, and be sure to give him the same advice I gave you.”

Oh now that was devious. Rarity listened to Gerald recount his earlier conversation with the richest pony in town and giggled. “You got the ‘Terrible-Twosome’ sent to boarding school?” she queried, prodding him in the arm. “You cunning stallion, you!” Gerald didn’t seem to be listening, for his attention had drifted elsewhere. Rarity followed his gaze. “Speaking of stallions…”

A large, red draft horse with several fillies on his back climbed the steps onto the platform, followed closely by Mr. Shaffer and Applejack. The human carried a bulky, grey duffel slung across his back, and Applejack toted her old, worn saddlebags. Both human and pony looked exhausted, but that didn’t seem to faze Gerald as he strode toward them. Rarity blinked.

She hadn’t even seen him get up.

The shorter of the two humans pulled even with his counterpart and heartily clapped him on the back, exclaiming something unintelligible. Ray’s duffel slipped from his shoulder, threatening to land heavily on the platform. The scarred human, in an amazing—at least to Rarity, whom very seldom stood on two hooves, it seemed amazing—display of balance and poise, stooped down and caught the bulky item by the strap.

Ray straightened and glared at his compatriot. The Apple family, along with whom Rarity quickly identified as Scootaloo and her little sister shied away from the two humans, glancing uncomfortably between the two. The watching fashionista perked up.

“Drama? No, interplanetary drama!” Rarity suppressed a squeal. Now she had something to gossip about while in Canterlot!

Further out on the platform, Gerald shrunk away from his friend, giving him a questioning look. He said something, but Rarity couldn’t hear over the babble of the crowd. Suddenly, Raymond was nose to nose with the smaller man, growling something and pointing east, across town and into Everfree Forest. The finger traveled turned and pointed at the ponies he had arrived with, starting with the three fillies still riding the eldest Apple male before resting with an air of finality on Applejack, who looked generally uncomfortable and was trying to make herself as low as possible against the wood flooring of the station.

This was good. Really good, but bad… but in a good way. Rarity had no idea what was going on and she couldn’t let this gossip just slip away. She quickly—still maintaining the grace expected of a lady of her stature—slid from the bench and tried to weave her way through the crowd. Not nearly as many out-of-towners were gawking at the two bipeds in their midst, and the awkward crush of ponies made it difficult for Rarity to get any closer without seeming uncouth. This annoyed the unicorn to no end. Why were they just ignoring two obviously alien creatures? What, did they think they were just a couple runt diamond dogs? Honestly.

Despite the obstacles, she made it just in time to catch the tail end of the altercation.

“I told you exactly how I was getting the jeep out and you didn’t complain at all! ‘It would conserve fuel’ you said!” Jer stated, backing away from Raymond and holding his arms up in a placating manner. While his body screamed apologetic submission, his face told a different story. Gerald’s jaw was clenched so tightly that Rarity was afraid he’d shatter his teeth. Then there were his eyes. Dear Celestia, those eyes! While the muscles in the biped’s throat remained taught and in the moment, his slate eyes stared at nothing, flickering between fury and solemn defiance. His expression flickered along with his eyes, and it was impossible for the eggshell unicorn to gauge the true emotion he displayed. “I’m sorry I didn’t give you more warning. I thought my COM call was enough,” the clearly conflicted human hissed.

“A better warning would have been nice, yes,” Ray snarled, one hand pinching the bridge of his nose while the other fell to his side, clenching and relaxing intermittently. “Less explosive would have been nice, too. You didn’t need nearly that much to get the job done: half the roll would have cleared a path just as easily. You used the whole spool didn’t you?” the human growled and continued, not waiting for an answer. “We felt the shockwave from the goddamn farm, Jer!”

“That may be true, but…” Gerald glanced at the ponies gathered behind Raymond before moving close enough to speak quietly into Raymond’s ear. Rarity had gained enough ground now to catch some snippets of what he said: “… training, man… eep your finger off the trig… iously? Leave them alone with a gun?” The scarred human grimaced and hung his head for a second before meeting his friend’s eyes.

“Yes, I did make a mistake, and afterward I was a little panicked, Jer. Keeping track of the weapon was the last thing on my mind.”

Gerald made the placating gesture again: it seemed to be a favorite of his. Rarity wondered if that was because of frequent usage, or… well she couldn’t really think of any other plausible reason for the shorter human’s repetition. “We both made mistakes. Can’t we just forget about it for now and focus on the issue at hand?” He cocked a thumb over his shoulder, his eyes regaining focus and his expression settling into a small, sad smile. “I parked around back. Let’s finish this over there.”

Raymond grunted and nodded grudgingly before joining Gerald in his brisk stride to the edge of the platform. They wove in and around the crowd and dropped out of site behind the ticket booth. The second they were gone, Rarity confronted her orange, country friend:

“Applejack. Tell me what that was about. Now,” she said, eyes burning with gossip-lust. Applejack paled and took a step back.

“Ah don’t know exactly what happened, but Ah’m certainly not gonna push for an answer from ‘em,” the farm pony twanged in that adorably rustic accent of hers. “T’was an accident that Ray fixed up without any problems,” she continued, unabashed pride evident in her voice. “Nopony died.”

“Darling, that’s… wonderful?” Somepony almost died!? Oooh this was good material.

Rarity glanced at the three “crusaders” still huddled on Macintosh’s back. They stared wide-eyed at the spot where the two humans had disappeared, guilt weighing heavily in their young eyes. Mac let out a deep sigh and knelt down, signaling that it was time for them to hop down. They quickly complied, and were soon left to fidget quietly on the station floor, still not daring to speak or even cause major property damage! Rarity watched her sister—who rarely ever spent a moment in silence—simply stare at her hooves.

AJ must’ve really done a number on them.

The porcelain unicorn gave Applejack a questioning look and, gaining her attention, tilted her head toward the fillies and snorted in irritation. Applejack chuckled and shook her head:

“Don’ look at me. Ray scolded the poor things for a mite less than two minutes an’ they’ve been like that ever since.” The blonde mare looked back in the direction the human’s had gone and smiled. “It was like Fluttershy went bald, changed genders, and started trottin’ upright. Ah swear, she’s the only pony I’ve seen who can make them that quiet.” Rarity nodded carefully at this.

“We’re bringing them, correct?” she inquired with a gesture toward the downtrodden crusaders, faking nonchalance for her own benefit. It wouldn’t do to have her friend, or her sister, know that she’d overlooked their wellbeing in the excitement of going to the royal wedding.

“Ah don’t see why not,” Applejack snorted. “They’re still in trouble, but Ah’d rather Ah keep an eye on Applebloom than Big Mac. One look with her little poutin’ face an’ he gives in like that.” The orange farm pony punctuated her statement with a flick of her long, blonde tail. A sudden realization appeared to have struck the country mare, because she gave Rarity a pained, apologetic look. “Ah’m sorry. Do ya want me ta tell ya what happened so ya can punish Sweetie Belle yerself?”

Rarity considered the question for a moment. On one hand, knowing would provide for greater gossiping potential in the future, and therefore more information returned to her in kind (First Law of Rumor: give, and in return ye shall receive). However, she did feel bad about forgetting her poor Sweetie Belle in her rush to the train station…

“I’m sure the knowledge of what she’s done wrong is punishment enough,” Rarity lilted, hopefully loud enough for her sister not to hear. “If she behaves herself while in Canterlot, I see no reason for me to add to whatever punishment you and Raymond have conceived.” Applejack smiled and nodded, and a quick glance at Sweetie Belle confirmed Rarity’s hopes: she seemed a lot less gloomy now.

“I wonder… is my judgment that frightening to her?” The ivory dressmaker shuddered at the thought.

Pounding footsteps reverberated the platform. The humans were returning.

They turned the corner side-by-side: Raymond having forgone his duffel, and Gerald now toting a blue, cloth pack on his shoulder and a guitar case in his hand. The more burdened of the two was smiling happily, while his companion held little to no expression at all. Whatever the problem had been before, it appeared to be resolved.

A rippling mass of red fur passed inches in front of Rarity’s face and she flinched, concentration broken, to find Macintosh Apple plodding toward the approaching bipeds. He stopped in front of Gerald, and they held a short, muffled conversation while Raymond continued past them them. The shorter human listened avidly to the stallion, nodding his head in affirmation every few seconds. Rarity decided she would have to saunter closer if she wanted to hear anything, but before she could get up Mr. Hanes clapped Mac on behind his harness and laughed. The conversation ended there, and Macintosh purposefully trotted off, presumably back to Sweet Apple Acres.

Rarity snorted in irritation. Opportunity lost.

Mr. Shaffer leaned against the support column to her left, all but three feet away from Applejack and herself.

Opportunity gained!

“Raymond, darling!” Rarity crooned, sidling closer to the quiet biped. She noticed Applejack jolt at her sudden exclamation. The orange mare glared at her, but Rarity ignored it in favor of the surprisingly unfazed alien. “Are you excited for the wedding?” She received a noncommittal grunt as an answer. Out of the corner of her eye, Rarity could make out Gerald sitting back down on the bench he’d occupied when they’d been talking before. He made a beckoning gesture, but it wasn’t directed at her.

“Ray, hun?” Applejack drawled, obviously trying to butt into Rarity’s perfectly good conversation for some unfathomable reason. “Don’t ya want ta see Canterlot? Ah mean it ain’t ‘El Coltrado’ but it’s a real nice place…”

“Applejack’s right, Darling!” Rarity continued, catching a glimpse of three fillies soberly walking toward Gerald’s bench. “Canterlot is definitely a ‘nice place’, and, as such, it would do to look your best, hmm?” The fashionista eyed Raymond’s ratty, green jacket and dull, oddly colored slacks critically. He wore fewer pins and patches than Gerald, favoring a sort of minimalism in his attire. Rarity smiled: designing something unique for the two bipeds would be an interesting ordeal.

The relaxed human gave her a quizzical look, looking down at his drab clothing. Surely he must understand? Raymond did seem the more rational of the two. Rarity was sure he was about to agree with her when Applejack started overreacting about something she said—right on cue. The cowpony’s squalls would have been annoying if they weren’t so predictable… or frequent. The porcelain unicorn loved Applejack dearly, but for the love of Celestia! When she was irritated, the way she twisted Rarity’s words was uncanny!

Though, in this case, maybe she did have a point.

“Give the man a break, Rarity,” she complained, “S’not their fault they got stuck here without any a’ fancier then their—” she paused, apparently fighting a losing battle for a term, before looking up to Ray for help. “Uh, what do ya call ‘em again, Sugarcube?”

“Skiv’s.”

“Yeah, those!” Applejack finished, triumphant in the knowledge of her two-legged lifeline. Rarity sighed, continuing despite the obvious opposition to her offer.

“All I’m saying is that formal wear is practically required at a wedding of this scale.” Rarity snorted. “I am a decent tailor, and I’m simply offering my services. Think of it as an apology for how I’ve acted these past few weeks.”

“Did Jer agree to this?” Raymond finally spoke up, waving an arm in his partner’s direction. The shorter human was having a discussion with the Crusaders, and, judging from his expression and the downtrodden countenances of the three fillies, Rarity deemed it a rather serious one. She had to restrain herself from leaving her current conversation to go listen in.

“Yes, in a way, he did,” Rarity answered. “I offered a similar apology to him before you arrived, and he accepted without even letting me grovel properly.”

Ray chuckled. “Yeah, there isn’t much he won’t forgive. ‘People make mistakes,’ he tells me sometimes, ‘Me especially’.”

“Is there anythin’ he isn’t forgivin’ about?” Applejack questioned. “Cuz I can think of a few things I wouldn’t forgive…”

“Well, doing harm to a child, for one…” Ray trailed off, watching his friend from across the platform. Apparently, the serious discussion had ended, and now the three fillies were laughing along with their protective alien.

Curiosity sparked, Rarity furthered Applejack’s question. “Why?” Raymond gave her a look that screamed: “What do you mean, ‘why’?” The unicorn blushed. “I, uh, I mean, you two don’t exactly ooze, uh, family values…” Applejack glared angrily at her, but Ray just snorted.

“I suppose that’s true,” the human conceded. He paused a moment, gathering his thoughts. “I guess it’s partly because he grew up in an orphanage. I assume he aged out—he never talks about having had any parents—and that would mean that he was a brother of sorts to the younger children that came in.”

Across the station, a small, red cape was produced seemingly from nowhere, and, with much ceremony, it was placed around Gerald’s neck. Three fillies cheered, and the odd passersby gave the quartet annoyed looks. The two mares present looked at Raymond questioningly. He snorted again.

“Can’t join. I already have a cutie mark,” he paused again, watching ponies trot every which way. Just when Rarity thought he wouldn’t continue, he spoke up again: “It’s also kind of a cultural thing. Children are a commodity for our species; more valuable than gold, platinum, or gems.”

“Because of the zee-nose?” Applejack murmured, watching her sister carefully as she sang along with her friends. Jer had broken out his guitar, and Sweetie Belle was leading them in a song.

“Children were the first to go, yes,” Ray growled. “Human children are helpless from birth, and don’t learn how to properly walk for months. Even as they get older, children were still far too weak to flee from a drone, let alone defend themselves from a swarm. The same went for adolescents. My generation was practically wiped from existence in a little over a year.”

They were dancing now, trotting around the now upright Gerald in a tight circle: tumbling, jerking, swinging, and laughing.

“Pregnancy became taboo. The bugs even ruined that for my race. Women were afraid; afraid of what was growing inside them, human, xeno, whatever. We were so afraid…” Raymond growled. “The birth rate has yet to recover, even after the re-conquest of Earth. That’s why. We hoard our young like treasure, because we’re afraid to make more.”

Rarity was almost sorry she asked that question in the first place. Now everypony was depressed…

“Well that must make human males a pretty good catch, huh?” Pinkie chirped, “If all of you are as good with kids as Jerry here, then the mares must be all over you back home!”

“Pinkie! How? W-When?” Applejack spluttered. The mare had simply appeared between them, however long she’d been there was a mystery, but, nonetheless, her timing was atrocious.

“Darling! That was completely inappropriate!” Rarity scolded, but Pinkie wasn’t listening. She was on Raymond in less than a second, clinging to his torso desperately, muzzle to nose, eyes narrowed in concentration, and lips twisted in a grimace of concentration.

“How many marefriends?” She choked, “How many!?”

Rarity expected the scarred human to simply brush the crazed mare off, but he just smiled: the widest he’d produced since she’d met him. “As far as I know, zero. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was asexual. Never seen him attracted to any female as long as I’ve known him.” Pinkie stared, open-mouthed at the calm human. They probably would have stayed like that forever, if Applejack hadn’t given an annoyed snort and tugged her pink friend off of him by the tail.

“Horseapples,” she grunted through Pinkie’s tail, “What about all them parties he talked about. Sumthin’ about hookers an’ shoes?”

“Nope,” Ray chuckled, “Never took a single one of them. He’d pay a few to fawn over me sometimes, but that almost always ended badly: Promenade being the primary example.” The human rubbed at his temple absentmindedly. “He’s a weird man, but I love him like a brother. Good luck cracking him, Pinks.”

Pinkie’s hair deflated, and Rarity suppressed the urge to faint. Her regular mane-do was bad, but just letting that silken mane hang in her face? Atrocious!

Raymond pat the disheartened mare on the head. Why she was so sad was beyond Rarity; she felt like she should know, but the reason just kept slipping away. Something Mr. Shaffer said…

“All right, I’m going,” the taller of the two humans straightened, face setting back to its regular mask. He waved to his counterpart, who gave him a nod: not bothering to interrupt his playing.

“Wait… yer not comin’ with?” Applejack asked, clearly strained over his departure. Rarity assumed it was because she felt safer having him around, seeing as he nearly died saving her sister. Another, different possibility arose in the back of her mind, but she quickly beat it back. Applejack and… him? Preposterous.

“I’m bringing some gear along in the jeep,” the human elaborated. “I won’t be too far behind you.” Applejack calmed somewhat at that, and Rarity once again felt that thought crop up. The cowpony’s expression screamed infatuation. She’d seen the same look on Pinkie’s face not two minutes ago.

“Purely coincidence. I’m just overreacting again. This is just like that time with Big Macintosh and Fluttershy…”

Or was it? Rarity resolved to confront both of her friends, separately, and get some answers.

Raymond walked off, Applejack watching him the entire time, and, after a brief roar of machinery, he sped by on that daunting tan monster of a vehicle.

The train came two hours later.

Sand. Jer hated sand.

It was gritty, coarse, and got everywhere. The softest bed was ruined by even the smallest pile of the stuff. It got in your eyes; your mouth; your ears; your food.

Despite his animosity toward sediment, however, Gerald loved his planet.

The great, green sun of Jiboomi was dipping below the towering dunes on the endless horizon. A gust of wind picked up the loose ground outside the New Kilkenny Orphanarium, stinging his naked ankles. He watched, waiting for the Flash.

Dinner was over and Sister Agnes was rounding up the younglings and the sun was setting and he was waiting for the Flash.

The shallow sand crunched beside him.

“You’re never gonna see it Jay-Jay,” an exasperated voice sounded to his left. “You can’t see the Flash by looking for it.”

“Shuddup, Dulce. This is the night, I can feel it.”

“C’mon inside Jer, please?” she pleaded. “The nuns’ll be asleep soon, and then we can race summore,” the voice took on a seductive edge, “or we could play doctor again…”

Jer glanced away from the horizon for a moment. She had her hands on her hips, threadbare clothing covering the minimum of her tanned skin. She spent far too much time in the sun, but he wasn’t one to complain. If she got skin cancer he would take her to the clinic: he had a few shares stashed away from his time at the Complaints Office.

Russet curls hung in front of her eyes, partly covering the pair of corrective lenses nestled on the bridge of her petite, freckled nose. She stood straight, chest thrust outward. Jer couldn’t see anything under her rumpled sweater, but he knew there was a firmness underneath, fitting, warm, real. Following his gaze, she smirked at him and shook her shoulders. A thin film of sand patched her cheeks, and a few granules stuck to the corner of her mouth, defiling the edge of her soft lips.

His mind was wandering.

“Not tonight, hun,” Jer stated with conviction. He turned away, but not before catching her frown. She shouldn’t do that. He didn’t like it when she did that…

“Goodnight, Jay-Jay. Please come in soon alright?” More sand crunched, but he ignored it in favor of the horizon. The sun was dipping low, only a corona of pale green over the dunes. The light was leaving, and the stars were creeping in…

Another gust of wind. More stinging.

Not tonight. It wasn’t tonight. Jer blinked, and made ready to head inside. Dulce probably hadn’t made it in yet. He’d jog to catch up.

Suddenly, the horizon lit up like the flashbulb on an ancient camera. Red light spilled over the edge of the world, coloring the sky in one brief, glorious moment. It seared Gerald’s eyes, leaving a glaring afterimage seconds after it disappeared, and the night ruled Jiboomi under an icy fist.

“Dulce! I saw it! I saw—”

She was right behind him. Her eyes filled with hot tears; mouth twisted in a silent, endless scream as her flesh roiled under pressure from within. Blood poured from her nostrils, and she clawed at herself, tearing away her sweater just in time for a ragged, meaty crunch of breaking bone and tearing skin.

The bug slithered into the night and she fell and the sky stared down emptily on them while the iron wheels rattled and clanked and the wind rushed and she was dead and the blood and the blood and the blood! He didn’t even have time to scream because…

Because he was on a train to Canterlot.

Mares and fillies alike looked at him fearfully. Had he screamed? Jer looked out the window: it was dark, but he could make out the capitol in the distance, encased in an enormous, purple bubble. They would be there by morning, probably.

They had boarded the train at five o’clock, much to Sparky’s relief. Apparently the trains in Equestria were notorious for their tardiness, and Sparky couldn’t stand tardiness. Jer remembered discussing the merits of rock farming, potatoes, and the concept of “Tartarus” with Pinks before falling asleep while ignoring Sparky’s endless questions.

Jer was proud of his defense mechanisms, and he smiled quietly to himself. He noticed tears rolling down his cheeks and quickly wiped them away with a sigh.

Dreams: he’d been having more of them lately. They’d been this bad during the Earth campaign five years ago, but dropped off almost completely after that grenade went off near his head. Now they were back, and he didn’t much like the idea of nearly killing himself again. He could wait to see Hell again until Lucy did some remodeling.

Suddenly, the ex-marine became aware of a soft presence on his arm. He looked down, only to find a little orange pegasus clinging desperately to his arm. She looked up at him, eyes wide and quivering. He didn’t say anything, and neither did she. Jer simply lifted his arm, depositing the filly in his lap, and began to stroke her mane.

“Sucks to be scared, huh?”

Scoots nodded. He could feel her head move as he pet her.

“Yeah, well, there’s nothing to be afraid of…” he paused, staring at the child in his lap, “There’s no such thing as monsters.”

Pinkie was watching Applejack watch Jer. She watched her watch him with an intensity that would have made the orange mare’s head burst had it been driven by malice, but Pinkie had pledged to use her concentration for good, so Applejack lived to applebuck another day. Besides, she was merely curious.

The fillies were asleep again, having recovered from Jer’s earlier outburst: a sorrowful wail followed by a brief period of despondence and weeping. When he’d come-to, Scootaloo went and hugged him, beating Pinkie to the metaphorical punch (not a real punch because that would be mean!) and stole her chance at comforting the big lug—calmly and correctly this time, not like at Zecora’s. She wasn’t complaining, though. Scootaloo was absolutely adorable, and when Applebloom and Sweetie Belle joined in, it was almost too much to take.

Nobody bothered them, and Jer took it upon himself to tire the three incorrigible fillies out with a song: something about dancing with a mare named “Mary Jane”. Pinkie hadn’t really been paying attention to the words, but rather her friends’ reactions to the impromptu lullaby.

Bedroom eyes, all around. Even Twilight, the mare who was most annoyed with the manic human, had looked on him with something akin to affection. Now that the fillies were finally asleep the looks had almost entirely ceased, but Pinkie was still feeling distressed. She had wanted to hurt them, push them away and make them snap out of it… and those feelings scared her.

It was scary, but as Pinkamena so deftly put it earlier: “the monkey was hers.” The only one who seemed to understand that was Applejack, who was staring at the human not with contemplative affection, but confusion. It was the same expression she had on their puzzle-dates: contemplative, searching, and hopelessly confused.

That was why Pinkie watched her blonde friend. Curiosity. What was she thinking?

“Okay, lets recap… Shit.”

“Horseapples.”

“Bitch.”

“Nag.”

“That’s an interesting one… I’m gonna use that…”

Rainbow Dash was another thing that worried Pinkie. The prismatic pegasus had yet to lose her bedroom eyes, and after Scootaloo and her friends had fallen asleep she struck up a quiet conversation with Jer.

It had devolved into an analysis of the differences in profanity between their two races, and it was surprisingly in-depth.

“…And ‘cloudstain’ is just another way to express illegitimacy, right?”

“Uh-huh, but it’s also used to describe somepony really clumsy; like, they crash into the clouds a lot and scuff ‘em up.”

“Cool… Fuck?”

“Buck.”

“I still can’t get over that… Hey, Applejack! What was it that you do on that farm of yours?”

“Applebuckin’,” she answered, quickly hiding the fact that she had been eyeing him with a sigh. “Ah’m well aware of the connotation thank ya very much…”

Jer giggled and Pinkie’s chest cinched.

“S-Sorry, can’t help it…” He turned back to Rainbow, who hung on the seat in front of him, waiting. “B-But, damn is the same?”

“Yep, ‘damnation’ is universal, I guess.”

“Weird.”

Applejack was mumbling something. Pinkie scooted closer to her.

“What’s eating you, AJ? Did Jerry make you sad? Please don’t be sad! It’s not his fault…”

“S’not that, Pinkie… I just…” Applejack locked a pair of emerald eyes with her own sky blue peepers. “He lied, Pinkie. Ah know it, and you know it, and… and Ah think Scootaloo knows it, too.” She looked back toward the giggling pair across the train car. “He lied about there not bein’ any monsters… Why?”

Pinkie didn’t know.

Canterlot was impressive. Not for its size: Jer had been to several cities thrice as large on leave. Granted, half of Earth’s enormous cities were still abandoned and destitute, but they were grand once—far grander than the pony capitol. It wasn’t because of its opulence either. Canterlot was rich, both in obscene, pastel color and in precious jewels and fine clothing, but Gerald didn’t give a flying fuck about that.

The complete disregard for the safety of its inhabitants… now that was impressive. Every basic tenet of sane architecture had been thrown off Canterlot Peak, soon to be followed by the city itself, from the looks of it.

“Put it on the base. Plastique there, there, and… there, and the whole thing will slide down into the valley.”

“I didn’t bring nearly enough for that.”

“Improvise. Just one fuel rod and BOOM! No more pony city!”

“Yeah, no, we need those to get off this rock.”

“At least blow up the palace. Fuck Celestia and her fucking rainbow pony shits.”

“Eloquent today, are we? I’ll… I’ll consider it.”

Walls curved and split with no conceivable pattern. Towers jutted skyward like twisting, emaciated snakes in dunce caps, scraping the huge purple bubble that encased the city like an overripe wart. It was oddly beautiful, hanging off the edge of the mountain, the sun bouncing white light from impractically regal windows and gilded moldings the size of small apartment complexes.

Canterlot was beautiful and impressive and disgusting.

“There’s enough to destroy the palace at least!”

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck…”

No music to drown out the voices: the magic bubble had made sure of that. Now Gerald could only grind his teeth and ignore the voices in his head. They were growing more insistent—more demanding—of late, and it was difficult to block out the bloody, violent commands; profane whispers in the darkest parts of his mind.

His chattering party had passed through the barrier like so much dirt into an open wound. The dull, reddish wall caressed the train—one of the few that ran on fossil fuel, Twilight had explained vigorously—and passed over everyone inside with nothing more than an itching tingle of magic. The parallels between this and his own electric barrier annoyed Jer because he knew what they were for, while the rest of the company either ignored it or was unaware.

Barriers made to keep things out… and in. Jer would have to find a way around the Great Magic Wall of Canterlot before this job ended, or he had a feeling that he and Ray would never get off that damn planet.

Jer watched as the twisting spires of the pony capitol grew nearer. One such tower appeared to have a massive tree-trunk jutting from it, much to Twilight’s horror and Jer’s amusement. Unfortunately, the unseemly arboreal guest in Celestia’s tower dematerialized as the train continued its approach.

Brakes squealed, and the overly decorated train pulled into an ornate, arch-covered station. The fillies using his lap as a booster seat squealed along with the train, giggling happily at the prospect of pillaging the capitol no doubt. Jer didn’t know if he was a part of their plan and right then he didn’t care.

He was on the clock. Pillaging could wait.

Doors opened, and ponies—his party included—began filing out. Jer left last, hoisting his instrument over his shoulder, checking his sidearm and adjusting the knife in his boot while he was at it. He heard someone complain about extra security and chuckled.

“They have no idea.”

Five steps later—the last in a pile of phlegm and confetti on the station floor—he was in Canterlot.

It was even more impressive up close.

“Look Ma! Martial law!”

“Ten points for observation, genius.”

Spears and glinting armor walked the streets, often carried by white or off-white stallions—all sharing a rather uncanny resemblance to each other. These ponies really got the “faceless soldier” thing down pat. Several of them, upon Jer’s arrival, watched him anxiously but made no move to attack. Apparently they were informed of his role in the ceremony prior to his arrival. Good.

Gerald noticed Sparky and Company trot quickly out of the station, the only sign that they remembered his presence being Pinkie, who looked back over her shoulder and waved Jer after them. Scanning the station, he followed. The stallions standing guard at the doors flinched as he passed, decorative halberds swaying like saplings in the wind.

Jer stopped, looked into their eyes, and grinned. They were afraid of him! Oh this was just too rich! What did Ms. Celestia tell her faithful pets that scared them so much: that he would eat them?

Whatever the case, he had a job to do. Catching sight of his group of mares, he hurried after them.

All manner of natives walked the streets, putting up decorations and posting allegiances to the new marriage upon their expensive, huddled doorways. Paths and alleyways branched off randomly, only coming together in the form of a cobbled main street that stretched lazily from the palace entrance to the city gates: some miles away.

Canterlot Gate was large, medieval, and completely unfounded. I mean, half of the city’s potential attackers could fly, right? Or magic themselves inside, perhaps? It seemed like a frivolous and aesthetic waste, but, once again, Jer wasn’t there to question. He had work to do.

Passing onto the main street from Station Blvd, Gerald glanced toward the palace, ignoring the odd stares he received from passersby. He stayed at the rear of the group, following the nine mares toward the palace, where a figure in dark purple armor stood waiting. Jer assumed that was the guard captain, waiting for his sister and her friends.

The palace gates were still over three hundred yards away. Now was as good a time as any to check with Mother.

Stooping mid-stride, Jer plucked a small tablet from his left boot lining and tapped the cold, reflective touch-surface. The display lit up immediately, exhibiting several shapely icons against a light blue background.

WELCOME BACK <SEXYMUTHAFUGGAH>

Gerald smirked and tapped a small, flashing globule on the left-hand corner of the screen.

TRACKING ENABLED. FINDING NANOSENSORS.

The display dimmed and Jer kept walking, trying to inconspicuously aim the sensor at the group in front of him. They weren’t that far ahead, so, conceivably, Mother’s collating should have only taken a second or two. Minutes passed before the display lit up once again.

“Fucking black-market Apple, gets slower every year.”

Nine colored dots appeared on-screen, clustered in a row to the left. Next to each dot was a full bio readout. Heart rate monitors, respiration, the works. With a soft tap, Jer selected the pink dot representing Ms. Pie, and the tablet began to beep, the tones sounding quickly: one after another. Wincing, he shut the device off and watched the group ahead warily.

They hadn’t noticed him slip the tracking pills into their meals last night on the train; they hadn’t noticed the slight nausea, and dull headache that was a symptom of millions of tiny machines joining themselves with the lining of every one of their major organs; and, if luck was on Jer’s side, they wouldn’t ever notice.

Without the use of a scanner, however, Jer was stuck using the old model: a beeper. Like the old motion trackers the colonial marines used, it beeped whenever something moved nearby, or, in the case of his tablet, when the nanites in his quarry came closer. A map of the city would have made tracking the mares a whole lot easier, though.

Hopefully he wouldn’t have any pressing need to use it.

Suddenly, they had arrived. Sparky broke ahead of the group and galloped to the guard station above the gate. The other mares didn’t seem to care they’d been left behind, quickly parting ways to perform whatever tasks they had been assigned by Celestia. Gerald didn’t mind one bit. He’d catch up with them after Raymond arrived. In the meantime, he had a captain to address.

So Jer sat on a conveniently placed bench and waited. He ignored the excited squeals at Sparky’s realization of the Italian-sounding bride’s identity, followed soon after by an odd, brooding silence, and instead played solitaire on his tablet, occasionally checking the Element’s bio readouts. Special attention was paid to the three extra, smaller entries, however.

He scratched four games before a dark shadow fell over him, dimming the annoying glare that had formed on his screen.

Jer scratched again, and looked up.

There were two of them. Captain Armor was big—not by Apple standards, but nonetheless quite large—and white, like most of the guard stallions Gerald had encountered thus far. He wore his purple-plated uniform with the air of a man who just got it yesterday and was extremely pleased with himself. Jer assumed the angry-eyed, pinkish mare standing to his right was the Italian Knockoff Princess that Captain Smuggo was marrying.

Smuggo cleared his throat and eyed Gerald hesitantly. “Corporal Hanes?”

Shit, he sounded like he was barely eighteen!

“Rank doesn’t matter in my profession,” the human chortled and flashed his “Greetings, Bitch” smile. “Just call me Jer.”

“Fair enough,” the stallion smiled hesitantly while his fiancé simply continued to give him a dull glare. “Then you can just call me Shining.” He held out a hoof and Jer shook it firmly. “I assume you know what’s going on?”

“Celestia told me enough, but I could always use a bit more info.”

“Well, I’m getting married!” Shining paused and spread the goofiest smile Jer had ever seen across his young muzzle. The mare next to him shuddered happily and leaned on the love-dazed stallion’s shoulder. It was heartwarming, but Jer didn’t have time for it. A quick snap of his fingers in the Captain’s face and he immediately returned to the issue at hand. “Well, ahem, yes,” he spluttered. “As you probably know, Discord escaped nearly a month ago and we’re trying to use the ceremony as a means to draw him out.”

“So… you’re not getting married?”

“No, no,” Shining reassured. He gazed lovingly at his fiancé. “We are.”

“Who’s dumbass scheme was that?”

Shining froze and looked back at him, smiling wryly: “Mine.”

Gerald stared at the brilliant idiot standing proudly before him and laughed. “Y-You, my friend, are the… the dumbest *hehe* guy I ever met. If this goes wrong, your wedding will be a shitstorm!” Jer stood up and clapped the guard captain on the back, prompting a delayed shudder from the confused stallion. “I like you. Keep up the good work, soldier, and keep watch on them mares for me.” He picked up his guitar case and packsack, slipping his tablet into the blue fabric bag, and began to walk away. He passed the Italian Knockoff and winked. Oddly enough, the mare licked her lips and winked back. Deciding to roll with it, he slapped her oblivious future husband on the flank and kept going. “Not now, honey, I’ve gotta go see a man about some guns.”

Jer strolled down main street—it was actually called “Mane Street”—toward the city gate, glancing back just in time to catch the Captain eyeing him indignantly and whispering to his fiancé, who only shrugged. The manic human allowed himself another chuckle at the flustered guard.

Fun fun fun under the sun sun sun.

Spike’s bachelor party was going to be awkward as all hell.

“I got that off-black caddy-lack midnight drive.

Got that gas-pedal, lean back, takin’ my time.

I’m rollin’ out, roof off, lettin’ in sky.

I’m sure—the city never looked so bright…”

The road leading to Canterlot was surprisingly well kept. Big enough for two carts to travel abreast, the dirt and gravel highway was lined with boulders and fallen logs on either side. Every so often, the roadside opened up into a great, gaping ditch. Ray presumed it was for irrigation in the instance of a downpour rolling down from the mountains ahead.

Trees flashed by for awhile, but thinned out once Raymond reached the foothills of Canterlot Peak, replaced by stout, prickly-looking shrubs and bushes. Grass swayed lazily as he roared by. The giant bubble of the pony capitol was growing ever closer in Rays windshield, and he couldn’t help but marvel at how beautifully the sun reflected against it, lighting up the fertile mount within its dapper, morning rays. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky for miles.

Raymond smiled: it reminded him of the Natural Reserve back home. An unbidden show-tune barged its way into his thoughts:

“For only half a share, spend a week camping in the beautiful Yutani Natural Reserve! What’s good for the Company is good for you: remember, everybody gets a share! Buy your passes today! Weyland-Yutani~! Building better worlds~!”

“Damn right.”

With a brief crackle, the radio switched songs. Ray could just barely hear the somber tones of a piano over the rushing wind.

“If you had one shot—one opportunity—to seize everything you ever wanted…

One moment. Would you capture it?

Or just let it slip?”

A sad smile crossed Ray’s features, and the road began to steepen as he reached the base of his towering destination. He wondered briefly if Gerald was listening to the same song he was. The signal was probably stronger in the city, considering its proximity to the atmosphere above. His question was answered when he passed below the curve of Canterlot’s enormous shield. Mr. Mathers faded to static under its pink shadow, but quickly returned once Ray cornered one end of the mountain. The speeding human winced.

“Sucks for him…”

The road spiraled op the mountainside in a giant corkscrew, devolving into switchbacks every few miles whenever it encountered a chasm or boulder. Raymond had slowed to thirty miles per hour, but was still making great time: that was, until he nearly ran into a wooden cart stalled in the middle of the road.

Raymond slammed on the brakes after taking a blind turn to find two stallions working hurriedly to reattach a wheel onto their cart filled with hay and… a drum set? Both ponies, one dark green and the other a bright, gaudy yellow, froze and stared at the oncoming jeep like a pair of deer in the glare of someone’s headlights—except, although one was a unicorn, neither had antlers.

Nearly a ton of titanium alloy screeched to a halt almost two feet in front of the unlucky natives, and, besides the gentle whir of the jeep’s engine, all was silent. Raymond heaved a sigh of relief and deactivated his vehicle before hopping out to make sure the two stallions were okay. He rounded the front of the jeep to find both ponies frozen, staring at the steaming, steel weave of Ray’s grille with wide, disbelieving eyes. The human snorted and took a look at their cart.

A single wheel had been removed, and it indeed did have a drum set inside packed in loosely with what looked like several pounds of hay. The missing wheel lay on the roadside, several wooden spokes in a row snapped in two. Most of the broken supports still remained in their respective holes, however, so Ray was confident he could get it out of the way quickly.

“Duct tape.” Ray strolled past the dumbfounded stallions and back to the bundle at the rear of the jeep. He loosened an orange safety strap and began rummaging for the elusive silver adhesive. He had packed it as an afterthought, unsure of its usefulness on that particular job, but now he was glad he remembered to bring it. After a few seconds of searching, his fingertips brushed against the goopy, ridged side of the roll. Raymond grasped the holy tool with a snort of triumph and pulled it quickly from the bundle.

One more trip around the jeep—one more stroll past two quickly recovering ponies—and he was fitting wooden pegs back into their correct orifices. The crisp tear of unraveling tape, like choirs of angels, was the only music Raymond paid attention to, and the sound of ragged breathing in his ear almost went unnoticed.

Ray fit the cracks and jagged edges of another spoke together, both ends firmly embedded in the wood. Tore another strip and smiled.

Tape saved his life once.

The spoke Ray was working with was too far-gone to fix properly: split twice down the middle. He tossed it over his shoulder and it clattered against the road. Someone behind him yelped.

He and Jer had been on LV-994, working a cleared apartment complex on the outskirts of the Class II Terraforming Outpost. Some naïve Ebon Knights left a clutch of eggs in the basement, infecting two women and a small boy.

Gerald had been a bit upset at that. The Knights knew that before the end, and none of the xenos came to term.

Three small graves were dug in the black earth.

“Thank you.”

*grunt*

Tape… he was thinking about tape. Jer went on one final scan from the upper atmosphere, leaving Ray to cremate the basement. Unfortunately, when he left, he took Ray’s helmet—and bug mouthpiece—with him. Luckily, he had an alternative: sacred silver tape.

“No, I mean it… its hard to fix things like that with hooves and I don’t know very many regeneration spells.”

*grunt*

He took a strip of tape and wrapped it around the back of his neck to his mouth, effectively blocking the orifice. He did that twice. It wouldn’t keep him alive if a facehugger got a good hold of him, but would suffice for the simple cleanup, just in case. He hadn’t expected the one hiding in the rafters. They’d swept the place seven times, for Weyland’s sake! Seven! With motion detectors!

The damn thing fell from the sky and got a tail around Ray’s windpipe, spindly-spidery legs scrabbling for a hold around his cranium. He got a hand in just in time to prevent the little yellowy fuck from getting a seal on his face. That didn’t stop it from trying to impregnate him anyway.

“Cymbal… is… is he fixing it?” Ah… so it is the drummer.

“S’cool chuckles. He’s with my employer… You are with my employer, right?”

*grunt*

Huggers: highly evolved, them. The affectionate little rapists…

Everyone knew xenomorphs had molecular acid for blood, but very few living souls knew about the other things they secreted. Some doctors, survivors, and victims who had thought to wear protective gear over their face and mouth knew about the saliva. Facehuggers have this gland, just beneath the proboscis—“Martian Dicks” the marines called them—that secreted a less potent acidic fluid, meant to burn through anything between it and its victim’s oral cavity without killing the host.

Sure it wasn’t as potent, but it left quite a mark. The duct tape held for several minutes. Raymond’s face, hand, and exposed eye? Not quite as long.

“Th-That should be good, uh, R-Raymond… right? Yeah, yeah right. It’s not that far to the castle from here.”

“Mhm.”

“Here, uh, lemme take tha—Or you could put it back on… sure.”

Luckily, Ray had remembered his COM, and when Gerald heard the screams from orbit he radioed in for help from the recently instated colonial militia. They came bursting into the basement, reinforced titanium blades at the ready, and very carefully pried the spidery bitch off of him.

Wasted a pretty snazzy knife on it in the corner once they had it off him, too.

“I can’t thank you enough. Chuckles! Get hitched up!”

“Look at you, giving me the orders! Tables sure have turned, eh? … Okay! I’m going!”

“Would you, uh, care to travel with us?”

“Nope, move to the side.”

“Oh. All right…”

The worst part about the whole incident had been that Jer ended up blaming himself. It was bullshit, of course: the helmet would have been trashed just as quickly as the tape. That didn’t matter to Jer, though. The poor son-of-a-bitch spent weeks making it up to him. For what it was worth, Ray didn’t ask him for much.

Several things changed after LV-994, the most obvious of them being Raymond’s face. Another, his infallible routine. Though he wasn’t the superstitious type, Ray wore Duct Tape over his mouth, helmeted always, on every sweep, cleanup, and cremation run.

Adhesive of the Gods, that duct tape.

Wheel reattached, the bright yellow pony—“Chuckles,” apparently—pulled the wooden cart to the side: closer to the sheer mountain wall. Ray gave them a quick nod and hopped back in the jeep, pricking his finger and starting her up. With a final wave, he was back on track, spitting up dust and gravel behind him but watching the turns more closely for further traffic.

Ray’s eyes drooped, and suddenly he felt very tired. Fumbling over the dashboard, his calloused right hand found the familiar plastic cylinder of a syringe. Without a second thought, he jammed the thin needle into the meaty part of his thigh, pressing the plunger. There was a loud hiss of pneumatics and 15 cc’s of stimulant was injected into his system.

He hadn’t let up in nearly twenty hours: those needles were damn helpful.

It would take another ten minutes or so for the injection to kick in, so Ray slowed down further, turned up the radio, and tried his hardest to stay awake. The sun shone high in the sky, but that didn’t matter. Without the adrenaline-laced shots, he’d be out like a light.

Five minutes later, the shot kicked in.

An hour afterward, he skidded to a halt before the great shield of Canterlot.

Ten guards stood posted in the middle of the road, between the enormous magic barrier and a reinforced main gate. Gilded portraits of ponies in shining, metal armor, lilies, rivers, grand mountains and massive dragons adorned the colossal doors, working both to make Raymond gape in awe and shiver in disgust. Were they meant for protection, or as a display of wealth?

Ray hopped from the jeep and approached the shield. To his chagrin, the guards rushed forward through the magic wall, flowery halberds pointed directly at him.

“Who are you?! State your business!” shouted the foremost stallion. Ray frowned: Celestia was an even worse “employer” than he’d expected. Not informing her guard of their presence? Sloppy.

The human felt much less regret for planning her death.

“I’m the help.”

“I have no knowledge of you, creature!” Halberds twitched closer. “From where do you hail?”

Ray snarled and opened his mouth to reply, only to be interrupted by a familiar, raspy voice:

“He’s from the Virgin Isles and he really needs to get laid,” Jer related casually, having appeared as if from nowhere behind the barrier with another, red-clad guard at his side. “Now, if you fine gentlecolts would be so kind?” The accompanied man gestured toward the shield before him.

The gatesmen milled about, unsure of what to do, but sprung into action when the maroon guard beside Jer snorted impatiently. Unicorns strained, and a fluctuating archway opened in the pinkish magic barrier. Raymond got back in the jeep and leisurely cruised into Canterlot.

“Eclectic Radio” crackled into silence.

Not waiting for him to stop, Jer swung himself into the passenger seat, flinging his packsack and guitar case in the back as he did so. “Just drive straight. Celestia’s got us holed up in the castle guest rooms.” He eyed Raymond critically. “You good for a shift? Or do you want me to take it while you get some shuteye?”

“Syringe.”

Jer smiled. “All right then!”

…

“Hey, uh, quick question… how much detcord did we bring?”

“… And that’s why we can’t build bridges with cake!”

“But what if you reinforced it with titanium yeast?”

“Then potato!”

“Oh! I see… but the eyes! Think of all the eyes!”

“You make a good point, Jerry. I’ll be sure to take it up with the Princess the next time I see her.”

The reception hall was decked out in streamers, balloons, confetti and all kinds of colorful party fluff. How Pinkie fit all of it into her saddlebags was a mystery to Gerald. She appeared to pull the decorations and party games from out of thin air, a manic, yet easy smile on her face as she arranged the grandiose hallway to perfection. Jer assumed she was using the odd “reaching” technique she’d shown him: something he still didn’t entirely understand. The pink mare insisted that it “appearing” things was perfectly normal for ponies of her heritage, so Jer ignored it like so many other things about the obscene world in which he found himself.

Pinkie was darting about, rearranging decorations and stacking records next to an ancient-looking phonograph at random. It was almost time for her to meet up with the others for dinner, since the Italian Knockoff came by to check on her progress and granted her mocking approval.

“I think this reception is going to be perfect! Don’t you?”

“Perfect! If we were celebrating a six-year-old’s birthday party…”

Jer agreed the reception was… childish… for a wedding, but society here was childish in and of itself, so he hadn’t thought much of it. The bride-to-be’s sarcasm raised his ire a bit, but, considering Pinkie’s reaction he it slide.

Reprimanding royalty wasn’t in his job description anyway.

“Okie dokie lokie! Everything’s all set up juuuuust right!” Pinkie chirped, bounding back toward him from the leaning tower of board games across the hall. “Lets go find the others!”

Glad she had finished, Jer gave a graceful bow, sweeping his arm toward the double doors leading to the courtyard outside. “Lead the way, fair mademoiselle,” he joked, mimicking the accent he’d heard from several of the snooty natives while trailing Rainbow Dash. He’d followed her until a pegasus guard in red armor swooped in for his shift, and then found his way over to keep an eye on Pinkie.

Speaking of the little pink devil, she sauntered over with a warm giggle and gave his thigh a quick bump of the hip. “Fine, but if I catch you staring at my candy-maker on our way out there’ll be Tartarus to pay, mister!” With that, she shot off out the doors into the early evening air.

Gerald smirked as the doors swung shut behind her with a crash. “Funny girl…”

He walked calmly after her, feeling around in his pocket for the tablet he had synced with the nanites in the Element’s bloodstream. Finding it, he pulled it out and checked on the girls.

Ten colored dots appeared, sporting calm heart rates and eased respiratory signs… all except Pinkie and Twilight. Pink’s heart rate was off the charts—likely due to physical exertion, so Jer ignored it—and Twilight’s was only slightly accelerated, but well within normal range. Sparky was just stressed about the upcoming ceremony was all. Brushing past the opulent hallway doors, Jer stepped out into the night air and activated the tracking device. A soft, monotone beeping began joined the sound of crickets and bustling natives, and the tablet lit up on its eastern edge, prompting Gerald in which direction to head.

Ignoring the stares, he followed the device outside the castle and into the city below. Soon, he found himself outside a two-story building decorated with striped awnings and hanging flowerpots: the establishment in which his quarry had chosen to dine. Six mares and a dragon sat together outside, sipping colored beverages and talking rather loudly while An exhausted-looking Raymond looked on a table away.

“Spike! That goes on the cake.”

“Ehehe…”

Jer slipped the tracker back in one of his pockets and treaded over to his counterpart, passing by the group of mares who were too deep in their own conversation to pay him any mind.

“Twilight, whatever are you talking about? Cadence is an absolute gem!”

“Rarity! She was so demanding!”

“But of course she was. Why wouldn’t she expect the very best for her wedding day?”

He sat down on an available pillow and looked Raymond over. The big man was slumped forward on the tiny cushion he’d been forced to use, rubbing his scarred face rhythmically. His campaign jacket was rumpled and stained (Applejack in the kitchens?) and he looked like he could barely keep his eyes open. Ray was fighting a desperate, losing battle against sleep, and… was that a new scarf?

“That looks fabulous on you, Sarge.”

“Fuck you, Jer,” Raymond grumbled, not moving an inch. “I’m not your sergeant anymore.”

“Where’d ya get it, huh?”

Raymond sighed and finally let himself sprawl over the table. “The white one made it. Practically forced it onto me earlier today.”

“It really brings out your eye, Sarge.” Jer chuckled, patting his cohort on the back. Ray just groaned.

A table away, conversation just became a bit more heated.

“Ah think yer bein’ a tiny bit possessive of your brother.”

“I am not being possessive! And I am not taking it out on Cadence!” So that was what they called her! That’s sooo much easier than “Me Amoray Castanza.” “You’re all just too caught up in your wedding planning to notice that maybe there shouldn’t even BE a wedding!” There was a crash of hooves on metal and the sound of spilled drinks. Jer glanced away from his weary friend and caught a glimpse of lavender turning the corner behind the café.

“I’ll take this one,” Jer sighed, standing up to go after Sparky, whom had left her friends in some sort of fit. “You think you can watch them until I get back?”

*grunt*

“I’ll be back quicker than you can say the Company motto.” Jer strode purposefully past the Elements’ table. They were all shaken up, whispering nervously to each other and sharing nervous glances at the corner Ms. Sparkle disappeared behind. None of them seemed to notice him walk by save Pinkie, who caught his eye and winked playfully.

“She doesn’t seem all that worried,” the human mused as he passed, returning the wink and fumbling in his pocket for the tracker. He finally turned the corner, finding no sign of the purple nuisance who’s brother had gotten them into this mess by daring to fall in love: the selfish bastard.

With another deep sigh, Jer activated his tracker for the second time that night, prodded the purple dot, and followed the tones. Fifteen minutes later he found himself in front of another colorfully decorated two story building: a house in what looked to be one of the—well ‘the’—good neighborhood of Canterlot.

Two guards stood by the steps leading to the front door, a crest resembling Captain Smuggo’s tramp stamp painted above. Jer assumed he was in front of Sparky’s brother’s home… either that or the harem of her secret lover…

“Oh man would that be funny if I walked in on—shit something’s happening.” The heart rate monitor next to Twilight’s dot was accelerating rapidly, her respiration had quickened, and apparently she was menstruating. Jer ignored that last little unnecessary detail and started toward the opulent home, hand straying to the pistol at his side. The guards in front watched him nervously, but didn’t make any moves to stop his advance. Good.

He had just mounted the stairway when Twilight came barreling out the front doors, crashing right into his chest and nearly impaling him with her horn. Jer just barely kept his footing and pushed her aside, crouching and aiming his sidearm at the door—still ajar from Sparky’s escape.

“What?! What happened?!” he growled, not taking his eyes off the door.

“She! Him! Mind taken, flashing, Cadence—he’s under her spell!” Twilight settled, clearly distraught from the sound of her babbling. Nothing about a serpent-goat-monster? Meh…

Jer lowered his weapon and chuckled: false alarm. He straightened and smirked down on the purple unicorn, who was still frantically looking from the door to him, waiting for him to do something. “Twilight, I’m sorry, but I can’t help your brother.”

“Wh-What? Why?” the unicorn sputtered, eyes wide with terror.

“One so thoroughly pussy-whipped can’t be saved by a simple man like me.”

Needless to say, the trip back to the castle was a tense one.

“Shining Armor’s in real trouble! You have to help—what are you…?”

Five mares were giggling and gossiping in Raymond and Gerald’s room: each wearing a unique dress befitting of a mare of honor. Jer spied his partner in the corner, clearly dazed, and, possibly in need of a psychiatrist…or maybe a lethal injection.

“Can you believe it?! We’re gonna be Princess Mi Amora de Cadenza’s new bridesmaids!”

“New bridesmaids?! What happened to her old bridesmaids?!”

Jer crossed the room, ignoring the yelling and the laughter and the excitement to get a good look at his friend.

“Stim too much, Sarge?” Twilight left in a sullen slump out of the corner of Jer’s eye, while the other girls disappeared into the next room through a connecting door. “How many pick-me-up’s you take?”

“Seven.”

“Shit, Sarge,” Gerald winced, “you’re gonna be feeling that tomorrow.” He stooped down and got a grip under his larger friend’s arms, beginning the long process of getting the burnt-out sergeant into bed. He had just dragged him up onto the mattress when he noticed Ray was already partially undressed: only clad in his green undershirt and fatigue pants. “Why are you half naked?”

“Well I couldn’t take his measurements with that bulky jacket on him, now could I?” lilted a familiar, cultured voice from behind. Jer glanced over his shoulder to find Rarity, having forgone her dress, standing in the door separating their two rooms. “It’s your turn now, Darling.”

Jer blanched and looked back to his former superior officer for help. The man looked grave, his face somber, pitying. He breathed one word, low enough so that the white mare across the room would have trouble hearing: “Run.”

Gerald did as he was told, sprinting desperately for the doorway from which Sparky disappeared.

He made it three steps.

This day would be perfect.

Wedding bells rang from the tower above, and the streets below bustled with ponies: going about their daily lives of joy, sadness, and love. Princess Cadence stood on her balcony and watched them. They had no idea, no comprehension, of what happened outside their ludicrously secure borders. They didn’t know; they didn’t care, and, because of this their love was pure and unguarded. She could feel it on them: pulsing outward in heady, throbbing waves. Ponies had never learned to hoard their love, keeping it for themselves and only giving it away to broker peace or make a trade. The Equestrians didn’t love to suit themselves, but to please others.

Buzzing: a cacophony in the back of her mind.

They would make a great feast for her children.

“Five minutes, Chrysalis,” came the voice of that daft servant who kept poking his head in her private chambers. She didn’t bother to turn around to address him.

“Get out, knave! I am prepar—” she froze, picking up on a small inconsistency in his words. She spun around and assumed an aggressive stance, nostrils flaring and ears twitching to find the serf who had seen through her guise. “What did you call me?!”

“Oh come now, Chrissy.” the servant mocked from thin air, his condescending tone grating on Cadence’s already frayed nerves. “You didn’t forget our little deal, did you?”

Cadence edged from the balcony and into her preparation chamber, but the servant was nowhere to be found. She slunk around the pristine, white mannequin the tailor pony had given her to hold her dress: the dress she wore now. Her horn glowed an angry green, searching the room for any trickle of emotion. “Show yourself!”

“If you insist,” the now hauntingly familiar voice sighed. The lights dimmed, and Cadence stiffened, suddenly more afraid than angry.

“What is the meaning of this?!”

“I held up my end of the bargain, Chrissy,” the voice sounded behind her. “Now pay up.”

The alicorn bride-to-be twisted fearfully to find herself face-to-face with somepony she hadn’t seen in centuries. The familiarity did nothing to alleviate her fear, however.

Serpentine, quilted, malevolent and un-amused, the Lord of Chaos flapped closer, leaning his elongated snout against hers and brushing his mismatched antlers with her own, simple horn. “I’m waiting…”

“D-Dizzy?” Cadence gulped, “You… You want them now? But! Th-The city can’t be taken with only four platoons!”

“It can be,” Discord growled, “If you use the old ways.” Cadence paled, staring at the god who never killed as he asked her to end the lives of thousands. “Do what comes naturally,” the serpent sneered, the rest of his freakish body slithering around her torso. “Now give me my changelings.”

“I… already had them prepared,” the pink alicorn stuttered, still trying to comprehend Discord’s reasoning. “They were to follow the invasion force, but… they will follow you if you go to them.”

The draconequus smiled. “Where?”

“West, under the city.”

“Good, good…” Discord slowly uncoiled himself, his bristly fur and smooth iridescent scales rubbing across Cadence’s fur and making her shiver. “And Chrissy?” The patchwork god who helped build the planet flapped toward the window, giving Cadence one final, serious look. “Watch the apes, they’re… resilient.”

A snap echoed through Cadence’s chambers, and she was alone.

The wedding march began to play, and the buzz grew louder. Trying to forget the invasive draconequus, Cadence allowed herself a small smile.

With family, she was never really alone.

Raymond wished the suits Rarity had made were warmer… or that she’d given them pockets. A draft rolled in from one of the many unhinged stained-glass windows and he shivered, glancing to the device Jer held in his hands briefly before scanning the ponies’ odd chapel once more.

Another draft blew in and Ray suppressed a sneeze. It certainly didn’t help that they couldn’t move around to get their blood pumping in this odd summer weather. The two humans had been standing for over an hour among the crowd, occasionally changing positions within the mass of bodies to get different view of the gigantic room. The ceremony had been going on forever, and there didn’t appear to be any trouble so far. Raymond thought briefly of the jeep, nestled safely outside the palace with their pulse rifles hidden in the underside storage compartment. It seemed like they wouldn’t need them after all.

Soon, this would be over, and they could finally go home.

Gerald muttered something and pressed a hand to his ear. He’d hooked the tracker up to the COM link they shared so as not to disturb the wedding with its erratic beeping. Jer was frowning, a rare occurrence in his case, looking hard at the dimly lit screen held at waste level.

“The fuck are you up to, Sparky?”

Twilight Sparkle. Raymond groaned in annoyance and looked toward the front of the room, where the Princess was approaching the part of the ceremony where a very familiar set of vows was taken. Ms. Sparkle had made a spectacle of herself during the reception last night, which they had also been required to attend, Raymond nursing a splitting headache at the time from overusing stimulant the day before. The trivial ceremony itself irritated him, as well as the pointed looks Celestia gave the two humans standing at the back of the room. Sparkle’s interruption mid-ceremony was loud, maddeningly so, but Raymond nearly hugged her for putting an end to the damn thing, even if her claims of “mind control” were a farce.

Jer had reassured Raymond that she was sleeping soundly since then, according to her bio readouts, but now her heart rate was through the roof, and, judging from the way Gerald was staring at the doors to the chapel proper, Ray could only assume that she was getting closer.

If she became a nuisance now, the ceremony would only last longer, delaying their promised payment and a chance to leave even further. Unfortunately, the crowd packed as tightly as it was beside the aisle, there wasn’t enough time for him to stop her.

“Princess Cadence and Shining Armor, it is my great pleasure to pronounce you—”

“STOOOOOP!”

“Fuck…”

The ceremony ground to a halt, everyone turning his or her attention to the lavender mare who just burst into the chapel, little chest heaving from exertion. Raymond glowered at Jer and whispered angrily: “Couldn’t you have noticed her coming sooner?!” Gerald merely shrugged, the dark jacket Rarity had made for him obscuring the motion. He grinned sheepishly.

“Well at least it’s interesting, now.”

Bride, Groom, and Priestly Stand-in Celestia were speaking, but their voices were lost to Raymond over the murmur of the crowd. He did, however, hear the another, new speaker enter from the doors Twilight had so unceremoniously torn open:

“Because! It’s not your special day, it’s mine!”

A dirtier, beaten-looking version of the blushing bride-to-be stood in the doorway, glaring down the aisle at her pristine double.

“Scratch that,” Jer giggled, “Things just got fucking crazy! What do we do?”

Well this certainly WAS interesting… but there wasn’t any real threat…

“We watch,” Ray finally decided as the rough-and-tumbled version of Shining’s bride stalked past, moving toward the center of the ceremony and yelling something about changelings. “Don’t do anything yet.”

A soon as he finished his sentence, the part of the chapel where an altar should have been exploded in a pillar of green fire. Everyone in the crowd ducked their heads and flinched away from the blast, nearly knocking the two humans over. Raymond quickly crouched down—soon followed by Jer—to be level with the natives, hand falling to the butt of his gun as he watched the green pyre disappear, revealing a tall spindly creature.

It was black as night: jagged and pointed and full of holes. A pair of ragged, insectoid wings sprouted from its back and green, mossy hair poured like trickling streams from it’s proud, ponylike head.

“Right you are, Princess! And as queen of the changelings, it is up to me to find food for my subjects!”

Okay, now they had to do something. Raymond looked to Jer, who crouched next to him, watching the new creature like a sadist watched a drowning puppy.

“It’s a bug, Ray.” He moved to bolt forward, hand scrabbling for his sidearm.

Raymond quickly grabbed his partner by the shoulders and forced him to the ground. “No! We don’t know what it is yet!” he hissed. He grabbed Gerald by the jaw and forced him to look him in the eye, settling the manic soldier down, if only for a moment. “We wait.”

“They’ll never get the chance!” the second bride was yelling, snout-to-snout with the gigantic, talking insect whom Ray assumed to be the real bride number one. “Shining Armor’s protection spell will keep them from ever even reaching us!”

The bug-horse giggled down at the second bride, grinning like it won the lottery. “Oh, I doubt that… right dear?”

At center-stage, Shining Armor nodded his zombie-like assent.

“Ray,” Jer whispered urgently, “the barrier.”

Tearing his gaze from the conflict in the aisle, Raymond looked to the sky, following the gentle curve of the pink magic shield until he noticed a swarm of black dots that could only be more of the giant insects. They were bashing themselves mercilessly upon the magic surface, causing the barrier to warp inward with every strike.

“Soon, my changeling army will break through!” the creature who called herself “Queen” cackled, “First, we take Canterlot, then ALL of Equestria!” she finished her monologue with a great sweeping leap, devolving into a fit of maniacal laughter.

An invasion? Fucking typical. Ray nudged his partner in the shoulder and cocked his head toward the front of the room. Jer nodded, and they both slowly pressed their way through the crowd.

Center stage, the Queen of the Changeling’s laughter was cut off by a stern, matronly Princess of the Sun: “No, you won’t.”

Both humans halted their progress, apparently having the same idea. They looked at each other and shared a smile.

“Let’s see how this plays out,” Jer sneered.

“You may have made it impossible for Shining Armor to perform his spell,” Celestia stated, glaring at a slowly descending insect queen. “But now that you have so foolishly revealed your true self,” she lunged forward, locking her pristine, white horn with the changeling’s own sharp, jagged one like a rutting bull moose. The comparison was amusing, but really rather accurate until the Princess leapt back, propelling herself into the air above the crowd. “I can protect my subjects, from YOU!”

A blinding flash filled the chamber, causing Raymond to look away, squeezing his eyes shut and holding an arm up to shade his face. An explosion shook the chapel, and the crowd rose up in one mourning, sorrowful cry.

“Princess Celestia!”

“Shining Armor’s love for you is stronger than I thought…”

Raymond blinked the afterimages from his eyes and peered back toward center stage. Celestia had been defeated. Her horn was scorched black and she lay crumpled on the marble floor, unconscious or dead; Raymond didn’t know. His heart swelled, and he felt the strange urge to cackle alongside the bug-queen. The ivory bitch lost! The stuck-up, overconfident pile of shit who stole… their… flight suits?

Oh, shit…

Raymond’s eyes widened. He looked to Gerald, who wore a similar expression of panic. They had no idea where Celestia had hidden their flight suits: their only ticket home.

They had to do something, and Jer was the first to formulate a plan.

“You distract her,” he whispered, whipping his knife from his boot. “I’ll try and get around behind.” Ray nodded and pulled out his pistol, crawling toward the aisle. He passed three extremely frightened-looking crusaders on the way and gave each a reassuring pat on the head… or at least he hoped it was reassuring: he was in a bit of a hurry.

The crowd was clumping up, ponies forming herds and talking fearfully with one another. Several of them made a break for the door, but the Queen just ignored them, looking down on the fallen Princess and the small crowd of ponies surrounding her whom Ray recognized as the Elements. A green light began forming around her jagged horn, and she snarled at the helpless mares, who flinched in terror under her gaze.

Ray stood up.

*CRACK-CRACK*

“That’s quite enough of that.” He held his smoking sidearm in the air, having fired two shots into the ceiling. The Queen froze and leered at the standing human, while the mares behind her gaped. Applejack was mouthing something to him, but he ignored her in favor of the winged bitch slowly buzzing toward him. Ponies shied away from her on both sides, and she stopped all but ten feet from him. Raymond lowered his weapon, pointing the barrel in her general direction. “Good. Now that I have your attention, I’d recommend that you call off your little army before things get messy.”

“What are you going to do, creature?” the Queen chuckled. Suddenly, a green glow enveloped Raymond, and he was lifted bodily into the air amid many gasps and muffled screams from the crowd. He tried to press down in the trigger of his pistol, but he couldn’t even budge. He scanned the crowd, looking around desperately for his partner. “You’re powerless against me.”

“What we always do to bugs like you,” Raymond narrowed his eyes, “crush them.”

A dark shape broke through the crowd behind the enormous changeling, crashing into her side in a blur of manic laughter and rustling clothing. The aura holding Raymond up weakened, and he dipped close to the ground for a moment before being held up again. “Let’s go, Queenie!” Jer yelled, punching and slashing. Raymond watched his partner twist his way onto her back, making one final lunge at her thin, exposed neck.

Queenie screamed in rage and rolled her body, dislodging Gerald from her back and grasping him with the same aura she used on Ray. Jer floated upward on his left, growling and straining against the magic that held him aloft. Raymond renewed his struggle. His gun was still pointed at the hissing insectoid. If he could just pull the trigger…

The changeling looked down on the upper part of her leg where Jer had torn a large gash in her carapace. It bled in spurts of green, agonizingly bright just like everything else on that damn planet.

“HOW DARE YOU!” Her horn brightened, and Jer cried out in rage.

“Put me down, bitch, so I can—urk!” His knife, still gripped firmly in hand, twisted downward on a slowly pivoting wrist and his arm began to move, clearly unbidden from the strain on Jer’s face. Realization lit in his friend’s gray eyes as he watched the movement of his favorite weapon and he grimaced. “An eye for an—uhn—eye, huh? Well, fu—augh!” The serrated blade approached his leg and pressed into his upper thigh with an audible tear of cloth. Gerald screamed in agony, but the knife kept going, cutting through skin, muscle and bone until it was buried to the hilt in his leg.

“JERRY!”

Ray’s eye darted left, catching a glimpse of six panicked mares and a shell-shocked dragon. The yellow one was crying, and the others were holding back Dash and Applejack, who were struggling to come to their aid. “Chrysalis! Let go of them!” the second bride barked, standing tall next to her dazed husband.

The Bug Queen ignored them.

“You will pay for your insolence!” she hissed, glaring daggers at them. Her magic pulsed, and Ray found himself pressed to the marble floor on his knees. “Now bow before me, apes!”

“Fuck you, bug,” Jer growled through grinding, gnashing teeth. Blood had begun to seep around he blade in his leg. “We bow to no one.”

Raymond spat at her swiss-cheese hooves. There wasn’t much else to say, really.

“So be it,” Chrysalis scowled, her wings buzzed once, twice, and her horn pulsed a sickly green.

Suddenly, Raymond was flying.

Rainbow Dash was pissed.

Hours. She’d spent hours perfecting her sonic rainboom for the wedding, and now the whole ceremony was crashing down around her. The Princess was unconscious, Shining Armor was a zombie, and her two newest friends were being held prisoner by the queen of the motherbucking changelings!

“An eye for an—uhn—eye, huh? Well fu—augh!”

Rainbow’s eyes widened as she watched Jer’s knife—a weapon she’d become quite acquainted with—plunge into his thigh amid a small spurt of blood, directed by changeling magic. Dash felt bile rise in her throat but held it back, replacing the nausea she felt with righteous anger. She leapt forward, intent on tackling the nag who DARED hurt Gerald, but was caught by her tail, snapping her flight to a stop. The corners of her eyes tinged purple, and Rainbow simply struggled harder.

Twilight.

An orange blur that Rainbow assumed was her cowpony friend struggled next to her, encased in a similar, blue aura. “Girls! We have ta do somethin’!” Her cries fell on deaf ears.

“JERRY!” Pinkie screamed petulantly from behind her.

“Chrysalis, let go of them!” the real Cadence cried, unwavering voice rising above the panicked crowd. She stood tall in the absence of Luna as the ruler of Equestria… and she was ignored.

“Bow before me, apes!” bellowed the Queen, and Ray and Jer slammed to the ground, facing the tempestuous changeling. The blue pegasus struggled harder.

“Let go of me, Twilight!” she screamed, “She’ll kill them! Let go!”

“The only one she’ll kill is you!” she heard Twilight sob, “Please Rainbow! Don’t!”

Dash ignored her and kept pushing. She couldn’t let them die; wouldn’t let them. Not them. Not him. Not Scoot’s FATHER!

She watched Jer curse, barely keeping himself from screaming through clenched teeth, and Raymond spit at her hooves, his single blue eye burning with defiance.

“So be it,” Chrysalis breathed with finality. Her horn pulsed, and both humans tore through the air, crashing through one of the many stain-glass windows of the court.

“NO!” Rainbow put in one final effort, breaking through Twilight’s spell—or she let it drop; either way it didn’t matter. She shot past Chrysalis, whose contemptuous giggles echoed through the great hall, and out the shattered glass into the open air to find… nothing.

The Canterlot Court Building sat on the very edge of a mountain cliff, separated from the bustling city below by over a hundred-foot drop. Neither Jer, nor Raymond were anywhere to be found: the morning air was empty of everything.

Refusing to accept failure, Rainbow darted frantically along the cliff’s edge, looping and diving and searching for the two humans who tried to save her life and the lives of her friends. Above, she heard the crashing of wood upon stone and the sound of hundreds of frantic hoof-steps fleeing the courthouse.

Ignoring the fleeing ponies, Rainbow searched the streets, dipping below the cliff-face and scanning the cobbles below the open window. Ponies and the occasional hay-cart littered the streets, gaping skyward. The frantic pegasus chanced a glance upward, taking note of the thousands of black specks pounding headlong into Shining Armor’s shield.

It wouldn’t be long now.

Dash caught a glimpse of something shining in the sunlight and ground to a halt. She quickly fluttered to the side of a single story stone building: the old guard barracks. An unsettling red smear stained the blocks making up its western wall, and on the cobbles below, among scattered bits of hay, lay a knife.

Jer’s knife: wet with blood.

Rainbow turned a quick circle. They weren’t anywhere around. She looked back down at the knife, and her heart clenched.

The humans were gone. She’d failed.

“No!” she shook her head in negation, tears beginning to well up in her eyes. “They can’t be dead! YOU CAN’T BE DEAD!” she screamed down at the bloody knife, “you dumb FUCK!” The rainbow pegasus curled up against the barracks, tears streaming down her face, her body wracked with sobs.

Hooves clattered on the stones nearby.

“Miss Dash!” A young guardspony skid to a halt beside her. “What’s going on?!”

Rainbow Dash grit her teeth and looked to the sky, not making eye contact with the brown stallion to mask her tears.

“The changelings are invading,” she gulped, somehow keeping the sorrowful waver from her voice. As she spoke, cracks began to form in the shield above, and glittering slivers of magic drifted down upon the city.

“Oh, Celestia…” the guardspony gasped. “I have to find the lieutenant!” Seconds later he was gone, galloping along the cliff-side and out of sight.

Dash slumped to her haunches, watching ponies flee: a blur of sound and shape and color. Hooves thundered and clattered in a panicked rhythm. The streets were paved with noise. She looked down at Jer’s knife. The fine, laser-honed edge splattered in drying blood.

Red will drown the silver lining,

Desperate mothers: fillies crying,

Clouds of white find soldiers flying,

Don’t you know today we’re dying?

The sky-blue pegasus snorted, her eyes narrowing dangerously. She looked back up the cliff toward the courthouse, spotting the window she’d flown through. Dash caught a glimpse of black carapace and swampy, green mane and snarled.

She stooped, clutching the synthetic handle of the human’s blade in her jaws before springing into the sky—the copper taste of blood heavy on her lips. Rushing wind dried the tears from her face, whipping her prismatic mane about as the window hurtled toward her.

Rainbow Dash was pissed, and somepony was going to pay.

12: The Longest Sentence II

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Chapter 12

A rainbow blur shot through the shattered window from which the humans had left in a shower of loosened glass. The air was heavy with traces of magical energy, Chrysalis was gone, and Rainbow Dash had returned empty-hooved.

That did not bode well...

Applejack tensed and took a step away from the prostrate Princess and her friends, eyes flickering from the window to the where the Queen had disappeared, a dark scorch-mark the only evidence of her departure.

Where were the aliens? Where was Raymond?

Dash skid to a halt before her, hooves spread readily and wings flared in an aggressive display. There was murder in her darting, maroon eyes. Metal clattered against stone as she spat something silver and red to the floor.

“Where is she?!” Rainbow howled, her usually carefree smirk twisted with ugly rage. “I’m going to carve out her bucking heart!”

“Chrysalis is gone my little pony,” wheezed a tired goddess, “and now, for the sake of the city, you must get to the Elements.”

Rainbow snarled. “Fuck that, Princess.” Rarity and Twilight flinched, staring at their friend in awe. “I’m not turning that skinny street nag into stone, or making her all loveable again. I’m killing her, and that’s final.”

The Princess winced, and tilted a sorrowful eye toward the blue mare from her position on the ground. “They’re dead?” Dash froze, stone-faced, and suddenly Pinkie was sobbing. Tears streamed like geysers from her clenched eyes, and when Fluttershy went to comfort her, she batted the yellow mare away.

“Rainbow, where are they!” Applejack yelled, taking a step toward her blue friend. “Where’s Ra—” Something cold bounced off her hoof and skittered on the courtroom floor. The farm mare looked down to the marble at her hooves and her heart stopped.

“No,” she denied vehemently, turning away from the blood-streaked weapon Jer constantly fawned over when she brought ‘Bloom and her friends over to visit. The blue pegasus quickly picked the blade from the ground and tucked it under her wing, wincing at the look Applejack gave her. “No no no no no!” the orange pony told herself lie after lie, voice rising into a gurgling wail. “Yer lying!”

Whomever she was accusing, herself of Rainbow, Applejack didn’t know.

“They’re gone,” Dash growled, “disappeared, dead, I don’t know… but I’m gonna find out.” She stalked toward Twilight, who sat next to the prone body of her mentor. “Where’s the bug, Twilight?”

“Rainbow,” the lavender mare murmured, eyes hazed with uncertainty, “You can’t ki—”

“I can and I will!” Dash yelled, skidding forward on a powerful flap of her wings. “No one hurts my friends and gets away with it. It’s what Jer would’ve done if he was still here!”

“You don’t know that!” Twilight returned, tears growing in the corners of her violet eyes. “Please… I don’t know where she went… and we need you.”

Their empty words flowed through Applejack like a brook without the babble. Heated argument and desperate entreaties sifted past, around, inside; there and yet not; conveying meaning without value.

Raymond Schaffer was dead, and she didn’t feel.

This man found her oldest friend in the wildest of places, saved her sister from a lonely eternity in stone. He had made her feel so safe and happy and aware. She owed him so much—both of them—and she felt nothing.

Hollow of the chest.

Empty of the mind.

Raymond Schaffer was dead and Applejack knew she needed to feel something… but she didn’t.

Dresses were cast aside, and the farm mare was dimly aware of tearing her own gown away. Hooves clattered against marble, and she knew a set of them were hers. Through the doors and into the hall Applejack galloped with her friends. She ran away… because she felt no grief.

Sunlight: they were outside. Wispy chunks of magic wafted on the breeze, tinkling like glass on a chime. The farm mare heard screams in the distance—explosions and roiling, green flame. She didn’t stop; couldn’t stop running, following, going.

A familiar, tan shape loomed in the courtyard. Applejack avoided it with her eyes, not recognizing the shifting shadows among wheels of blackened metal and rubber. If she ignored it, then it never was. Nothing to feel. Nothing wrong?

“Rarity! What’s going on?!”

“Oh dear, girls, just… j-just stay here! Don’t move or leave for anypony. Do you understand?”

“Sis! Sis! Where ya goin’? Applejack! Where’s Jerry? Where’s Raymond?”

Applejack didn’t hear. She chose not to. There was no ‘Raymond’—there never was.

The courtyard was gone, replaced with endless stairs and rushing mountain wind. This path was familiar: she’d walked it as a bridesmaid not two hours ago. It seemed like a thousand years had passed since then. Magic… the wind was rife with it. Energy sifted through her fur, brushing against pounding muscles and shifting bone before drifting away—an itch on the run.

The stairs were gone, replaced with cobbled streets, smoke, and panic. Twisting and turning she galloped, following twitching, flowing tails and clopping hooves among the stone buildings of upper Canterlot. It was here, streaking through the shops of the Market District, that Applejack found herself again.

Dead. The humans were dead.

Chrysalis killed them.

Applejack felt her soul tear in half and had to struggle not to collapse, falling behind her pack of friends as they sped away toward the Royal Armory. Skidding and slumping, the orange mare watched them disappear around a saddle outlet and cried. She cried for the creature who helped bring her sister back. She cried for the man who went through so much pain for his people, but cared enough to endure even more for her family in their time of need. She cried for an alien, but most of all she cried for a friend: somepony who listened to her, comforted her and smiled for her.

Now she would never see that smile ever again, and it hurt.

Dazed and alone in a river of panicking bodies, she almost didn’t acknowledge the oxygen-sucking explosion of green fire erupt right next to her. Sharp chunks of stone peppered the side of her face and she flinched, blinking away tears and backing from the smoking crater that spontaneously grew from the street in a searing blast of green flame. The smoke shifted, and a shadow crawled from the jagged new pothole.

It was sharp and crooked and broken, but crawled with the malevolence of a being that felt no pain. Bulbous blue eyes glinted like searchlights in the black void of a moonless night—the carapace of a changeling warrior. The creature hissed and scuttled forward, lunging with a pair of wicked, curved fangs.

Applejack didn’t think. She swung her body around, still sobbing silently, and kicked outward. Her back hooves connected with a sickening crack. Something gave, and the orange mare’s ears flopped downward from an onslaught of agonized screeches.

Not looking back, she bucked again. There was another splintering crunch, and then silence.

A relative silence, of course, considering the panicked screams of frantic city-folk. Despite that, it was silence nonetheless, and it made Applejack sick. Turning to see the result of her hoofwork, she felt her gorge rise before she even caught sight of the body. Her eyes skated around a growing puddle of thick, green blood, and the mare forced her nausea aside, asking herself what Ray would’ve done. The thought of the human brought fresh tears to her eyes, but she ignored them.

She shifted her gaze with a new determination, glaring at the crumpled form of the invading warrior. Its snout was caved in, protective carapace splintered and thrust inward from the force of her kick. Cloying, green fluid leaked from the changeling’s snapped neck, flowing back into the pothole from whence it came. A cracked fang lay at Applejack’s hooves.

Another sentient being lay dead by her hoof, and Applejack felt no remorse. Nothing, not even nausea, fazed her. Watching the tears crawl with gravity’s soft caress down her cheeks, nopony could have imagined it, but, once again, Applejack was an empty mare.

Glancing down the street, where her friends disappeared, she watched more changelings streak from the cloudless sky, crashing into cobblestones, homes, and ponies alike in a maelstrom of neon flame. Applejack watched and asked herself: “What would Raymond do?”

The answer was simple.

A ghost of a smile twitched at the corner of the orange mare’s lips, and she slowly began trotting after her friends. Flame and speeding black armor flashed to her left, and Applejack lashed out with her hooves. There was a gruesome snap, and nothing more.

What would Raymond do?

He would do his job… and anypony that got in his way would regret it for the rest of their short lives.

Screams echoed into the courtyard from the city below. Not the “Oh, Mommy! Look at the Royal Guards” kind of screams, or even the barely frightened “Nightmare Night” level wails. These were cries of unimaginable pain and terror and fright.

Squeals of the damned.

“Scootaloo! Stay here!”

“Yeah! Ya heard what Rarity said! We gotta stay here an’ wait!”

Scootaloo crept away from her friends, away from the dark, oily underbelly of Jer’s jeep and into the nuptial courtyard. There should have been a party going on right now—post wedding dancing, drinking and dining—but the green expanse was empty.

Smoke rose in plumes across the city, filtering through drifting eggshell-bits of magic that descended like wispy, pink snow upon a burning world. Pink mist fizzled from a fallen hunk of the magic precipitation nearby, and the bandstand near the hill’s edge had collapsed: punched inward by a black creature falling from the sky, wreathed in emerald manalight. The changeling was gone now, but the stage remained—splintered and broken.

Jerry was going to play there today: “For the Italian Knockoff,” he said.

The orange pegasus crawled cautiously toward the wooden structure, keeping as low to the ground as possible. If she rounded the side closest to her, she’d be able to look downhill on the distressed city below. She didn’t know why, but seeing Equestria’s shining star in flames was the most important thing on Scootaloo’s mind… besides Jer… and Ray…

Her humans.

Scootaloo’s eyes narrowed and she quickened her pace, scootching across the grassy yard with renewed fervor. She was dimly aware of a pair of ponies following behind her, but she paid them little mind. Her thoughts turned to the men who housed her as she scanned the sky for buzzing soldiers. Where were they? She’d seen them thrown through the stained glass window depicting the birth of the Minotaur Confederacy—something Cheerilee covered near the end of the year, so it was, surprisingly, still fresh in her mind—and then nothing. She and her friends were carried outside by the mob of wedding guests fleeing the ceremony gone wrong.

They had been lucky: thrown under the humans’ vehicle. If they hadn’t rolled underneath, the three fillies surely would have been trampled. Luck mattered little at that point, however. What mattered was the fact that Jer and Ray weren’t back for their weapons yet. Applebloom had found them. Two rifles, strapped against the vehicle's mud-encrusted axle with some kind of magnetic bands.

It had been nearly an hour, and the guns were still there. The humans had yet to arrive, and the Cutie Mark Crusaders were alone.

Scootaloo wanted to know why. The hill they’d climbed to reach the court building had been steep, but not nearly steep enough that if she’d fallen down she couldn’t scramble back up within a few minutes. Jer should be there. Ray should BE there!

But they weren’t.

The bandstand passed by silently, and Scootaloo approached the low, stone wall that marked the end of the courtyard. With one last glance up to the sky—and a quick scan for bird droppings upon the stone blocks—she hopped atop the granite wall with a sharp flap of her wings.

The world fell away.

Scootaloo was suddenly face-to-face with a yawning chasm, punctuated by the shingled roofs of shrunken buildings and tiny, dollhouse ponies. Her body lurched forward, and she felt gravity tug her over the edge.

A hoof slipped, and any semblance of balance was lost. Scootaloo locked up—the “Filly Freeze”—and now she was going to die. The pegasus filly briefly wondered why she hadn’t seen her life flash before her eyes. She assumed she missed it, and another, shrill scream rent the air among its fleeting, panicked brethren.

The sky burned with noise and light and rushing wind and a sharp pain in Scootaloo’s flank snapped her backward, cracking her skull against the cliff-side. The world popped, and all she could feel was blinding pain racing from her brow to her spine, ending where her tail met her flank. Scootaloo felt herself pulled upwards, and with a Herculean effort, she turned her throbbing head to look over her withers.

Applebloom strained under a sky of blue, green, black and pink, Scootaloo’s tail clamped firmly in her jaws. Suddenly Sweetie was beside her, underdeveloped horn sparking out of fear. The white unicorn sprawled forward and grabbed one of the pegasus’s hind-legs. In one final lurch, Scootaloo felt herself pulled upward, scraping her stomach on the outer edge of the wall up to her chin before she fell on her back, staring into the tempestuous sky in disbelief.

“What the hay, Scootaloo!” wailed a clearly agitated unicorn, appearing above and blocking out the raging air overhead. “You almost DIED! What were you doing?!”

The dazed pegasus stared past her friend, into the battle above, and listened to the wheezing sound of Applebloom breathing from beside her. Was her tail still in her mouth? A quick twitch of the flank later, and Scootaloo once again was in possession of her entire being.

Her body was a castle; the grass, her foundation; the sky, her—

“SCOOTALOO!” Sweetie practically screamed, livid, frightened tears in her eyes. “What’s wrong with you?!” Suddenly, the pegasus lurched upward, latching onto her yelling friend. Sweetie Belle squeaked and collapsed under Scootaloo’s weight, and both of them slumped onto Applebloom, whom was still wheezing like a fish out of water.

“I… I… I’m alive!” Scootaloo whooped, still crushing Sweetie within her forelegs.

“Of course ya are! Now gerroff!” Applebloom mumbled exhaustedly. “Ah can’t hardly breathe.” The other two fillies obliged sheepishly, Scootaloo taking the opportunity to kiss the ground at her belly while Sweetie helped Applebloom get up. The grass was soft as silk and the tingling aftertaste was absolutely magical. Scootaloo was never taking grass for granted ever again…

“What the hay were you doing jumpin’ up on the edge a’ the cliff like that?” Applebloom puffed, still not quite recovered from lifting a pegasus nearly her size from certain death.

“I didn’t know!” the orange filly exclaimed.

“That you were jumping, or that there was a cliff?” Sweetie asked, skeptical.

“The second one. I thought it was just another hill like the other side, so I was gonna look down and see… where Jerry… was…” Scootaloo’s eyes widened. “Oh my Luna, JERRY! RAY!” She tried to jump back over the low stone wall, but Applebloom just barely snatched her by the tail again.

“Dnt yuh drrr, Scrtler!”

“Let me go!” Scootaloo tried jumping again, only to be tugged back by a sharp pain between her flanks. “They fell,” she sobbed, “we have to help them, they fell!”

“What the hay do you mean, they fell!” Sweetie yelled, scrambling to put herself between her orange friend and what to her probably seemed like prospective suicide. She clutched Scootaloo’s forelegs, mane frazzled and eyes equally wild, and planted herself against the stone bulwark between them and the rest of the capitol below.

Still straining towards the edge, the pegasus sobbed openly. “Jerry. Ray,” she mouthed, not caring that her friends finally saw her cry. “The Queen threw them out the wi-window, and… and…”

Scootaloo broke down, tiny wings drooping at her sides. The tension in her tail let up immediately, she was drowning in a pair of orange eyes and yellow fur.

“Are ya sure?!” Applebloom intoned, holding Scootaloo at hooves’ length and giving her a frightened stare. “Ah didn’t see anything like that, and mah sis an’ her friends came out just fine!”

Broken glass and screams: heart wrenching screams, not from the humans but from Pinkie and Applejack and Rainbow Dash and… and…

“I’m… I’m s-sure,” Scootaloo wailed. “They’re… gone.” Flashes of fire under a full moon tore a path through the pegasus’s memories, punctuated by a long, agonizing shriek. “Gone.” She shoved Appleboom away and hugged the ground, curling up into a shuddering ball of fur, feathers, and tears. Her friend made no further move to comfort her, letting slip a low moan and slumping to her haunches a few inches away.

“N-Now hold on, girls,” Sweetie squeaked. “What about the others?” Scootaloo joined Applebloom in voicing her sorrow, their cadence of moans filling the courtyard. “Girls, stop a second! Think! If they came out, maybe Twilight and Rainbow saved them with magic or speed or something! Don’t you think they would be doing the same thing you are if they were dead? They were our friends for Luna’s sake! They could just be unconscious, laying on the… court… floor? Scootaloo wait!”

Sweetie was gone, left behind near the collapsed bandstand. The courthouse loomed ahead under a burning sky, and Scootaloo could hear her earth pony friend’s hooves pounding in rhythm with her own. She cursed herself for not thinking of it before! Twilight was the most powerful unicorn in Equestria: she must have done something to save her bipedal guardians. She MUST have.

Panting, the orange filly climbed the tiered steps to the courthouse door and tried to pry it open. With a little help from Applebloom and a lot of strain, she was able to to get the massive ceremonial gateway open wide enough to peek inside.

The courtroom was in shambles. Broken glass littered the aisle, mingled with torn dresses, trampled flowers, and what looked like a small pool of drying blood in the center of the once immaculate chamber. To Scootaloo’s horror, the room seemed empty: completely and utterly empty. Tears threatening to return, she backed away and allowed Applebloom a look inside.

Humanless as the courtroom-turned-dump was, Sweetie was still right; she couldn’t just pronounce them dead. Not until she saw the bodies. Scootaloo just had to figure out a way insi—

“Oh. Mah. Stars. Scootaloo, come look!” Applebloom’s urgent whisper broke Scootaloo away from thoughts of sneaking inside, and she scrambled past her friend to get another look indoors. “On the ceiling.”

Scootaloo turned her gaze up toward the vaulted, ba-coltish ceiling and paled. Sickly green and pulsing, a gigantic cocoon hung like a chandelier in the center of the room. Inside, she could just barely make out the body of Celestia, Life-Giver and Stewardess of the Sun. The royal mare was alive, staring straight down at them with a frantic, even fearful expression and mouthing—no… screaming—something from her oozing prison.

“Wha… Howwhat?!”

“She’s tryin’ tah tell us somethin’…”

“I know, but what?” Trying to read her ruler’s lips, Scootaloo got as far as “look behind” when a shadow loomed above her, obscuring afternoon sky and causing her to freeze in fear. It was over.

Slowly, the orange filly turned to face her demise.

She would not cry, nor would she beg, she decided. Scootaloo would fight, just as her surrogate parents would have wanted.

The small pegasus faced her fate...

... and it was something rather unexpected to say the least.

The Armory loomed. Buildings weren’t meant to loom: it was unnatural.

It loomed in the smoke-filled sky—an unnatural structure lost in unnatural times—as six unnatural mares closed in. Nearly a quarter mile of streets left to cover, Pinkie ran after her friends in a daze. It was not the happy “s’mile-high” daze she usually experienced, but rather a frightening, smoky depression… a remnant from her foalhood.

Changelings fell from the sky, trying to hinder their progress toward the Elements, and every time Pinkie caught sight of one her vision tinged red.

“What do you mean the cannon has no lethal setting?!”

Rage: another childhood folly.

“It’s just for decorating. It’s just for decorating. It’s just for decorati—”

“Snap out of it! Mare the buck up and kill them!”

“No! It’s wrong!”

Broad and lumbering, yet lithe like wispy, black smoke, a changeling warrior skid in front of the pink mare, effectively cutting her off from her friends and blocking her path to the armory. Not missing a beat, Pinkie “reached” a pie from her mane, shoved the piping-hot pastry into the changeling’s snarling muzzle, and darted around the buzzing soldier, quickly catching up to the others.

“It isn’t murder anymore: it’s vengeance. They killed your monkey, remember?”

“HE’S NOT DEAD!” Pinkie screeched, hysterically angry for the first time in ages. Her voice carried, and Rarity glanced back from her position at the front of the herd in worry. Pinkie kept running, plunging blindly forward after her. “Shut up, shut up, shutup shuddup shuddup!”

“Darling, look out!”

Suddenly, her hoof caught on a loose cobblestone, and in one, swift jerk she was on her back. Angry buzzing bombarded her ears, and when she opened her eyes she was met with a pair of irate blue lenses. The changeling—her changeling—covered in fluffy lumps of banana cream pie snarled, baring a pair of gleaming, sickle-shaped fangs, and Pinkie began to panic.

“Oh my Luna I’m going to die oh please no please not yet I don’t want to die I have so much left to do I have to find Jerry I can’t die yet no no no no no No NO NO NO!”

*CRACK*

The giant love-sucker reeled backward, snout crushed and splintered in a rain of black fibers. Recovering, it snapped its attention back to the mare beneath its hooves, splattering her with thick, green blood. With a furious screech, it lunged forward again, snapping at Pinkie’s exposed throat.

Roaring like a madmare, she gave the insect another head-butt, eliciting a sharp crunch of shattering exoskeleton. Afraid to die, Pinkie’s body granted one final burst of strength, and she caved in the creature’s face with her forehead. One glittering fang soared through the heady air, and Pinkie, face covered in a sticky mixture of changeling blood and her own crimson fluids, stumbled to her hooves.

Rainbow and Rarity were with her in an instant. “Oh Goddess, Pinkie! Are you okay?! Oh buck, Pinkie—buck—you’re bleeding!”

“Twilight! Get over here!”

Pinkie shook her head, spreading flecks of blood around both her friend’s coats as they tried to stabilize her: “Girls… no time… gotta go f-find Jerry.” Avoiding looking at the victim of her murderous fear, the pink mare broke into a shambling trot after Twilight, Applejack and Fluttershy—Rainbow and Rarity no far behind her. In a daze, she made it to the foot of the Armory steps before her friends had to help her.

One, two, three, four, five… counting hurt; moving hurt; thinking hurt!

But Pinkie made it.

Magic-spattered marble gleamed in the afternoon sun, and, changelings cleared away by Twilight and Applejack, they were free to enter the huge, classically crafted building.

Wordlessly, Rainbow bucked the massive iron gates inward, and the six mares galloped, trotted and limped inside. Vaulted ceilings soared high above—just like in the courthouse—but windows were scarce, leaving Pinkie and her friends reliant on magic-fuelled lamps fixed to the cold, stone walls. A quick flash of Twilight’s horn illuminated the entire hall, and Pinkamena was able to make out some of the architectural details she remembered from when she last visited: during Discord’s Return and the Technical Week of Delicious Weather Patterns.

Long, spidery cracks along the east wall from a fallen pillar.

Black soot-stains dotting the ceiling from the Great Siege of Canterlot over seven hundred years ago.

The end table in the far corner where she left her apple-pecan-banana-fudge cake yesterday while exploring—it was getting runny, dripping all over the place.

Celestia’s personal vault, virtual tomb for all things powerful; only able to be opened by the Princess herself…

Wait…

“Twilight?” Pinkie wheezed, no longer supported by Rainbow or Rarity. Her lavender friend seemed oblivious, quickly pacing toward the magical safe without giving the injured earth pony a second glance.

“Okay girls, here are the Elements. Now all we have to do is get… in Celestia’s… vault…” Twilight trailed off, staring, perplexed, at the purple doors adorned with a single, small hole in their exact center: a hornlock. She slumped to her haunches, jaw unhinged in disbelief.

“Egghead. What are you doing? Let’s move already!” Rainbow Dash yelled, whizzing in front of the staring unicorn and looking her straight in the eye. “What’s the hol—Twi? Hey, Twilight?” Perplexed, the blue pegasus dropped to her hooves and waved a foreleg in front of her bookish friend. “Hello? Snap out of it, Twilight!”

Applejack trotted carefully forward, took one look at Twilight’s expression, and punched her in the side.

“YELP!”

“Twi, what’s the holdup?”

“S-Sorry,” the purple unicorn stammered, rubbing her foreleg sheepishly. “I-uh I… We?” She shook her head and glared at the safe. “We can’t get into the armory.”

“What?” Rainbow deadpanned.

“It’s Celestia’s private vault! Only she can get in an—”

“Hey, Fluttershy? Which one was your Element again?”

“The… butterfly?”

“Oh! Here ya go!”

Twilight’s eyes bugged out, and crystal butterfly set in a gold necklace made its way to Fluttershy’s hooves. The lavender unicorn too a closer look at the safe and saw that the door was slightly ajar. “Pinkie?! How?”

“The door was open,” the pink mare giggled as she limped back toward the vault, slipping quickly inside the cracked doorway. Her voice echoed from the magically-reinforced walls inside: “Duh!-uh!-uh!-uh…”

Rainbow looked at Applejack, Applejack looked at Fluttershy, who looked at Rarity who looked at Twilight… and everyone broke out into smiles.

Everything was going to be okay…

And then came the buzzing.

Rainbow Dash was scared. She was afraid to admit it, but it was definitely so. Jer’s knife hidden under her left wing, she stared down the descending swarm with all the venom she could muster... until they changed.

Green manalight roiled in the shadowy twilight of the Armory amidst the screams of her friends, and out of the flashes appeared not a pack of changelings, but Applejack; and Rarity; and Pinkie—murderous hunger in their eyes. Rainbow tightened her wings against her sides, praying they wouldn’t notice her concealed weapon. They were fake, and she would cut them if they came any closer. They weren’t her friends. They weren’t!

So why didn’t she attack?

A buzz in the crowd, and suddenly she was surrounded.

“Dashie!”

Rainbow whipped her head left and right, scanning the growing mob for her friends—her real friends—but was alone in a sea of furious, starving replicas.

A Rarity stepped forward with a growl, sauntering coldly around to Dash’s right.

They’d come in from all sides, surrounding the armory in an ocean of black chitin.

She was close, outside Rainbow’s line of sight but close nonetheless.

The front doors—the ones she had kicked down with her own two hooves—became a sluice gate for the changeling flood. They were trapped in seconds.

A white hoof dragged down Rainbow’s left flank, stopping directly above her cutie mark.

Pinkie hadn’t gotten the Elements in time, and she was dragged from the vault by her mane, no longer puffy and unkempt, while Rainbow and the others watched. They couldn’t do anything. They were at the mercy of the changeling horde.

Rainbow Dash was shaking now. Changeling Rarity’s hoof was sliding dangerously close to forbidden territory, and the crowd of impersonators slowly grew. Rainbow tensed, preparing to reach for the knife with her muzzle when the errant hoof stopped. The changeling tittered, and the blue pegasus was momentarily relieved.

Blinding pain exploded in the back of her head, and suddenly she was on the ground. Changelings, forgoing their disguises, hitched her up by her forelegs, lifting her bodily into the air. Rainbow struggled, but the cold itch of foreign magic made her freeze. Pressure formed at the back of her neck: a changeling horn—sharp, sickle-shaped, chitinous bringer of death.

Helpless. Rainbow Dash was helpless and afraid, and she hated it more than anything in the world. Hot tears streaked her muzzle, and a sharp tug signaled the beginning of the procession.

The march to the gallows.

She still had Jer’s knife—her only hope at that point—but couldn’t reach for it without drawing her guards’ attention. All she could do was follow along to their new destination and hope they didn’t kill her immediately upon arrival. Unless…

Unless death would be a mercy at that point…

Rainbow shuddered violently and received another blow to the head for her trouble. She was bourn outside upon fly-lace wings and lifted high above Canterlot, buzzing through the chaos and smoke of the capitol skyline. Canterlot castle jutted through the chaos before her, casting shadows on the Equestrian citizens panicking below.

Ponies ran back and forth—the size of ants—trying to escape roving packs of ruthless invaders. Foals were cornered in the streets; mares and stallions surrounded and drained of their affection by force, bodies falling like limp rags on the cobblestones. Rainbow didn’t want to watch, but she couldn’t look away.

The city was dying and all she could do was watch, because struggle would only be the end of her. Besides… Scootaloo was down there—somewhere. Rainbow was never going to leave her alone: not again. She would survive for her sake.

Her guard detail passed through a cloud of smoke flowing from a burning diner on the street below. It choked her, but all she could manage was a dry, rattling cough. A flashback of the day Twilight had taken them to face a sleeping dragon niggled at the back of her mind. She remembered her blind bout of righteous anger then and snorted weakly.

She never learned, did she? Buck, no…

The changelings shifted, and the world spun and jilted and turned until Rainbow was staring down at the courthouse, yawning doors open, nestled on the breast of the “fashionable heights” of Canterlot. She had been scheduled to do a private rainboom for the royal newlyweds above that building. They would have cheered, and, seeing the sheer magnitude of Rainbow’s awesome skill, Scootaloo would have forgiven her, and Jer would have written an amazing rock ballad in her honor before… before…

But—Oh Celestia!—he was dead.

Rainbow clenched her jaw, forcing such useless thoughts to the back of her mind. She may have been helpless at that moment, but, hopefully, she could change that, and thinking about the man whom she’d just began to know wasn’t going to help. Her fate was approaching: she would mourn later.

Buzzing forward, she was carried through the great threshold of celestial justice, into the odd half-light of the main hall. Several more windows had been shattered, and colored glass littered the aisle, the ceremonial wedding carpet scuffed and torn and drenched in green goop dripping from… the ceiling?

“What on Terra is THAT?!” Rainbow’s shifting gaze had latched upon a glowing green chrysalis. Green excretia flowed ever downward from small vents near the structure’s tip, forming a mound of gook directly beneath: center aisle, where Rainbow had stood not an hour ago as a bridesmaid. The walls looked vaguely transparent; if only she could get a better loo—

“PRINCESS! Oh! G-Goddess! What are you doing to her!? Come out here and face me, Chrysalis!”

Twilight: screaming. There she was, surrounded by changelings in the front of the room. They must have gotten there ahead of Rainbow’s group… for once she didn’t really care about being in second place. Now what in Tartarus was she screaming about?

Rainbow’s group alighted next to Twilight’s, and the blue pegasus was released. Three changelings continued to keep watch of her, however: two at her sides, and one hovering behind, presumably aiming its horn at the back of her head. Buzzing echoed throughout the great hall.

The Elements Bearers were assembling: one by one.

“Ah! There you are, dears,” a simpering voice reverberated throughout the courthouse. “I was wondering where you went.” Chrysalis, Queen of the Changelings, strode purposefully from behind the jury stand, fanged muzzle held high. She smirked haughtily, insect wings twitching at her sides, and slid into the light of the main room, one dazed Shining Armor and a hoof-bound Cadence dragged behind her in the grip of her fiery magic. Somehow the Queen looked even taller now, sharper, and the slash Jer made on her foreleg had all but disappeared. Rainbow felt anger swell in her chest, murderous rage channeling through her body to skin pricked by cold metal: Jer’s knife, pressed firmly to her side.

Today, the bug would die.

“What have you done to her, Chrysalis?!” Twilight screamed, pointing a hoof accusingly at the pupae hanging from the ceiling. Rainbow squinted at the thing, trying to see inside, but couldn’t. The cocoon was becoming opaque, turquoise shell slowly growing where there was once green resin.

“Oh, she’s simply taking a nap,” Chrysalis sneered. “After a time, she will wake up as one of us: perfectly normal. Your precious ruler will be fine.” The black queen slid closer to the lavender unicorn, tilting her jagged horn dangerously. “You on the other hand… you and your friends will feed me, and then… then you will die.”

“Back the buck off, Nag,” Rainbow growled, glaring hot death at the threatening creature. “Don’t make us kill you.”

Chrysalis switched her focus away from Twilight, staring at the blue pegasus incredulously for a second before bursting into a fit of smug laughter. “You? Ha! You kill me? I’m the Queen of the Changelings and I’ve taken over the most love-enriched country on the planet! You’re going to kill me?! There’s only one mare doing the killing around here, and that’s—”

The doors exploded inwardin an indescribable concussion of sound and shock and splinters, rocking off thousand-year-old hinges and flying through the air like giant wooden birds—right over Twilight and Rainbow’s heads. A disgusting squeal and crunch behind the rainbow pegasus signaled the untimely end of one of the changelings in her guard detail. Dash could attack at any moment she pleased… but was transfixed by a second explosion—a blinding flash accompanied by a deafening bang in the center of the room.

The chamber spun, and four dark figures appeared in the doorway: two impossibly tall… familiarly tall. One of the larger figures broke away from its companions, colliding with a staggering Chrysalis with a furious roar. The Queen fell, screaming as tiny comets whizzed across the spinning, smoky room, racing amongst the sound of hail beating a tin roof, and changeling after changeling shattered, spraying green blood into the thoroughly crowded air.

Twilight’s and Pinkie’s guard detail bolted toward the new threat, but were torn apart right before Rainbow’s eyes, dropping and skidding across the once pristine aisle-rug, staining it with vibrant blood and bits of black carapace. The tallest figure stepped out of the sunlight streaming through the crumbling doorway, coalescing into a recognizable, scar-faced human, still clad in one Rarity’s suits: now torn half to shreds and dotted with burns and green blood.

Raymond strode down the aisle calmly, spraying fiery hail from a boxy device cradled in his arms. It happened quickly, too fast for anypony—or anychangeling—to move. One moment Ray was in the doorway; the next, he stood over a restrained Chrysalis, scuffed dress shoe lifted high above her head.

There was a loud crack, and then silence.

The two changeling soldiers still guarding Rainbow flinched, and hugged her sides. She couldn’t open her wings.

Suddenly, grating, raspy laughter broke the deathly silence.

Up came Jer, wobbling to his feet from where he had tackled Queen Chrysalis—new self-proclaimed ruler of Equestria—to the ground, a single, crinkled insectoid wing in his hand. He giggled throatily, looking at the torn limb he held with a twisted smile.

“I fucking love my job.”

13: Voiding Contracts

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Chapter 13

*The Battle of Canterlot Part One*

The heavens were falling.

“… t’s not a black thing.

It’s not a white thing.

It’s not a gay thing.

It’s not a straight thing.

Testing for HIV is the safe thing…”

In blood and death ‘neath the screaming sky, Gerald Hanes was alive. He just didn’t know what to do about it yet.

“Have you gotten yourself tested, Robby?”

“Fuck, no. I don’t need a test to know my dick is fuckin’ contagious. I fucking hate that commercial, man… fuck…”

“What’s got you so… uh, verbose?”

“My cousin died in the riot yesterday...”

He was jostled to and fro, and there was straw everywhere: literally everywhere. It scratched and irritated and prickled, but Jer didn’t move. He just lay back, watching the atmosphere burn.

His leg hurt. A lot.

“I’m sorry.”

“No need. It wasn’t your fault. Fucking, Sandusky...”

“The President can’t win this, Mike. We have half the populace on our side.”

“Yeah… but what about the other half, huh? What about them?”

“Screw ‘em, Mikey… Screw ‘em.”

The jostling stopped. All that moved were the buzzing, black artillery rounds screaming through the wilting shield above, and still Jer lay on his back. His head ached, and the gashes on his back had split open again—scraped on the wall of some building he’d bounced against.

Why did he collide with a wall? The memory was hazy, but Jer was certain it explained why the sky was falling, and why he got the feeling that there were bugs around.

Gerald hated bugs.

A green muzzle thrust into view, obscuring Jer’s view of ragnarok.

Oh… a horse? Horses? Pony!

Jer was the sole human witness to the fall of pony land. Sweet.

“Oh my merciful Luna are you alright?!”

“Cymbal,” Jer coughed, spraying blood in the dark unicorn’s face. “You’re early.”

“Yeah, and you fell from the sky!” The muzzle from above shouted, fear tingeing its horsy voice. “What the buck is happening?”

“The sky is falling, man. At least that’s what I remember…”

Gerald felt an itch—all encompassing and comforting and green—spread across his body, and he was lifted into a sitting position. His right leg figuratively screamed in very real agony, and Jer shouted along with it, remembering. He remembered everything.

The magic holding him up faltered, and the anguished human felt the pony holding him flinch.

“Boss! Get a compress or something! The, uh, Boss?—buck!—the boss is bleeding like a gnarseal over here!”

“What about the other one?”

“What do you mean? He’s—No! We don’t have time for this!” Cymbal got in Jer’s face again and smiled nervously. “You’re gonna be fine, Boss…”

“Of course I’ll be fine,” Jer growled, tears of pain coursing down his cheeks. “Who the fuck do you think I am? A royal guard? And since when do you call me Boss?” Pushing Cymbal aside, the agonizing human stood up, and his body immediately rebelled against him.

Spine flared, leg tore, head burst and eyes burned. The pain was unbearable, and it was delicious. Pain meant he could feel.

Gerald was alive, and that meant he still had a job to do.

“Where’s Ray?” Gerald half growled, half sobbed, wobbling on one good leg in the center of a haycart in the center of a city in flames.

Changelings fell from the sky in droves, trailing green fire, and ponies of all shapes, ages, and colors filled the boulevard in panic. Jer recognized the café he’d graced with his presence not two days ago, collapsed in the cobbled streets. Lumps of color lay amongst the rubble, and Jer quickly averted his gaze.

A wisp of pink magic—a remnant of Shining Armor’s pride—landed on Jer’s shoulder, but he ignored it. The sun would soon reach its apex, and all would disappear under its glowing brilliance…

Shit, his mind was wandering.

“Where. Is. Ray?” Jer snarled, turning on the stallion who had seen it fit to accidentally save his life.

“I… Chuckles?”

“He ran toward the courthouse. I couldn’t stop him…”

“Then we need to follow him,” Jer breathed, allowing himself a small, pained smile. Ray was going for the jeep. There was morphine in the jeep. Oh, fuck did he need morphine. “Get ‘hitched up’ or whatever it is you do.”

Cymbal scrambled back to the street and nudged his yellow partner toward the front of the cart. They quickly hitched up, shifting the cart violently.

“How far are we?”

“Fifteen minutes,” Cymbal grunted, starting to turn the cart. “When you and your friend landed in the back of the cart Chuckles kinda panicked and bolted before I could get unhitched.” The yellow pony Jer was unfamiliar with—Chuckles—glowered silently at the drummer as he talked. “We should be able to make up the distance pretty quickly, though.”

“Make it five, and the drinks’re on me.”

“Uh… J-Just pay the tab back in Ponyville and we’ll call it even, Boss.”

“Deal... and stop calling me Boss.”

Steps. Raymond hated steps.

Infinite, angular and sharp they stretched, impeding the progress of many a generation fleeing people. There were always too many to climb—or too few to distance oneself from a pursuer. Exercise-be-damned...

Why the fuck couldn’t these creatures have invented magical elevators or something? Or maybe just a wheelchair ramp? How do the crippled ponies serve jury duty if they couldn’t reach the damned courthouse!?

How the hell was Raymond supposed to get up there alive!?

Stone exploded on the steps below the exterminator and he quickly spun to meet another adversary: firing his pistol blindly. There was a screech and something wet flecked Ray’s face. Not stopping to see the damage, the ex-marksman half-raced, half-limped his way along a small landing to his next flagstone obstacle. Three more flights stood between him and the courthouse, the white and purple mortar building blotting out the magic-scarred sky. Nearly there, now.

A chorus of buzzing filled Raymond’s ears and he ducked instinctually. The air boiled, blistering the man’s back through his suit, and a sledge of flaming manalight passed over him, crashing into the flight above with a splintering crack. Another changeling uncurled itself from the cratered stone, hissing and spitting green blood.

*CRACK*

“Bug number four,” Ray thought, kicking the splintered body aside as he continued upward.

Keeping score: if Jer was still alive, Ray needed a head start… bad. The schitzo bastard was probably awake by now, and without morphine, well… even being a few kills ahead wouldn’t do Raymond much good if Jer still had his gun.

At that moment, the idea of healthy competition was the only thing keeping the climbing human from losing it.

Jer wasn’t doing too hot, and Ray knew it. He’d seen the blood; felt the bones breaking under him when they landed. But he’d had to leave him—HAD to! Gerald needed Company medicine, and he needed Raymond to get it for him.

Dropping the slide from his pistol, Ray counted his ammunition: four rounds left, one still chambered. That left four for the bugs and one for him. A quick glance around found the area around him to be clear, but he was nervous nonetheless. That was his last magazine. He needed to get to the jeep: fast.

Raymond put on a burst of speed, climbing the last two flights in one go while keeping a keen eye above for any more dive-bombers. He burst into the courtyard, winded, to find the grounds deserted. The jeep sat untouched at the east end, and Jer’s bandstan—shit, the fillies.

Sweetie Belle stood next to the now crushed bandstand, craning over the stage edge to look toward the courthouse steps. She was completely exposed to the sky above. Grunting, Raymond jogged over, panning his weapon along the horizon. It appeared that the majority of Chrysalis’s forces were pillaging the lower city, so they were safe… for now.

Hearing his heavy footfalls, Sweetie spun toward him, terror written plainly across her young face. It quickly disappeared once she recognized him, however:

“Ray? RAY!,” the filly quickly scrambled across the grass to him. “Oh thank Luna you’re all right! Scootaloo said she saw you fall! Where’s Jerry? Is he all right? Please tell me he’s okay!”

“He’s fine,” Ray lied, scooping the filly roughly from the ground and scanning the area once more. “Where’re the others?”

“They… They ran up the marriage-building steps. We thought you guy might st-still be there.” Sweetie wheezed through crushed ribs. Ray loosened his grip slightly and made his way to the jeep. Once he made it to their pilfered vehicle, he tossed Sweetie Belle—more carefully, now—under the tan chassis.

“Unclip the rifles,” he grunted as he rounded the front of the vehicle to the passenger side. “The blue lever.” Raymond heard a low, electronic beep and two thumps, but paid them no mind. He tore open the dash-box, rummaging until he found a pair of thick, black serum pouches. The human quickly stuffed both inside his jacket’s inner pocket and checked below for Sweetie Belle.

“Other side—fuck.” Jogging, he made it back to the driver’s side of the jeep to catch the little white unicorn dragging a pulse rifle out from the vehicle’s underbelly, shoulder-strap firmly clenched in her muzzle.

“Rye grt tit,” she growled through the wet nylon, struggling to lift the butt of the heavy firearm. Ray bent down and relieved her of her burden in a heartbeat and turned toward the courthouse.

“Stay here,” he ordered. “I’ll be right back.” As he began to run, the human just barely heard her reply, faint from the pulse still pounding in his head from the climb up:

“Promise you’ll be back? Promise!? Ray!”

No, he couldn’t.

The courthouse steps were considerably less steep than the cliffside path he’d been forced to traverse earlier, and Raymond quickly reached the landing and the ornate double doors of the court proper. The entrance was spread wide, revealing Applebloom and Scootaloo crumpled to the floor. Above them stood a pony the color of an ocean at night: an alicorn with starlight flowing in her mane and a dark blue aura surrounding her sharp spiral horn. That very same aura encompassed the heads of the two fillies lying prone in the green-stained center aisle of the courtroom, their little chests rising and falling rapidly.

Ray didn’t like the looks of that one bit.

Striding carefully forward, the human raised the butt of his rifle above his shoulder, swinging right and downward in a swift, scythe-like motion. The blue alicorn turned, wide-eyed, just as Ray’s gun struck her temple. She crumpled, magic imploding with a loud pop, and lay sprawled on the floor next to the two foals—she was still breathing. Scootaloo and Applebloom still lay there, unconscious, so Raymond neglected to put a bullet through the suspicious alicorn’s skull just long enough to hoist them onto his shoulder. Holding his rifle, Wrath, in one arm, he pointed its muzzle at the winged unicorn’s throat, but hesitated to pull the trigger.

The moon… there was a half moon on its ass.

Shit… ohoho he was going to get chewed out sooo hard for this later…

Ray dropped Wrath and gripped Celestia’s sister’s hind leg, quickly and unceremoniously dragging her down a side aisle toward what looked like a storage closet in the corner. He stuffed her inside.

Running back to the door, he scooped up his rifle and burst out into the smoky, noon sunlight.

He made it to the jeep in record time, throwing both his and Jer’s rifles—which Sweetie Belle was kind enough to drag out—into the passenger seat. Ray then led Sweetie Belle back to the half-ruined bandstand and hid her two friends underneath.

“What’s wrong with them?!” Sweetie cried, trembling at what the human assumed was the thought of her friends being seriously injured. Pushing her under the bandstand alongside them, Ray gave her his best answer:

“Sleeping. Now stay here and stay hidden: I have to go find your sisters.”

Not waiting for a reply, Raymond sprint-limped back to the dune jeep and climbed into the drivers seat. A prick of the thumb later and he was speeding into the scorched remains of upper Canterlot.

Gunshots rocked the streets below.

“Slow down, damn it! I’m trying to kill something!”

“No way *wheeze* are we doing th-that, Boss!”

The wooden hay cart rumbled and jostled through the cobbled streets like a drunken runaway, swerving left and right as Changeling artillery—which just so happened to be the creatures themselves, much to Jer’s surprise—screamed and blasted around them. Gerald squeezed off shots wherever he could. Lifting his arms had become a battle in itself, and his pistol felt like a hundred pound weight in his slick, calloused hands.

Wood creaked and lurched underneath the human, and he felt something sharp grind against in his weighty chest as he lost his balance and landed painfully on his ass. A pained screech from below signaled the gruesome end of an unlucky changeling soldier, crushed twice by the heavy, splintered wheels of Gerald’s ride.

“Two!” the human whooped as he carefully righted himself, heart beating faster at the thought of some mindless competition—a game he hadn’t played in earnest for over a year. “C’mon, gimme a three. Lucky number three…” Jer’s gun flared, bullet grazing the edge of a market stall nearly a foot from a charging, black soldier. “Fuck!”

Raymond was surely beating him at this rate.

Cymbal and his yellow friend made a sharp right turn onto Canterlot’s Mane Street, pressing Jer to the left-hand wall of the cart just as a bolt of green magic seared the air where he’d been seconds before. “Oh shit,” he giggled; a mixture of pain and amusement, “That could have been—hehe shit—could have been bad.” A strong wind rolled down the more open roadway, whipping Jer’s bluish tie directly into his face. He quickly tore the offending clothing free, sending it flapping back to earth behind the speeding cart. “Sorry, Rarity.”

Though the breeze was strong on that side of the city, it did little to drown out what Jer heard next. Over the rattling, wooden wheels of the cart and the beating of hooves on the cobbled street came the wails of frightened children, rising to a hellish crescendo as they drew nearer and nearer to the Equestrian History Museum. Mountainous marble steps stretched upward to an equally gigantic building that looked like a clipping from an old, human travel mag—“visit the beautiful North American Company hub!” Just at the edge of the building’s metal-encased doors huddled a group of children, protected by a familiar purple mare from an ever-closing ring of changeling infantry.

What a day to schedule a field trip.

“Up the steps!” Gerald roared, leaning as far forward as he could to grab the manes of his two drivers, jerking them sharply to the right. Chuckles cried out in confusion, but Cymbal simply kept running, climbing the stone steps as quickly as he could. The cart, driven by immense momentum and slightly less immense horsepower, bounced its way up the steps, garnering the attention of the advancing changelings—four unarmored soldiers led by a fifth, adorned in jagged, purplish metal. Jer opened fire on the armored drone, punching two holes in its breastplate and tearing out one of its forelegs at the shoulder with an explosive round.

The air quickly filled with the sound of buzzing wings, and three changelings leapt straight toward the cart as it made its final lurch to the top of the museum steps, too quickly for Gerald to stop them. Wood shattered, and the cart tilted dangerously, spilling the human onto the cold, stone of the museum foundation. Pain exploded in Jer’s chest, and it felt like he’d had his leg torn out, but he kept hold of his gun as the world blurred around him.

Vision tunneled, his head groaned with voices; voices; voices!

“Mikey, did you hear that?”

*Crash*

“Shit, we’re being raided! Cut the feed! Quick, damn it!”

“Get to th—zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…”

Blessed static in a murky world…

… and yet Jer could still hear the screams…

… so many screams…

Where did they go? Certainly not hell… no, definitely not.

Somewhere he could never follow, more likely.

Tears stung Gerald’s eyes: from the pain or the memories he didn’t know, but it was enough to bring him back to the present. The world snapped back into place; the screams became real; the sky was still falling.

A black shape obscured his view of the flaming planet’s ceiling and he raised an arm, firing his pistol on instinct alone. A pained screech tore at his eardrums and a jagged, runny weight impacted Jer’s stomach, winding him.

“Four,” Gerald breathed, trying—and failing—to lift himself from under a mass of chitin and twitching, swiss-cheese limbs. “Fucking FOUR!”

Something wet seeped through Rarity’s hard work and slicked the bare skin of Gerald’s chest, but he didn’t care. All that mattered was the screaming. It needed to stop. He just barely managed to push the body from his lap—a still squirming drone, glowing organs slithering from a sizeable hole blown in its once smooth barrel—when another changeling slammed into him from the side.

Jer felt another rib break, and suddenly he was sliding across the ground, a snapping, chittering bug lunging for his exposed throat. The human moved to put a bullet through his attacker, before realizing his hands were empty. So he threw an elbow instead, knocking the changeling aside just enough for it to miss his throat, and nearly tear off his ear instead. Ignoring the new stinging pain in the side of his head, Gerald slipped his hands around his attacker’s throat, squeezing with all his might, but the creature’s exoskeleton didn’t give. Screeching in anger, the bug snapped at his neck once more, but was held mere inches away by the human’s squeezing fingers.

Muscles screaming, Gerald thought frantically for a way out. Sweat coursed from his throbbing brow and pooled dangerously close to his eyes, blurring and burning in his vision.

An idea formed, and Jer quickly latched onto it.

Straining to hold back his thrashing attacker, Jer slipped his right hand higher on its throat, working his thumb up the bug’s jawling, across its cheek, and finally into its sky-blue eye socket. The bug quickly tried to close its eye but Jer had already began screwing his thumb under the round, soft curve of the creature’s cornea. The changeling let out a terrified shriek and tried to pull away, but Gerald held it fast against his body.

There was a flash of green, and suddenly he was holding a squirming, screeching mare—white on purple; bleeding; struggling to be free.

Another flash, and he was holding Cymbal, his green coat covered in slick, green blood and orange vomit. Gerald quickly tried to remember who threw up, but was stopped by another flash of green magic. Now he was torturing Pinkie; then Sparky; the ticket mare from the train station; Shining Armor; a toy version of Celestia…

Grinning evilly, Jer pressed harder. There was a sickening pop, and he felt his thumb plunge into a pool of cold, thick jelly. Faux-Celestia screamed in agony, wings flapping; buzzing; flapping; buzzing—Jer was holding a changeling and his hand was covered in ooze and there was still screaming, screaming, screaming!

Roaring angrily, Gerald threw the screeching bug away and staggered to his feet. “Five!” he howled to the falling sky, daring anything else to take a swing at him. He felt nothing, high on adrenaline and murder, and he was loving every second of it—except for the screaming.

THE FUCKING SCREAMING!!!

Whipping his head around, he scanned the area. There had been five changelings—three that attacked the wagon—three dead—where were the other two? An angry grunt to his left prompted Jer to turn around, quickly finding his gun laying next to a dying changeling (number four) and Chuckles beating the snot out of another while Cymbal looked on in horror—“Motherbuckers destroyed my wife’s good cart! I’ll kill you! Then she’ll kill me-he-heeee!”

“Four down,” the human thought quickly, stooping to pick up his firearm. He pointed it at the changeling struggling to escape Chuckle’s clutches, pulling the trigger, only for it to click: empty. “Where’s the last one?”

A spiteful hiss quickly answered his question.

Fumbling at his inner pocket, Jer pulled out two bullets—a set of ten he had kept… for mercy purposes. A magazine slid, slugs clicked, and the human turned, finding about a dozen children huddled behind one of the two columns flanking the museum’s enormous doors—still shrieking hysterically, mind you—and one purple schoolteacher, changeling drone latched to the back of her neck, two curved fangs buried deep in her spinal cord.

The changeling tensed, and the mare underneath it moaned loudly, an odd smile on her face. She spoke, words slow, sounding cloudy; drugged.

“Ooo! Oh, M-Macintosh keep doing that, love…”

“Keeping pony shields, eh? Cowards.”

“Kill them. Kill them both. Fucking do it you weakling!”

“Stay angry, Asshole. Stay angry.”

Gerald took a shaky step forward. The adrenaline was beginning to wear off, and his leg screamed at him to stop. Another step; another.

He was five feet away when Cheerilee noticed him.

“You!” the mare hissed, glaring hot death at the approaching human. “Stay away from us! We don’t want you around, you monster!” Jer could see her deteriorating right before his eyes: cheeks thinning, fur becoming pallid, crazed light draining from her eyes. The changeling—jaws still clenched around Cheerilee’s neck—snarled, and the purple mare shivered in weak ecstasy, eyes rolling back into her head like sunken marbles.

Jer kept walking, and the mare screamed:

“Get away from him! Don’t you dare touch my Snoopy-Doo!”

Gerald grimaced, ignoring her; ignoring the screams, and raised his pistol. He was right on top of them, and neither pony nor changeling moved away. Why didn’t they at least try to escape? Jer got closer, waiting for the bug to make a run for it so he could shoot it without damaging the schoolteacher.

It wasn’t until he pressed the muzzle of his weapon to the small bridge of chitin between the changeling’s eyes that Jer realized that he was now at the center of a hostage situation.

Damn he was out of it. He could have gotten Cheerilee killed just walking up like that…

No matter. He was there now.

Jer pressed his gun harder against his adversary, causing its fangs to dig deeper into the flesh above Cheerilee’s withers. She was raging now—practically frothing at the mouth—and Gerald was almost certain she took a snap at his thigh, but he didn’t have time to think about that at the moment.

Hostage situation…

What did the Company say about hostage situations?

The drone snarled again, dripping blood-laced saliva as its eyes narrowed into dangerous slits. Jagged, tubular ears flattened against black exoskeleton, and Jer could feel hot, cloying breath flow around his hand as he pressed his weapon down harder.

Oh… Gerald remembered, now…

“Six,” the human whispered—a breeze drifting at the edge of a raging typhoon.

As if sensing what was to come, the drone’s horn lit up like a sickly, green flare, heating the air directly in front of the exterminator. Without a second thought, Jer angled his gun to the horizontal and pulled the trigger. There was a flash of heat and light and painful blubbering screams, and Jer quickly closed his eyes as he was peppered with blood and sharp slivers of chitin.

… Weyland-Yutani didn’t negotiate with terrorists, bugs, or tax-evaders… and neither did he.

The wails; the wails; the wails came then, shrill and blaring—some real, others merely perceived.

“MAC! Oh my goddesses, Macintosh!”

“It hurts, Jay-Jay! It hurts so much!”

“Cheerilee!”

“Ms. Cheerilee!?”

“Jerry, why-y-y? Kill meee!”

“Lord, the screaming… the screaming! Make it stop!” Jer fell to his knees next to a weakly writhing; sobbing Cheerilee, fists pounding at his temples. “Get it out of my head!”

So many voices: so many memories. They would kill him—burst his head right open like a ripe melon. Close now, Gerald though he heard the roar of an engine, but he wasn’t sure of reality anymore.Everything screamed; and then nothing; nothing; nothing; nothing; nothing!

Stinging rocked Gerald backward, landing him on his ass, and the world blurred back to reveal a shadow—tall, dressed to kill—standing above him. An arm cocked back, and Raymond was there, slapping him.

Again.

Burnt and stinging and broken, Gerald caught his former sergeant’s arm. They stayed that way a moment, ringed with children and leaking blood, before Ray spoke:

“Four.”

Jer smiled, eyes focusing on a point that was nowhere and everywhere. “Six.”

“Day’s just beginning,” the scarred human continued, freeing himself and crouching level with his friend. “You gonna clock out?”

“Fuck no.”

“Then let’s go.” He held out a calloused hand, blue eye like a sharp glacier in a field of sweat, scars, and light, buzzed hair.

The former corporal refocused himself, latching onto the outstretched arm—the life preserver cast into Gerald’s personal ocean of screams. “Thanks, Sarge.”

They stood up, and Jer’s world lurched.

“I’m not your sergeant, Asshole.”

“Love you, too, Ray.”

Raymond reached a hand into his jacket and pulled out a black drug-pouch, unzipping it with his teeth—other hand still cinched around Jer’s wrist—and slipped out a pneumatic needle. He looked to Jer for permission, and his partner nodded. Jer felt the needle jam into his upper thigh, punching right through Rarity’s dress pants, and felt a cooling numbness slowly spread throughout his body. The pain dulled, all that remained were the screams and static—but it was easier now, the ignoring.

“Stimulant.”

“Jer, you know what that does t—”

“Give me the stim, Ray.”

Another hiss of gas and icy sting of adrenaline later, the screams grew—expanded—drowning out the static of the downed radio: wailing and roaring inside Jer’s skull.

But he could ignore it now.

“Kill me, Jerry. Please just kill me!”

Jer had a job to do.

“J-Jerreeeeeeeeeee—!”

Corporal Hanes stood up straight, comfortably numb and practically writhing with manic, jittering energy. Excited, he turned away from his former sergeant and took in the scene:

Cymbal and Chuckles stand a respectful distance away, the yellow stallion covered in viscous changeling blood—“Good for him!”

Cheerilee lay not three feet to his left, staring up at him with dull, expressionless eyes. A thin trail of torn skin and burnt fur slashed across her withers—most likely from the bullet Jer used on the changeling sucking her dry—between a pair of broken, ivory fangs still embedded in her spine—“Ooo… that’s gonna be a bitch to remove… Oh well!”

About a dozen fillies and colts trembled behind a Doric column to Jer’s right, all no older than eight by his estimate. He recognized the little pink filly and her friend from before and waved. They cringed and fled to the back of their peers, all of whom were looking upon him with trepidation. A few of the braver ones—namely a tiny pinto colt and a dark purple unicorn filly—were inching towards their fallen teacher. Jer gestured to her and nodded, bringing them running, before turning to survey the damage.

Four changelings lay bleeding out on the marble, laying in pools of their own fluids as their uninjured brethren flew on above. It appeared that they had entered the eye of the storm… for the time being. Jer spotted the jeep at the bottom of the stairs and Ray running back up the steps toward them. His suit still looked rather presentable—“Bastard”—and he was carrying two pulse rifles—“Nevermind!” His leg still appeared to be giving him trouble, so Jer decided to try and meet him half-way. He took a step—his leg was just a dull throb now—and quickly closed the distance, stopping only to bring a heel down on one of the still plaintively squealing changelings with a wet crunch.

A loud crack from his pistol ended the other, trying to scrape its glowing innards back into its chest cavity. A sick smile spread across Jer’s face and he kicked the body of the armored soldier—the first he’d killed at the museum—down the chipped, stone steps of the museum, producing a carnival of clanking, crashing metal.

Raymond appeared moments later, and Jer happily received his generous gift of firepower.

Cold metal slid against blood-slicked hands as Jer looked over his gun—Company standard, M41–AT “Trannie” Pulse Rifle. Weyland sure knew how to make a thing of beauty. Gerald felt a perverse urge to kiss the weapon, but restrained himself, settling for a loving caress as he deactivated the rifle’s safety switch.

He tilted it left and gave the magazine a smack to make sure it was secure—95 explosive plasma rounds in the hole. Oh baby was it time to party or what? A surge of pink distracted the human for a moment, but it was only a large hunk of drifting magic. For a second there he was almost certain… that it, well… nah.

“Drugs’r making me see things.”

Ray slid into place next to him, nudging him lightly on the elbow and they both looked down on the burning pony city. The swarm, like a patch of twinkling, green night moving across the sky, was descending upon the entertainment district to the east: three blocks of theaters, restaurants and museums in the shadow of a looming, fortress of sorts—a guardhouse, perhaps? The southern suburbs stood ablaze, pouring black smoke into the noon sky amongst wispy snow and eldritch flames.

Screams rose and fell to the east, the swarm moved on, and Gerald’s pulse was pounding like a motherfucker.

“Do something,” a voice—weak, so very weak—sounded from below. Jer glanced down to find Cheerilee laying on her side, thin chest heaving. She must have crawled closer… rather foolish considering her condition. The two foals from before sat quietly beside her, looking out over the capitol in pained awe. “Please. You h-have to do something.”

Jer shifted his gaze back to the smoking horizon. “What’s our contract with Celestia say, again?”

“We free creatures, Raymond Schaffer and Gerald Hanes, do hereby agree to serve as escorts and protectors of the Elements of Harmony for the duration of their stay in Canterlot on May the Seventh, 1102 After Discord, to the point of death if the need should arise.”

“Company Shore Directive?”

“Exterminators First-Class of the Independent Earth Anti-Terrorist Coalition are to—when free of primary Weyland-Yutani objective—actively assess all threat of infestation on any and all celestial bodies within the vicinity of Company-mandated shore leave. Authorization to purge with extreme prejudice granted.”

“Well all right then,” Jer smirked, slinging his rifle over one shoulder. “Looks like shore leave just got cancelled.”

“We never had it to begin with.”

“Whatever. Our deal with Celestia is now secondary to purging ourselves a Class IV. Agreed?”

“Agreed.”

“And if we just so happen to receive any information on the Elements, then we’ll just have to save them for resources’ sake, right?”

“Right.”

Jer snorted, wiping his nose on one sleeve, and spat on his shoe. “Then let’s get the children into the back of the jeep—AY! Cymbal!” Jer shouted, startling the green unicorn—who had also been watching his city burn to the ground, though with slightly differing emotions—into turning toward the two humans. Chuckles stirred from his place next to the other stallion and gave Gerald his attention as well. “You and Chuckles get the children and Purple here into the back of the jeep, got it?”

Both stallions nodded, quickly trotting toward the gaggle of children closer to the museum doors.

“All right,” Gerald chuckled, slowly beginning to walk down the museum steps. An evil smile spread his lips wide, teeth jittering from the adrenaline. “Let’s paint the town green.”

14: Hospice

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Chapter 14

*The Battle of Canterlot; Intermission*

“Lieutenant! We’ve got incoming!”

“Hold the line! Hold the line, dammit!”

Colored flame lanced back and forth, searing sky and eye and flesh. The swarm was coming, and what was left of the Royal Guard had its hooves full.

Sergeant Sun Flare galloped away from his squad on the front line, singed wing hanging limp at his side, and burst into the small tent thrown together under the Canterlot Memorial Hospital. “One of their scouts got away! The swarm will be here any minute!”

Commanding Officer of the Night Guard, Daemon Moonfire—a horned thestral spawned under the full moon by a unicorn and serpent—rose to his hooves. With the capture of Captain Armor, “Luna’s Favored Daemon” was the only officer qualified to lead the scattered Canterlot Guard. Yellow, slitted eyes flickered open, and the Captain simply stared, tufted ears twitching. Sgt. Flare sat, breathing heavily just inside the flap, waiting.

Softly, like a light breeze under the moonlight, the Captain spoke:

“You are injured, Sergeant.”

Flare blinked, frowning. “Just… Just a flesh wound, Sir.”

The Daemon’s nostrils flared. “I can smell it.”

The burnt pegasus shuddered and took a step back, ignoring the stinging pain in his wing. “What are your orders, Sir?” Moonfire stood, midnight-blue aura flaring in the darkened tent, and a blackened, jagged sickle erupted from the ether, floating at the officer’s side.

“Pull back to the hospital,” the thestral lilted, inserting a pair of special darkened lenses over his ultra-sensitive eyes. “The civilians must be protected at all costs. Set traps on the main doors and windows, and station ponies—”

Buzzing filled the air, cutting the Daemon off mid sentence, and the two soldiers quickly rushed out into the daylight. Another Changeling patrol had spotted the small operations tent, and a mass of over ten drones quickly descended upon the two Equestrians.

“Let none escape.”

Magic flared, and Moonfire’s sickle lopped one of the charging bugs in half, top half writhing madly in the air before landing with a wet crunch. The sergeant leapt into the fray alongside his superior, bucking and slashing with the short-sword in his muzzle whenever he got the chance… until they changed.

Flashes of green mana erupted all around, and suddenly he was fighting himself; and the Daemon; and himself. Copies fought all around as one mass, some still flitting through the air above on perfect replicas of Flare’s injured wing.

He was so concentrated on picking out his own clones to kill that he didn’t notice the unnatural roaring, and only realized they had company when the first of the flying clones exploded in a shower of feathers and green fluid.

Clones left and right shrieked and chattered in the changeling language as a monstrosity of metal and clattering explosions topped the hill to the east, speeding into the fray between the farmer’s market and Luna’s wing of the hospital. Streaks of light and sound flew in an endless fountain from what appeared to be a small cannon on its back manned by two stallions—one deep green; the other, cheerful yellow—peppering the soldiers above and stealing limbs, wings and heads in a shower of changeling blood.

The machine skid to a halt not five yards away, and two tall—impossibly tall—creatures emerged from the vehicle’s sides, extra metal appendages blazing. Dodging a flash of changeling balefire from a copy of his commanding officer, Sgt. Flare remembered the briefing he and his squad received two days ago.

“… creatures are considered extremely dangerous. Neither threaten them, nor stand in their way, for the sake of yourselves and the Elements of Harmony, whom the ‘humans’ are tasked to protect…”

Flare bucked the Daemon copy in the face, stabbing his sword into the creature’s heaving chest, when he felt something nip him in the flank; fiery pain lanced down his left hind-leg and it took everything he had to keep from collapsing.

“Red,” rumbled a new voice—the taller human stood above him, now.

“Green!” shouted another, raspier voice, and Flare heard a changeling shriek in agony several yards away.

Flaming hail pinged against a charging Sun Flare, spraying blood but doing little to slow it down. “Green,” the tall human—still standing over the Flare as he struggled to pull out his sword—grumbled, and another gout of weapon’s fire ripped the changeling apart.

“Green.”

“Green!”

“Red!”

“Green.”

And then there was silence…

“What’re you at?” shouted the further human as it stooped down to lift up Moonfire—the real one from the looks of him—who seemed to have succumbed to the humans’ weaponry in much the same way Flare had.

“Twelve,” growled the taller human, moving away toward the metal vehicle where the two stallions from before stood waiting.

“Bullshit! You’re counting Chuckle’s kills!”

“I’m really, very uncomfortable with this!” the yellow stallion shouted back from the vehicle. “Cymbal’s the one who pulls the trigger; not me!”

“Y'know, for a comedian you're one hell of a downer, Chucks.” Suddenly, a pair of slate, grey eyes appeared in front of him, and Flare flinched back. “S’yer name soldier?”

“S-Sergeant Sun Flare, Sir.”

“Don’t ‘Sir’ me, asshole,” the human chuckled, sitting back on his heels and giving the sergeant an appraising look. He had a very narrow jaw-line, and what little fur he had was singed and melted in patches across is skull… and—was that an ear?—one of its ears was half torn off. “I need you to do me a favor.”

Flare nodded, glancing toward the other human, who appeared to be lifting small fillies and colts of all shapes, sizes and colors out from under a tarp in the back of their vehicle. The green stallion, using magic, pulled a purple earth mare out as well, draping her over his back.

“Take the children inside the hospital—I’m assuming that’s your refugee center, right?” The sergeant nodded again. “Good. Take tem inside and keep ‘em safe.” The human slipped a glass and metal tablet from his jacket, and Flare heard a soft beeping. “Just out of curiosity, what’s that huge building overlooking the entertainment district that’away?” he asked, pointing east.

“The Armory,” lilted Moonfire. The Daemon had limped over without either of them noticing, and was seated right behind the human. “That is where you will find the mares you seek.”

“The Elements are secondary,” the human said, turning to the Daemon. “You in charge around here?”

“Yes. I am Moonfire, Daemon of the Night Guard.”

“Fine, whatever. I’m gonna need you to take this.” He pulled a small, boxy object from his suit-jacket and handed it to Moonfire. “If you see the Elements, push the red button and call for us. Push to talk, release to listen, got it?”

“And where do you plan to go?” the Daemon asked, tucking the communication device into his chest-plate. “The swarm will arrive here any minute, and the remainder of the guard will be routed. This gift will be of little use when we’re all dead.”

The human smiled cruelly, turning to his companion who was still busy escorting the foals into the hospital. “I fucking told you they would come this way!” Turning back to the Daemon, he spoke again, snorting. “Don’t worry about that. They’ll be too busy chasing after us to worry about you guys.”

“And what makes you so sure of that?” Flare asked, incredulous.

“Because my name’s Jer,” the human chuckled, standing. He raised his weapon to the sky, resting it on his shoulder, “And I’m the mother-fucking ‘Love Machine’."

Tranquility.

Quietude.

How Discord hated it.

The impatient draconequus watched his reflection change—flickering and wobbling like a withdrawn druggie in need of a fix—in the sparkling Canterlot waterfall. His whole body itched; burned to release something—anything!—chaotic. It was killing him, it was, and the faint sounds of pain and death above did little to lighten his mood.

Canterlot had fallen, and that was good. The Changeling Queen must have taken Discord’s advice and ordered her soldiers in the old ways of shape-shifting kind—how he made them… but that didn’t help the damned itching. Not in the slightest.

“Ordersss, My Lord?” rasped a changeling—a lieutenant, apparently—as it waited at the edge of the Canterlot catacombs for its new master to move; blink; make a sign that he was still alive.

Discord raised an arm, snapping his claws and turning the waterfall into a stream of semi-liquid stone, shattering the relative silence with the sound of crashing rock and grinding mineral. The itching didn’t stop.

“Come ON, Dizzy! Nopony will find you beneath the castle like this! Just let loose a little bit…”

No. The seeds must be sown. Only then could chaos be reaped.

“Hehe…” Discord smiled wonkily to himself, “Agriculture metaphors are the best…”

Changelings—an entire platoon, as Chrysalis promised him—buzzed agitatedly from the darkness behind him, and Discord snorted. He certainly had plenty of witnesses that to testify against him should Celestia catch wind of any extra chaos around the city… too bad none would ever get the chance to do so.

Snapping his claws once more and appearing right next to the changeling lieutenant, Discord wrapped his lion’s paw around it in a big, companionable hug. “Do you see that wonderfully wild forest down there?” He felt the changeling nod. “Hide at its fringes and wait until nightfall. We’ve got harvesting to do.”

15: "Secondary", My Flank

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Chapter 15

*The Battle of Canterlot, Part II*

“Aaaaaaand we’re back, baby!”

“That’s right, Chicago! President ‘Dusky’s dinky, little raids ain’t got shit on us! We’re like a sale on gasoline—impossible to find! We’re fucking Supramen!”

“We’ve been off the air for, what? Four hours?”

“I think that’s a new record, Mikey.”

“I think so, too, Robby.”

“Then let’s fucking SE-LUH-BRATE!”

Fire spewed like the fountains of Canterlot Square, painting the dark, insect-infused sky with fireworks of green gore. Changelings screamed through the air—living projectiles wreathed in green flame—trying to skewer the chassis of the roaring, metal monster that was attacking them. They missed, but the concussive force of their landing rocked the speeding vehicle back and forth, forcing Raymond to grip the wheel until his fists were bone-white against the molded, plastic helm.

“It’s working!” Jer cackled, rifling through the duffel and pulling out another magazine for his gun. “They’re following us!” A bump nearly sent the mag flying, but Jer was just barely able to keep hold of it, slipping it into his rifle with a satisfying ‘clack’. “Y’think they’d chase faster if we got the stallions making out again?”

“BUCK you, Boss!” Cymbal shouted, horn glowing a dull green as he depressed the rotary trigger with his magic. “What in Tartarus are we even doing!?! I’m a bucking musician! Not a… Not…”

“It’s not murder, kid. It’s defensive retaliation!” roared the yellow stallion as he spun the bullet-spewing cannon across the converging swarm above. His left eye twitched and he gave Jer a nervous look. “Right, Boss?”

“Aw, fuck, not you too!” Ray heard Gerald yell, spinning back around and bumping the driver’s elbow with his rifle. “I’m not your damned boss! Just fucking kill them!”

The radio blared, and Raymond heard the yellow stallion in back growl.

“Is that a human love song?” he shouted above the clatter.

“Seriously?” Cymbal quipped, “You’re bringing this up now?”

“Yes! I’m definitely bringing it up now!”

“You got a problem with love songs?” Gerald asked, gripping the roll-cage as Raymond made another sharp turn.

“It’s the principle of the thing,” the yellow stallion yelled, swinging the rotary left and right, spraying the swarm above. He turned toward the front for a moment, switching places with Cymbal as he reached a hoof toward the radio. “Stallion sings a heartfelt verse about compassion and bucking under the moonlight, and mares flock to him. That never works, and it pisses me off that musicians make so many bits off of them! It’s mino-manure! Besides, we’re being chased by love-suckers! What if it makes them stronger or something!”

Ray pushed the encroaching hoof back and snorted. The music could barely be heard over the sounds of cannon-fire and endless buzzing, but Raymond switched it off anyway, taking a sharp right to avoid a pile of rubble that might have once been a set of posh apartments. Gerald whooped and fired his weapon into the swarm above. A loud click brought a curse to the stim-high human’s lips, and he turned in his seat to reach into the duffel at Chuckle’s hooves for another magazine.

The jeep rocked, and suddenly there was a changeling soldier snapping at Ray’s throat, clinging to the open side of the driver’s seat. Raymond flinched back, and the creature’s gnashing fangs sliced the air. Letting go of the wheel, he brought his fist crashing into the bug’s snout. The changeling’s head snapped backward, and, shrilly-screeching cut off with a sharp snap, was tugged away in a spray of blood and splinters by an overturned taxi-cart.

Raymond cracked his knuckles on the wheel and grimaced, swerving down a side street to avoid a blockade of stone that used to be a guard tower. “Anything on the tablet?” he yelled amidst the sporadic, tinny pops of Gerald’s rifle and the steady beat of the rotary.

A smaller changeling bounced off the windshield, cracking the glass and sliding off into the air above. He heard Chuckles grunt and yell something about his head, but ignored it in favor of the wall of green fire suddenly springing up in front of their vehicle. The exterminator frowned and put the pedal to the floor, and, Gerald laughing like a little kid on a roller coaster, they sped straight through the flames. Fire washed around them in one, great wave, and when the jeep burst through the other side, Ray spotted the source of the jeep’s new set of soot-stains: a line of changeling mages standing firmly in their path.

Several thumps later, they were once again out in the open—Royal Armory towering above them, still a few miles distant.

“You say something, Sarge?!” Gerald shouted above the rotary, his own rifle set in his lap.

“Got anything on the tablet?” Ray repeated, keeping a straight course with the castle. They were ahead of the swarm at that point, and the driver wanted to keep it that way for a second. He kept his foot firmly planted on the gas, and the shrieks of pain and rage grew slightly quieter; fire from the rotary, louder.

Ray saw Gerald slip his tracker from his jacket pocket out of the corner of his eye. He held it against the sun in front of his face to cut down on the glare, slowly turning to the right as he looked at the screen. “We’re still going in the right direction, and it looks like they’re still—”

A flash of green cut the Ray’s companion off, an the human gave a pained hiss. Raymond glanced left just in time to see Jer quickly toss the melted tablet onto the blurring street. The former corporal hunched inward, clutching at his blistered hand and growling through gritted teeth.

Burnt-flesh smell tinged the Canterlot breeze.

“MotherFUCK!” Gerald whined, looking at his blackened fingers in disbelief. “Motherfuck!”

“Boss?!” came a concerned cry from the back of the jeep. “Boss, what happened?!”

“Shut up and fire, damn it!” Ray growled, voice reverberating in the already shaking vehicle. Cymbal was silent, cowed by the exterminator’s authority-laced tone, and the jeep bounced past the sprawled bodies of a tour group, huddled together in their last moments: a shriveled mass of crayola-esque fur and flesh.

Jer punched the dashboard, face flushed in pain and scream sifted through clenched jaws. He snatched up his rifle with his left hand, supporting the barrel with his right forearm, and stood, facing back toward the changeling swarm: the expanding, black cloud filling Ray’s rearview mirror, raining broken, black bodies.

Explosive slugs joined the stream of fire flowing from the twitching, jerking rotary cannon, tracing white lines through the afternoon sky.

What was once rain became a bloody downpour.

Raymond turned his attention back to the Armory in the distance: another black cloud hung low over the fortress-like building, obscuring buttresses and colorful, plate windows. Ray thought briefly back to Celestia’s proud smile when she mentioned the “searing, prismatic beam of pure magical energy” that was the Elements of Harmony. The idea had certainly piqued the human’s curiosity (Jer, perhaps, more so), and if the Elements truly were a super weapon, Raymond had the feeling he would be seeing the results of their power any moment. “Either that,” he thought, heart sinking as he watched the swarm over the armory condense, “or I never will.”

Determined grimace set over his scarred face, Ray milked as much speed as possible from the dune jeep, and, slowly, their destination grew closer.

The jeep bounced, and Raymond had to jerk left to avoid a deep crack running through the cobbled street. An ejected magazine bounced off his lap and into the space at his feet, and Raymond heard Jer grunt next to him, attempting to load the penultimate of their present rifle clips into his weapon with only one arm. Good eye flickering between the road and Gerald, the former sergeant noticed something that made his stomach turn.

The Armory was clear as day. The swarm had disappeared.

“Jer! Twelve o’ clock!”

Gerald whipped around, finally sliding his magazine home, and scanned ahead. A particularly bad bump made him stumble, and he quickly gripped the jeep sidewall for support.

“I don’t see anything, Sarge! There’s nothing there!”

“I know!” Raymond yelled, eye still locked on the structure ahead. Realization soon dawned on the corporal, and his eyes narrowed as he scanned the sky around them.

“Well, shit... nine o’ clock!”

Ray glanced left, and sure enough there they were: a narrow wisps and bends of insects in flight over the southern half of the market district, heading toward the courthouse. Waves branched off of the second swarm, merging with their own pursuers and swelling drunkenly behind the jeep. “Keep an eye on them,” he yelled, slowing ever so slightly around a pothole the size of an apartment, “We’ll check the Armory for bodies.”

Gerald glared at the westbound swarm angrily. “If the girls’re hurt—”

“Then we purge the planet of them, lack of fuel or no, as contract dictates,” Raymond interrupted, catching the slate eyes of his counterpart as he slid back to a seated position. They sat in silence for a moment, surrounded by buzzing and huffing and streaming, pinging fire. A blast of changeling magic washed over the back bumper, prompting sharp hisses from the two stallions working the rotary and a frustrated tug on the wheel from Raymond, trying to avoid further hits.

“How the hell haven’t they cornered us yet?!” yelled Cymbal, taking a turn at aiming and firing as the lighter stallion cringed against the back seats, nursing his lumped head. “There’s over a thousand of them, and they just bee-line after us!”

“What are you saying?” Chuckles groaned. “They’re trying to distract us?”

“How should I know?!” the musician shouted, swinging on his haunches to get a better angle. A pair of changeling drones buzzing in from the side were torn apart in a hail of .50 caliber rounds, and Cymbal swung the rotating barrel back towards the sky. “I’m just a bucking drummer!”

“Cool it back there,” Jer snapped, shifting his weapon to check the ammunition load-out. “We’re almost to the Armory, so get those fucking bugs off our backs already!”

Cymbal started yelling a retort—perhaps a complaint about the lack of fire support, or maybe that there were far too many changelings for him to kill by himself—but was cut of by the sharp whine of a COM connection.

“...are! Come in! This is Sergeant Sun Flare with the Equestrian Royal Guard! Humans! Pick up, damn it!”

Ray was about to grab the wiry palm-communicator attached to the radio when Jer quickly snatched it from its home, fumbling with his severely burned right hand and wincing through his clenched jaw.

His arm trembled as he held the COM in front of his lips.

“What, Sergeant?” he barked, shrugging his shoulders anxiously, hypnotically, as burnt fingers pressed mercilessly on the ‘transmit’ button. Raymond could see the stimulant finally begin wearing down on his partner, and reminded himself to prep another one when they got to the armory.

Glancing to the former corporal’s blood-soaked thigh and torn ear, Raymond considered another morphine as well.

“Elements west-bound. Carried by changeling soldiers above the market district and toward the courthouse. Please advise.”

“Create a distraction,” Jer obliged, nudging Ray and pointing him down a narrow alley that would take them toward the market district. Schaffer turned the corner, plowing through refuse and a few stiffening bodies as speeding bullets ricocheted along the narrow stone passage, tearing into any who dared brave the small space between buildings in pursuit of the humans and their pony accomplices. “Try and lead as many away from the courtyard as possible, back toward the castle if you have to.”

“A distraction?! There’s too many of—”

Jer racked the handheld transmitter and powered down the radio, cutting off the shouting stallion before he could finish his half-baked complaint. The angry human quickly asserted himself as a side-seat driver.

“Left, here: down that alley… LEFT! Left, damnit! We’re trying to lose them! Not lead them back with us! Throw some twists and turns in this shit!”

Schaffer grit his teeth and briefly glared at his friend with all the venom he could muster, and the shorter human quickly clammed up, looking apologetic. His fingers twitched and jittered over his rifle; his lap; his blackened hand. The former sergeant skid down another, perpendicular alley, and the swarm sifting among the rooftops above quieted somewhat. Gerald spoke up again, quieter, like the bugs up above: “I just don’t want to hear any more screaming, Ray. Do you understand? No more.”

Raymond understood.

“No more, Sarge.”

“Yeah, Jerry. No more.”

It was then that the rotary ran out of ammunition.

Changelings buzzed frantically around the courthouse—over, around, through—in a sporadic, black orbit. They perched on trellis and bulwark and ledge, flitting about in eager, swelling anticipation.

Double doors opened, and six bright mares were whisked inside on gossamer wings, right past Daemon Moonfire’s position: a small, traditional cloak-house at the edge of the courtyard, flush with the southern cliffs leading to the thin strip of buildings that was the central market district. It was dark, cramped, and smelled of old ponies and mothballs.

The Daemon felt right at home.

“Stallions in position, Sir,” whispered Sun Flare from the rafters above. The injured Sergeant had flapped up there painfully in order to keep an eye on their soldiers in the city below. “Should I give the order?”

“Allow me.”

The midnight thestral slinked from the smeared front window toward the open crevasse that was the rear air-vent—meant to reduce the musty smell, perhaps—and tilted his horn out over the cliffs.

Concentrating, Moonfire tugged at the life surrounding them. Hearts beating in the hay—a family of mice—ragged breathing from the rafters—Sgt. Flare—and hundreds of chittering, eager insects gathering outside flowed together into his sickle-shaped horn, bursting forth in a shower of purple sparks over the precipice and the buildings below: the signal to begin.

Down below, one hundred sixteen Solar and Lunar Guards thought of their mothers.

Wives.

Children.

Family.

Luna’s Favored Daemon felt the changelings—their insistent buzzing—subside into silence, and the creaking of nearly five hundred chitinous necks twisting southward took its place. Moonfire smiled reservedly.

It was summertime.

Love was in the air.

Concentrating again, the thestral showered the air with another spout of sparking manalight, and his forces began to move, loved ones still paramount in their minds, deeper into the district below: to the old Star-Struck Theater.

They began shouting, screaming, beating at their armor, and then, his soldiers nearly safe, prepared for their last stand in the windowless showroom, Moonfire heard what he was waiting for.

Changeling wings began to beat.

Soon they were everywhere, swarming past the window in a blur of black and blue and sickly green. Each burning with a lust for food—for love—they flew: quickly now, too fast to notice two stallions waiting in the dark. Moonfire watched them go, his sergeant waiting patiently alongside. To the southeast, another, smaller swarm rose from Canterlot Hotel Circle and joined the first, all converging on the theatre.

“Check the courtyard, Sergeant.”

“Yes, Sir.”

He heard the door open, close; heard hooves move softly away on the grass, then nothing. Moonfire simply watched the city below—the Star-Struck, his soldiers—and hoped.

In the distance, a familiar roaring arose from the buzz, and the Daemon smiled.

“’The Elements are secondary’, my flank…”

Something big and metal and round crashed to the cobblestones just outside the “Three Pony” luxury hotel.

“I’m sorry!”

“Fuck, Cymbal! How could you possibly drop the canister!”

“It slipped!”

“But what about magic! Fucking magic, damn it!”

“Shut up and hang on. We’re almost there.”

“But what about—where the fuck did they go?! Chuckles did you see them?”

A yellow muzzle poked out from under the cargo tarp. “Y-You serious?” the bright pony it belonged to groaned. “I can’t even open my eyes.”

Up above, the sky was clear, and, aside from the screaming and the sound of the jeep, there was no noise. Not a single drone, mage, or soldier was chasing them, and Gerald Hanes wasn’t worried one bit: disappointed maybe, and perhaps hysterically angry, but not worried per-se. Granted, a swarm of bugs chasing them when they got to the courthouse would make things a bit more difficult, Cymbal having lost their second and, unfortunately, last canister of rotary ammunition. But Jer was high, and he didn’t care.

They burnt his hand, scratched his jeep, tried to murder a group of children and their teacher, drained half a city of its life force, and threw him and his partner out a goddamn window.

Jer was fucking pissed. He hadn’t truly felt that way in awhile. It was freeing.

“I… I think my skull is fractured.”

The seething human looked down from his position—crouching in the passenger seat, facing backward—and found Chuckles crawling out from under the tarp. A changeling corpse had bounced off the back of his head at high speeds almost an hour ago, but he looked all right: head wasn’t crushed or caved in or anything. Gerald reached into the driver’s seat, fumbling inside his friend’s jacket while keeping an eye on the sky—Ray only grunted—and pulled out a serum pouch. Selecting a clear syringe of morphine, he leaned over the back seats and stabbed the yellow stallion in the flank with the thing, pneumatic cylinder injecting the pony with icy relief with a sharp hiss.

Honestly, the morphine probably didn’t do much for the poor earth pony, as resistant to everything chemically influential as they were—“learned that from Pinkie Pie”—but, once again, Jer was stimmed beyond reason and he didn’t care.

It worked on him, so, logically, it would work on Chuckles.

Fucking impatient fuck—fuck!

The yellow stallion winced as Jer retracted his needle, but was quiet. Perhaps it was working after all.

“Coming up on the hill,” Raymond growled, swerving to avoid various debris, detritus, and bodies, nearly making Jer fall over his seat. “Get ready.”

Buildings fell away, and Jer had to squint against the sudden influx of sunlight. He spun around, gritting his teeth as he clutched at his rifle with his charred fingers—the skin was raw, dying from the outside in, but was beginning to numb over with adrenaline. Corporal Hanes looked up, voices screaming for blood, hopefully ready for anything that came their way.

A nearly pristine, pompous building and an empty courtyard greeted him. It was rather disappointing, honestly.

The jeep slowed, and both Jer and his partner hopped out, weapons panning around the yard. Cymbal stayed in the back of the jeep, sitting on his haunches next to his friend worriedly.

Gerald’s bandstand—he didn’t really know why he felt the need to refer to it possessively—was crumpled in on itself, and that just made him even angrier. Somewhere deep in the recesses of his mind, Jer understood the irrationality of the feeling, but he ignored it. Being angry just felt too damn good.

“Clear,” Raymond muttered, lowering his weapon half-way. “Standard breach, yeh?”

Jer nodded. “Cymbal, grab the spool of thick, yellow wire.”

He heard the green stallion shuffle around a bit, when Chuckles spoke up:

“Here.”

Jer looked over just in time to catch the exchange of the spool, and Chuckles’ subsequent rise to his hooves. Both ponies hopped from the jeep, and the four of them began walking toward the courthouse.

A charging pegasus interrupted them.

“Corporal Hanes! Sergeant Sh—”

*CRACK*

“—AGH! Oh Celestia my leg! A-Ah-A—”

“Red,” Raymond observed, lowering his weapon as he approached the downed stallion. The taller human lifted the pony—a royal guard Jer recognized: Sun Smear or something—back to his hooves. Standing unsteadily, he looked at them in disbelief.

“You shot me!” he shouted, clearly very unhappy about the situation.

“Yep,” Raymond grunted, standing and leaving the hobbled stallion to balance on his own.

“Ah-Again!”

Not caring in the slightest, Raymond pointed him back toward the bandstand. “There are three fillies hiding under there. Watch them until we get back.” Gerald watched the other human quizzically, wondering what he was talking about, when he heard a small sound.

“Jerry? Ray?”

Gerald whipped around to find Sweetie Belle, halfway out from underneath the bandstand, eyes wide, scared. Behind her, just barely visible in the dark, were two other shapes. They were curled up next to each other, unmoving.

Scoots?

The concerned human didn’t make it more than a step before he felt a hand on his shoulder. “They’re fine, Jer. Just asleep.” Gerald looked over his shoulder into Ray’s cold, blue eye. “They’re fine.” His scars stretched and danced when he said that: Jer could see them. He could see everything. Every detail: the sweat, the hair, each individual line and bump and contrast. “We don’t have any more time.”

Jer looked back. Sweetie was out in the open now.

“Get back under there, kid, and keep an eye on your friends. We’ll be right back.”

They would be right back. He wasn’t lying. They would.

Suddenly, they were running. Across the courtyard, up the steps: it was all a blur of detail and color and senses. They made it to the huge, wooden doorway, and Jer became entranced with the wood grain. Everything was so much faster and yet he felt sluggish, like an observer in a sped-up world. He dimly realized that the stimulant was wearing off, probably due to mingling with morphine in his system, and fumbled around for the serum pouch he’d stolen from Raymond.

He found it in his back pocket. He didn’t recall putting it there.

Amidst rough panting and the sound of more hooves approaching, Hanes injected himself with another half-dose of adrenaline. The world slowed down, and he sped up. Finally, he could begin looking at the door in earnest.

Slinging his pulse rifle across his back and snatching—more like lugging, actually—the spool of plastic explosive from Cymbal’s magical grip, Jer got to work.

Words bled through his concentration:

“Don’t shoot! Check the wound!”

“State your business.”

“I wish to help. My soldiers are distracting the swarm, but they can only last so long.”

“Did you see how many went inside?”

Jer danced nimbly from hinge to hinge. Somewhere in the haze of creation, Raymond had lent him his combat knife, and he cut a length of wire to meet his needs. Crissing and crossing, Gerald wove his new masterpiece from hinge to hinge, frame to frame, molding to molding. The Royal Architect was nice enough to leave plenty of iron rivets and decorative carvings in the enormous door: so useful.

“Eighteen drones along with Chrysalis and the hostages.”

“And you’re positive about this?

“Yes, Sir.”

Almost done: just a few touches left.

“Everything is so… numb.”

“Chuckles, are you feeling all right? How’s your head.”

“Cold…”

“You’ll be alright, Boss, eh? The princesses are in there. They’ll fix you up good as new, okay? Hearty, can you hear me?”

“… yeah…”

Gerald felt along the inner wall of the spool until he felt a small, manufactured crack. Fingernails—“getting long”—pried it open, and he removed a pair of pre-packaged receiver caps and a detonator. The caps found homes at each end of the cord and Jer, of course, kept the detonator.

He held up the metal and plastic device, enabling it, admiring it up against the landscape of his yellow, stringy artistry. A green LED near the trigger flashed twice before remaining constant. Perversely, the shorter human was reminded of an Earth holoboard ad: one he’d seen lit up while they were cleaning out Las Vegas during the campaign.

“Green on the strip flows—drip, drip, drip. Men on the strip grow—lick, lick, lick.”

“What is your plan?”

“Take Chrysalis alive. Kill the others.” Ray raised his voice, directing it solely at Gerald this time. “Got it, Jer?”

The anarchic human’s eyes refocused, and he nodded quickly. “Yeah, yeah. Ready?”

“Ready,” Raymond answered, “Blow it, then I’ll toss this in.” He held up a chrome and rust-red canister: one of the Company issue flash-bang grenades. Did he pack those? Jer didn’t remember. He didn’t remember a lot of things right then. Should he worry?

“Nah.”

Better situating the pulse rifle against Rarity’s destroyed suit-jacket, Gerald retreated to the stairs at a slight jog. Raymond, Cymbal, Chuckles, and that weird, purplish military pony from before had had the same idea, and were already crouched below the top step.

Heart racing, Jer settled into place next to his former sergeant. “The big one’s mine,” he growled, that delicious anger returning from its short, lonely hiatus.

Ray nodded. “Alive.”

“We’ll have to do something about her magic.”

“I’ll handle it. Just immobilize her.”

Jer held up the detonator in his right hand, blackened fingers gripping painfully. “On three?”

“On three.”

Smiling cruelly, Jer began the end.

The doors blew inward in a bright flash of red and brown, and both humans stood, rushing the door. Hearty Chuckle flinched at the splinters peppering his face, not from the feeling—he couldn’t feel a thing—but from the seeing. He didn’t hurt anymore, and he didn’t know whether to be relieved or terrified.

A minute ago, Chuckles had been sure he wouldn’t last another hour… now he felt immortal, and it was scary.

The yellow stallion saw Raymond sling a small, chrome canister through the doorway, running blindly forward as the two humans ducked to either side, covering their heads. Hearty quickly scrambled left of the doorway, next to Raymond, and heard another explosion—sharper this time, ringing. Less than a second later, he was standing in the doorway with the others.

He didn’t quite recall moving.

Everypony moved slower than they should have: like insects through molasses. There were already green patches on the walls from the entry breach, and Chuckles could see the huge double doors lying splintered across the great hall. He counted seven mares and a stallion—familiar celebrities, all of them—still standing, and seventeen changelings. In comforting slow motion, Jer streaked across the room, black, green, and red bleeding away behind him. Yelling something unintelligible, he collided with the largest changeling in the room—the queen, apparently—and they both went down.

Raymond quickly followed, legs wading through thickened air. Hearty tried to follow in the taller human’s wake, but the flowing color got in his way, and he felt rooted in place, hooves nailed and shod with marble pony-shoes the size of a courthouse: THE courthouse.

It was only after his only really good friend, Cymbal, passed him, head low, horn glowing against the color and rattling gunfire streaking above, that the yellow stallion felt he could move his hooves. He crossed the divide, feeling warm, and things began to speed up.

The changeling queen lay ahead amongst the scattered bodies of her subjects, Raymond’s dulled dress shoe quivering above. It came down with a snap, shearing jagged horn from thick skull-carapace in a shower of black splinters and glowing changeling blood.

Silence reigned, broken by a shape rising from the queen’s side: Jer.

He said something, but Chuckles couldn’t hear it. He couldn’t hear or feel anything anymore, but he kept moving. Getting to the center of the room, where his friend stood watch, horn glowing, was all that mattered now.

Out of the corner of his eye, the stallion saw Chrysalis hoisted up, locked in one of the human’s forearms. He couldn’t tell the bipeds apart… they looked… so alike…

Yelling and pointing, out the window, at the changelings still surrounding the Elements of Harmony. All was a blend of screaming and shouting, and it was soooo tiring. Hearty just felt like lying down. But he couldn’t, because there were fillies running between his legs…

“Sis!” “Rarity!” “Jerry! Ray!”

“Get back! Don’t—!”

A black figure swooped by Chuckle’s left, and he swayed on his blood-caked hooves. Hearty could feel his head throbbing quietly again, but he looked up: a changeling, wings buzzing and twitching agitatedly, was almost right in front of him. It was holding something—small and struggling and white—and hissing:

“Releasssse Her!”

“SWEETIE BELLE!” The Element of Generosity was pushing, trying to escape her changeling guard detail. “LET HER GO! SHE’S JUST A FILLY!”

“Releassse our Queen, or it diesssss!”

The creature tensed, and a child wailed. Hearty felt something sick twist inside of him: it ignored him—just flew right by! Ignored him! He’d been ignored his entire life—by crowds, audiences, family—and now by members of an invading army. Did he really look that injured? Helpless? Was it because he was an earth pony?! Nearly every rational thought left Chuckles’ mind, and something snapped. A sudden burst of forest-green manalight—Cymbal, probably—shot across the room, splashing against the changeling’s horn and rocking the creature back.

Hearty Chuckle pivoted, hind-legs cocked back, and, with the very last of his strength, bucked the changeling as hard as he could.

Everything after that was a bit blurred.

The yellow stallion felt a satisfying crunch as his back hooves connected with changeling carapace, and was suddenly on his side. The room spun, and his vision began fading… darkening around the edges.

Hisses and screams reverberated in Chuckles’ skull.

Gunfire flashed—

—a streak of rainbow and silver steel pierced by chittering screeches—

—clopping hooves, buzzing wings, and pained hissing—

—two, bright flashes of purple, and near silence…

Something writhed at Chuckles’ feet, but he barely noticed. He was too busy reliving everything he had ever seen; ever known; ever felt.

Anger.

He was a colt in Manehattan again, ignored and passed up because of his coloration. In a world of grey and brown, yellow had become feminine, and therefore, in a young colt’s world, useless.

Joy.

His cutie mark was a smiling face. He could make ponies happy: make them laugh. Manehattan brightened for a day, and Hearty Chuckle became an adult.

Hope.

He was in Ponyville. Moved in six years before Nightmare Moon’s return and got a job over at the pub—Hayseed’s they called it. Looking up.

Happiness.

The bits were good; the drinks, plentiful. He’d even made a friend: a green colt who fancied himself a musician. He wasn’t all that good yet, but Chuckles was confident he’d be playing with the best of them in no time. The yellow stallion began running his jokes by the drummer before he added them to his act, and they even began collaborating on some things. Life was good.

Lust.

The rose merchant across the square. Soft, red tail flicking under his muzzle and a wink.

Hatred.

Filthy Rich tried to buy out the Hayseed to build a credit union, whatever that was, and Chuckles missed a date with Rose to organize a protest. The greasy stallion rescinded the venture a day later.

Loneliness.

Rose left, and Chuckles drank. His act suffered, and fewer ponies came to his shows. His only solace was his kinship with Cymbal, and he felt even that begin to slip away from him.

Jealousy.

Cymbal made the same amount of bits no matter the turnout. Always the same. Hearty would have to sell his apartment soon, and he felt it happening again: he was ignored.

Gratitude.

Hearty had one real friend, and that was all that mattered. Cymbal had gotten him a show at the capitol performing at the Royal Wedding. He didn’t know how he did it, but that didn’t matter either. All that mattered was that his friend knew how sorry he was. Chuckles cried at Cymbal’s hooves, and knew he would never feel as cared for as he had in that one moment.

Pain…

Chuckles was being cradled in somepony’s hooves. The throbbing in his head had become impossible to ignore, and he felt something wet against his muzzle: warmth leaking from his eyes and nose. Time had no meaning anymore. Was this a memory? Or was he really experiencing this? Somepony was shouting and sobbing something, but all Hearty could see was a light. He flicked his ears back against his head to block out the noise around him.

The light grew, and Chuckles felt heavy, as if there was a mare sitting on his chest. He couldn’t move, and he didn’t really want to anymore. There was only warmth and weight and light.

Bells chimed, and Hearty Chuckle finally felt Peace.

Another scream joined the crescendo in Jer’s skull, and he could do nothing about it.

A small crowd had gathered in the nearer to the doors, purple, blue, and pink magic flashing futilely over a dead, yellow pony and his sobbing friend. Ray stood to Jer’s left, an arm around the changeling queen’s neck and an impassive, stone mask over his face.

The court bells rang in the rafters above among streaks of rainbow mane, sounding the changeling retreat, and Jer wanted to shout at his partner—yell at him because the screaming wouldn’t end—but he couldn’t. It wasn’t his fault.

Pinkie had led the fillies away already. Jer didn’t know where. He didn’t even see them go. With that in mind, he felt himself slowly approach the crush of ponies further down the aisle.

He needed to take care of some things.

Writhing at the edge of the crowd, the last changeling—the failed negotiator—lay in agony, flashing and morphing intermittently between ponies.

It was Cymbal when he finally reached its side. Jer stooped down amidst exclamations from ponies and humans alike, all internal, and began dragging the beast down the aisle, toward its ruler.

A flash, and he was dragging Chuckles.

Another, and it was the three fillies, obscenely shifting and sticking as one.

Jer felt his gorge rise, and he threw up on the aisle rug. There was blood.

Everyone was watching him, and that spurred the human forward. Spitting to clear his throat, he kept going, dragging the changeling—Rarity, now—through blood and bile to Raymond’s feet.

Releasing the thrashing, brain-damaged changeling, Jer brought his face as close to Chrysalis’ as he could, sweat on the bridge of his nose smearing on her snout. He stared into her eyes a moment, cutting his forehead on the jagged stump where her horn used to be—the magical outlet was on the ground to his left—and smiled coldly.

“Where are they going?”

Chrysalis was silent; watching the human carefully, wet tears in the corners of her emerald eyes.

“Your soldiers: where are they going? Home? Where is it?”

“P-Please…” the queen whispered. “I…”

Jer’s smile twitched at the corner, and he gently ran a hand through her stringy, blue hair. “Shhh… shhh… It’s alright. I’m not going to hurt you.”

“Please!” she shouted, really crying now. “We were starving! W-We were tricked! I needed to feed my—my children.”

Jer licked his lips, and, still smiling, he turned and picked up Chrysalis’s horn. His leg flared, and his eyes began to water, but he ignored it. He held the sharp, irregular horn clenched in his blackened fingers and glanced at the restrained queen. “What children?”

Stooping slightly, he drove the improvised stake into the still thrashing changeling at their feet. It had taken the form of a guardpony, but the second Jer pierced its breast it stiffened and changed, opaque blue eyes wide, fangs turned up in a silent scream as air left its body.

Chrysalis shrieked and began struggling, but suddenly Gerald was back, stroking her mane and whispering:

“Shhh… its all right, now. Stop screaming…” Chrysalis just kept thrashing, but Raymond stood strong, not moving an inch, that same, impassive mask covering him.

Jer’s smile twisted into a hateful frown. “STOP! SCREAMING!” The queen fell silent, staring in fright at the raging human. Breathing out, the corporal composed himself and smiled again, angry tears in his grey eyes. “I’ll ask you one more time: where did they go?”

“I just wanted to feed my family. Please don’t kill me!” the bug pleaded. Jer did everything in his power not to simply put a bullet in her. The screams in his head were getting louder, the sobbing in the corner was getting quieter, and all he wanted to do was sleep. “Discord tricked us! Please! You can’t—”

“Ray, please put her on the ground for me.”

“No! Wait! No!” Chrysalis wailed. “Please! My children!”

“What children? I saw no children, only bugs.” Ray set Chrysalis on the marble floor, and slipped his rifle from his shoulder.

“Gerald! Don’t!” a voice called from behind. Still keeping his eyes on the bug lying prostrate before him, Jer tilted his head, acknowledging the speaker.

It was Twilight Sparkle.

“Don’t kill her,” she pleaded. “You don’t have to do this! The changelings live to the south, in the Badlands, at a place called Red Rock.”

Chrysalis looked past Jer in disbelief, tears fading as she looked on the mare who just signed her death sentence.

Not bothering to look over his shoulder, the human finally let his smile fall.

“Thank you, Sparky.”

Raising his weapon, Gerald fired.

And so ended the Battle of Canterlot.

Extra: Negotiating

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Negotiating

Raymond stood alone.

Well, technically not alone, but, then again, he rarely really was. Two guards stood watch by what used to be the courtroom doors. Everyone else was sent away—it had been a long time since he’d given any real orders—to the castle, or the hospital, or to aid in the relief effort in the lower city.

The Elements were practically dragged away by Moonfire’s battalion, except for Ms. Sparkle, who had taken to the streets in search of her family alongside her soon to be sister-in-law. Chrysalis’s execution had shaken them, but that couldn’t be helped.

It was Company policy, after all.

Ray had to admit he was sad to see them go. He genuinely enjoyed their company, but it was best they weren’t present for what came next.

The human shifted his gaze toward the gabled ceiling, eyes lighting on the dense, green cocoon that hung above, and allowed himself a small smile. He raised his rifle, and fired.

Thick stalks of resin snapped under a torrent of explosive shells and the grand chrysalis fell, crossing the ford between ceiling and floor with only the aid of Mistress Gravity and shattering into thousands of sharp, green shards. Almost immediately, a body was revealed—white flecked with green, pinkish mane limp and dead. Princess Celestia lay sprawled in the aisle, laying in no small amount of changeling blood and vomit, covered in sticky resin and perhaps changeling birthing fluid.

Raymond’s guard detail tensed, and suddenly found themselves on the receiving end of a still smoking gun barrel. They froze, but remained alert, and the human respected them for it. Respect wasn’t changing how this meeting would turn out, however, and it almost pained him to make their jobs harder.

Almost.

A shuffle from below stole the human’s attention: Celestia was coming to. Ray took a step backward over Chrysalis’s mutilated body, kicked it closer to the downed princess, and waited.

The Princess of the Sun burned. Air—the feeling of air on her skin—burned her; stung her; bit her. She was free, but at what cost? Had the transformation been a success? Celestia clenched her eyes shut further: other than the burning she felt no different. She shuffled wings, limbs, ears… heard breathing.

Her eyes snapped open, and her own breath ran short.

Chrysalis, a fellow founder of Equis, deity of the changeling people and mother of countless thousands lay before her. Half of her face was missing: a cavity of jagged carapace and glowing, green tissue lay turned up to the ceiling, her right eye dull and lifeless. Celestia could have laid there, staring in grieved disbelief, for an age if not for the blood-caked, black shoe that came crashing down upon the remainder of Chrysalis’ skull, shattering it in a shower of chitin and settling, green blood.

“Good afternoon, Princess.”

Celestia’s skin crawled, and she felt like throwing up, but she trailed her gaze upward nonetheless: shoe to burnt pantleg to stained shirt to torn tie to scarred face to blue eye…

“You live,” she coughed, throat half-filled with cold fluid. “We were *cough* worried for your safety.”

“Cut the bullshit,” the human growled. Gun pointed across the room, he stepped closer, towering above. Celestia frantically tried to move, but her muscles wouldn’t obey her, and she felt a sharp pressure at the base of her damaged horn. Her eyes flickered to her forehead: the human was standing on it.

A shout rang out across the room, and Celestia heard the sound of clattering hoof-beats. The tinny echo of gunfire against marble quickly sent her would-be saviors skidding to a stop, however, and the monarch felt her heart sink.

“Tell your guards to stand down,” Sgt. Shaffer grunted, shifting more weight onto her horn. “We’re simply negotiating: mare to man.”

Celestia obeyed, feeling true fear for the second time in one day. It would have been wise to accept Luna’s counsel. The humans murdered an immortal. What was stopping the death of another? The only solace Celestia found in her current situation was the fact that her sister was out of harm’s way: sent to Stalliongrad to prepare more soldiers for the second return of Discord.

“What is it *nng* you wish to discuss?” the princess wheezed, silently trying to gather mana in her horn, but Gerald’s foot grinding into her was making magic near-impossible to perform.

“Ma’am… you appear to have a bug problem.” Celestia stopped trying to cast and looked up in surprise. Raymond just looked down on her impassively.

“I… I am aware…”

“No. You aren’t,” Raymond continued, face a diplomatic mask. “If you were aware, your city would not be in shambles and you wouldn’t be in this position.” He stooped down, putting more pressure on her already sensitive horn. “But you are.”

“What… what do you want?” Celestia sighed, suddenly very tired. How many ponies had died today? How many by her own fault? How many in her service? The alicorn shrank in on herself, ignoring the pain in her horn and her lungs, and blinked. Her eye met Raymond’s. He appeared to be disappointed.

“I want many things,” the human answered, pausing to adjust his grip on his weapon. “My family, my friends, my home… but right now I just want cooperation, and I’ll do what it takes to get it.”

“I can see that,” Celestia deadpanned, indicating the gun in his hands with a tilt of her head.

Raymond frowned: “You see nothing.” He shifted again, unconsciously grinding her skull into the marble. Flecks of sharp resin dug into her pruned underskin, and Celestia winced. When Ray spoke again, she could hear the smile behind his words. “You will give us back what’s ours, and then we will discuss that little business contract we drew up last week.”

A discussion... The Princess of the Sun had experienced enough discussions, parleys, and negotiations in her lifetime to know exactly how this was going to play out—what Raymond was going to say next.

Celestia decided to get it out in the open, hoping against hope that her ponies were safe.

“Or else?” she quietly murmured, resigned to meeting the humans' demands upon Ray's answer—for she knew he would have an answer. Celestia again looked toward the dais where she had been leading the wedding ceremony only a few hours ago. She felt something tug at her insides and she wanted to cry, but she kept her composure. The human didn’t deserve the satisfaction of witnessing the tears of a goddess, no matter the circumstances. She looked up, and, as expected, found Raymond smiling.

“Give us back our vacuum suits,” he murmured, crouching until his face was but a two feet from her own, “or you’ll have to start raising the moon again.”

16: Getting Back Up

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Chapter 16

A voice, soft and lilting, invaded the void.

“Jay-Jay?”

“Yeah?”

“What did Sister Mara mean… about the ‘restructuring’ thing? That it would involve the ‘entirety of the institution’?”

Jer lay back, head punching a small divot in the dune below him. He looked up at the night sky—the twinkling blanket never ceased to amaze him—and scratched his chin in thought.

“S’a Company thing: harmless. We’ll need to give them names, serial numbers… that sorta thing. I wouldn’t worry about it.” He felt a warm weight against his chest and allowed his eyes—and chin—to shift downward for a moment. A face-full of curly locks quickly prompted him to return his gaze to the stars above.

The feminine voice piped up once more: “And those men with guns?”

“Guards for the scientists,” Jer concluded, tracing a particularly enticing curve of celestial lights with his slate eyes. “Probably has to do with the annual core sampling at the mines in New Kilkenny.”

“Yeah, but they didn’t have them last year.” The weight on Jer’s chest shifted, and he was suddenly staring into a pair of deep, brown eyes. She was frowning. Jer hated that: she shouldn’t do that.

“There also wasn’t a union forming a year ago.” The relaxing orphan settled his arm across his companion’s lower back—a warm saddle between two peaks. He had been cold before, the desert sand serving as a sink for all of his body heat, but now…

Well, now the temperature was much more pleasant.

“But—”

“But nothing, Dulce,” he gently warned, rubbing the girl’s back with tender care and giving her a meaningful look. “I want you to stay away from the west-side meetinghouse from now on.” The girl’s frown deepened, and Jer pressed onward. “It’s dangerous to be near them, honey, especially with those Company men here. Promise me you’ll stay away.”

Dulce snuggled closer, burying her head in Jer’s shoulder and squeezing his sides with her thin, yet powerful, arms. She stayed like that for what felt like hours before speaking, voice hitching, breathless and weak.

“I… I promise…”

And the warmth Gerald felt soaking into his chest became something unbelievably terrifying and wrong; a moment of clarity flashing inward and outward as could only happen in a dream…

Blood in the sand.

Gerald screamed.

Lovely pain, dripping sweat, and crackling messages greeted the human’s awakening. The room spun an empty white, and Jer flailed wildly for a moment in the apparent void, quickly finding balance on his uncomfortable hospital bed—his because he commandeered it, bolting the door with a plastic zip-tie from the jeep nearly half-an-hour ago.

“Corporal, come in. Jer? Pick up, damn it.”

The voice bubbled and reverberated, both inside his skull and from the small, off-white countertop to his left. Shaking his head, the human slid, burnt and tattered dress pants sucking wetly upon the synthetic hospital sheets, and grasped the receiver from the jeep radio—pried out under orders from Raymond and set next to Jer’s bed.

He winced as his burnt fingers clutched at rounded plastic, searching for the correct button. Jer felt murky and dull, perhaps a side effect from the unicorn restorative he’d forced himself to drink: a glowing, bluish concoction that he had been assured was very safe. Finally, his thumb brushed his objective, and he keyed his most intelligent response:

“Yeh?”

Two signals flared with static for a moment before he heard the voice again—Raymond, definitely—the deep, vocal broodings of an angry god.

“The Moon secure?”

Gerald twitched, glancing past the radio to the room’s second bed, a grey bundle of tarp lying—nearly—still upon its rumpled sheets. “No problems on my end.”

“Our Benefactor wants proof.”

Didn’t believe them, did she? Well…

Jer forced himself to his feet, clenching his jaw at the sharp pain he felt in his leg, and limped the short distance between the two deathbeds. Stretching the receiver cord mercilessly, he fumbled at the loosely wrapped tarp with his free hand. Soon the grey material was torn away, revealing wispy, writhing stars and the deep, blue void of space. The human froze, momentarily entranced.

The stars… familiar…

He reached forward, fingertips plunging into the ethereal mirror, skimming icy bodies he knew well: Eridanus, Syla, LV – 8, LV – 390, Sol… The weight in—on—Jer’s chest was palpable, and he could feel maroon warmth oozing across his hideously itchy skin.

A chill crept along his arm across his shoulders to the back of Gerald’s neck, and he felt tired again. He nearly fell back into sleep’s cruel, horror-filled embrace when the radio crackled:

“Corporal?”

Gerald jerked awake and slowly withdrew his hand from the void. He frowned at the undulating mirror before him and followed it downward to a creature of midnight blue: the other ruler of the Equestrian Diarchy… the one his companion managed to brain with his rifle.

Her eyes were open, glazed and dead looking. The soft rustle of feathers against plastic told a different story, however, and Jer grunted quietly to himself. Nearly four doses of pinched horse tranquilizer and magic annuls was doing its job. Good.

“Give me a moment.”

Now the real challenge was how to get the doped alicorn to make some kind of recognizable noise… but not a scream. There were too many screams.

Jer peeled back the rest of the tarp, uncovering the rest of the Princess’s matted, blue fur and ruffled feathers. He couldn’t help but notice how her body curved in a rather appealing manner, and shuddered. He felt the familiar, shifting space that composed the small ruler’s mane regard him coldly, as if it could read his thoughts. Fighting a sudden, violent chill, Jer clenched his jaw and poked her in the flank: hard.

The effect was almost immediate:

“Stalwart! Put that away… thou art ‘on duty’.”

Corporal Hanes allowed himself a small smirk, absentmindedly wiping the blood-that-was-and-wasn’t from his chest. As he walked around the room he kept at it, trying to clean nothing.

The dirtiest nothing there ever was.

He kept at it even as his former commanding officer acknowledged his actions; as the sun began its late descent in the distance; as the knocking on the door began and the screams whined ever on.

Perhaps all one really wanted in life was to be clean.

Perhaps.

The table was sturdy—unmarked aside from decorative-looking bolts at the corners—and practically glowed in its impeccably polished condition. Mahogany, maybe: a dark wood of some sort that Raymond couldn’t really care less about. An expensive piece of furniture made for Company screws and their hobnobbing, sycophantic advisors.

Or, better yet, royalty…

“Alive and unharmed, you see. From here this should be quite simple.”

“… Indeed…”

She sat across from him: resplendent and white and unreadable; a shrewd politician, full of wisdom borne of immense age… if the things Ray had heard were true. Apparently, Chrysalis had also been an immortal. The human’s eyes flickered to the open door, and the aisle that stretched beyond. A dark stain stood out against the rumpled, red rug.

A guard had taken the body a while ago.

No matter.

Raymond leaned back on the plush chair—not a cushion, thank God—he had been provided, and the heavy metal and carbon fiber of his rifle settled on the pristine table, bore pointed in Celestia’s general direction. They were in the jurors’ recessionary chamber—alone.

“You have a small bug problem,” Ray began, choosing to repeat himself.

“Yes.” The alicorn was curt, glaring at him as if she could topple the entire solar system on his head. But she couldn’t, and, glancing at her blackened horn, the exterminator knew it. His right hand—the one not preoccupied with his weapon—tickled at the black, plastic body of the COM link he had clipped to the collar of the nice jacket Rarity made him. Fine mare, that Rarity: sad that her work had become so… tarnished. Celestia eyed the path of his fingers, the barely concealed anger that burnt in her eyes quickly becoming a look of calculated wariness.

“Our contract—the current one, signed under duress you remember—specified exactly what my associate and I were to do over the last two days: protect your country’s bastardized bio-weapon from a ‘mischievous chaos god’.” Ray looked around the room, making a small show of it, and shrugged. “Did you see one? I sure as fuck didn’t.” He stood up and leaned over the table, sliding the barrel of his gun closer to the seated ruler. “What I saw was an invasion: a disgusting, revolting, and entirely PREVENTABLE infestation of bugs that my associate nearly died trying to repel; that one of our pony acquaintances gave his life to push from your shit-heap of a city.

“Now”—Schaffer caressed the radio at his chest lovingly—“I am a generally quiet, agreeable man, and I of all people know that the unexpected often circumvents all plans and predictions.” His eyes narrowed. “But you chose to make this personal.”

“What I did was entirely necessary,” the Princess cut in, eyes flashing dangerously once more. “If you came willingly, Discord—”

“Honestly, I don’t give a fuck what your reasoning is,” Ray cut in, slamming a fist on the table. “You took my home from me—from my friend—and nearly killed us with your love-struck Captain’s plan.” He settled back into his seat, sinking wearily in the fine padding. “We just want to be left alone, and for the people—no, the ponies—who helped us to live in peace when we finally get the fuck off your damned planet.” He looked at her: “You make it personal, and we do the same.”

“So you want the suits.”

“Yes,” Raymond sighed, rubbing his forehead as he watched the motionless monarch.

“And in exchange, Princess Luna will go free and you will continue to keep the Elements safe until you leave our world?”

“In a sense,” the human coughed. “We want to do our job, and without the proper equipment—”

“It is difficult to commit genocide?” Celestia finished, eyes hard: glaring.

“Insecticide,” Raymond snorted, a tentative grin playing at the edge of his lips. “S’different.” He shifted his rifle, tracing the curvature of the alicorn’s almost swan-like neck. “One last favor to keep those who so graciously welcomed us safe”—he glanced to the open door, catching the eye of an eavesdropping, pink shape—“as safe as can be under your ‘watchful’ eye, at least.”

“I cannot allow you to expunge an entire race of beings from existence,” the Princess countered, matronly voice rising in the stagnant room. “You will not leave the country, let alone our planet, if you intend to commit such an act.”

Raymond sighed once more, growing tired. “Cadance, your elder defends the creatures that destroyed your city, killed your ponies, and practically wed your husband.” A small yelp emanated from behind the door, and, slowly, a pinkish form sidled into the open. “Does that seem wise to you?”

She entered the room, and Raymond heard his benefactor gasp. The bruises, cuts, and sunken eyes would fade in time, but for now, the fabled Crystal Princess truly looked like the victim of a brutal kidnapping.

Celestia was seeing her for the first time since the human had ‘cut’ her down from her cocoon.

“Under the circumstances,” Cadance shakily whispered, eyes sharp and awake and unfailingly blue, “I do not.”

Scootaloo knocked.

It wasn’t hard: a simple lift of the hoof and forward jerk, connecting with the plywood and plastic door in a rather satisfying way. The sound was the same, echoing over and over, over and over.

Scootaloo had been knocking for half an hour.

It wasn’t hard, but she couldn’t see in the window because she was too small and it was covered. The door was closed—locked tight from the inside—and ponies were watching her hesitantly from behind. She knew some of them. She didn’t care.

“Scoots? Scoots, the door isn’t going to open.”

“It will.”

“Scoots…”

Scootaloo knocked, and it wasn’t hard. It wasn’t hard because her hoof had gone numb, and the sound—*clack-clack*clack-clack*—echoed over and over.

“Please, Scoots. He isn’t going to open it.”

“Fuck off, Rainbow Dash. Fuck off.”

A rustle of feathers—hooves slowly clopping away. The door echoed, drowning out the low murmur of the crowded hospital hallway. *clack-clack*clack-clack* Over and over.

Everything smelled sick, and the world seemed too bright, but it wasn’t hard.

Scootaloo knocked until Jerry’s door opened, and, alone, she limped inside.

“As acting ruler of Equestria, I officially pardon the humans Raymond Schaffer and Gerald Hanes.”

“Cadance—”

“They will have full access to the collateral that was taken from them, and are free to roam the country—or leave its boundaries—as they please.”

“Cadance, the 25th Concordat doesn’t—”

“You are magically impotent and Princess Luna is out of commission. By the Laws of Equestria that makes me High Princess, does it not?”

“I’m fi—”

“With all due respect, you are a hostage.” Indicating Raymond’s weapon with an outstretched wing, Cadance, took her place next to the reclining human, levitating a cushion for herself. She looked across the table at her aunt—her elder—and sighed.

The Princess of the Sun looked truly old, and that was rather depressing to the young alicorn… but right then she didn’t have the capacity to really care.

Green light flickered on the edge of her vision, and Cadance flinched. A faint tickling and burning swept across her flanks, and she felt violated. She was far away, and it was very, very dark.

You’re a pretty little princess, aren’t you?

Cadance’s eyes hardened, and she shifted closer to the warmth of her savior. If he or Celestia noticed her momentary… fugue… they didn’t comment on it: Mr. Schaffer rubbed at his forehead, good eye squinting as if in pain, and the Dawnbringer just sat, contemplative, resigned, and, above all, worried.

“The ponies of Canterlot bore witness to the recapture of their fair city, and it wasn’t under the guiding light of the Princesses that they were saved, but beneath a flood of changeling blood—rescued from drowning by two outlanders, a musician, and a comedian.” Cadance flicked an ear behind her, listening for what she knew was not there but haunted her anyway. “They cannot be touched, or the populace will revolt.”

“And what of their crimes? The kidnapping of my sister? Word will spread—”

“Luna is a leper,” the pink alicorn interrupted. “Ponies remember when they are wronged”—“I remember: will always remember”—“sometimes for too long.”

The Savior yawned painfully, stretching his limbs. An arm brushed her. It was safe.

“They will have their demands met,” Celestia whispered, “but genocide is out of the question.”

Pretty, pretty princess.

“Mercy died in the cold, dark below Canterlot,” Cadance muttered to herself—Schaffer heard; twitched his head in her direction, cold, blue eye watching her. They would keep her safe: make them go away.

Disappear.

Poof.

Gone.

So pretty…

“The changelings will face their punishment: one way”—the young alicorn’s violet gaze met the human’s, and he nodded—“or another.”

Celestia watched her, looking for a long time with sad, knowing eyes. ‘The Wise One.’ So, so wise—too wise, maybe, to pay attention to a lost mare, even if she was her niece… wise and pretty.

For a moment, Cadance hated her.

The feeling passed: but the moment felt too long to the official regent of Canterlot Castle. Addressing the human beside her, she spoke once more:

“Go to your partner: you will find your stolen property with him. Do with it what you will, but only after Princess Luna is released. I trust you with my life, and now I am trusting you with hers.” The human nodded slowly and stood. As he walked by, Cadance stopped him, standing to nuzzle his shoulder. He hesitated, but ultimately left, leaving the two immortals alone.

Seeing green, feeling dark and cold and alone, Princess Mi Amore Cadenza faced her elder.

There was still much to talk about.

"Mares and Stallions stand in a row,

Covered in blood—for clan and for gold,

Who won the battle? Few ever know.

And while we wait, the red sky grows cold."

Her mother once had a book: an old book, filled with rhymes from the days before pony unification—the days when the Pegasi were a warlike race. She used to read them to her—as each matriarch had before her—every night when she was a filly, preparing for bed in the city of Cloudsdale. They came back to Dash now, sitting in a sterile hallway watching the door.

The door that opened only once in the last hour, admitting a small orange filly.

The door Gerald Hanes, executioner of immortals, closed and locked ages ago, alone with a body… or, at least, what Rainbow believed to be a body. She had followed him: after the queen was dead; after Raymond took him aside, whispering in his ear. Dash told herself it was because she wanted to give him his knife back—she had it now, blade thick with dried changeling blood. Ponies were looking at her strangely, but Rainbow didn’t care: she was watching the door.

Jer hadn’t seemed to notice her—nor Scootaloo, who tried to latch onto him as he walked down the aisle—and, after paying his silent respects to the yellow stallion (used his hands to close his eyes—deep, dead eyes, leaking blood), he limped away to a closet in the back, leaving everypony…

Well, everypony but Rainbow Dash. She watched him exit the courthouse and come back in with a ragged, gray tarp. She watched him go into the janitorial closet, and she watched him come out: encumbered by a tightly wrapped bundle. He was frowning, dazed and exhausted. The pegasus wanted to help him, but when she got close enough to ask the hoof caught her eye:

A blue hoof, hanging limply from the rumpled folds of Jer’s gray burden.

She decided it would be best to just watch… no matter how much the tired human—the man who helped save their lives—sweated and cursed. Dash had seen enough bodies that day: some split and maimed by her own hooves.

"We lay the dead to rest deep down,

Entombed at sea, won’t touch hard ground.

No dark cave mount, nor earthen town,

Can hold the spirit, the flesh, the aeries’ sound."

He carried the body to their jeep alone. Rainbow remembered seeing the black cloud in the distance—disappearing over the horizon: the last of Chrysalis’s warrior children. Nopony pursued them.

Jer drove and Rainbow followed by air, flying with his knife gripped in her teeth. His path was reckless and circling, but the streets were very nearly empty.

The man stopped only once, and what he did would live in Rainbow’s memory for the rest of her days.

He had just rounded a corner, a wild turn that skidded bumpily along the street, and he slammed on the brakes. A foal lay in the middle of the road—red, with a pink mane. Just a filly: she didn’t even have her cutie mark. From her position on the roof of a nearby building, Rainbow could see her matted, dirty fur; her ribs jutting obscenely through cracked skin.

She was dead. Didn’t even have a cutie mark, and she was dead. Dash remembered vomiting, but didn’t recall for how long. All she knew was that when she looked up again, Jer was kneeling in the road, holding the husk that once played and laughed and lived on those same streets.

He was screaming a name.

The air was clean in the hospital: too clean. Rainbow felt so dirty and the air felt so clean and it was wrong: so wrong. She felt a presence next to her, and a pair of pink hooves encircled her barrel. She glanced at Pinkie Pie, but her eyes invariably found their way back to the door.

“It… It’s gonna be okay, right? It’s all over, now?” the mare whispered. Her mane tickled Rainbow’s right ear, and it twitched involuntarily.

“Yeah, Pinks. It’s over.”

“Where is he, Dashie?”

Rainbow nodded toward the door. “Locked. You take care of the fillies?” Dash felt Pinkie nod, her cheek rubbing against the back of her head.

“They’re upstairs: with Spike. I lost Scootaloo, though. Have you seen her?”

The blue pegasus simply pointed at the door.

“Oh…” Pinkie shifted, turning so she, too, faced the door. “Is… Did you see him? Is he okay?” Screaming a name—a nonsensical name. He was screaming. Dash shuddered, and felt sick to her stomach.

“I saw him.”

Pinkie hugged her tighter. “And?”

Red fur: no cutie mark. He took the body with him, limping and limping up the hospital steps. Two bodies in his lanky arms.

“I don’t know.”

They sat in silence for a time, watching the door. Rainbow thought her pink friend was crying, but wouldn’t look at her. If she looked, then she would cry, too, and Rainbow Dash never cried: never. Ponies came and went, some stopping to mumble a “hello” or ask about the “shaved diamond dog” in the “magic chariot”, wishing the man behind the door well; saying they had seen; saying they believed. Rainbow nodded politely, and she thought Pinkie did, too.

Blue and grey: a father with a paunch wearing the tattered clothes of a working-pony. “Blew right down my street—drew them away from our hiding place.”

A ruffled collar—stained yellowy-green—and a blunted, sparking horn: a tattered noblemare, walking imperiously despite her ragged appearance: “Knocked my head on a pillar and two of them were on me… thought I was dead when a yellow stallion, riding atop a chariot of smoke and metal knocked them away…”

Two foals—pinto and ruddy purple—leaning on each other for support: young ones from Ponyville, tired and scared and far from home. “Ms. Cheerilee is still alive. Sh—we just wanted to say thank you.”

Another stallion: clothed in the heavy armor of a guard. “Buckers shot me twice. Twice! I’d say they destroyed half the city themselves if I didn’t know any better.”

The Element of Loyalty, the Element of Laughter: bloody and battered but both still alive. “We were going to die, and they saved us. HE saved us… saved me…” Rainbow ruffled a wing, feeling the cold steel of Jer’s knife press against her side.

“Do… Do you think they’ll stay?”

“Pinkie…”

“I know what Fussy said, but… but now they have to stay, right? They wouldn’t really leave us… right?”

“Pinks, I—”

“I don’t want Jerry to leave…”

Crazy, the way he screamed: like he was bleeding all of his rage and sorrow into one word, over and over. His knife slid, tickling the underside of her wing, and her tail twitched. The man was strong… insane, but strong… perhaps even stronger than herself.

“No. I don’t want Jerry to leave, either.”

Time blurred together: Twilight was there, limping in whilst her brother led two sooty unicorns through the hall—their parents, they explained. She tried to talk to them, but Rainbow wasn’t listening. She was busy watching the door. Shining Armor was quiet, and while his sister grumbled and growled about “murder” and the “Griffonia Convention”, he sat down next to Pinkie. His parents settled behind him, comforting hooves all ‘round.

“Nopony cares, Twilight.”

Silenced—by who, Rainbow wasn’t sure—she stormed off, and the low murmur of the hospital was all that remained.

Together they watched the door.

"Love lilts upon the breeze—

Love stalks upon the ground.

Slipping softly through the trees,

Love kills and can’t be found."

No. Rainbow didn’t want Jerry to leave at all.

Heavy, erratic hoof-beats echoed through the halls, and Raymond turned the corner from the reception area, an orange mare easily keeping pace beside his limping gait. The murmurs of milling ponies ground to a halt, and Rainbow, in the corner of her eye, saw Shining Armor stand. The human carried his weapon on his back: a sleek, vaguely rectangular object with a molded handhold and metal tube in place of a blade.

It wasn’t sharp, but it was dangerous. Somehow everypony knew that.

Noticing Rainbow and her pony satellites, Applejack silently nudged Raymond with her flank, guiding him toward them. She trotted close to his side. Very close. Her eyes were wide and nervous, flicking left to right as if scanning the room—she pressed closer to the human, perhaps scared he would suddenly vanish. Raymond stopped, towering over them as he watched impassively with his cold, blue eye. His gaze turned toward the unassuming door across the hall, and he limped over to it, leaving Applejack behind. She settled down on Rainbow’s left, keeping a nervous eye on him as he approached Jer’s room.

Lifting one heavy foreleg, he knocked twice, paused, then knocked once more.

“Y’all okay?” Applejack, whispering concernedly. “Where’re Twilight and Fluttershy?”

“Fluttershy’s upstairs with Spike and the fillies, and Twilight’s… somewhere.” Rainbow felt Pinkie shift again, releasing her. “Rarity?”

“With that green stallion from back home. Probably still at the castle: di’n’t catch our chariot.”

Across the hall, Jer’s door opened, and, under the tired watch of six pairs of eyes, Raymond slipped inside.

“What do you mean you won’t transport the body?!”

“Sir, we’re overloaded as it is, an—”

“Don’t give me any of that mino-manure! I just need one cargo-berth back to Ponyville! Do you bucking know—”

“Sir, the line—”

“Fuck the line and fuck you! My friend killed for this city: died for it!”

“There simply isn’t any room. I’m sorry.”

Rarity knew this stallion—young, forest green, average build, crossed drumsticks emblazoned on his flank. He played rhythm for the pianist at the Hayseed in Ponyville. She’d seen him there on her 21st birthday, playing for bits while she had her stereotypical “night out”: courtesy of Pinkie Pie. His name was Cymbal—she knew that, now—and his friend had been called Hearty Chuckle, a comedian who performed at the same bar. Rarity had never been to see his act… she regretted that, now.

“… No, you listen to me! You will make room. I am not leaving until you find an opening!”

“I have to talk to my—”

“I’ll kill your supervisor! Get. Me. A. Space.”

He was angry: grieving in his own, painful way. Horn sparking furiously, Cymbal was up on the service counter, shouting directly into the nervous clerk’s face. He was making a scene. He was breaking down. He was threatening another pony…

… and he had helped save Sweetie Belle’s life.

Decision made, Rarity sauntered in from the sidelines, casually slipping in-between the arguing stallions. “Excuse me,” she tittered, fluttering her eyelashes at the colt behind the counter, “I couldn’t help but overhear your small dilemma, and I was wondering if, perhaps, I could persuade you to find a teensy-weensy bit of room on your huge train for me.” She glanced back at Cymbal. “I mean such a well-to-do, intelligent, and”—she gazed at him sultrily—“handsome stallion such as yourself wouldn’t have a problem with that… would you?”

The colt—a bland brownish color, haggard, exhausted, and most-definitely not handsome—shuddered nervously. “Y-Yes, Ms. Rarity…”

“Oh… so you do know who I am.” Rarity dropped the smile and her eyes became cold. “Good.” She leaned in, eyes narrowing as she brought her face closer to his. “Then this will be much easier: make room on your train for the body of a hero of the state, or I will bring the collective wrath of the princesses down on your head.”

Clip-clopping hooves signaled the quick departure of the clerk: where he went, it was unclear. Fortunately, Rarity was under the impression that her request would be made a reality quite soon.

Smiling hesitantly, the porcelain mare turned back to Cymbal—who, for his part, had stood quietly on the sideline. She expected a smile in return: admiration, perhaps? It wasn't often that an Element of Harmony yelled at somepony... or threatened them. When she looked at him, however, she was surprised to find the green stallion simply staring at her tiredly, his eyes dull and listless. He nodded his head once, matted mane twitching at the steady motion, and left, walking down the line of grieving ponies toward the morgue proper: toward his friend.

Suddenly very unsure of herself, Rarity followed.

The child opened the door, and, at first, Ray didn't know whether to be annoyed or relieved. He liked the kid, of course—he had no problem with children whatsoever—but things were delicate at the moment. He glanced down the hallway toward the reception desk, catching a glint of golden armor before slipping into the hospital room at the behest of the orange filly. It was dark: no windows, and the electric lights were dimmed. Deathly white walls became white floors became green beds, and Raymond stooped low to pick Scootaloo up off the ground.

She didn't struggle: light as a feather, that one.

“Alright?” he grunted quietly as he held her, good eye slowly finding its way to a cushion in the corner of the room... and the man slumped upon it.

“I'm okay,” the pegasus squeaked, shuddering slightly in his arms. She, too, was gazing at the man in the corner, and Ray could feel the concern rolling off her in waves. “But Jerry's pretty beat up.” Her feathers rustled against his ruined coat, and the filly hopped from her perch, buzzing lightly back to the ground. “He keeps falling asleep... and think he was crying before”—she paused, an uncertain frown pursing her lips—“before he opened the door for me.”

Raymond limped past the rumpled hospital beds, noting the loosely-wrapped bundle laying on the far mattress. As he approached his battered companion, the former sergeant felt a sharp twinge in his gut. “Pretty beat up” was definitely an understatement.

Tattered and ragged clothing hung over Gerald's smaller frame, stiff with drying blood: both red and green. His eyes were closed, but the jerky, twitching movement movement beneath his lids betrayed the shorter exterminator's fitful sleep; the pained frown, his lingering nightmares. Hands curled in his bloody lap, Raymond could see the blackened, blistering skin of Jer's right fingers beginning to peel: nails melted away by changeling balefire. His left ear was torn nearly half off his skull, no longer bleeding, while the wound on his leg—the worst of his physical injuries by far—was beginning to leak pus.

Air whistled in and out of Jer's nose.

He was alive, at the very least.

Crouching, the taller human lowered himself to Jer's level. He grabbed the unconscious man's upper arm and shook gently.

“Hey, Asshole,” Ray murmured, watching his companion's face carefully. “Wake up.” A low moan escaped Gerald's lips, and his eyes fluttered open: bloodshot and wet with unshed tears. He stared through Raymond for a time, not quite focusing on anything in particular, but that wasn't worrisome—or, at least, not more worrisome than usual. “Jer? Get a hold of yourself, Corporal.”

Gerald lay still, looking beyond his comrade: beyond the world. The marksman frowned; mentioning rank hadn't gotten a rise out of him... that usually worked. He quickly glanced about the room for inspiration, and his eyes alighted upon an open nylon pouch at the foot of the far bed. A dull silver tube half spilled onto the pristine hospital floor.

“Scootaloo?” A rustle of feathers and the clatter of hesitant hoof-steps brought the girl into view. She was fighting tears. Looking at her—grimacing and wincing and pointedly looking away from Gerald's corpselike pose—Raymond didn't know what to do, so he just smiled as reassuringly as possible and gave her a task: one tinged with hope. “See that pouch over there?”—she looked; nodded—“Bring it here, please, then stand back for a bit.”

Turning away, the orange pegasus quickly obliged, her hooves skidding on a puddle of bodily fluid at the foot of the first bed. Looked like bloody vomit... hopefully not a result of stim overdose. If it was, then, well, what Ray was going to do next would probably kill him. More carefully this time, Scootaloo returned carrying the serum pouch between her outstretched wings. Raymond took it with a brief nod, nudging her back a few paces with his elbow before looking inside the black bag, praying for a working pneumatic syringe.

Two empties lay atop one still untouched canister: a blue one. Raymond smiled, relieved at his—and Jer's—luck. Opaque, azure liquid leaked from the broken needle-tip, but that did little to dampen Ray's mood. Unscrewing the needle cap, he fished a replacement—wrapped in sanitary paper, of course—from a side pocket and replaced it. A tap on the injector took care of any errant air bubbles inside, tentatively ensuring the safety of his counterpart when he pumped him full of performance-altering drugs.

Tentatively...

He knew it would work. Had to...

With an extreme measure of care, he unbuttoned his friend's shirt, revealing deep purple bruises across Jer's ribs and chest: broken bones. A wince sounded behind him, and Ray turned to find Scootaloo peeking around his side, tears in her oversizes violet eyes.

“I thought I told you to stay back.”

“I...”

“Go on... There's nothing you can do.”

“But—”

Ray pushed her back with his free hand: “Go. It'll be okay.” Sniffling, the child backed away, and Schaffer turned back to his dazed partner, searching for his breastplate. He absentmindedly flicked the new needle with a fingertip, hoping it was long enough to get the job done. It was probably fine... God, he hated being so uncertain about these things. Jer was the medic. Jer was the pilot. Ray was just... Sarge...

Sergeant of what? A spiteful schizophrenic? Alien fuck-horses? What?

All he wanted was to see Earth again.

“GUH! G-God! Oh, God!”

Raymond jolted, looking down on the man he'd lived with—on and off—for the past seven years. He was screaming: clawing at his chest, and Raymond was horribly worried his struggling would snap the needle shoved through his left pectoral... huh...

“Oh, God it's inside me! I-I-I can feel it inside me!”

Tracing needle to hand to upper arm, Ray let out a surprised grunt. He didn't remember injecting him. Damn, he must really be out of it.

Arms wrapped around him, corded muscle pressing his rifle into the small of his back, and he was suddenly pulled close to Gerald's face. They were eye-to-eye: Jer's grey gaze manic and burning with fear. He breathed in whistling gasps, and Raymond caught a whiff of something rotten on his breath—blood and bile. They stayed that way, Gerald clutching his brother—his last living family—until his breathing finally began to slow. Ray was unsure of how long it had been: a few seconds? An hour? It didn't matter.

“Inside me...”

“What's inside you, Jer?”

Gerald blinked, and looked at him—really looked—as if for the first time.

“Nothing, Sarge.” He glanced downward and winced. “Well, not exactly nothing.” Raymond smiled, relieved, and carefully slid the stim-needle from Jer's chest. The metal ground wetly against bone, and the wakened corporal coughed violently, dribbling blood and saliva, before beginning to laugh in great, hitching gasps. Ray rose to his feet, looking down on his friend with equal measure of concern and tired contentment. Through the weakening laughter, Jer spoke once more: “You... You tryin' to drug me, Sarge?”

“Yes,” Schaffer answered, backing up just enough to sit on the foot of the nearest bed. A grey tarp shifted and settled heavily next to him, but he ignored it. He knew what—who—was inside, and it could wait. “Glad it worked.”

“I was in a bad place.” Jer glanced around, frowning to himself. Tears leaked from the corners of his eyes, tracing white lines through dirt and blood, but he didn't seem to be aware of them. “Still am in a bad place. Let's get the fuck outta here.”

The taller human frowned alongside his partner, nodding in affirmation, but he remained sitting. It was getting worse: the dreams, the voices, whatever it was that was going on in his head... and there wasn't much he could do about it. Ray glanced at Jer's leg—his chest and dangling ear—and sighed. They would leave, but he was getting his friend a healer first so; deal with something he could fix.

Ray stood to leave.

“Jer?” a small voice from behind the bed whimpered as he limped away, “Jerry?”

“Ey! Squirt! When'd you get here?” His voice was shaky, and he was still crying, but Jer didn't seem to care. Scootaloo galloped excitedly around the bed and practically tackled the poor man, knocking whatever little breath he had back out of him. To Jer's credit, he only yelped twice from the pain.

“Y-You let me in,” the orange pegasus shouted, indignant. “Don't you remember?” Ray stopped at the door and watched, briefly considering removing the kid from Jer's lap, lest she damage him further. He was clearly in pain, face screwed up in a look of confusion, but when Raymond took a step toward them he waved him off with a twitch of his peeling fingers.

“I've—ah—I've been kinda out of it.” He opened his eyes and gave the kid a winning smirk. “Wha'd I miss: Spike's bachelor party?”

The room quickly filled with tearful laughter and shouting—hoof punches to the shoulder, wincing, crying, and the general sort of post-traumatic merriment. Smiling—rather grimly, in all honesty... he didn't do it nearly enough—Raymond walked out the door and into the hallway beyond, looking for a healer.

“You oughta be dead... should be dead: deserve to be dead!”

“Stop.”

“What? You know what waits for you! Burning! Burning with everyone you ever loved! Just kill the little orange maggot now so you can both just fucking BURN!”

“FUCK! FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK!”

“Jerry? Jerry, are you okay?”

Everything and everyone vying for the attention of the damned man. The imagined and the real and the tortured screaming in-betweeners: relentless. It was maddening...

“I'm okay, kid. Just tired.”

“You were just asleep, silly!” Painful shifting in his lap, and soon he was met by a pair of glistening violet eyes: the peepers of ultimate childlike authority and all-knowiness... and righteous frowns. “You can't sleep now!”

“Jay-Jay, why didn't you kill me?! Why?!”

Jer tried to smile but he couldn't. He couldn't do it anymore. Fire coursed through his veins, keeping him awake while his body and mind raged at him from everywhere. It was like torturing shellfish with a gas heat-lamp under the moon! Like—Like he was the moon, gassing his dead mother's shellfish at midnight!

“I gotta say, Robby. This Weyland guy sounds like a Class 'A' Douche-hack. What, with his so-called 'Better World' campaign?”

“I guess we'll just have to see, my man. We'll just have to see...”

Oh... Oh, he was losing it. This was finally it: when he went completely and utterly shit-balls insane. No! Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, n—

“Jer? You sure you don't remember letting me in?”

Those eyes again. Jer forced himself to look at them. They were so big and round—ruh'ound'ruh'ound—and full of life and shit. He didn't know how, but Jer managed to salvage a workable smile from the depths of his mindless panic.

“N-Nope. I'm not sure of anything at the moment.”

“Y'think trotting your memory would work?”

“Uh-Uh, mayb-be?” Jer coughed into his fist, and was mildly surprised to find blood leaking from him, like a faucet from Hell. Was he dying? He'd leaked worse, right?

“Well, after you opened the door you were standing over there.” She pointed with a hoof—such a tiny, tiny thing—and Jer looked but felt very little. “You were mumbling something and wouldn't look at me—”

Pictures in his head. Two bleeding arms and flesh and hard, white bone: crushing the life out of something small and orange and screaming. There was a lot of screaming. All the time, now. So much it made it hard to hear the—

“—were pacing back and forth and there was a call on the ra—”

“In other news, President Sandusky is increasing national guard presence outside the Washington D.C. Area. A bit late, if you ask me, though. Got the bastard cornered.”

“Jerreeee! It's inside me! Get it out, Jerreeeeeee!”

“Son, leave them. That's an order.”

“—so when there was this big flash in the center of the room, you—”

Sydney was a watery grave: a Class VII. Spires of bug resin rose above the cloud-layer, founded on the broken buildings of a once proud Earth city, fueled by the bodies of planet's children. Jer saw it from above, in a dropship heading back into the atmosphere... his squad was alive, then. First Sergeant Santos was shouting into the COM, talking to dead men.

“Chi Battalion is lost. Pull out now, Pilot!”

“We can't! There's been breach on the landing ship! They're inside!”

“Wipe the city now! We can't waste this chance!”

“With all due respect Lieutenant, fuck you. There's got to be at least seventy men down th—”

Shouting. A struggle. Jer remembered how it felt in his hands: the detonator. Every one was different, and that one—the first one—was truly unique.

“C-Corporal?”

“I'll—”

“—do it...”

“What was that, Jerry?”

Gerald paused, still looking into those authoritative, violet eyes. “Nothing.”

“O-kaayyyy... Anyway, you told me to put the suits under the bed, so I—” Jer twitched, interrupting the little pegasus in his lap once more.

“Suits? What suits?” Gerald breathed, suddenly grabbing the filly by her forelegs and lifting her up to eye-level. She said suits. He knew that was what she said because she said it: just then. Was it true?!

Scootaloo rolled her eyes, not even trying to hide her irritation anymore—and clearly over being worried about Jer's injuries, it seemed. “The space suits. Duh!”

There were no words...

… but the human still tried:

“Bu—How—h-hwhen?—I—They're u-under?”

He dropped Scoots to the ground, and, lurching from his place against the wall, he crawled to the nearest bed. An errant sheet hung from the bedside, obscuring his view of what was underneath: several, light bundles that looked decidedly like robes stolen from three rather unlucky angels. Jer latched onto them—both with his hands and his ailing, broken mind—and dragged one of them to his chest, wincing happily at the thick, rough material pressing against his ribs. The perfectly rounded globe of the headpiece twinkled under the hospital lights like something from a dream, and as pristine white slowly stained red, Jer found that he could smile for real.

Scootaloo was talking but the human couldn't hear her.

Their plan could work, now.

They—Raymond—could go home.

He could work again! It was possible!

Gerald Hanes had something new to focus on, and, gradually, the voices faded beneath the radio-waves: blatherings of history and music.

“I think we're gonna win, Mikey. Yeah, yeah, I know that look, but... I just got a feeling, y'know? We're gonna win, and everything's gonna be all right.”

17: Agricultural Metaphors

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Chapter 17

“Do you know what we need here, Wing Commander?”

“N-No, My Lord.”

“Music.” Claws snapped in the night, and Wing Commander Sho’ani suddenly found herself on her hind legs, gripping a violin between her dark, perforated hooves. “Play for your soldiers, Commander.”

“B-Bu, My Lo—”

The breath in her lungs was stolen from her, and Sho’ani cowered as the forest erupted in flickering, angry light. The beautiful moon, her only familiar comfort from home, suddenly appeared in the sky… only to begin bleeding where it hung, dousing the night with the life-blood of ponies and gryphons. Twin spotlights—the insane eyes of a god—appeared before her, glaring hilarious death into her own blue, compound eyes.

“Play.”

“Yes, Sir.” Holding the instrument as best she could, Sho’ani began to quickly rub bow against strings, screeching out a horrible, perverted melody of searing noise: the sound of a dying grub crying its last. Her brethren whimpered, their pain and fear nipping at the back of the Commander’s consciousness. Their Queen was dead; they could feel it.

And now they were bound to the will of a mad god—Mother’s last order.

The Wing Commander played, and her brothers and sisters cringed. Claws ran along her carapace, and she shivered, trying not to listen to the contented sigh of the Spirit of Chaos as he curled next to her.

“Lovely. Truly lovely, my dear.” He paused, stroking his goatee with a lion’s paw—a normally neutral gesture made sinister beneath the unholy stream of moonlight leaking through the canopy above. Beyond them, past the edge of their unnerving hiding place, lay a small village. It was getting rather late, and few windows remained lit in the darkness.

Though, half the town looked deserted anyway: visiting the capitol for their “Royal Wedding.”

How many weren’t coming back?

How many were drained dry? So much love for her people, and none of it went to her battalion: none but the residual feeling, felt through the all-mind. How many lay dead in the streets? Victimized and beaten and forced to love them until they breathed no more? How many?

How many would die tonight?

Sho’ani didn’t know, and as she finished raping the soft night with her violin, she couldn’t help but be afraid.

“Go. Take them all and bring them back to me… alive.”

The battalion moved as one, wings buzzing quietly as changeling after changeling lifted into the night air. Sho’ani moved to follow, but was stopped: frozen by a claw lightly tickling between her wings.

“Ah-ah-ah!” the mad one tutted. “Not so fast.” She could feel the smile on his muzzle as it hovered beside her ear, just out of her field of vision. It didn’t matter, though. She was too scared to look, anyway. “Do you know what we need, here?”

Terrified, pleading futilely for help from her siblings, Wing Commander Sho’ani shook her head.

The moon disappeared, plunging the forest back into darkness. Hidden by the night, the beast snorted, caressing her flank with his dancing, brushing claws:

“Music.”

Jerry was clutching the vacuum suits like Big Mac with Twilight's old doll. Scootaloo had actually seen him with it once on her way back to the CMC clubhouse for the night. He was way out in the orchard, just... sleeping with it pressed to his barrel. As weird as it was, She kept it to herself. She didn't want to ruin the reputation of Applebloom's big brother. He was... well, he was pretty cool for a big, boring farm-colt.

Pretty strong, too.

Not that she watched him or anything. Gross.

Scootaloo sat quietly—she'd given up trying to talk to Jer after five minutes of silence—but she wasn't bored: far from it, actually. Her friend was alive. Both of her friends were alive, and it was the most freeing feeling in the world just seeing them... being alive... doing “alive” things.

She was happy that she didn't have to be alone.

Sure, the orange pegasus had been rather concerned when Jer had collapsed earlier—not afraid: Scoots was never afraid. But looking at him now, smiling and looking around the room, holding a space suit in his lap while occasionally chuckling at the snoring princess on the bed above him, it was almost like he had never been hurt at all. The smell of blood was an illusion, along with the bruises, the torn ear, the leaking leg—all inconsequential. Scootaloo smiled: he was even bobbing his head a little bit, listening to something only he could hear.

“Hey,” she laughed, getting up and moving closer to her foster parent, “Jerry?”

“Mmm?”

“What'cha listening to?”

After a few seconds of quiet, Gerald was able to tear his gaze from the suit in his lap and smile warmly at her. “Why don’t you find out for yourself?” He tilted his head toward the small bedside table nearby. “Radio’s over there. Get it down and bring ‘er over here for me and I’ll set you up.”

It took her nearly a minute to get the rectangular machine—like a cereal box with nuts and bolts inside—down: what, with the fluttering and the lugging and, unfortunately, the crashing. When she finally did carry the device back to Jer, cradling it between her wings, she had worked up quite a sweat, and was breathing rather heavily… like a hardened athlete, so she told herself.

She also told herself whatever her human was listening to was the reason for his inane giggling, and not her little mishap leaping from the bed.

Scootaloo had a measure of pride and dignity to keep intact—she playfully glared at Gerald—unlike some ponies.

Upon entering the human’s reach, Jer carefully lifted the radio from her back. He turned it in his hands, the blackened fingers on his right brushing across a plethora of knobs and dials. Scootaloo frowned at the magic burn, perversely reminded of sunblock and a midday meeting in Applebloom’s tree-house: the day she was given a… well, proper wasn’t the right word… a more suitable home. Blaring noise quickly brushed those thoughts away, however, and the orange pegasus held her breath, scuttling closer to her human. He fiddled senselessly with several bits jutting from the device’s plastic front, but the sandpapery sound only got louder. Finally, Jer gripped the largest dial betwixt two of his burnt fingers, rotating it ever so slightly to the left. Almost immediately, a mare’s voice rose out of the piercing buzz. Light and sweet, she sang to the sound of a light tapping. Like cups on a wooden table.

Carefully, Jer set the radio down in front of himself, putting the mesmerizing rectangle between himself and Scootaloo. The pegasus didn’t mind: she was too busy staring at the device in front of her.

“That’s… That’s a human mare’s voice?”

Out of the corner of her eye, Scootaloo saw Jer nod: “A woman, yes. Probably dead, now.” The orange filly looked up, casting her human a confused look. He was smiling, back to patting the white synthetics folded in his lap. “It’s an old broadcast: way older than me. Earth radio. In a few decades it’ll cut out…” His lips twitched, and he blinked slowly, turning to look down on her with something like pride in his expression: a sort of forced, manic pride. “But it’ll come back. Yeah… Yeah it will.”

In front of her, the radio continued to spit another voice: a stalli—no, a man now.

“Sounds hot, huh? Told you, Mikes.” Raucous laughter belted through the speaker, answered by another, deeper voice.

“You sure did, man. I hope the listeners out there enjoyed that—heh, smokin’—song as much as we did. We’ll be playing it again as soon as we recover from… well, that first one.”

“Right on—Right on—Right on!”

Scoots giggled: they sounded like a pair of dumb colts outside the Mare’s Locker Room. Somehow, she found herself eyeing the radio again, half-listening to the men spouting things about a “riot” being “put down”: whatever that meant. She wondered at all the dials. Some of them were for show, right? I mean they couldn’t all be useful, right?

“You want it?”

“H-Huh?” Scootaloo sputtered, looking up from the radio in surprise. Jer smiled crookedly down at her, and tilted his head in the direction of the crackling thing.

“Don’t exactly need it anymore—though, Ray may want it for the drive back—and I can’t see us needing it too much when we take off, so…” He winked at her and coughed, hand coming away flecked with mucus and blood. “S’yours.”

Humans made funny noises when you tackled them in perfect health: Jerry, however, was not in perfect health. The sound he made when she leapt into his lap—squeaking out a quick “Awesome!”—was one of pain, but when Scootaloo winced and looked up at him, he just kept smiling. A hand ran through her dirty mane, and she sighed: “Thanks, Da—” The fingers brushing against her scalp faltered, and Scootaloo froze. “Er… Jer… Thanks, Jer…” Slowly, the human’s hand fell away, and when she once again looked up to see if he was okay, he simply stared through her: lost somewhere she couldn’t follow. And… And soon he—they—would truly leave, abandoning her for the stars; for the hated moon.

They didn’t even try to hide it.

She felt a small wave of nausea and hunched away.

After that, things were quiet for awhile… aside from the odd, human music of course.

Scootaloo slowly relaxed into her human’s lap, putting aside her verbal slip and choosing to, instead, enjoy the feeling of companionship and safety. The radio sputtered away, and the general murmur outside the door simply faded into the background. Jer shifted once or twice, adjusting his leg under him. The little pegasus wrinkled her snout at the metallic smell; it wasn’t like the odor she’d grown used to—savored, more like—back in Ponyville at all. A ripe smell: a wound open to the air.

She remembered how he got it—glinting steel and breaking glass—and blinked.

“… irst I was tearing off your blouse: now you’re living in my house. What happened to just messin’ rou-ound?~”

“Hey Jerry?” she asked, covering her muzzle with a foreleg while he shifted his leg again. The human grunted something inarticulate, and she continued. “I saw you fall.”

“Mhmm?”

The door rattled across the room and soon stood open, a nervous-looking unicorn trotting in with that pink Princess and Raymond following close behind. Door remaining open as they trailed inside, Scootaloo could see several ponies sitting in the hall—some familiar, others unknown—each craning to catch a glimpse of the humans’ room. Slowly, it began to creak closed.

“How’d you survive? That was like, a billion hooves of open air!”

Scootaloo felt Jer chuckle, the erratic rising and falling of his chest making her wobble in his lap. He sighed and was silent a moment, and when she looked up at him, he was staring out the doorway, toward the ponies beyond, a smirk twitching at the corner of his lips.

“Well, obviously it was Pride Parade over there who saved my sorry ass from splattering all over the street,” he finally answered, inclining his head toward the half-open door.

Pride Parade…

Rainbow Dash?!

Snapping her gaze back out the slowly closing door, Scootaloo caught a glimpse of light blue coat, rimmed with every color of the rainbow. She was out the door in ten seconds flat, skirting past a tumbling ball of pink and a stoic mountain of white just as the room closed behind her.

Mommy wasn’t home.

Dinky Doo knew that for a fact, and, unlike most fillies her age, she didn’t relish in it. That was not to say she didn’t enjoy the company of Sparkler or her Auntie Roseluck, or that she loved her mother more than any of the other fillies in town. No… she just didn’t like it when Mommy had to leave. Seven to eight o’clock was their time—the time out of the day when Mommy wasn’t working, or cleaning, or cooking, and Dinky wasn’t in bed. They would play games together, or maybe Mommy would help her with her homework—at least, the stuff she remembered. Sometimes, when she drank a little of that grape juice from the top shelf of the pantry, she would even talk about Daddy.

It was 7:15 according to the clock, and Dinky missed her mother.

“Sparkler?”

Silence met the young unicorn as she clip-clopped around her—their—humble home. The creaky floorboard by the stairs groaned comfortingly under her light purple hoof, and Dinky peeked down the steps to the first floor. A short hallway led in either direction: one, to the kitchen; the other, the living room and front door. “Sparkler? Wanna play a game?” She descended, skipping the last two risers with a short hop. “Sparkler?”

“In the kitchen, Dinky!” a soft voice called—her sister since two years ago. She was a lot older than Dinky, practically all grown up, but that didn’t mean much to the little unicorn. Sparkler was so nice—most of the time—and when she wasn’t Dinky just waited for Mommy to come home, waited for seven o’clock…

Taking a left at the foot of the stairs, Dinky followed the dim lamplight into the kitchen where Sparkler sat, poring over a schoolbook. Her darker, purple-streaked mane looked almost blue in the dim light, and the glares cast on the window behind her made the night outside seem opaque and impenetrable. She was pretty. Dinky had always admired her sister for how pretty she was: a kind of adolescent beauty that made the colts who lived down the street stammer when she looked at them with her rich, purple eyes, or stare at her cutie mark—a triad of finely cut diamonds—when she walked by. Sparkler never noticed, of course, but Dinky did, and the younger unicorn never really understood the staring. She was pretty sure the attention was a good thing, though. Dinky hoped to be as pretty as her foster sister one day… but she apparently needed a pretty cutie mark first.

“Sparkler?”

The mare at the table shuddered and straightened up, closing her book—An Oral History of Saddle Arabia—before turning to face her younger sibling. Sparkler grunted and gave Dinky a strained smile: “I hate History.” Dinky giggled.

“But I thought you were gonna study it at the Uneighversity!”

Sparkler rolled her eyes, snorting to herself as her smile relaxed into something warm and inviting. “I think I’m beginning to change my mind about that. It’s way too much reading for me.” Dinky snorted back, sticking out her tongue at her older sibling:

“I flike fffreading!” she proclaimed through a muzzle-full of tongue, and Sparkler’s eyes narrowed.

“Oh yeah?” She quickly got to her hooves, and Dinky retracted her tongue nearly as quickly. “Like reading do you? Well what about… TICKLING!”

Dinky squealed and took off around the kitchen table, Sparkler clattering right behind her. Skidding on the rough, wooden floor, the younger unicorn rounded the table, passing counter, sink and drawer before finding herself careening toward the back door.

“See if you can catch me now, Sparkler!” she shouted, laughing as she put some of her magic training to the test. Her horn glowed softly, and the doorknob turned on its own, giving Dinky ample time to pull open the wooden panel and plunge into the back alley before Sparkler… caught her…

There was a pony on the ground.

Stumbling over her own hooves, Dinky sprawled on the back stoop, sliding to the edge of the top stair. Eyes wide, Dinky froze on her belly, staring at the pony in the alley. She was lithe, like a mare, and had a dark mane that swirled and matted awkwardly around her spiral horn—the tip encased in some sort of crusty, green goop. The same greenish ooze was spread across her body, the frame of the clearly adolescent pony constricted in a thick layer of the hard-looking substance. Her eyes were a deep purple, staring right at her above a thin, elegant muzzle, marred and forced shut by another layer of ooze. Dinky could hear her, and though she was muffled, the little unicorn knew she was screaming.

Eyes trailing lower, Dinky felt the breath leave her muzzle, and though she wanted to scream, she couldn’t, even as the slow hoofsteps coming from the kitchen behind her ceased, and a dark silhouette blotted out the dying lamplight.

Bordered by green crust and drying blood on the struggling mare’s flank: a triad of diamonds.

Rainbow Dash was confused… in a deliriously happy sense, of course.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you!”

The filly wrapped around her barrel, nearly cracking her ribs with the force of her tiny embrace, was shouting incessantly about her “heroism” and “awesome-ism” just like she had in the old days—was it really only a few weeks ago?—and Rainbow could barely hear herself think over the jubilant commotion.

“U-Uh… you’re welcome, Scoots,” Rainbow stuttered, a huge smile slowly forming on her haggard face, “but, uh, what exactly did I do?” The orange filly loosened her grip and looked up at her with glistening eyes, smiling.

“You saved Da—Jerry…” The filly paused, coughing awkwardly into her hooves before continuing. “You saved Ray and Jer when they were thrown through that window. Thank you.”

Rainbow’s stomach lurched, and, looking toward the now closed hospital room, she felt her momentary high begin to subside. “Who… Who told you that?” Scootaloo chuckled, shifting her underdeveloped wings before replying:

“Jerry told me: just now.”

Rainbow blinked, staring at the closed door across the hall. Muffled voices could be heard inside, but the words melded together and became meaningless—two aliens, a doctor, and a bride.
Why? Why did Jer lie to her? The multi-hued mare knew for a fact that she had nothing to do with the survival of either human: how they did it was a complete mystery to Rainbow, but Jer pinned it on her! Why? It couldn’t have been for Dash’s sake, right? So far, it was only obvious that he cared for the filly… so he only would have lied to make her feel better, right? Getting Scootaloo to forgive her? Did this mean he cared for the both of them?

A moment passed, and Scootaloo finally let go. Hoof accidentally brushing Rainbow’s left wing—hiding a knife amongst its downy feathers—she sat back on her haunches, looking up at her expectantly.

“Well?”

Rainbow started, looking down on the smiling filly with wide eyes.

“How’dja do it?”

That phrase: so familiar… Something inside Rainbow clicked, and she forgot all about humans and knives and blood. Rainbow forgot, but only so she could do what she did best…

“Well, you know Squirt, Queen Chrysalis was obviously no match for me.”

… tell a damned good story.

“Time Turner? I thought you went up to Canterlot for the wedding!”

The night was young, and Cloud Kicker had a stallion at her door—a handsome, foreign one at that. Smirking at the thought, the blonde pegasus glanced at the clock on the shelf to her left. It was a quarter to eight. A quick glance up at the night sky confirmed the anomaly she’d noticed just about an hour ago: the moon had yet to be risen, and not even the stars twinkled in the inky blackness. It was almost June, and the moon cycle was still in full swing… there wasn’t a new moon scheduled for that night was there?

“Y-Yes, well, I was supposed to take the train this morning, but I was held up at the station by an old mare with a limp, then…”

Cloud tore her eyes away from the space oddity and smiled, forgetting about moons and stars and schedules and instead allowing her eyes to wander toward Time Turner’s flank while he rambled.

“… o I was left without a ticket, halfway across the station from the departing train, when that nice stallion—Macintosh, I thought his name was—asked me If I had any idea how to get into…”

“His accent is soooo cute!” Cloud internally squealed, trying and failing to crush a few less than flattering images that kept cropping up in her mind’s eye. “I really should ask him to one of those new movie houses sometime…”

“… and when I woke up, it was dark, and your house was the closest one with any lights on, so I was wondering if you might have some ice? Or perhaps—”

A shriek pierced the night air, cutting the eloquent—and apparently injured—stallion mid-sentence. It rose to a shaky crescendo before being suddenly cut off, leaving the two ponies in silence. The light-purple pegasus shuddered, quickly stepping out the door to stand next to Time Turner, who had turned in the general direction of the frightened, young voice. A few lights turned on across the street, but other than that, nopony else left their homes. A little shakily, Cloud Kicker spoke:

“That… That sounded a little like Ditzy’s kid…”

“I’m ssssure it wasss nothing.”

Cloud froze, slowly turning her gaze toward the brown earth pony beside her. His expression was that of indifference, and when he noticed her looking at him, he turned and flashed her a toothy grin. “Yesss?”

“W-What happened to your accent?”

“Th-That’s Princess Luna!”

“Yes, Honey,” Cadance assured her fiancée before turning back to Raymond. “You should leave tonight.”

The human nodded, watching the unicorn healer to his left closely and a certain pink mare to his right even more closely. “When?”

“As soon as possible.”

“Celestia?”

“Recovering quickly. She accepts your pardon, but I’m not sure that will stay so if you’re still in the city by morning. But she’s not who you need to worry about.”

“Luna?”

“When she wakes up…” Cadance paused, looking toward Gerald as he grunted and thrashed on the hospital floor. Raymond strengthened his grip on the man’s shoulder, grimacing. “She will wake up, correct?” The healer nodded, probably trying to remain concentrated on the task at hand: purging the small infection that had developed from Jer’s wounded thigh. “When she wakes up, it would be best you weren’t within her immediate magical range.”

“You kidnapped a Princess?!”

“Yes, Captain Armor. We did.” Raymond was worried. Apparently, magically purging a patient’s bloodstream of harmful bacteria was supposed to take a few days—they were rushing the process to get it done in just a few hours. Judging from his partner’s struggling, accelerating such a delicate procedure was excruciating. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched as the Guard Captain turned toward his wife-to-be.

“And you’re okay with this?” he whispered, perhaps thinking he was out of earshot.

“No,” the princess answered, “but that doesn’t matter right now. The city is safe, and you’re with me: that’s all I care about.” Cadance paused, and Ray forced himself not to shudder when he felt her eyes on him. “Princess Luna is relatively unharmed, but the outlanders who saved us are in pain. The least we can do is get them home… focus on mustering the Guard to pursue the changelings.”

“Pursue and crush, Princess? Or just pursue?” Raymond frowned, but in the end he simply didn’t care, turning his attention away from their hushed conversation. The changelings were routed, their Queen dead by Jer’s hands. In truth, killing them off probably wasn’t necessary—they would die out on their own.

A quick scan of the Badlands from orbit probably wouldn’t hurt, though…

“Ray?” Schaffer looked up from his friend, meeting the sky-blue eyes of the earth pony holding the shoulder across from him. “I really, really, really don’t like this.”

Raymond nodded. “Need to leave the city. Can’t be helped.”

“Then I’m going with you,” she pushed. The human simply shrugged:

“Ms. Pie, I’m not—”

“It would probably be for the best,” Shining interrupted, stepping forward to aid in holding down Gerald’s left thigh. “We don’t know if there are any changelings still hiding out there. An… assassination… would completely destroy what little morale the city has left.”

Grunting quietly, Raymond nodded his grudging assent. He glanced at the healer—should’ve asked her name—her brow furrowed in concentration, breathing ragged and throaty. She’d been at it for roughly an hour, and she was obviously exhausted, but she refused to stop.

When Raymond had asked for volunteers he certainly hadn’t expected such enthusiasm.

Jer swung right, and the taller human almost collided with Pinkie, instead getting a brief face-full of wispy pink mane: it had been hanging limply over her eyes since the beginning of the procedure. The mare didn’t seem to notice, leaning close to Gerald’s right ear and whispering quietly. Ray couldn’t hear her, but he assumed it was encouragement of some sort. He didn’t think Jer could quite hear her either. He glanced down at his thrashing friend, scanning the rest of his injuries—the ear had reconnected rather easily, but he still had several broken ribs and his right hand remained burnt: dull black rising from healthy, pink flesh. Eyes screwed shut, Raymond’s fellow human clenched his creaking jaw, hissing and tensing and trying to rise as the burning itch spread beneath his skin, and his sergeant could feel the feedback pulsing through his forearms as he pressed him back down to the hospital floor.

For the fourth time, he lamented the diminished size of pony beds.

“I’ll… I’ll go inform the Elements,” Cadance quietly mumbled, blanching and cantering from the room as Gerald began to painfully wheeze to… someone.

“No… Nononono, ha! I-I can’t shovel all of it by myself!”

The door shut quickly behind her.

“Jesus, Dulce th-that’s coooold—h-hate when people do that. Don’t do that.”

Feeling a hoof on his shoulder, Raymond met the haggard, blue eyes of the Captain of the Guard. He appeared to be struggling with something, glancing at Gerald as he writhed, Pinkie trying to calm him. Finally, he spoke, voice just loud enough to hear over the injured man’s mutterings:

“I never thanked you for saving Cadance and I from that… thing—”

“Hello, darlin’!” Jer arched his back, spine popping as he thrust his waist into the air. His words came out strained and pleading: “How… How about a-a little kiss?”

“—so, thank you… for everything.”

Ray simply nodded, looking away. The human had already decided that Armor was a nice enough pony, but the Captain knew the real reason the humans were there, so why thank them? Watching Jer writhe, Raymond couldn’t help but feel angry with the stallion. Fucking prick couldn’t even keep track of his own fiancée: lost her to a bug and the whole city paid for it. He paid for it. Jer paid for it. Shining Armor was a good pony, but Ray needed to be angry at someone—he glanced at the still form of the alicorn on the bed—and he was the only conscious one around who even remotely deserved it.

“Don’t go… please jus’ wait awhile. I’m a-almost finished!”

Pinkie was crying, and Ray frowned, remembering the tears of another: days ago. Struggling to smile in a reassuring fashion, Schaffer let go of his friend just long enough to pat her on the head. She looked up for a moment, thanking him with her wavering eyes, but the tears didn’t cease and the human reluctantly let it go, choosing instead to get a feel for Jer’s condition. He directed his gaze toward the healer.

“Do you know what’s going on in there?”

The healer groaned, gritting her pearly teeth and briefly making eye contact with him: maroon eyes, like fanned embers. “S’just memory feedback. Probably.” Shuddering, the mare began to ease off of her magic, and Jer’s struggles slowed. “He’ll sleep… sleep for at least sixteen hours—*wheeze*—but the infection should b-be gone.” With a soft popping sound, the healer’s magic imploded, and she slumped to her haunches, breathing heavily. Reaching out, Ray squeezed her foreleg in thanks before releasing his hold on the human below him. Shining Armor did the same for Jer’s thigh, but Pinkie refused to let go, remaining at his shoulder, staring vacantly at him.

Gerald muttered quietly: “Fine… M’fine. It’s only a b-bruise…”

A small twitch at the corner of the pink mare’s mouth lifted some weight from the taller human’s shoulders, and he turned toward the bed. Ms. Pie would be fine…

Grey tarp rustled on green hospital sheets.

… and so would the Night Princess.

“When you’ve rested, gather staff to treat the Princess,” Armor gently commanded, patting the healer on her withers. “Then give your name to Sergeant Flare at the door: an invitation of sorts, if you’re interested.”

The healer wheezed, and Ray listened: “Med-Brigade?”

“Guard’s always looking for capable hoo—”

“No thank you, Captain,” the mare interrupted. “I’m not much for toting metal, protective or…”—she glanced at the rifle leaning against the bed—“or otherwise.” Shining nodded, and Raymond didn’t take the time to gauge his mood. Slinging his rifle back on his shoulder from where it lay at the foot of the hospital bed, Ray made his way to the door to check on Cadenza’s progress when the mare herself quickly slipped inside, opening the heavy door with naught but a whisper of wood on linoleum.

She quickly scanned the room, and, noticing the resting healer, met Ray’s eye:

“They agreed to leave the city. Honesty has them gathering outside beside your vehicle… we’ve sent a courier after Generosity and she should be here soon.” Silently connecting names to titles, Ray nodded. Turning away, he moved to try and lift Gerald from his place on the floor, but a blue aura quickly formed around the prone human, lifting him off the ground and detaching Pinkie with a surprised squeak.

“I’ll handle it,” Shining interjected quietly, stepping up to the floating human and laying him carefully on his back. His horn winked out, but it seemed the guardspony was able to hold Jer’s full weight with little assistance. He met Raymond’s gaze, eyes begging to be of help. “Just lead the way.” Ray nodded, and, turning toward the door, he grabbed the three vacuum suits that lay half-folded on the floor and began the trek to the jeep. Shining, Cadance, and Pinkie followed quietly behind, but the healer stayed: he saw her out of the corner of his eye, sitting up, staring at the sleeping blue alicorn.

Everyone had a long night ahead of them.

“Things that Go Bump in the Night, by Misty Marshes.” There was a cough, and the rustle of paper—the turning of thin, crackling pages. “Pinwheel, never one to squeal in fright, asked: ‘Why do you hide from the deep, dark night’?”

Two pairs of beady, blue eyes gazed through the bars of their wooden prison, watching and listening intently to the evening ritual. Orange, blocky hooves tapped on the nursery floor, but the small sounds did little to detract from the nightly performance: the sacred Bedtime Story…

“Her brother, young Spade, who shivered and swayed, gave answer ‘neath his silken covers, buried down out of sight: ‘There are things outside in that deep dark night—things that skitter and bump and probably bite’.” The orange one cleared his throat, shuffling at the foot of the crib. His audience pawed at their shared bedding anxiously, and brittle paper scratched and shuffled. “’They’re out there, big sis, and they’re restless tonight! Hide with me quick, and wait for the light!’

“‘Silly young foal, fear not for my soul,’ the filly admonished with glee. ‘Now throw off those covers and sneak past our mother to dance in the darkness with me!’”

Metal clanged and crashed in the kitchen below, muffled by the sturdy wood flooring of the second floor. Shrieking ballooned up the stairs—“Carrot! Carrot, the foals!”—but was quickly silenced. A dull thump shuddered the bakery.

The orange one sniffled—turned the page.

“But Jade fell asleep: he heard not a peep, and his sister went outside to play. When he opened his eyes, sun high ‘mongst clear skies, he smiled at the bright, shining day.

“‘Sister!’ he cried as he flung front doors wide, ‘Where are you? Where are you, I say? The darkness has fled, the beasts surely fed, and I’m ready to frolic and play!’ Undisturbed by the silence, (Jade being a might dense), he trotted away from his home: a high hedge standing in place of a fence. Down past the hedge there was a small ledge: a deep highway, a brook, or a ditch. Prancing through trees, Jade sprained both his knees, and down the gully his body did pitch.”

Heavy hoofsteps made their way up the stairs, and the blue one entered, form blurry in heavy, sleep-drowned eyes. She took her place next to the orange one, and the ritual continued unimpeded:

“Squirming in grime, Jade cringed at the crime: the small body he met in that place. Twisted and slashed, bones broken and smashed, Pinwheel lay with her brother—one little body… minus the face.”

Quietly, the ritual ended, pages creaking as the archaic storybook was finally shut. The two small foals—barely old enough to crawl, really—lay snoozing in their crib, breathing quietly. The orange storyteller looked grim, glancing at his blue companion as they were both consumed in verdant, green flame: burning away fur, skin, and muscle until only chitin remained.

“The bakers?”

Translucent wings buzzed, tips brushing against the storytellers’ black hide. The second—formerly blue and somewhat overweight—changeling, glancing at her counterpart, answered indignantly: “Taken care of. What else?”

The first simply stared down at the sleeping foals, expression stiff: unreadable. “What of the grubs?” His squad-mate glanced inside the little, wooden prison before her and softened, again brushing him with her wings.

“There is a room in the tower: somepony else lives here.”

Compound eyes never leaving the sleeping pony children, the storyteller slowly nodded. His partner felt him prepare to say something else, but a muffled crash from the rooms below cut him off. Both changelings quickly slinked out of the nursery to investigate—like oil flowing ‘cross a moonlit sea.

Neither looked back. Neither returned.

The humans’ vehicle was like a royal carriage… but infinitely less comfortable. Considering Fluttershy’s gripping phobia of heights, that really was saying something. Hunched against the cold, sticky upholstery of the reverse side of the back seats, the yellow pegasus flinched at every bump and shudder as the four-wheeled monstrosity careened down the mountain road. Her dirty, pink mane whipped in the wind, getting in her eyes and blocking out the speeding landscape to the right and the jagged cliffs to the left.

“… Hell! Hell i—zzzzt—for children!”

Lowering her ears, Fluttershy tried to block out the scratchy music streaming from the machine attached to the front of the jeep—a whisper in the black, blustery night—and scooted closer to the mound of odds and ends piled in the bed of the metal monster. Armor plating, a pair of helmets, heavy, grooved balls of metal, what appeared to be a saddlebag made for bipeds—all tied down in a hasty bundle. On the other side of the cache of odds and ends, the awkward pegasus could just barely make out Gerald: curled in on himself in sleep. She knew that he had been hurt, but he seemed… stable… at the moment. Pinkie lay quietly next to him—breathing steadily, eyes closed—but Fluttershy knew she was awake. The pink mare kept peeking at the biped lying next to her, blue eyes blinking open for several moments before settling back down once more.

A porcelain hoof settled around Fluttershy’s withers and she had to consciously force herself not to flinch—Rarity hated scaring her. The mussed-up unicorn had crawled over a few minutes prior, desperate for stability in the back of the rumbling, rocking machine, and had, after giving Fluttershy a reassuring mile, immediately began watching the green stallion sitting further to the rear, a yard or so away from a grim, lavender unicorn. Looking at the hoof looped around her, then back at the distant, frowning mare, Fluttershy wondered if she even noticed the contact: whether or not it was a simple, automatic gesture.

Following Rarity’s gaze, the shivering pegasus, too, began watching the stallion. She didn’t know his name, but she did remember how they met. A stream of cursing and angry sounds in the background—pleading and blood—holding another stallion in his hooves.

“Wake up! C’mon… j-just please wake up!”—A loud 'bang' in the background, and silence—“Do something! Somepony do something!”

He had looked right at her, crying for his friend and pleading with anypony who would listen. Looked right at her…

Now he just sat on his haunches, staring vacantly at the odd, metallic tubing swiveling and bumping along with the jeep… looking at nothing.

Fluttershy should have cried—should be crying—but she couldn’t.

She didn’t know why, though, and that feeling—that of deep, yawning emptiness—frightened her.

The stars were missing. She didn’t remember when she noticed… like she just knew. Deep, black nothingness stretched above into infinity—empty as her lost soul. Why didn’t she cry? The last animal she had taken in, a badly injured Chipmunk, had slipped away after three days of constant care—died happy and comforted—and she had sobbed for what seemed like an eternity, stopped by a timely visit from Rarity on their usual spa day.

Chuckle—that had been the yellow stallion’s name: Hearty Chuckle—died violently, blinded, confused, and alone.

Why didn’t she cry?

Shivering in the wind, Fluttershy huddled closer to her porcelain friend, tearing her quivering eyes away from the thick blackness above. Rainbow was up there somewhere… alongside a cadre of Night Guards. Cadance said they were there for protection—the pegasus glanced toward the front of the vehicle, to the stony creature sitting at the wheel, Applejack in the seat to his right, hat off, sitting just as stiffly. Had the Princess been purposefully vague? Fluttershy didn’t like the thought, cold as it was, to reside within her, but her mind kept drifting back to the sound of Gerald’s weapon, Chrysalis’ screams, the warm, green blood flecked on her coat.

They saved her life, and the lives of her friends… but…

So many died; Chrysalis murdered—she didn’t see it but she knew it happened. It was wrong. She knew it was wrong everything was so wrong and she needed to say something be angry feel betrayed cry why couldn’t she cry and scream and stop being so… so…
Fluttershy was so afraid. She was afraid of Gerald, and Raymond—especially Raymond—and the Guards. She was afraid of Applejack… and Pinkie… She was afraid for the fillies sleeping in the middle seat, for Spike, just a baby… for herself…
The night sped by. They were almost off the mountain, now.

Rainbow Dash was cold, and that, in turn, made her rather unhappy. Lamenting the loss of her multi-hued—and, more importantly, layered—dress, the blue pegasus sped down the mountain, unseasonable icy wind blustering around her. She was following the bouncing forward lamps on the humans’ vehicle, and the flapping of a dozen or so wings to either side reminded her that she wasn’t alone: Night Guard—some thestrals and one or two keen-eyed pegasi speeding alongside her.

She had almost dropped out of the sky when they’d shown up—startled, not scared, obviously—and they hadn’t come within more than a few yards of her since. Honestly, that was fine by her. She wasn’t racist or anything—used to be best friends with a gryphon!—but those thestrals… well, they were a bit on the creepy side. What, with the fangs and all that unnaturalness.

Clenching Jer’s knife a bit tighter in her muzzle, the decidedly not racist, soon-to-be Wonderbolt shivered as another gust of chilling wind rolled by. Angling downward, she intended to try to land on the rocketing, metal cart before it reached the foot of the mountain, but a sudden updraft pushed her back. Rainbow banked left, but quickly straightened when she made contact with one of the cold, jostling weights that shared the sky with her. Suppressing a girlish squeal, Dash darted a few feet away from the flying stallion, meeting his shining, yellow eyes only briefly before looking away: the unusual, feline slits burned into her retinas.

The dark stallion eyed her warily, glancing at the weapon she held in her mouth. This continued until the Element of Loyalty, tired of feeling his strange eyes on her, spat Jer’s knife into her hooves and spoke, practically shouting over the wind:

“What’re you lookin’ at, bub?”

Freakish eyes widening ever-so-slightly, the bat-pony hesitated to respond, gaze darting from the knife in Rainbow’s hooves to the bouncing vehicle below and back again. When he finally did speak, it wasn’t a shout, but, somehow, Dash heard him:

“That knife… it doesn’t belong to you, does it?”

Rainbow scoffed, glaring at him. “How would you know?”

The guard glided slightly closer, and the rainbow pegasus had to force herself not to flinch away. He squinted in the moonlight, looking carefully at Jer’s weapon. “That is no pony weapon…” he trailed off, dipping a wing pointedly at the jeep speeding down the mountainside. “I was simply curious—meant no disrespect to you, ma’am.”

Eyeing the guard carefully, the Element of Loyalty slowly nodded, angry frown shrinking into a more neutral expression. She looked forward again, following the road ahead with her eyes as they flew on. After a few seconds, she spoke again.

“It’s Jer’s knife, not mine.”

A moment’s silence, broken only by the wind and flapping of dark, leathery wings.

“Is it true what they say? That they murdered Chrysalis? Tortured her?”

Word traveled fast… Rainbow looked down at the metal chassis careening below her, squinting to try and make out any shapes in the gloom.

“Jerry killed her, yes.”

The guard flapped beside her, his mouth a hard, rigid line. “I… the torture?”

Trying ever so hard not to really think about what she saw that afternoon, but reluctant to leave the guard with so little information—free to spread amongst the ranks, grow, and expand into something terrible—Dash continued to the best of her ability. “There… there was screaming—mostly Jer yelling—and… he killed another changeling in front of her… he just wanted to know where they lived…” The pegasus shook her head. “They didn’t… well, they didn’t torture her.”

“Why?”

Rainbow looked at the guard, frowning again. “What do you mean, ‘why?’” The thestral met her gaze, yellow feline eyes looking straight into her.

“Why did they need to know where they lived?” Scoffing, Rainbow stuttered something about better defense, but the guard simply shook his fanged head. “Think about it, ma’am.”

Breaking her gaze from that of her unnatural wing-pony, Dash grit her teeth, suddenly angry with the thrice-damned thestral beside her. “Do the Princesses pay you to think, huh? Because they sure as Tartarus don’t pay me to!” Rainbow banked hard, flipping over the stoic guard’s back, just short of clipping his leathery wings. “I don’t need to think about it!” she spat in his ear. “They saved my bucking life, my best friends, all of Canterlot—” Calling upon all the venom in her wiry body, the famous weather manager beset the thestral with her best imitation of Fluttershy’s stare. “—and even you.”

Meeting her scowl with a peculiarly calm gaze, the guard smiled, pointed fangs glinting in the moonlight. “That’s where you’re wrong, Miss,” he chuckled, grin widening slightly, lips dried and splitting in the blustering wind. “Thinking is one of many, many things I am paid to do.”

The violin.

Oh Spirits, the violin.

Feathers and scales and fur slid through the air, slowly twisting and undulating like a worm on mescaline. Sorrowful chords split the silent Everfree night, squeaking and crying as Sho’ani stood, frozen, watching as the pile of bodies grew before her. Changelings flitted amongst the gnarled trees in twos and threes, carrying bundles of resin and flesh. Breathing bundles: twitching and shuddering to the sonorous wails of the violin.

A contented hum tickled the Commander’s ears, and she had to force herself not to flinch as a mad god slithered across her flanks. “Your soldiers are quite… capable, my dear Commander.” The mournful instrument squealed, and her master tutted. The violin swung briefly through Sho’ani’s peripheral vision before disappearing, continuing its mournful chorus. “Nearly seventy ponies in just under four hours. Impressive.”

Choking out a reply as best she could, the Wing-Commander acknowledged the callous creature for his praise, praying to Chrysalis—or what was left of her—for it to disappear. Poof. Gone. Silent.

No more violin. No more.

The last of her changelings buzzed through the treetops, having scoured the town for any more hiding equines, and joined the remaining formation next to the mound of sleeping bodies. They remained stock-still, compound eyes staring past her, looking to the floating, swirling Discord. He just kept playing, the wretched melody gnawing at what remained of Sho’ani’s already strained sanity.

After what seemed like hours, the blood moon above seemingly frozen in the empty, black sky, the musician spoke.

“Do you”—hacking giggles and squeaking strings interrupted his question, but he quickly recovered. “Heh, d’you know what?” Several changelings in the formation shifted on their hooves, and, feeling the air shift behind her, Wing-Commander Sho’ani stiffly stepped to the side. The amused god, single fang glinting in the moonlight as he smiled in genuine happiness, quickly filled the void she left behind. “You all deserve a reward! Something worthy of your… ahem… discretion.”

Hesitant grins spread amongst the troops and many relaxed where they stood, glancing in relief at their fellows. Sho’ani desperately wanted to join them, but all she could do was stare on in silent horror as many of her comrades’ pride began to override their fear.

“I have one more task for you all,” Discord continued, still smiling disarmingly. “There is a small cavern nearby—a short walk, I promise—that will make the perfect storage place for these lovely captives.” With a small flourish and a snap, wooden signs sprouted from the ground, large, comical arrows pointing deeper into the forest. “Bring them there, and you will be relieved of duty.”

Moving quickly, the platoon split back into infiltrator groups, and the buzzing of wings filled the air, drowning out the excited chatter of her changelings as they began lifting bodies… but not the violin.
No, the violin could not be silenced, and as Discord continued to play, lightly brushing—scales, fur, feathers—against her chitin, Sho’ani would have sold her soul just to be able to scream.

It was wrong. All wrong.

Twilight lay quietly beneath the lazily swinging barrel of the humans’ cannon, a massive frown creasing her purple brow. The bouncing vehicle had reached the foot of the mountain hours ago and the familiar rolling countryside surrounding Ponyville would be upon them in a matter of moments, but the Element of Magic didn’t care. She had put as much distance between herself and the inequine creatures that had saved their lives as she could, but the memory of Chrysalis’ murder kept resurfacing.

She had begged for mercy.

For the lives of her… children.

Gerald and Raymond, they… they just didn’t care: just killed her on the spot.

And now they knew where the rest would be hiding.

What’s to say they wouldn’t simply finish what they started?

An entire race destroyed.

And it’s all your fault!

A single, unbidden tear formed at the corner of her eye, and Twilight quickly blinked it away. For nearly four hours she had turned the battle over in her mind, as if manipulating the event with her magic, and no matter how she tried, she found nothing that she could have done to prevent the humans’ bloody rampage. The same rampage that saved her life and the lives of her friends.

Without them, Chrysalis would have won. Canterlot would have been drained, her friends and family killed.

But it was still wrong. So, so wrong.

None of her friends would listen. They didn’t want to:

Applejack clung to Raymond like a life preserver, Pinkie doing the same to Jer.

Rarity just smiled hesitantly and remained silent, wiping at the blood that had crusted onto her white coat.

Fluttershy was blank.

Rainbow… she listened, but the green blood long dried onto the blade she hid under her wing told Twilight exactly where her loyalty lay: with their lives, and not with the law.

The Griffonia Convention, the Sanctions at Geneighva, and the Prance Peace Accords—all so much useless parchment.
Twilight didn’t know what to do. She needed somepony to listen to her: anypony.

Suddenly, apple trees began to whip by on either side of the speeding jeep, and a dark farmhouse appeared on the horizon, flanked by an empty barn. Sweet Apple Acres… and there was a light on in one of the top-floor windows.

An idea began to form, and tormented as she was, Twilight immediately latched onto it. Briefly charging her horn, she disappeared in a bright flash of purple mana.

The local farm-colt was going to have a long night ahead of him.

Six ponies and a dragon lay sleeping, hidden from the burning stars above by a thick layer of titanium sheeting.

Seven dreamers.

Applejack watched them from the top of the ship’s ramp, her Stetson casting deep purple shadows in the moonlight. She watched them huff contentedly, snuggling into the stiff, coarse blankets of the Duckling’s pullout mattress and felt immense, near-unshakeable relief. Applebloom, Sweetie Belle, Fluttershy, Rarity: everypony made it back from the destroyed capitol in—relatively—one piece. If it weren’t for the cold, numb feeling creeping down her haunches, she would have joined them: joined the quiet union of steady breaths and twitching limbs.
But she had done something terrible. Despite the relief, despite the safety and warmth of the small fire burning in the small clearing below, she felt cold. She had done a bad thing and hadn’t cared in the slightest. That terrible knowledge alone was enough to send shivers down her usually rather dependable spine.

Twilight had left them. Not for good, but for the night. She had teleported off the back of the humans’ jeep just as they had passed Sweet Apple Acres, and when Rainbow had gone to check on her she had been in the farmhouse—Macintosh’ bedroom to be exact—rambling about the Equestrian Moral Code of Conduct to her near-catatonic brother. With Rainbow’s pledge to check on them every hour, Raymond had decided not to intervene, deeming the lavender unicorn safe in the hooves of the pony who had carried him safely out of the Everfree just a few days ago.
A muffled thump reverberated towards the front of the ship, and, quiet as a breath on the wind, the tall, bulky shape of their protector tiptoed his way toward her. Acknowledged with a slight tilt of the head, Applejack watched as Raymond shuffled past her, cradling a small, metallic brick in his arms. He descended the ramp with it, heading steadily toward the guttering campfire and its two stoic sentinels: one asleep two steps from the grave, the other far too grave to sleep. Still numb with… something… the farm mare followed.

Raymond stepped over the fallen log that had served so reliably as a bench for the past week and sat next to a deep green unicorn, leaning his back against the stripped, rotting wood. The unicorn—Cymbal, if Applejack remembered correctly—spared the reclining human a brief glance before gazing back into the dying fire, hoof brushing the reflective blanket lying next to him with a soft crackle. Beneath the blanket lay Mr. Hanes, breathing steadily, much like Raymond had the day they’d arrived on their little planet. He’d been Fuss-Bucket, then. The farm mare snorted, allowing herself a small smile at the memory of the odd joke the shorter alien had played.

Stepping weakly, Applejack made her way around the fallen log and took a seat next to Raymond: furthest from the slumbering madman she couldn’t help but respect far more than she feared. She watched as the scarred human fiddled with the brick, sliding a small panel along its surface back and forth. He frowned in concentration, and the farmer found his expression fascinating. She stared at his lined face as it contorted into a grimace, trying to forget the growing numbness in her barrel that frightened her so. It wasn’t until the device in his grip suddenly exploded with light that she succeeded.

In less than an instant the guttering flames of the humans’ campfire were overwhelmed by steady, artificial light, dancing across what was left of the canopy above. The two ponies who bore witness to the event flinched, staring in awe at the extraordinary lightshow. Streams of color and shape flowed from the metallic device still clutched in Ray’s calloused palms, coalescing into a growing sphere of greens, browns and copious blues. Smiling contentedly—the first smile Applejack had seen since the train station—Ray gently set the device down in front of the dying fire, letting the floating image grow and grow until it dwarfed even him.

A globe hung in the still, night air, spinning lazily on a tilted axis. Brown clumps—landmasses slowly grinding ‘cross a mighty sea—formed from the swirling mass of color, separated into continents, and grew mountains, cityscapes, and dark, winding rivers. The sphere darkened, and sparkling pinpoints of light rose from the twilit earth, covering nearly every spec of visible land, before it brightened once more, repeating in an endless cycle.

White, brown, and yellow cloud-layers spread out from the rotating planetoid, joined by blocky, symmetrical structures of gray metal and shining plate that orbited the glowing orb that had suddenly appeared in the center of camp. It hung, plump and beautiful, above the dying fire, the occasional flicker or shift the only things reminding its silent audience of its artificiality.

Cymbal, wrested from his stupor by the extraordinary sight, stood and took a step toward the image: now nearly triple his size. He reached out a hoof and brushed through the fuzzy cloud layer and into an ocean. Calmly pulling his limb back, he asked the question that had been rattling around inside Applejack’s own head since the lightshow began: “So this is…?”

Raymond simply nodded, gazing fondly upon the planet he had summoned, eyes glistening. His smile wavered briefly, but ultimately held.
The errant flapping of wings did little to disturb the moment, even when Rainbow Dash came bursting through the canopy.

“AJ! You’re never gonna believe… believe… whoa.” Mesmerized by the revolving sphere, she circled the camp, looking at the anomaly from every angle. “What?”

“Quiet down, Sugarcube,” Applejack hissed, glancing back toward the open hatch of the humans’ ship. “You’ll wake somepony up.” There was a rustle of reflective blanketing, and one of the few non-ponies in camp spoke up.

“Too late,” groaned a raspy, tired voice. Immediately, Cymbal and Rainbow were on either side of the now conscious Gerald, the green unicorn putting a soft hoof on the human’s shoulder.

“You okay, Boss?”

“M’fine. Fine. Just… oh.”

Slowly, as if afraid he would suddenly fall apart at the seams, Jer sat up on his elbows, blinking at the planet revolving above him. “Damn, Ray. Didn’t know you still had this.” The taller human didn’t reply, choosing instead to look over his recently awoken comrade.

“You look like shit.”

Jer glanced down at himself before returning his gaze to the floating globe. “I feel like it.” He paused, looking down at the silver brick from which the image had emerged. “What… What else do you have on there?”

Giving a small shrug, Ray leaned forward and touched a small indent in the metallic projector, and the image quickly shifted. Gone was the planet the two humans so desperately wished to return to: replaced by silently lapping waves on a blackened beach. Clouds heavy with moisture hung in the air, and the pockmarked sand stretched off into the distance, curving into an enormous peninsula atop of which lay a ruined cityscape unlike anything built in Equestria. Smoke billowed in great plumes from shattered buildings whilst enormous flying machines—Applejack glanced at the ship resting peacefully behind her with newfound respect—drifted purposefully over the wreckage, occasionally setting down… only to rise back up, burdened with some form of debris or another.

“Where is thi—” Cymbal began, only to be startled into silence by the appearance of an enormous, human face—a male—that blocked the rest of the panorama from view. Curly, ginger locks tumbled across his pale, furrowed brow, eyes squinting in concentration as he worked on something Applejack couldn’t see. His thin lips stretched into a frustrated grimace, before they began to move in a facsimile of speech, like the mouth of a stallion left mute in the aftermath of a terrible accident.

“Sound still work?” Gerald rasped from his spot in the dirt, eyes never having left the image since it changed. Raymond leaned forward, prodding several similar indents in the metal. There was a low crackle, and then a reedy voice began emanating from the device, syncing with the moving lips floating above:

“—ow how to work this damned thing?”

Another voice—raspy and familiar—answered: “It’s on now, Adolf. See the red light?” The grimacing face turned away, looking at someone out of the picture.

“Ey, fuck you, Jer!” he shouted, smiling and thumbing his nose as he pulled away to reveal a group of humans in heavy cloth garments and armor plating standing on the beachhead. “I’m a fucking ginger and you latch onto the German thing? Where do you get off, you damned mick?”

Standing at the edge of the pack of bipeds, weapon nestled against a plated shoulder, a slightly younger Corporal Hanes smirked under the shadow of his helmet visor and winked. “With you bending over like that, I’m getting off right now.” Several whistles and catcalls sounded from the group of warriors, seven total including the red-haired one who was swaggering back toward the others, a salacious sway in his hips and his middle-most fingers pointing skyward in some strange salute. Applejack could pick out a few more feminine voices from the crowd, but she had difficulty determining genders through the thick armor plating, heavy cloth, and dark grime that covered their faces.

Reaching the front of the small assembly, the red-haired man snatched a proffered helmet from another tall, dark-skinned soldier. He quickly set the protective cover on his head, patting the taller man on the shoulder plate and receiving a playful punch in return. He finally turned to the only warrior not facing the five-being audience, holding a small object out to him in mock reverence.

“Care to do the honors, Sarge?” he asked, chuckling to himself whilst the others chatted quietly amongst themselves. The sergeant, abandoning his silent watch of the city beyond, turned and revealed himself to be none other than Raymond, except…

“So that’s what he looked like when he had both’a his eyes…” Applejack mused, glancing at the scarred human seated next to her. He watched the suspended moment in his life without expression, absentmindedly tracing the burns that crisscrossed his right cheek. “He looks so much older, now.”

Younger Raymond took the object from his redheaded squad mate, holding it at his waist with a thumb lightly touching a small button on its side. The rest of the group immediately quieted down and lined up as if for a picture until another voice, clearly female, broke the silence:

“Dammit, Schlosser! The light’s flashing! You set the damned thing to video!” The exclamation came too late, though, for younger Raymond had already raised the small device in his hand and pressed the button, and the floating image quickly faded into an amorphous cloud of blackness.

“You didn’t keep the footage from the entire campaign, did you?” Gerald coughed, sitting up straighter and leaning on the log. Rainbow landed next to him, a worried look on her face. She whispered something in his ear and he waved her off. “I never took you for a nostalgic, Sarge.” There was a glint of metal in the moonlight, and Rainbow was holding Jer’s knife in her wing. She offered it to him, the silvery metal still splashed with green blood. He looked down at the weapon, then at the pegasus fidgeting next to him. “I thought I lost this…” Lifting the blade carefully from her feathers, Gerald turned it over in his hands and admired the green crust coating its edges. “I’m glad it came of some use to you.” Slipping the knife safely into his boot, the grey-eyed man began to pat Rainbow between the ears. She returned the gesture with a small smile, but her eyes seemed far off, perhaps reliving those few moments in the courthouse… the lives she’d snuffed out in the chaos. Applejack could empathize—was empathizing. Leaving his hand to scratch her ears, Jer gave the pegasus a reassuring smile before turning back to the lights shifting and changing above the clearing. A new scene was forming.

The sound of tapping drums, clashing cymbals, and light, jaunty strings emanated from the metal brick as a human form quickly stepped back, changing the enormous floating brown and grey mass into a ruined chamber. Thick, mucus-colored growths spread across ruined wallpaper as if vomited by a foal, and clouds of dust danced back and forth in the waning, orange light that streamed through the damaged walls of whatever building in which the witnessed scene took place. The biped, now revealed to be the same soldier who precluded the last recording, turned on his heel, stepping aside to reveal the source of the cacophonous music—Ray shifted forward, pressing something on the projector that quieted the noise.

Gerald Hanes and three other armored humans stood in the center of the small room, broken and shattered instruments strewn about their feet as they played their loud, discordant melody. Jer strummed on what looked to be a mandolin—missing two strings—while a large man with dark, brownish skin played a more intact guitar to his left. Behind them, a smaller, softer figure beat on a dilapidated pair of drums with the ferocity of an angry manticore, and a squat, helmetless man quickly scuttled back and forth along a keyboard set on a cinderblock and a bucket.

Several voices—one more familiar than the others—began to sing lustily over the sounds of crashing instruments. Something about a rose “tattoo”, perhaps the same kind of body art Applebloom had told her about.

This continued for some time: the occasional bipedal shape drifting into the image or thrown rocks disturbing the throbbing music. One of the worn-out drums being mauled by the feminine biped finally caved, and was kicked out of the way as everyone continued to wail in their the strange, throaty chorus.

A steady drone slowly rose above the music and shouting, and dust began to whip around the small room. The storm of flying grit and needling whine quickly put an end to whatever obscene concert had been taking place, and the younger Jer simply tossed his instrument out of the picture, raising an arm to protect his face from the airborne debris. Faint shouts could be heard over the incessant, undulant hum, but Applejack had to strain to make out what was being said:

“—arge got Gateway on the COM. Our ride’s here! Get a—“

Suddenly, the view shifted and the whole room spun. A scowling face—the red-head—passed by before being replaced by half a shattered doorframe and the shining hull of a smaller version of Jer and Ray’s ship. Several humans were jogging up the vehicle’s lowered ramp while jets of white-hot flame sputtered from holes on its underside, spitting molten paving and chunks of concrete every which way. The view shook once, twice, and the craft got steadily closer and louder until the image, mercifully, went black.

Almost immediately the image greyed and expanded, revealing an enormous chamber filled to the brim with metallic boxes, tubes, and several more ships all in a row. Humans in thin, fluorescent jumpsuits scurried around the resting machines: making adjustments to various machinery and stacks of cargo. A hulking, yellow metal suit clanked into view, securing a long, white tube to one of the ship’s wings with its striped claws while several other un-armored humans supervised. The view jostled, and the image panned toward a small group of humans in greenish clothes—some lightly bandaged in mauve-stained gauze—who appeared to be watching something that Applejack was all too familiar with: hoof-wrestling.

“Come on, Guajardo! I’ve got half a share riding on this!”

“On him?”

“Pfft. No way, man. I bet the greenhorn that he’d get his wrist broken.”

Two men sat across from one another, elbows tensed on a metallic crate as one man struggled to budged the arm of the other. The man on the left, Guajardo from the cheering and the pointing, strained with all his might, wheezing angrily through his teeth at his opponent who merely sat there, staring neutrally with dull, blue eyes.

“What happened to ‘I’ve got him this time, guys: you just watch’ eh? What happened?”

“Fuck you, Schlosser!” the straining man panted, “I was drunk!”

“You still are, technically,” the stoic man across from him drawled, steady gaze never leaving Guajardo’s sweating brow, “the composition of your sweat indicates that you are still in a state of moderate inebriation.”

“Yeah! You tell him, Blane!”

“You can do that science-y shit to me all night long, corpsman!” a heavily slurred feminine voice shouted from the background, “Beat his ass!”

Jer giggled to himself, smiling at the image above them: “Blane got all the techie pussy.”

“Blane wasn’t human, Jer.”

“He was more human than you, Sir,” the shorter man countered, “Android or no, I miss the bastard.”

“Android?” Cymbal shifted in his spot next to Jer, looking quizzically at the floating memory, “What is that supposed to mean?”

“He always preferred the term ‘Artificial Human’,” Jer mumbled wistfully. In the moving picture above, Blane began to slowly push back against his tired opponent much to the enjoyment of the crowd. Guajardo crowed and cussed, but to no avail. Applejack felt sorry for the man. It was obvious that he was no match for the “an-droyd”. “He’s not really alive, y’see… Well, that depends on your definition of the word ‘alive’.” Jer shifted and closed his eyes. Slowly, he rasped on: “He was made in a factory somewhere. Sol model, probably. Good man. Saved our asses more times than I can count.”

“That’s…” Cymbal began, squinting closely at the image. “That’s terrifying.”

“Mmm?”

“He looks just like one of you. How can you tell the difference?”

Gerald opened his eyes and shot a crooked grin in the direction of the staring musician. “How do you tell the difference between a pony and a changeling?” Cymbal fell silent, and gave a short nod. The green pony continued to stare up at the moving picture even as the match was broken up by a stern, feminine figure.

“All right, gentlemen. On your feet,” she shouted, storming across the room between metal monsters and enormous storage containers. “Orders just came in. We’re headed planetside.” Reaching the contested crate in just a few short strides, she boxed the two wrestlers in each ear and gave Guajardo a shove. “Break it up, ladies. Sarge wants you in the ready room in full combat gear on-the-fucking-double.” Both men nodded, giving one another a look of mutual understanding, and quickly stood. The jeering and catcalling died down soon afterward, and a familiar figure strode over, growing larger as he approached the center of the screen. Before the image disappeared completely, another voice spoke up:

“Where we headed, Oakes?”

The woman—that’s what Ray called them, Applejack recalled—paused, answering as the image began to fade. “We’ve got final sweep duty through a little city in New Mexico: should be a cakewalk. Now lets get a mo—”

Gone was the strange cargo hold, replaced by the shakey image of stands of trees lining a single, poorly-paved road. Heavily armored humans walked cautiously down the center, weapons pointed every which way, but Applejack paid little attention to the new story playing out in the air. She was listening to Gerald and Ray, and thinking about that… woman.

“God damn, man,” the shorter human muttered as he lay back down. “Myra was one hell of a hardass.”

“And you weren’t?”

She had an interesting form… thinner than both Jer and Raymond, but round at the flanks and upper barrel. Applejack glanced down at herself, then at Raymond.

Well… at least Ah have one thing goin’ for me.

“You know what I mean, Ray.”

The camp was relatively silent for a moment, aside from the trudging of recorded footsteps and quiet banter of ghosts.

“She had a thing for you, ya know.”

Applejack immediately turned to look at Gerald—that little bit of Rarity squirming its way into her head—and was surprised to see that he wasn’t fazed by the comment in the slightest. The man simply sighed and gave a somber grin, not paying attention to the rainbow pegasus that hunched a little closer to his side.

“Yeah? And our young Private Schlosser tried to get a holovid of you in the shower. Everybody was starved for something.” Alarmed, AJ turned back to Raymond only to find his same, stony expression. He shrugged, turning back to the new display above the fire pit. The moving lights cast flickering shadows over his scarred face. Applejack felt the sudden urge to just reach out and trace them with her hoof, but managed to suppress the odd impulse. She settled for moving just a bit closer to her bipedal friend while he was riveted by the “holovidamajig”.

“Private. Might I suggest stowing the recorder for now?” a familiar, dour voice proposed.

“Lighten up, Blane. It’s a final sweep: this place has been baited, bombed, and signed in fucking triplicate. Besides, Jer’s gonna be in medical for at least a month. Might as well have something to entertain him while he’s stuck up there.”

At the mention of his name Jer perked up, looking more closely at the swirling images with a wide smile. AJ couldn’t help but be dismayed by how quickly it disappeared.

“When you said you kept all the footage”—the picture showed rows upon rows of squat, abandoned homes—“I guess you weren’t kidding.”

“Schlosser! Check those two over there! Take Blane and Lanz with you!” the distant, buzzing voice young Sgt. Schaffer shouted. The view shifted dramatically and the entryway of one of the less pristine homes grew steadily closer.

“You got my six, Mr. Roboto?”

“I really must insist that you take this more seriously. Final sweeps should be completed with the utmost care to ensure proper—“

“Oh, come off it Blane. Leave the kid alone. I’m going round back, so just wait a few seconds will ya?”

Gerald glanced at the ponies around him, briefly making eye contact with Applejack before turning to his partner: “I think you oughta turn that off, Ray.” Immediately, Rainbow was standing up and strutting toward the recording with all the bravado she could muster.

“Oh c’mon, Jer: don’t baby us. AJ, Cymbal, and I aren’t scared that eas—“

Suddenly a midnight shape sprung through the decayed doorway, and the recording was all flashing teeth, ebony spines, and electronic screams. Dash was cowering beneath Jer’s slight frame even as the image flipped and spun to the ground—recording device dropped in the struggle—to reveal a skeletal, black nightmare tearing the arm off of the red-maned human they had become so acquainted with that night. Blood sprayed as the severed limb was flung away, but, horrified though she was, Applejack couldn’t turn away. It was enormous, and… and sharp.
Another figure quickly entered the frame, dodging the creature’s thrashing tail and lifting it off of the screaming private. It was Blane. He stood there, lifting the monster above his head with both arms, shouting something over and over...

The last thing AJ saw before burying her face in Raymond’s shoulder was a flash of ebony tail and a terrible gout of unnatural, white ichor spewing from Blane’s chest. As she pressed her snout deep into Ray’s armpit—just make it stop oh please—the only thing she could think was that she knew exactly what Gerald meant before when he was talking to Cymbal about the changelings. Oh goddesses she knew.

AJ felt Ray lean forward and, afraid he was about to leave her, she scrambled to grab him with her hooves. He didn’t get up, however, and instead there was a short ‘click’ and the screaming and gurgling that had once been filling the farm pony’s ears faded and stopped.

Silence descended on the clearing, and Applejack finally removed herself from Ray’s underarm to peek about the clearing. It was nearly pitch black aside from the deep orange glow of the coals. Rainbow had yet to leave her hiding place, while Gerald and Cymbal just sat, staring resolutely at the place where the recording used to be. There was terror in the drummer’s eyes—well hidden, but there—and AJ could only assume she had the same look. Finally turning to Raymond, she gave an embarrassed smile, rubbing her hooves in the dirt. Before she could apologize, however, he gave her a nod and turned his attention to the dying fire.

Jer was the first to break the silence:

“Real or no, Blane was a good man.”

A blue flash lit up the south end of camp—a moth, probably—and the stars were beginning to dim in the east. Soon, they would sleep… and perhaps an unlucky few would dream.

“Real or no…”

Deep beneath the forest floor, the night was still young, and the nightmare had just begun. Slowly drifting awake from her fitful slumber, Dinky Doo opened her eyes to a world shrouded in darkness. Blood pounding in her skull, the tiny unicorn tried to move her hooves but found them pinned tightly to her sides. She had no idea where she was or what was happening and she wanted her mommy. Where was she?

Grunting through the stiff, smelly gag covering her snout, Dinky concentrated all of her magical might into the tip of her horn and shone her own wavering light into the darkness. What she saw chilled her to the very core…

She was upside down—that much she knew—and trapped in some strange underground cave. Like the Caverns beneath Canterlot she had visited on a school trip—Mommy hadn’t been able to afford the one yesterday—it was full of stalactites and stalagmites. Except these ones weren’t pointy for some reason. They were kinda oval-shaped. Like the teats on Ms. Daisy. Mommy didn’t like it when I say that word. Said it was a ‘bad word,’ but it makes Sparkler giggle every time… Where are they? Where’s my Mommy? It wasn’t the locale that scared her, however: it was the company.

Dinky wasn’t alone.

Ponies of every shape and size, many of whom she knew from around town, lined the walls. Almost every inch of the cave was crowded with bodies hung every which way from the walls to the ceiling. She didn’t know how far the cave extended—her little light only shone so far—but it seemed like the whole town was down there with her. She saw Mr. Cake just across from her, surrounded by his neighbors: his eyes were wild, and he strained against his gooey green bonds in vain. He looked at Dinky. Looked her straight in the eyes, and though she could not hear him Dinky knew his terror.

Wh-Where?

There was a low rumble and dirt began cascading from the cave ceiling, getting in the young mare’s eyes. Distracted, her light quickly flickering out, Dinky could only watch as dim starlight streamed into the cavern, followed quickly by jagged shapes on translucent, buzzing wings. Carrying more struggling ponies, countless insect-like monsters—she knew they were monsters, like from those stories Sparkler used to hide under her mattress—attached them to any empty space they could find on the walls next to their semi-conscious neighbors. That wasn’t the end though. No. Another figure slithered into the cavern with them.

Scales, fur, and feathers swam through what remained of the celestial lights above, capped with a pair of mismatched antlers and two blood-red eyes. The creature Dinky knew all too well drifted down to the dirt floor of the cave, surveying the bustling chamber. She quickly closed her eyes when his gaze grew to close to her own. Holding her breath, Dinky listened to her own heart pound for nearly half a minute before daring to reopen them… only to find herself staring into the bleeding eyes of the mad god himself. He was upside down, just like her, and he was smiling. A voice invaded her mind, screaming in a thousand voices in a thousand languages. Screaming one sentence:

“Now isn’t this fun?”

Dinky wanted to scream. She wanted her mommy.

“My Lord?”

The question broke through the terrible cries that rattled and shook the poor foal deep within her bones, and she swore she saw a flicker of annoyance cross the demonic eyes of her captor before he turned away.

“Lieutenant?” There was a hesitant cough, and the rasping voice from before continued:

“We have finisssshed. All townsssfolk accounted for.”

The God of Chaos quickly straightened, tail flicking in what could only be excitement. “Excellent!” he crooned, lifting himself up in the air once again with his mismatched wings, “You have done all that I have asked of you. Now, I think, you deserve some compensation.” He swept a paw across the cave. “Inside each of these lovely sacs are your rewards. There’s plenty for everyone.” The assembled monsters looked at one another, chittering in what Dinky guessed was confusion. Her head hurt so much it felt like it would explode, but she had to watch. She was compelled. “C’mon, don’t be shy! You deserve it!”

One of the creatures, the lieutenant that had been talking before, carefully approached one of the eggs, and, emboldened by their superior, many others followed suit. When it got close to the stalactite—a sack, apparently?—it opened all on its own as if by magic and the bug thing froze, flinching and squinting its opaque, blue eyes in terror. When nothing happened it reopened its eyes and looked within. Dinky watched, entranced, as it leaned closer and closer to the opening, until, like a thunderclap, a yellowish shape launched from inside, connecting with the monster’s face with a sickening ‘thwap’.

It was then Dinky learned that a monster could scream.

Screeching and wailing, the insects made a beeline for the entrance, but as quickly as it had appeared the tunnel to the world above disappeared, plunging them all—monster and pony alike—back into darkness.

Dinky’s head was on fire now, but she knew she had to see what was happening to understand why she was there. She needed to know. With one final effort, she flared her horn and tried to make sense of the impossible chaos around her. Before she could make any noteworthy observations, however, she caught a flicker of movement out of the corner of her eye.

One of the hundreds of sacs strewn about the cave had opened, but this one was different: special.

It was hers.

Staring into the liquid darkness of the object’s interior, Dinky had never been more afraid in her entire life. A tear formed in the corner of her eye.

Dinky wanted her mommy.

A light shone on the top floor of the Apple Homestead, but Winona didn’t notice it. She couldn’t. Her eyes were clouded with blood and haze, and no matter how much she swiped with her paws more seeped through. She was bleeding everywhere, and everything was so heavy. It was nearly impossible to move the weight was so bad.

She had crawled to the barn from the orchard—a grueling five hundred paws—and was sure she had left a part of herself along the way. All she knew was that it was dark, and that the time had almost come.

The time.

Winona turned her misty eyes to the heavens, knowing full well that the Watcher wasn’t patrolling the darkened skies like she was supposed to: an unnatural night for an unnatural event. Something stirred in Winona’s insides, and she yipped in pain, spitting blood from her dirt-caked jaws.

The time had come.

Yes.

The time had come for something grand.

Xenophobia

by CompleteIndifference

Part I: Devil's Virtues

1: New India

2: New Residents

3: Market Value

4: Awakening

5: Salutations

6: Customs and Origins

7: Lost Dog

8: Lost Dog II - The Most Amazing Dog on the Planet

9: An Offer You Can't Refuse

Extra: Punishment

10: Approaching the Deadline

Extra: Tats

11: The Longest Sentence

12: The Longest Sentence II

13: Voiding Contracts

14: Hospice

15: "Secondary", My Flank

Extra: Negotiating

16: Getting Back Up

17: Agricultural Metaphors