Crystal Apocalypse

by leeroy_gIBZ

First published 8th of December, 2018

The world has ended, and left a deadly wasteland behind. Sugarcoat survived, and now wanders the fallout in search of her friends.

Years ago, Canterlot City was destroyed by a magical explosion - the equivalent of a nuclear bomb. Those who survived found themselves trapped within the dying country, watching in horror as their surviving friends and family were driven insane by the enchanted fallout.

Sugarcoat is one of those survivors and so, she hopes, is her girlfriend, Sunny Flare. Separated by the cataclysm, she now searches for her lost love. However, the roads are long and dangerous, and supplies are always running scarce. Las Pegasus - rumored untouched by the blast, still lies hundreds of miles away and between them lie hordes of vicious cannibals, nefarious cults and horrors as impossible as they are evil.

Co-Written by: Annodyte/Hubris Von Ego

1: Swan Lake

Dear Book

Encountered another gang of raiders today. Four in total. Attacking a survivor camp. Leader was a girl called Lightning Dust. Heard of her before while travelling with Zap. Used to be friends before the apocalypse. Anyway, managed to take off with her spear during the fight. Also stole food for another week out of the camp’s supplies. Don’t think they saw me. Other raiders were setting off flares. Got in and out quickly. All in all, a good day.

Finishing the last sentence, Sugarcoat snapped shut her journal, putting it back in her pack. She had started the entry shortly after waking up – as she always did – once the perimeter was scouted. Today’s first sortie had revealed little more than ashen sand, burned shrubs and the crumbling ruins she had found the night before. So far so good.

Breakfast was half a tin of peaches; stolen from the curiously-shaped, almost tepee-like building she had sneaked into the night before. Like most places, it – the store, not the stale fruits immersed in syrup – seemed vaguely familiar. But, then again, most things in the Greater Equestrian Waste did, after all the magical outburst hadn’t flattened the city; the fallout from the destroyed portal had merely shut off all electricity, blown up a few city blocks, stopped anybody getting in or out the state, killed half the population outright, driven another third mad, and left the rest of fend for themselves.

Once breakfast was over, and washed down with half a bottle of sweet tea; Sugarcoat promised to ditch her sweet tooth one of these days; she set out into the wasteland again. As usual, the white-haired girl didn’t really have too much of an idea where she was going, but the Washout Leader’s spear made a good walking stick and there was still the matter of her missing girlfriend.

She and Sunny Flare had been on opposite sides of the country when it had happened, participating in a ballet concert and a science expo respectively. From what Sugarcoat had figured out, from scouting the area annihilated by the initial explosion and talking with the few other capable survivors she found, Las Pegasus should be intact – mostly - and accessible - hopefully. However, the matter of getting across the Moojave Desert still proved a challenge.

Combine that with the fact that she hadn’t yet found a map, and lacked both the supplies and skill required to navigate it otherwise, Sugarcoat had mostly resorted to picking a road, and following it until she either arrived the City of Lights or ran out of road. So far, it seemed, the latter was far more likely.

Saying farewell to the blackened remains of what might have been a gas station in years past, she adjusted her tattered coat, redid the shoelaces on her hiking boots, and started down the road. Cracked like broken glass, and cold like shattered ice, the endless lines of tar were almost comforting to watch snake and slither under the grey skies. It was one foot after another, until she either found Sunny or found herself on the wrong end of somebody’s weapon.

Hours passed, quietly, calmly and for miles on end as Sugarcoat walked through the devastated wasteland that was once her home. She tapped the spear as she walked, the only sound at all apart from her footsteps she could hear. It followed the tune of Swan Lake, and seemed fitting as she passed an empty reservoir, its shape reminding her of a gigantic coffee mug shoved halfway into the sand.

Then, as she walked along the edge, spotted something. A person, standing and waving both hands; a cry for help. Instinctively, Sugarcoat’s hand reached for her pistol. Her hand passed over an empty holster – the revolver, jammed and broken beyond repair, had been thrown away a week ago. She sighed, and reached for her binoculars instead.

The working side of lenses revealed the person stranded at the bottom of the man-made lake to be a girl, about her own age, with a filthy mess of tangled green hair and skin sunburned almost cherry red. And too, she didn’t seem to be in good shape; the way she stood suggested something badly wrong with her leg, and the lack of any cover suggested that she’d been left there to die.

Sugarcoat slipped the binoculars back into a satchel and set about coming up with a plan. Although the glaring bone-white brick of the reservoir made it hard to tell, that girl definitely resembled Lemon Zest. And Shadowbolts Won Together. That was the motto, half it anyway, – the one she and her friends had came up with the night before she and Sunny left for their hopefully life-changing performances. She had already seen it broken once before – when Indigo had betrayed her, and she was determined not to let it break again.

She knelt over the dam’s edge, and secured a piton to the most stable part of it. Once it and the length of rope held firm to her tugging, Sugarcoat dropped her various bags and layers of armor, covered them with a camouflage tarp, as grey as the surrounding sands, and started to rappel down the reservoir.

It was nerve-wracking work, and what little decay the place had suffered had made for relatively few, and relatively tenuous, footholds in the otherwise-featureless sun-scorched concrete. But she couldn’t just let Lemon Zest die down there – starving to death in some pit by the side of the road – not after Indigo. So, climb down Sugarcoat did, down the dizzying heights of the reservoir, and into its depths.

Finally, her feet hit solid ground again and, after untying herself, she rushed over to Lemon Zest. The girl wasn’t in good shape, and she wasn’t particularly coherent either. Her arms only stopped waving, her voice only stopped yelling once Sugarcoat was right in front of her, and had given her an echoing slap.

“Calm down. I’m here.” Sugarcoat ordered, producing a bottle of water, “Drink this.”

Still half-knelt over, and limping, Lemon Zest fumbled the canteen, spilling half of it out on the ground before getting the water to her lips. She drank, deeply and desperately after that, until it was empty. “Thanks.” She whispered.

“You would have down the same for me. Now let’s get out of here. I can pull you out.” Sugarcoat said, taking her friends hand.

Lemon Zest didn't budge. “No. Can’t leave.”

“Why not? I came here to rescue you.”

“She’ll notice. Shouldn’t have come here.”

“Who’ll notice, Lemon? There’s nobody around for miles.” Sugarcoat said, remembering the deserted plains above. She'd walked few six hours - if her watch was still accurate - and ran for nearly half that the night before.

The girl shook her head, coughing. “Nobody. No people. But Darkness.”

“It’s the middle of the day, Lemon.” Sugarcoat said.

To that, Lemon Zest stood up, as straight as she could, and brushed the hair out of her face. Her eyes were gone. Gouged out leaving empty pits, crying tears of dried blood. Sugarcoat gasped, and hugged her friend.

“I am so sorry. Who did this to you?”

“Heart did. Said I was bad. And… and, Su, I… I was.” Lemon whispered, bursting in to tears.

Not letting go, Sugarcoat walked her friend into the shade, and comforted her as best she could. No matter what she said, promises to avenge or reassurances that it would be alright, or offered, what little food and water she had, could shake Lemon Zest from her near-comatose state. Meeting her friend had taken a lot out of her, and she was now huddled against the wall, quietly sobbing and shaking.

“I’ll be back soon, okay. I’m going to get you out of here.” Sugarcoat said, squeezing her friend’s hand before starting back to the side of the reservoir she had climbed down.

She arrived shortly after, and noticed the rope was coiled in the sand beneath her. Somebody had come by, while she was distracted, and had caught her in likely the same trap that her blinded friend had, quite literally, fallen into. Expecting the tattered coils, Sugarcoat had found a series of deep cuts and frayed strings running the length of it – somebody didn’t want her climbing back up, and was clearly well-off enough to afford to destroy her only way of doing do.

Sugarcoat sighed, and started back to her friend. She didn’t know what to say.

Author's Notes:

And it begins: The Apocalyptic tale of Sugarcoat and Friends. I had an idea to write this after reading Cormac McCarthy's The Road and I wanted to see if I could try something similar with MLP. As usual, please voice any feedback down in the comments below.

2: Reservoir Dogs

“I’m sorry. Somebody cut the rope I used to climb down. I’m not sure how to get out of here now.” Sugarcoat said, sitting back down next to Lemon Zest.

The other girl only nodded, staying huddled in a ball, back pressed against the wall of the reservoir, and what precious little shade it could provide. Sugarcoat noticed that both canteens she had left with her had been emptied – some of their water muddied the grey sand of the floor.

“I’m going to look for another way out. We shouldn’t stay here – you need medical attention.” She said, standing up, starting away.

“Don’t go. Can’t leave.” Lemon Zest muttered, still trying to stare at the ground.

“We have to leave, I’m not dying here. Neither are you.”

“No way out. Already checked. Walls too high to climb. Sprained my ankle trying too. Just stay”

“Yes, they might be too high for you to climb, but I’m not you. I can see.”

“Still. Don’t go.”

“Listen, Lemon Zest. We need to get out of here. There’s a grate a few metres above us. If I can figure out how to get up there, it should lead us to freedom.”

The green-haired girl remained silent, and so Sugarcoat got to work. The bricks weren’t as tightly fit as Lemon had insisted they were and, with more effort than Sugarcoat would have liked to expend working in the afternoon sun, she had managed to pry out quite a few of them – working away at the corroded cement and plaster with her screwdriver, one of the few things she still owned after her supplies were stolen.

Carrying the bricks over to the grate wasn’t too easy a task either, but it was better than lying around, waiting to die. She didn’t know how long Lemon Zest had been here – but a number of half-remembered biology classes implied that it could have only been a week or so, at most. She would have thirsted to death otherwise, and a lack of any provisions seemed to prove that was the case.

Of course, Sugarcoat thought – carrying yet another few pounds of bleached cement – there was the mystery of her eyes, or lack thereof. Lemon wasn’t in any state to talk much, let alone explain something as traumatic as that. Did it happen before she was dumped here? Or afterwards, with somebody climbing down – just like she had – only to viciously maul her? The former seemed more likely, thought the girl as she began to stack the bricks into a rough staircase; anybody evil enough to blind an innocent teenager was definitely evil enough to kill her – for food. Cannibalism wasn’t exactly rare in the Wasteland, especially amongst those already lacking a conscience – a nasty side-effect of Canterlot High going the way of Hiroshima. Sugarcoat herself had never attempted it though, taking solace in the fact that merely thinking about it was enough to break her usually-stoic demeanour.

“Hey, Su. Still there? Or just a nightmare. Another one of the Heart’s tortures?” Lemon asked suddenly, as Sugarcoat was building.

“Yes, Lemon. I’m here. I’m real. What is it?”

“I hear rocks. What’s happening?”

“I’m making our way out of here. It’s good to hear you talking again though.”

“Yeah, kinda hard to do with a sore throat.” She said, coughing for what was hopefully just effect.

“I know. I’m thirsty too.” Sugarcoat said, before returning to work. The sun was beginning to set, casting rays of pink, gold, purple and dark blue into the clouds of smoke above. If nothing else, the end of the world did result in some nice sunsets. However, the sunset always brought the cold – Sugarcoat noticed as the wind chilled the reservoir, sending shivers down her spine. Casting a glance to Lemon Zest, she saw that she wasn’t in any better shape. Her clothes, tattered like the rest of the world, were thin and short and bloodstained beyond all recognition.

“How’s it going? Can we leave?” Lemon asked anxiously.

“I’m nearly at the grate – that’s a few metres above where you’re sitting. We should be out of here by tomorrow morning.”

“Then what?”

Sugarcoat didn’t reply, and continued to stack the bricks. Another hour passed – the moon rising angrily in the sky – a glaring white eye to the world below. Sugarcoat preferred the sun. As she worked though, she heard something. It was faint, repetitive, and almost ceramic: A light clicking sound to accompany the dull clunks of the concrete.

“Hey, Su?” Lemon stuttered, her teeth chattering from the cold, “What did you bring with you?”

“I have my clothes, some tools, a spear, and enough food for another day. The rest of my things were stolen earlier today.”

“S-s-so no blankets or anything?”

“No, my sleeping bag was in my rucksack, which is who knows where by this point. How cold are you?”

“Real cold. Like, like that time we got locked in a cider fridge cold.”

Sugarcoat allowed herself a smile. “I remember that – I thought that those hicks were going to kill us.”

“Yeah, Big Mac was so mad I tried to steal his truck. I think he called his whole family over, and like, every one of them had a gun. Even the kid. Never thought I’d be running away from a fifth-grader before.”

“And then we ran into their cellar to hide, and we hid in their freezer.”

“Didn’t I drink, like, half their entire harvest?” Lemon Zest chuckled.

“Yes. You were so drunk I had to carry you out of there, all the while avoiding the hundreds of angry hillbillies patrolling the farm. One caught me in the leg with birdshot.”

“Man, I could go for some cider right now.”

“That would be nice – although let’s try asking for it this time.”

“Sure. If we survive, we are going back to Sweet Apple Acres and apologising.”

“That sounds like a plan. Knowing the Apples, they probably doing rather well for themselves. Their Luddite resilience can't hurt in a time like this.” Sugarcoat said, sliding the last of her bricks into place. Although fairly impressive for half a day’s work, the staircase only reached about eight feet into the air – not nearly the height of the grate above. Sugarcoat climbing down, and went to sit back next to her friend.

“Are you done. Can we go yet?”

“I’m not nearly done. But I’m tired and you’re still cold.”

“Everything’s cold. I’m super cold. Colder than a volleyball match at the North pole cold.”

Sugercoat laughed, taking off her overcoat. “It’s good to see some of that Lemon Zest brand humour again. You look a little better after the water, at least.”

“Yeah. Thought you were a hallucination at first, actually. Like, a mirage or a fever dream.”

“Well, I’m not. Mirages don’t share stories about teenage antics they got roped into after losing a bet, do they?” Sugarcoat said, handing over her jacket, “Anyway, here’s my jacket. It should keep you warm. Warmer than nothing.”

Lemon Zest took it gladly, and managed to negotiate in on. The scuffed bomber jacket didn’t quite fit her, but then again, it didn’t quite fit Sugarcoat either. They ate dinner after that – sharing a tin of baked beans and a bar of chocolate. Once that was finished, the moon high in the sky, and Lemon Zest had passed out next to her, using her remaining satchel as a pillow, Sugarcoat too turned over, and tried to sleep.

She was tired – and her whole body ached, from head to toe, both from exhaustion and from thirst – but she was happy. She had found her friend, and she was going to save her life. It was progress – after years of walking, running, fighting and hiding, she had finally managed to find somebody who wasn’t a sociopathic killer, or a dried-out corpse. Yes, her supplies were currently gone, and likely never to return, but she wasn’t alone anymore and that was confirmation enough that Sunny Flare could be found.

3: Maze Runner

Found Lemon Zest today. In bad shape. Heatstroke. Dehydrated. Eyes gouged out. Got trapped in a reservoir with her. Possessions stolen while I was down. Started building ramp out. Ran out of bricks. Running low on food. No water. Need to get out.

That all Sugarcoat made a mental note of once she had awoken from her nightmares. Like all inhabitants of the Wasteland, she suffered from them: Chaotic visions of jagged blackness, circling and chanting disturbances. Last night they had chased her – through the now-destroyed grounds of her high school, screaming her name in Sunny Flare’s voice. Her eyes opened with a scream of her own on her lips, and it had escaped once she had caught sight of her friend, barely alive, chapped lips and black sockets contorted unwillingly into a sick grin.

Sugarcoat got up, laid her second jacket over Lemon Zest to prevent any further sunburn, and started her morning routine. Lacking her own journal, she scratched the day’s experiences with her screwdriver onto the wall, and then did her daily exercises. Ballet stretches and light jogging mostly, and her stomach growled in protest. Yesterday’s lunch had been all but forgotten about, yesterday’s dinner had been shared and her friend needed breakfast more than she did.

After completing a circuit round the concrete pit, Sugarcoat started back to the stairs. Minutes were spent fruitlessly, rearranging the bricks into a steeper variation. And then another, and another after that. No matter what she did, the grate – and freedom – remained mockingly out of reach. Eventually, she collapsed again against the wall – preparing to tell Lemon Zest of her failure.

The girl spoke as she slept, pleading and begging for some unknown mercy from some unknown horror. “Please.” She mumbled, “Don’t go. Need here. Don’t go. Alone. Deaf. Miss you. Don’t. Don’t go.”

This went on, as the pale sun climbed steadily, and Lemon’s whispering and pleas grew more and more desperate. She was crying, sobbing tearlessly against the nicked leather of the satchel. Eventually, Sugarcoat decided enough was enough, and shook her gently. That didn't work, so Sugarcoat flicked her on the ear.

“Ah! Go away!” She screamed, now awake.

“Calm down. It’s Sugarcoat.”

“Oh… oh yeah. You’re here too.”

“Yeah. I can’t get us out. I can’t climb high enough, and even if I could, you’d still be stuck here.” She sighed.

“Oh… I thought, since you were still here, you’d find a way. I mean, if I was lucky enough to see you again, I figured you'd be lucky enough to find out how to leave.”

“I can’t. It’s against the laws of physics. Nobody can jump nine feet upwards. Not even me.”

“But I saw you do it. Remember the Friendship Games?” Lemon argued, “You jump like three metres straight up – winning us the athletics section.”

“That was pole vaulting. I don’t have a pole. Besides, I came third. Rainbow Dash came first. We won based off points that year, not individual performance.”

“But you still have a spear, right?”

Sugarcoat looked over to her stolen weapon. She’d only dared to take it as her last one – a javelin looted from a sports store – had snapped while being pulled out the corpse of a feral rottweiler. Sneaking up to somebody as well-armed and armoured as Lightning Dust was nearly suicidal – but she was distracted, and trying to untangle herself from a lasso, trying to breath through what was either tear gas or a smoke bomb. The spear itself was long and unwieldy, reminding her of a phalanx’s spear meant for three Spurtans, but it was made of a light and springy length of jointed fiberglass – almost like vaulter’s pole. If said piece of sporting equipment had a wicked sharp butcher’s hook hanging off one end.

“You know, Lemon. I think I have an idea.”

“Great. Are you going to try and jump over the wall?”

Sugarcoat looked at the wall – a brilliant white tower of bleached brink and calcified concrete – and decided against it. She was good, yes. But nobody alive was ten metres good. Not even Rainbow Dash.

After trusting Lemon Zest with half a pack of spiced beef jerky – the last of the stuff she had taken off a South Zebrican butcher months ago – she went back to inspect the grate. It was still two metres away. However, the spear was two metres long. It hooked into the rusted steel as it the two were forged for each-other. Shimmying up the spear was almost easy on comparison to rappelling down an almost-shear surface, and the remaining rope, as mangled as it was, still held strong enough to keep the spear in place.

Hanging off the weathered metal – it’s diameter was about that of a fairly short person – Sugarcoat got to unscrewing it from the wall. Although rusted, and painted over, Doc Hooves’s stolen tool proved reliable, as it always did. One by one, they came undone, and clattered proudly to the floor below. Soon the grate itself could be hinged open – and pulled down to makeshift a ladder.

“I did it! We can leave!” Sugarcoat yelled triumphantly.

Lemon Zest sat up, looking as best she could in Sugarcoat’s general direction. “You mean it? You mean Heart was wrong?”

“Of course, this Heart person is wrong. They haven't met me.”

Sugarcoat climbed down after that, and polished off the remains of the jerky. Getting Lemon Zest up was the next challenge: Half guiding and half pulling her up the unstable pile of loose debris, and then lifting her up into the tunnel itself. Following her was the spear, and it was folded in on itself to accommodate the cramped confines of the dark tunnels.

“Alright. We’re inside the tunnel. Just follow me, and we should be alright. Try not to get lost.” Sugarcoat said, handing Lemon Zest the tattered rope, and trying the other end of it loose around her waist. That left both of her arms free, to hold the spear and the torch respectively, while not letting her friend get lost behind.

They made slow progress up the murky tunnels, Sugarcoat’s torch flickering and spluttering as it chewed through its batteries. The catacomb-like maze led slowly upwards, and its floor – curved, and half-paved with shifting stone and smoky sands – made for tough walking. Both girls were panting by the time natural light came into view – promising and golden bright against the blackness of the tunnels.

“I see a light, Lemon. We’re getting close.” Sugarcoat announced, stopping a few feet away from the next grate, peering through it with binoculars.

“Great! We can finally leave this damn place!”

Lemon’s cheer echoed throughout the steep curves and bends, and it was soon joined by frantic shouts from up above. Men scrambled, yelling and receiving orders, swishing swords and cocking rifles.

“You know, you really should consider not yelling in future.” Sugarcoat said, as a pair of boots stamped past the tunnel’s exit.

4: Diary of a Wimpy Kid

The next few hours were spent in heart-hammering panic, cowering in the shadows, fearfully avoiding the raiders above. Sugarcoat dared to glance out through the grate a few times, and what she saw did wonders for her lack of hope. They weren’t the average ragtag band of marauding bandits – the men, all men, grizzled and stern, dressed practically in charcoal-grey camouflage, were fit and fed, and spectacularly well-equipped. Numerous times she heard the signature rev of motorbikes, and the disheartening thud of arrows and cheer of drilled troops rose and fell like waves on a beach.

“Any ideas?” Lemon Zest whispered, from her hide in the tunnels.

“No. They’re too many to fight, and they’ve got bikes, so running wouldn’t be an option. They’re alert too – so I doubt stealth would work either.”

“Well, more waiting then I guess. Maybe they’ll leave after a while?”

Sugarcoat shuffled over, and peered through the thin bars separating her from the army, “They won’t. This looks like their home. They’ve walled it off.”

“Shit. What do we do then?”

“As I said before, I have no idea. Maybe I could grab a patrol by surprise tonight; steal his weapon and uniform.”

“Would that work?”

“Probably not. But its better than starving in this place. Let’s go back down, I don’t want to spook them again.”

Lemon Zest nodded, and Sugarcoat led her back through the winding labyrinth of tunnels. Dark and dank concrete gloom surrounded them, and Sugarcoat was very glad neither she nor her friend suffered from claustrophobia. Sunny did and, for once, the drifter was relieved that her girlfriend wasn’t with her.

“This place sure is big. What is it, some kind of sewer?” Lemon asked as the pair walked.

“My guess is that it was supposed to lead rivers into the reservoir. If there was a town or something up above, they’d need to tunnel below to get the water to flow the right way.”

“Sure. But wouldn’t there be another way out then?”

“We passed it a few minutes ago. There was a cave in I couldn’t get through.”

“Oh.” Lemon sighed, adjusting her borrowed jacket, “I guess we have to fight those guys then.”

“No sense in waiting around here then. We’re running low on torchlight anyway.” Sugarcoat said, starting back up the tunnel.

They walked again, half-blind up the rough gravel floors, until Sugarcoat stopped suddenly, placing a hand over her friend’s mouth. In front of her, only a few feet away, were a pair of soldiers – grim and stern, scouting their hide. The girls inched back into the darkness, letting the men pass dangerously close.

Once their backs were turned, and once Sugarcoat had told Lemon Zest to stay still and stay quiet, she unfolded her spear, and started off behind the raiders. One looked vaguely familiar, in the flickering firelight of their burning torches – he was young, lanky with blond hair and cracked glasses. The other was a stranger, older with a beady eyes and a greyish pallor to his skin. That was the one Sugarcoat aimed for – that was the one who was choking on his own blood seconds later, lying on the floor and dying.

Trenderhoof gasped, dropped his torch, brandishing his sword at his attacker. “By the authority of his dark majesty, King Sombra, surrender now peon, or die by my hand!”

His archaic register caught Sugarcoat by surprise, but not enough to stagger her. He went down too, nonlethally with a bash from the blunt end of the spear. Sugarcoat tried not to kill anybody she knew. Memories, and all. That and the former hipster was a decent person, years ago anyway.

“No, you surrender. And don’t talk like that, you sound stupider than usual.” Sugarcoat said, gagging him, tying him to his deceased partner, taking his sword and crossbow for herself.

After collecting the other soldier’s weaponry – another sword, and a sawed-off shotgun – she returned to Lemon Zest, still crouched in a corner.

“I’m back.” She whispered, “I found soldiers in the tunnel. They must’ve thought to scout here after they heard you. It’s now or never, let’s go.”

The pair walked nervously back the last hundred metres, until the reached the grate – now unscrewed, and taken for scrap. It was night, almost – and most of the soldiers seemed to be enjoying dinner, if the chatter and cheer emanating from one of the larger shacks was anything to go by. Sugarcoat went alone, tiptoeing across the greyish dirt, toward one of the huts – the quartermaster’s store, if the sign above it was any indication.

The building – corrugated iron, mismatched brick, charred timber, garage door – was guarded, but only by two men – masked and rifled. With a crossbow, from behind a nearby dune, Sugarcoat shot the first one, killing him outright. The second, tired and hungry by the look of him, and his persistent glances toward the mess hall, didn’t notice. The weapon was reloaded, and the guard definitely noticed the bolt clanging against the metal, only inches away from his neck.

“Intruders! Intruders in the castle!” He bellowed, looking around with his gun for said intruders.

Seconds later, a bell was rung somewhere – and its frantic cry alerted the rest of the compound. Meals forgotten, men scrambled for their weapons, searched for the invaders, and soon the grounds were filled with warriors as merciless as the desert they had colonised. By now, Sugarcoat had retreated into the tunnel, dragging the dead guard along with her. He was remarkably heavy for somebody living in a world without agriculture.

“You’re back. Are we leaving?” Lemon asked, oblivious to the corpse beside her.

“Not yet. They saw me. We’ll hide here, and wait until everything dies down.” She replied, looting the man’s corpse. That one had his pack on him, complete with rations.

“Got it. I’ll stay out the way then.”

Things did die down, relatively. The general himself – Sombra, if Trenderhoof was to be believed – even emerged from his ramshackle keep, dressed in mismatched armour, and a cape badly painting to look like ermine to personally investigate the day’s second commotion. The survivor was interrogated and, due to lack of evidence, was merely dismissed from his post, told to sleep, replaced with another pair of men. Others retreated to their barracks, after eating and one last round of drills. Apparently, Sugarcoat noticed, it had been the responsibility of the now-incapacitated Trenderhoof to lock up the “corral” that night.

So, by narrowly avoiding yet more patrols, Sugarcoat had made her to their garage, and had stolen a dirt bike. The other vehicles had their tires slashed, tanks emptied, and bodies keyed for good measure. The intact bike was negotiated as quietly as possible back to the tunnel, and it was only then that Sugarcoat realized that she didn’t have a way of getting over the fort’s wall.

“Well, I have the bike. Problem is, I don’t fit the uniforms of any of the guards I killed, and the gate out is still locked.” She explained.

Lemon Zest swore, “That fucking sucks. And we were so close to getting out of here too. Knew we couldn't beat Heart.”

“Trust me, I know how you feel. We’re running out of time too – sooner or later somebody is going to notice their ride is missing.”

“Say, how good are you with that bike?”

“I was easily the best in our school, why?”

“Well, if you could find a ramp, we could jump the wall, right?”

“That almost sounds like a good idea. So, it’s the best thing I’ve heard all day.”

The walls, upon later inspection, were far more manageable than those of the reservoir. The salvaged car bodies and iron sheets were stacked only to about eight feet – easy enough to jump over. After another look around with the binoculars, Sugarcoat designated a nearby sand dune her ramp and, with Lemon Zest holding on for dear life, she rammed down the accelerator.

The bike, lightly rusted and spray painted black, roared in response. They picked up speed, soldiers panicking and yelling – fumbling for weapons the third time that day. Bullets whizzed and nipped by as the girls rode on, the promising of freedom – the sand dune – drawing ever closer.

And then they were on it, and in the air – shadowed and soaring against the cloudy moonlight. Landing hurt, with a worrying mechanical crack announcing their return to the earth. There was no time to assess the damages, and Sugarcoat drove off into the darkness – the only things visible being the narrow stretch of sand illuminated by the bike’s headlamp, and the lethal paths of the tracers Sombra’s Legion fired after them.

Sugarcoat weaved and dodged the pursuing men as best she could; bullets ricocheted off the bike, sparking in the night. One caught Sugarcoat in the ear, ripping most of it away, knocking her off. She landed, heaped in sand, body screeching in pain. The bike came to a stop metres later, Lemon Zest having found the brake, pushing it for all it was worth.

Dazed, and half alive, Sugarcoat pulled herself out of the sand dune, thanking her lucky stars she missed the cactus just inches away. Brushing the grey ash off her again, she stood up, and limped over to Lemon Zest. The blind girl was hiding behind the bike, alive and panting.

“Thought… thought I’d lost you there, Su. Don’t run away like that.”

“I’ll try my best. Good work with the bike by the way.”

“Thanks. So now what? They’re still after us, right.”

A look through the binoculars confirmed that, and shot clacking off a close by rock confirmed it. It looked like Sombra had valued her at ten men, on mountain bikes, peddling as menacingly as one could, shooting blindly and screaming threats all the while – any chivalry they once had forgotten in the brewing sandstorm and chilling night.

Sugarcoat climbed back on the bike, helped Lemon on, and started driving again. She was faster than they were, far faster, and had siphoned enough gas from the other motorbikes to keep riding for days, if need be. They weren’t going to catch her in a thousand years; the self-proclaimed King’s show of force had failed to intimidate.

The duo kept riding, parched and hungry, nervous and persistent, until the sun began to weakly rise behind them. Only then did Sugarcoat stop, braking the bike in front of an old gas station she had cleared days before.

“We made it. You can let go now.”

“Really? I’m… I’m out of that hole. This isn’t a dream or anything? We actually survived – you’re actually here, Sugarcoat?”

Thought it made no difference, she nodded proudly. “Yes, I’m here, Lemon. We’re okay. I left some food and water here in case I ever needed to go back. Let’s go inside and get warmed up, alright?”

After stowing the bike behind a counter, she took Lemon by the hand, leading her, past emptied aisles and bare fridges, through the abandoned store. The back room was warm, and a loose plank loosened behind a crate revealed two cans of ravioli and a soda bottle refilled with clean water. They drunk and ate well that night, the bike’s first aid kit and guard’s backpack being put to good use; wounds were finally treated, stitches were sown, and hunger was staved off.

Once Lemon comfortably slept on a looted bedroll, Sugarcoat returned to the storefront. By now, the sun was casting the ever-there clouds a sickly yellow, warming the wastes until only one coat was needed. The white-haired girl kept watch, staring hopefully into the distance, crossbow in hand, until her friend awoke. No people walked that road that day, be they drifters, raiders, or dog-minded cannibals. It was quiet, yet the faint snores and mumbles from inside assured Sugarcoat that she wasn’t alone. Once the coast seemed happy to stay clear, she took the soldier’s own journal, crossing out “Property of Snips” and writing her own name, and then the last week’s events in a calm, weary cursive.

5: The Shining

Dear Book

Escaped the reservoir. Climbed up to the tunnel using the spear. Pulled Lemon Zest up. Started our way out. Cave in forced us to take alternative route. That led us to camp. Largest settlement I’ve seen so far. About fifty people. Soldiers mostly. Killed two. Saw Trenderhoof. Let him live. Escaped Sombra’s fort by stealing a dirt bike. Jumped the walls. Lemon and I currently holed up in gas station.

The most recent entry now complete, Sugarcoat closed the notebook, put in a pocket of her coat, and returned to her watch. She was sitting on the roof of the convenience store, on the lookout for any incoming people. The flat plains and flattened rumbled that comprised much of the Wasteland made them easy to spot, but she had spotted none so far. The grey sand was as empty as its aerial counterpart – an endless expanse of sunless ash and merciless desperation. In the distance, opposite to the directions she had came from, there was a cluster of buildings – unlit by fire, built before the end. She decided that was where she and Lemon would travel to next; if they were still intact, the houses might have supplies within them.

Plan in mind, she finished the last of Snip’s trail mix, holstered his rifle, climbed down the drainpipe, and re-entered the store itself. Now awake, her friend was sitting on the counter, a scrap of bloodied tartan tied clumsily over her eye sockets.

“You look much better. How’d you find your way over here?” Sugarcoat asked.

“Trial and error, you know. Since you said this wasn’t a big room, I figured I could sort of find my way around it.”

“I see. Well, if you’re okay to move again, we should get going. I don’t want those people catching up with us. No offense, but we wouldn’t win that fight.”

“Isn’t him you have to worry about. Just a pawn.” Lemon said, voice taking on a sombre tone.

“What? I’m not worried. I’m confident we can outrun him if we keep moving. He’s not stupid; he’ll give up on chasing us eventually, if he hasn’t already.”

“No. He won’t.”

“If he’s smart enough to keep fifty people fed and armed, and build a small town, he’s smart enough to pick his battles. This is common sense.”

“He won’t stop. He never will. Not just bait for his trap. Sacrifice for his god.” Lemon insisted, pointing at herself, “Won’t let that go.”

Sugarcoat didn’t reply. Instead, brushing Lemon aside, she grabbed the bike, and moved it out to the storefront. After refilling its tank with a now-empty canteen of gas, she started tying onto it the soldier’s backpack – even when smeared with paint and charcoal, the leather bag looked more suited for an office than the apocalypse. After that was secured, she did the same with the shopping bags she had left with the food – all were wrapped around each-other, to prevent any tearing, and they in turn secured the weaponry to the vehicle. Then Sugarcoat grabbed her friend’s hand, and spoke, “I don’t care what this ‘King Sombra’ wants to do with you. He won’t get to do it. But I can only ensure that if we keep moving. So, let’s go now, before they arrive.”

Lemon sighed, “It won’t make a difference. He’ll catch up. Heart’s people always do.”

“Then when they do, I’ll blow their heads off for hurting you. Let’s go.”

“Fine. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. You’re just killing time.” Lemon said, feeling for the bike, climbing on.

They drove, and the gas station was invisibly far behind them by noon. By then, hunger was clawing at Sugarcoat’s stomach, and she was beginning to miss her old rucksack and the relative abundance of food it held. But continue she did, barely speaking, barely heard under the growl of the engine and the roar of the wind.

The terrain looked much the same, no matter what road she followed, what day she followed it: Everything was coated with dust, as if hundreds of centuries had passed in the span of the seconds it took for the world to end. Nothing grew anymore – seeds to scared to sprout, flowers too burnt to blossom. The air stank, sweet and toxic, like rotting fruit, and it slowly choked the life from everything in Canterlot. Riverbeds lay dry – their precious elixir all drained, be it by the few unlucky survivors, or by the sun itself – scorching with cold fury behind the clouds.

Sugarcoat wasn’t overly concerned about being tracked – she decided that now, whenever the opportunity came, wasn’t a good time to start. The winds – unimpeded by forest or by fortification – blew hard enough to knock over a small child, and they blew loud enough to silence most faraway conversation. When they died down, from time to uneasy time, the silence they left was deadly quiet, and proved a sick reminder of her perpetual loneliness. She liked the bike, and she like having Lemon with her.

“Are we stopping soon?” Said girl asked, an hour into their trek.

“I didn’t plan on it, no. There’re some buildings about fifty miles away; I want to get to them before we encounter a sandstorm.”

“Okay.”

“Alright.”

Fifty miles, and a few hours later, Sugarcoat parked the bike, in front of a weather-beaten sign welcoming visitors to “Cloudsdale, Your Number 1 Stop on the Road to Las Pegasus.”

Sugarcoat read out the sign, “That’s a good sign.”

“I’ve heard better slogans. Remember that mall commercial thing? That was great. We were in it.”

“No, it’s a good sign because I’m trying to get to Las Pegasus.”

“Oh. Why? Isn’t it the same shithole all cities are now? Full of looters and zombies and stuff?”

“Sunny’s in Las Pegasus. Besides, zombies aren’t real.” Sugarcoat said, retrieving the spear and a crossbow.

“Nah, I’m pretty sure zombies are real. Normal people don’t moan, have grey skin and lurch around trying to eat other people.”

“Lemon, I have grey skin.”

“Yeah, no, your skin is light blue. Unless, unless-”

“I’m not a zombie. I don’t eat people.” Sugarcoat interrupted.

“Yeah, but you do moan a lot.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Remember that cruise all the Shadowbolts went on? The one where you and Sunny Flare shared a room. Yeah, you two kept me up all night ‘cause I had the cabin right across the corridor.”

“Let’s start looking for something to eat, alright?” Sugarcoat said, starting off toward what may might have been a grand hotel in years past.

“Wait for me!” Lemon said, tripping over the bike, sending it clattering to the ground. She clutched her wounded foot – the same one her friend had bandaged earlier that morning – hopping, and cursing.

“Maybe you should wait here. You wouldn’t be much help scavenging anyway. Stay quiet and I should be back soon.”

“Sure, Mom. I won’t get into any trouble.” Lemon said, sitting back down, lying against the roadside sign, humming a tune.

Sugarcoat then walked into the Cloudsdale proper. The town, like all others it seemed, had been hit hardest by whatever had destroyed Canterlot. The general consensus was that it had been some kind of magical explosion – the devastation seemed centred about Canterlot High, where the portal was, the one Sunset Shimmer and the other Twilight Sparkle had apparently appeared from. It made sense, once one forgot any preconceived notions about magical not being real, anyway. But that didn’t really explain why things started getting worse the further one went from the destroyed school – the air became poison, and Sugarcoat had heard nightmarish rumours of the sort of monsters that dwelled within that fog.
Trying though, as hard as she could, not to think about horrid bat-winged men with endless teeth, or about people who turned into hungry balls of fire at night, Sugarcoat slipped with spear in hand into the first abandoned building: The Hotel. Two stories high, it had a desiccated corpse for a receptionist, the man’s head perched like his desk bell, waiting to be rung. That wasn’t a good sign, Sugarcoat noted, a shiver running through her body.

She continued through the shadowed hallways, stepping over more dead, and over rubble, and empty suitcases, ducking under collapsed ceilings, and hiding in dust-coated shoebox rooms whenever the old hotel’s creaks sounded too close to a human’s footsteps for her liking. Eventually, after dozens of fruitless searches – looted rooms and half-eaten corpses, she came to the kitchen. That was locked, padlocked three times, and from behind the cracked windows of the metal swing doors, Sugarcoat spotted row upon row of cans, bottles, cooking implements and absolutely no bodies.

She got to work on picking the locks, jabbing and twisting with her screwdriver until the tumblers yielded, the carapaces cracked apart, and the rusty doors swung open. The kitchen was cold, but sterile, it seemed. Sugarcoat ran over to the row of tinned produce – tomatoes and potatoes, onions and beans, spam and fruit cocktail. She pocketed as much as she could, and filled her bags to bursting. She repeated that process for water, the place held a few bottles of sparkling water imported from Prance and it held many more bottles of liquor off to the side. Thirst, nostalgia, pushing aside her apprehension toward alcohol, she grabbed a bottle of cider, downing it far faster than was healthy.

All the water was taken, and most of the lighter alcohol was as well. Sugarcoat refilled her canteen with the strongest bourbon the Perseus Hotel had to offer, and kept that for disinfecting injuries. After she the knives the kitchen held, wrapping them in a bundle of serviettes and dish towels, she started for the exit, the one opposite the locked doors, leading to the dining room. As she walked, she passed by a fridge, and nearly lost what little lunch she had.

Packed inside, like a depraved parody of sardines, were people. Naked and shaved, with throats slit and glassy eyes forever staring fearfully, and hopelessly outward. Many had limbs missing, sliced away and the wounds dripped frozen icicles of blood. None were familiar, but all were disgusting. Their faces were twisted into terrified screams, and their scars showed months of torture. Some had names carved into them, and from what Sugarcoat glimpsed, she doubted those names were the people's own. These poor souls weren't just food: They were playthings, to be abused, tortured, raped and then devoured once their life had finally, thankfully, been snuffed out. Curiously though, the freezer was still running, humming evilly to the tune of some unseen generator.

Sugarcoat turned around then, and ran.

6: Hunger Games

One foot in front of the other, quickly, duck behind collapsed concrete, jump over discarded debris. Reach the exit. Find Lemon, drive like Tartarus was following. That was Sugarcoat's plan.

Minutes later, Sugarcoat was again in the depilated foyer, panting and nervously eying the doors out to Cloudsdale. Somebody had definitely come here before here, and had decided to stay, and clearly did not have qualms about disposing of unwanted guests. Running would be wise, running out of the awful town, never returning.

But there was still loot to be had, and Sugarcoat wasn’t defenceless and Lemon Zest knew to stay hidden for just a little longer. She risked sneaking behind the receptionist’s desk, brushing the bleached turquoise leather corpse aside, brushing off the golden dust that its hair had partly crumbled into. On a shelf, behind a crusty stack of Filly Fooler’s magazines was a roadmap, tattered, smudged and used as a napkin multiple times, but divine direction nonetheless. Sugarcoat pocketed the papers, and the scissors on the strap about the corpse’s neck. That was all there was of use in the room, so Sugarcoat walked out after that, holding white-knuckled onto her spear.

The formerly-cheery tourist trap had taken on a grim tint in the encroaching evening. Buildings, houses, glared with broken-window eyes down at her, like burned and blackened hyenas begging for her to drop dead. Their laughs were the wind, howling now, casting ash into the air. Sugarcoat adjusted her scarf over her mouth, pushed up her glasses, and started over to Lemon.

The girl was no longer behind the sign. Neither was the bike, or its bundle of supplies. Sugarcoat considered running away then, again, leaving Lemon to her self-fulfilling prophetic fate there in the outskirts of the Moojave Desert, but something inside her rooted her feet to the ground: Loyalty.

She turned around, and headed back into the town, back into the hotel, and waited. Sooner or later, like it or not, whoever had taken Lemon was going to have to eat. Either that or shove her broken body in the freezer with the rest of their prey, but Sugarcoat preferred to think of the first option. Crouching behind a counter, loaded crossbow beside her, she ate a wary supper while awaiting whatever would walk through the steel doors.

The windows outside showed nightfall – moon high and blurred – before somebody else arrived in the kitchen. The bolt flew true, and caught Neon Lights in the shoulder, pinning him to the wall.

“Fuck! Who’s there? Come out now, asshole, and I won’t carve my name into your skull before I crack it open!” He threatened, trying at the same time to brandish a blood-coated knife and untangle himself from the arrow impaling him.

“That was an awful threat. I’d suggest you stop talking in future, but you’d ignore me. Like you always do.” Sugarcoat said, crossbow reloaded, pointed at the madman in the trenchcoat attached to the peeling wallpaper.

“Sugarcoat? You did this?” She said, pointing to her injury, “I thought Indy and I traded your ass to Jet Set for a crate of canned spaghetti?”

“You did. He regretted the deal.” Sugarcoat said, slowly approaching her former classmate.

“So, what? You come here to take revenge on me? For something you would’ve done if the positions were switched?”

“No, I came here looking for supplies, idiot. I couldn’t care less about your made-up grudge. I never wanted to see you again in my life. But then you kidnapped Lemon Zest.”

Neon smirked beneath his sunglasses, “Her? That bitch is still alive? Thought she got vaporised with the rest of the city.”

“She didn’t. Where is she? Tell me now and I won’t set fire to your stash of meat.” Sugarcoat threatened, pointed to the freezer – now open, and doused with a frat party’s worth of booze.

“Fuck you I don’t know.” Neon spat, struggling against the bolt.

“Last chance, tell the truth.” Sugarcoat said, producing a lighter from within her coat.

“That is the damn truth… Now die!” He said, sliding downward, snapping the bolt off the wall, ducking under Sugarcoat’s shot, lunging forward with his razor.

Sugarcoat ducked, stumbled back, caught a swipe with the crossbow, tossed both weapons, landed a hasty punch, grabbed her spear. The two teenagers stood seven feet apart, one staring down the knife-edge of the spear, the other staring down the bad end of a gun.

“Your move, cunt. Bet I can shoot faster than you can stab.”

“Don’t try. Your revolver isn’t actually loaded.”

Neon wiped a smear of blood from his lip, “Sure it is. Checked it this morning. One in the chamber, two right next to it just in case that green-haired moron shows up for seconds. So, put down my stuff, drop your stick and put your hands up. Maybe I’ll let you live. As my sla-”

“The second bullet’s a fake. That’s clearly a rock you jammed into the chamber. Pulling the trigger wouldn’t do anything. Judging by your incompetence with everything else, the other ones are too.”

“Shit, is it really that obvious?” Neon said, looking down the barrel of his pistol. Sugarcoat promptly stabbed him in the chest. The boy reflexively clenched his fist, blowing his head off.

“Yes. Maybe don’t be a psychopathic idiot in your next life, see how that works out.” Sugarcoat said, pocketing the gun and straight razor, before lighting the stack of corpses on fire.

She left the building more decrepit than she entered it: The once-impressive Roaman-style architecture now blazing an orange glow, the antique furniture and dried-out bodies more than enough fuel for the cleansing conflagration. Columns collapsed and screams – thankfully too deep to be Lemon’s – rang out as she fled the burning ruin, narrowly escaping a falling four-poster bed.

“Never am I doing that again.” She muttered, once safely outside.

“No, you won’t be.” A voice said, and Sugarcoat felt something wicked sharp, cold and shiny lying on the back of her neck.

“Indigo Zap. How nice to see you again.”

“Why’d you set my house on fire, Sugarcoat?”

“I don’t approve of cannibalism. Come to think of it, I don’t really approve of somebody trying to cut my throat open with a bowie knife either.”

“Neon was in there, you know. I think you killed him.” Indigo said, walking around until she was in Sugarcoat’s view.

The girl was not looking good. Like her partner, she too wore a tattered leather trenchcoat, and her formerly peach-coloured skin had taken on a sickly green hue. Her eyes were sunken and bagged beneath her signature goggles, and her teeth were stained yellow, filed to nails. Her tongue was fat, bloated red, and she ran it over her fangs, eagerly awaiting her coming meal.

“So, what is it? You going to say sorry, or should I slit your throat?”

“Neon killed himself by picking his nose with his own gun. I simply got to watch.”

“You can’t lie for shit. You killed him!” Indigo yelled, pressing her knife deeper into Sugarcoat’s flesh.

“What happened to Lemon? Where is she?”

Indigo shrugged, “I tied her up somewhere becauss screw you." She said, and spat in Sugarcoat's face, "But do you really want those as your last words, Sugarcoat? Aren’t you going to beg for your life?”

Sugarcoat raised an eyebrow, “Would it help?”

“No. But it’d be fun to watch. Make some asshole beg for mercy like we used to do. Remember that? You and me, holding that poor shithead hostage, that pig of an alumni, making him beg for us not to kill his wife and kid?”

“Tell me where Lemon Zest is. I know you know, I saw your footprints next to the tracks on our bike.” Sugarcoat asked again, trying as hard as she could not to look as terrified as she was.

“How were you so sure those were my prints? Loads of people wear Pintoguayan racing boots. Even Spitfire does, well she did, before the world went to shit. She doesn’t now though, ‘cause I stole her pair after she set fire to mine.”

“Yes, I know that. You carved your name into the soles. I really thought you of all people would know that ‘Indigo’ isn’t spelled with a Y. But, then again, Ponish was never your strong suit. It’s amazing that you were even let into Crystal Prep, let alone the Friendship Games, considering how you can’t read properly.”

“Stop. Right. There.” Indigo commanded, her blade drawing a thin line of blood across Sugarcoat’s throat.

“You’re going to kill me. What difference-”

“You’re fucking right I’m gonna kill you! I’m gonna make you beg for death. And then, once I’ve cut your stupidly clear skin off and made you eat it, I’m gonna kill your stupid friend too! I’m gonna go straight to the hangar where she’s tied up and drag her here and burn her face right off her skull!” Indigo screamed.

“Airplane hangar. Got it.” Sugarcoat said, kneeing her former teammate between the legs.

Indigo gasped, and dropped her knife. Before she could pick up the weapon, Sugarcoat kicked her in the face, and kicked her again before she could start picking her teeth out of the ash. She then beat her a few times, with the blunt side of her spear, not too worried if the hook tore anything on its way out.

Once the Shadowbolt was sufficiently maimed, and disarmed, and tied and gagged to a lamppost, Sugarcoat went off to find her actual friend. A few blocks of torn-up street later, Sugarcoat came to a small hangar – it contained a jet plane, stripped of anything of use, and it contained Lemon, stripped of anything at a save for her blindfold.

“I’m back, Lemon! They’re all dead.” Sugarcoat announced, walking over to Lemon, untying her from the plane’s wheels.

“Thank you thank you so much.” Lemon said, hugging her friend.

“You’re welcome. Let’s get out things and get out of here. I have everything I need.”

“Got it. Thank fuck those bastards are dead. I mean, all three of them were like the worst people I ever met.” She sobbed as her friend collected her clothes – and the bike – from a nearby workbench.

Then, as Sugarcoat was helping Lemon Zest back into her now-unrecognizable Crystal Prep uniform, she stopped. “Wait, Lemon?”

“Yeah, Su? What?”

“How many people did you say were here?”

“Three. Indigo Zap, Neon Lights, and Jet Set. I didn’t see Neon though, but Indy said he was busy getting… toys.”

“Stay here. Jet Set is still alive.”

“I’m not staying; the last time you said that he kidnapped me. I mean, they were going eat me alive. That's worse than Stygian.”

“One, I don't know who that is. Two, if you can figure out how to put your shoes on without me, so you don’t freeze to death, feel free to come along.” Sugarcoat said, unfolding her spear, looking around the gloomy hangar.

The cavernous room held little, save for cobwebs, the plane, and the pair of girls. A few tools lay scattered in one corner, as did some clothes, and a tattered Equestrian flag hung like a shower curtain behind what stank enough to be a toilet. Nevertheless, Sugarcoat patrolled it nervously, while Lemon fumbled on her outfit.

The chill was picking up again, and she was growing tired. Not having slept properly in days now, Sugarcoat only felt awake due to the fear pumping through her. Jet Set had to be somewhere, and he had to die before she could fall asleep. Driving was an option, yes – but trying to rest in under the stars would be suicide if she was found.

Eventually, Sugarcoat’s tiredness gave in, her adrenaline rush ran out, and the gnawing hunger returned. She returned to her friend, tied her shoes, and then both sat down for dinner.

“I think he’s gone, Lemon. Either that or he’s hiding somewhere else.”

“Alright. What’s for supper tonight then? I could really go for some sushi right now. Man, I haven’t had maki in ages.”

Sugarcoat laughed, “Yeah, I miss that too. You know, Sunset used to work at one of those places.”

“That’s why I went. Honestly, I hate fish.”

“I wonder where she is now. Maybe she went back home?”

“Nah, I bet she’s still here. She wouldn’t abandon her friends like that. They were a band, remember?”

“Bands break up all time.”

“Yeah. I guess. I had all their songs though, even that duet with the Sirens, after they made up.”

“Cute chat, girls. Terribly sorry to break it up like this but I can’t just not let you share any of that food. Especially since you stole i!” Jet Set said, jumping down from the plane’s cockpit, steadying himself, then swinging a knife at Sugarcoat.

She dodged death, barely, losing the rest of her ear, along with one of her pigtails. She scrambled for a weapon, only for her spear to be kicked out of her hand. It skittered across the room, leaving Sugarcoat defenceless save for Indy’s knife – all her other weapons lay behind the snob with the cleaver.

“Any last words, Miss Coat? Before I kill you?” The grey-skinned boy said, swinging his knife again, landing it in Sugarcoat’s arm.

She screamed, dropping the knife, clutching the gash. Lemon Zest, meanwhile, scrambled out the way, tossing a few cans of tinned vegetables behind her as she ran.

One caught Jet Set on the nose, knocking off his glasses. “You bitch! How in Tartarus did you even hit that?”

“I don’t know, I guess she was lucky.” Sugarcoat said, having pulled Neon’s revolver out from her coat, brandishing the useless gun at Jet Set, desperately hoping he’d fall for the bluff and let her get a real weapon. “So, my question to you is: Do you feel lucky, punk?”

“How dare you call me a punk? I’ll show you what a real gun looks like!” He said, pulling a surprisingly large, but completely real, pistol out from the waistband of his slacks, “You know, I was saving this for that lying whore Upper Crust, but you’ll do just fine!”

He fired the shot with a yell; half-blind without his glasses, the bullet hammered angrily into the windshield behind his intended victim. Sugarcoat shot back, and didn’t miss.

“Apparently Neon Lights had two bullets after all. If only the same could be said for you. And, truth be told, I always liked Upper Crust more – she had far better taste in tacky cardigans anyway.”

After dressing the cut on her bicep, and disposing of Jet Set's looted corpse, and finishing her dinner, Sugarcoat went to sleep, next to Lemon, and both girls slept as well as one could in a blighted hellscape – only mildly bothered by freakish nightmares.

7: Zen

Dear Book

Met Indigo Zap again. I won. Went to Cloudsdale. Lemon Zest kidnapped by Jet Set. Jet Set killed. Neon Lights killed. Hotel burned down. Found food, water for another week. Would last longer if I was alone. Found more guns. Out of ammo. Will stay here a few days. Recuperate before using map to find Sunny.

One day after writing, with nothing of note to write, Sugarcoat was still recuperating. Jet Set had sliced her harder than she had originally thought; she’d exhausted Snips’ first aid kit trying to properly disinfect her arm, cauterize the cut, stitch the wound, staunch the flow of blood. It was deep red by the second day – arterial and not showing any sign of stopping. Sugarcoat was lying on the bedroll, trying not to stain it.

“And that’s why Cheese Sandwich is actually completely overrated. I mean, I’ve met people who’s favourite song was Beat It, right? But nobody liked Eat It that much. Even though the parody got way more views, it couldn’t exist without the first one. So, the first one is way better, see?”

“I’m trying to sleep, Lemon.”

“Whoops. Sorry. I just kinda like talking about music. Especially since I’ve got somebody to listen now.”

“I gathered that from the fact that you’ve talked about ‘parody as a legitimate genre’ for two straight hours.”

“Well, I haven’t reached an answer yet. Is Ghast AD actually a parody band or not?”

“They’re terrible and now they’re probably dead. Who cares?” Sugarcoat said, rolling over on the bed roll onto her bad arm, wincing, rolling back over, satchel-cum-pillow pressed over her ears.

“Come on! Ghast is amazing and Tobias Ferrier is super cute. And nice too. You have to admit that.”

“I’ve seen enough corpses to know not to fuck a man dressed like one.”

“Oh yeah, I forgot. You and Sunny are still a thing.”

“Exactly. Now please be quiet – I’m trying not to bleed to death here.”

Lemon Zest obliged, and left her white-haired friend to rest for the rest of the morning; only waking her hours later after her search for a can opener had proved fruitless.

“You don’t need a can opener. They’re a waste of space.” Sugarcoat mumbled, rubbing sleep out of her eyes, fumbling for her glasses.

“Well, I can’t chew through metal. So do you have a pocket knife or something instead?”

“No. Barnyard Bargains was looted by the time I got to it and they’re the only place I know that sold them.”

“So?”

Sugarcoat took the can – tomato puree – and started rubbing the top of it against the concrete floor of the airplane hangar. “Use a brick, or the road. It’s rough enough to wear away at the can’s lid.” She said, handing the can back to the girl. “Now you try.”

“Doesn’t this make loads of noise though?”

“If you’re worried about being ambushed, you obviously shouldn’t be eating lunch. Besides, it’s worked every other time I’ve tried it.” Sugarcoat said, standing up, checking the bandage.

Although blood-soaked, it was finally beginning to dry. Sugarcoat still felt faint, but she did feel well enough to walk around; she walked over to the destroyed hotel, still smouldering, and lit a torch, planked wood wrapped with torn denim, to start a fire.

When she returned to the hangar, after ensuring Indigo was still secured to the lamp post, still screaming indignantly beneath her gag, Lemon asked her what was for dinner.

“Spam and tomato sauce. I felt like a hot meal tonight, so I’m lighting a fire.” Sugarcoat answered, building a fire a few feet away, beneath the airplane itself, out of reach of clumsy friends or icy winds.

She used the stuffing inside the plane’s seats as kindling, and took a bundle of it for later use. The rest of the fire consisted of the discard clothes and fabric Sugarcoat found – the material being too shredded and filthy for any other use.

Soon the blaze burned hot, warming the cold hangar with a hearty yellow glow. Both girls sat next to it, toasting slices of meat on the tips of their knives, dipping the cooked pork in a lukewarm bowl of tomato sauce afterward. It was as good as meals got in Canterlot these days, cooked, balanced and shared with friends.

“So, you never answered my question. Is Ghast parody or not?”

“I don’t know. What’s it parodying? A decent choice in religions?”

“Yeah, actually. The whole “Nightmarist” act is faked, they don’t actually believe in any of that stuff. Besides, aren’t you atheist?”

“Antitheist actually. It’s stupid to believe in anything you can prove.”

“Magic is literally real. How can you not believe that Celestia loves you?”

“Because the only Celestia I ever met was a second-rate headmistress of a second-rate public school. When she comes down and starts smiting people, then I’ll believe. When she starts smiting people I want smitten, then I’ll worship her.”

“Cool. Not my problem when you wind up in Tartarus.”

“We’re in Tartarus. I saw a three-headed dog last month. It was barking Power Ponies quotes at somebody.”

“What? Really?”

“Yeah. And I’m never eating mushrooms again.”

Lemon laughed so hard she started coughing.

Once lunch was over, it was about two in the afternoon, and it looked to be about twilight because of the clouds. The bodies of dust never went anywhere, ever, and Sugarcoat suspected that they were the reason anything more electrically complicated than a spark plug failed to work. She chalked it up to magic, which seemed to be a far more rational explanation than anything else she had heard. Science didn’t work like that – capacitors didn’t just break – therefore science itself had to be broken.

She thought that about her cut too, until another walk around the hangar found her the cleaver, and a deep gash in the sole of her boot, luckily not her foot. The tool-turned-weapon was razor sharp, and wickedly serrated. No wonder it had hurt so much. Jet Set had probably poisoned it as well. After being safely wrapped in a scrap of cloth torn from the old flag, it too went into the bags hanging off of the bike, just in case the rest of her knives somehow failed.

After that, and after the rest of her scavenged belongings were secured to the bike, and the bike’s tank was again filled with the remaining canteen of gas, Sugarcoat sat down again next Lemon, lying next to the fire.

“You’re back. Thought you’d gone out looking for food or something.”

“We have enough food for the next few days. According to the map, there should be a few more settlements on route to Las Pegasus. We can resupply there.”

“Doesn’t that bother you?”

“What does? My arm still hurts if that’s what you mean.”

“Nah, I mean living in somebody else’s clothes, eating their food.”

“Not really. It’s just cloth. They’d want me to have it, considering I’m alive and they’re not.”

“You know, Su, I don’t think Jet Set or Indy would want you to steal their stuff.”

“And if they don’t want me to have it, obviously they don’t like me. Therefore, I don’t feel bad about stealing from them.”

“But, isn’t it still gross to, like, take stuff off a dead body?”

“You get used to it. It’s way more gross trying to eat sand, because you couldn’t bring yourself to take anything from somebody who didn’t need it anymore. That’s how Fleur died.”

Lemon chuckled, “That’s pretty funny actually. I mean, she literally bit the dust.”

“I guess. Though I think she always wanted to die. Some people aren’t built for this world, even if they survived the initial events.”

“But we are. The school’s resident nerd and stoner. Just the two of us, alone against the entire universe. Philosophical, right?”

“I never thought of myself as a nerd. That was Twilight’s role.”

“So, what were you then, Su, some kind of prepper?”

“I’m only wearing this cardigan because its cashmere, and its warm.”

“No, I mean like a doomsday survivalist type. ‘Cause you’ve adapted the best of anyone I know.”

“Sour Sweet is better.”

“You actually saw her? I thought she was with Sunny Flare?”

“She was, yes, and I didn’t personally see her. But she was the leader of a scout troop, and a champion archer, and had actually tried to prepare for the apocalypse. I’m just, well, me.”

“Yeah, but we don’t know if Sour’s alive or dead right now. You though, you’re alive and doing pretty well, to be honest.”

“I guess, it isn’t like I ranked any of this. As long as I’m not starving or in immediate danger, I’d say we’re fine.”

“Then we’re fine.”

“Exactly.”

8: and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

“So, where’re we headed? Las Pegasus, right?”

“Not immediately; the journey’s too long to do in one trip. Especially since we don’t have much fuel left. We’ll go through Appleloosa.”

“That’s that hillbilly town right, you think they’ll have rodeos?”

“Cows are extinct.”

“Yeah, I meant like a mechanical bull.”

“Why? Do you want to go bull riding?”

“Not really, but I just thought it’d be cool if cowboys are still, you know, cowboys in the apocalypse.”

“Well, there’s only one way to find out. Let’s go.” Sugarcoat said, and the pair set out after breakfast the next day. Her arm was mostly alright, stitched up again, and numbed the night before by the canteen of bourbon. The bike’s gauge read to the fuel level to be almost empty, but Sugarcoat decided that using it and dumbing it would be far more practical than dragging it halfway across the desert in case she and Lemon wound up being pursued. She didn’t think that to be particularly likely; few wandered the ashen sands and cracked tar roads, and most bandits preferred to hunt near towns and cities, closer to their more plentiful prey.

They rode on for almost an hour, before the bike ran out of gas, spitting and spluttering to a halt beside the dry husk of a cactus, long since tapped for water, long since burnt to charcoal.

“Well, I guess we’re walking now.” Sugarcoat said, dismounting, untying the various bags from the dirt bike.

“Better than running.”

“Definitely. You need less food to walk. We’ll do that for a few hours, and stop once it starts getting cold again.”

“I’m cold already.”

“If you’re warm enough to walk, you’re not cold. Come on, we have to do at least a few miles before setting camp or else we’ll starve before we reach the next town.” Sugarcoat said, handing Lemon the length of frayed rope, guiding her down the road.

“And what if there’s no food in Appleloosa? What then? Do we just starve?”

“You’ve survived for three years, as long as I have. What do you normally do when supplies are scarce?”

“I found an old air raid shelter actually, some kind of bunker left behind after the Cold War. I hid there for, like, two years with some band mates until the food ran out.”

“Lucky you. Some of us had to learn how to scavenge.”

“Doesn’t matter if I learned any of that now. Not like I can use any of it, since I can’t see.”

“Yeah... I’m still sorry about that. That’s really awful.”

“I know. Served me right for trusting a stranger.” Lemon sighed.

“Don’t say that – it’s never your fault when somebody hurts you. It’s theirs. It’s always theirs because they had the choice to do it. You didn’t have any choice in the matter.”

“I did. I was stupid and some asshole blinded me because of it. I could have just said no! I could have just told him that I had nothing to share. But I let him sit by our fire, and played his fucking game.”

“And that’s how it happened? You lost a game and he gouged your eyes out over it?”

Lemon Zest stopped walking, and started biting back tears. “What was I supposed to do? He had a gun. I’m not smart like you, I couldn’t fight my way out of it.”

“You’re the third smartest person I know, after Twilight and myself. You can’t blame yourself over what happened. It won’t help, trust me.”

“Thanks, but-but I mean not practical smart. I can spout facts about respiration works, or what amps do, or who Starswirl was but that’s because I used to spend all my free time studying. You saw how my grades tanked after I joined Vinyl’s band. But you, Su, you learn faster than everybody else. Maybe that’s why you’re so good at this sort of thing?”

“Maybe. But let’s keep walking.” Sugarcoat said.

So, the girls kept walking, Sugarcoat using the spear as a hiking stick, Lemon following behind, holding onto the rope, tripping every so often over a stray chunk of debris her friend had forgotten to warn her about. Eventually, the sun had reached its zenith in the sky, staring down from directly above, warming nothing, cooking everything slowly. Sugarcoat caught side of a crashed car, paint all but scraped away by the caustic winds, leaving a gleaming iron chunk of scrap lying beside the road. She led Lemon over to its shade, and they ate the leftovers of their breakfast – a tin’s worth of spam and potatoes, grilled as kebabs over a fire.

Once that was finished, washed down with the mineral water stolen from Neon’s hotel, Sugarcoat went to investigate the car itself. It was a muscle car, too dinged and dented and destroyed to recognize past that. There were a pair of corpses, mummified in the front seats, one male, one female, still contorted over each-other, embraced for all eternity. Sugarcoat took the man’s baseball cap, putting it on under her tattered hoodie. Then she searched the car’s seats, boot and glovebox. There was little she could find of any use; some cigarettes and a battered lighter engraved with a thunderbolt, the girl’s sneaker’s fit would fit decently, and there was an acoustic guitar lying in surprisingly good condition under an old football uniform. All those Sugarcoat took, giving the shoes and the guitar to Lemon.

“Holy shit! You found a guitar!” The girl said, immediately giving it a strum. “Man, have I missed this! I totally got to play you a song now.”

“Are you taking requests?”

“I guess. I can’t sing for shit but strings? That stuff’s like learning a bicycle.”

“You mess up your first try and break your arm?”

“No, I mean you never forget them. How about That's Amore? That’s a good song.”

Sugarcoat shrugged, “Go ahead.”

Lemon was right, her talents lay more with strumming than they did with singing. She forgot the lyrics halfway through, and her replacements weren’t much better. The clumsy rendition left both girls in a far better mood though, reliving past passions and old hobbies. Once Lemon was finished, and the two were ready to set out again, Sugarcoat took the dead man’s belt, looping it around the guitar, giving it to her friend to wear on her back.

The rest of the day played out simply, walking down a deserted highway, step after tiresome step, mile after endless mile. In the distance, half-hidden behind a mountain, surrounded by charred and skeletal trees, lay their destination, the town still days away. During a break for water, the last in the evening before finding shelter for the night, Sugarcoat had a closer look, using the binoculars, and saw no people, none that were alive.

Dead bodies, apelike ants from seen from so far away, hung off dead branches, impaled and mutilated, contorted and harvested like bloated apples in their graveyard orchard. The buildings were crumbled, broken-down husks of a once-proud frontier settlement. The windows of the less harrowed homes glowed faintly; it suggested some or other habitation, and thus food. Thus, an ensuing fight.

“This doesn’t look good. You were right, we have cowboys.”

“How’s that bad? Cowboys are awesome.”

“Until they’re not on your side, and try to impale you to a tree. Then, I’d rather not have to deal with them.”

“Ouch. Like, why is everyone in this place so fucked up? Couldn’t we just be nice to each-other or something?”

“Didn’t you yourself say that doing that got you into this mess in the first place?”

“Yeah.” Lemon sighed, “But only because he wasn’t nice back.”

”Then, let’s keep going. Appleloosa’s still a few days away and I’d rather not sleep out in the open.”

Shelter that night was a rock outcrop; enough of a shield from the wind, and warm enough after a few adjacent cacti were chopped down, and made into a campfire within it. Dinner was another mix of ham and tomato, this time substituting beer for water, as what little Sugarcoat had left she didn’t want to spend unnecessarily. Afterward, she rebound the bandages on her arm, noticing worriedly that the normally blue-grey skin had taken on a sickly green and yellow hue. She hoped, but she doubted, that it was just bruising.

Little could be done for Lemon either, Sugarcoat realized. Although she was in far better shape than before, having eaten as properly as one could for another week, and being protected somewhat better against the elements, her mental state still seemed off. Forgetting words, and paranoia, and night terrors could all be understood, considering what happened to her – Sugarcoat just wished that she knew how to help it. She knew that she was never the person anybody really talked to about anything emotional – her unsympathetic bluntness ensured that, and Crystal Prep’s isolating tendencies enforced it. If anything, she’d rather be talking to Lemon, about her own problems, rather than listening helplessly, to her strumming chords listlessly. She missed Sunny. She was good, far better than both of them, at dealing with that.

Author's Notes:

Here's the next chapter. I'll be taking a quick break from writing this while I'm at the beach. Expect regular updates again in a week's time.

9: Convoy

The next few days were spent walking along the crooked tar, the cold sand above, the dry sand below – two spots of vibrant colour struggling betwixt two halves of grey ash.

On the third day, Sugarcoat spotted water as she and Lemon crossed over a bridge – rickety old planks and sand-scarred suspension being the only barrier between them and the wickedly jagged rocks below. Already, somebody had fallen – now a faint corpse mangled dozens of meters down in the ravine below.

“Don't, you know, look down.” Lemon joked. “Just because you can doesn't mean you should.”

“No, there's water down there. A river, actually.”

“Seriously? I thought it all evaporated by now.”

“Well, there's not much left but my guess is that there's an underground spring.”

“If there's a spring, could the water be clean? Like, if we could get to it, could drink or wash in it?”

“Maybe. I'd still boil it first, just to be sure. But it's really far down; I'm not sure how we could get it.”

“Yeah. That sucks. I could really use a shower. No offense, but you could too.”

“Definitely. But unless you have a hundred yards of rope, we're staying dry.”

“Couldn't you use the cables of the bridge?”

“I can't cut through solid steel so no. Let's keep moving.”

They kept moving. As they walked, Sugarcoat’s mind was abuzz with ideas. She had always an interest in engineering – it having been one of her best subjects when Crystal Prep still stood. Even though the stream was miles away by then, and probably too toxic to drink, she still wanted to figure out a way of getting at it. It made for a pleasant distraction from endlessly staring at the road.

A day later, come early evening, Sugarcoat saw the ravine again, the cracked rock and sand having curved around to meet a second bridge. This time, it was far more navigable, its floor only a few meters below the worn wood floor. However, what little possibility the bridge itself had was all but lost.

A petrol truck had been crashed into it, and the tanker itself dangled into the gorge below. The cables suspending the bridge had snapped on one side, slithering airborne like steel snakes in the harsh winds, hissing eternally above deadly spikes of blackened wood, curving impassibly into the shallow waters beneath.

“Well, that sounds pretty bad if you ask me.” Lemon said, once Sugarcoat had described the scene to her. The sighted girl had neglected to mention the designed stenciled onto the truck: Sombra had passed this way before her.

“I know. I'm not sure how to get past it, to be honest.”

“Could we climb over the tanker, maybe? Sort of like what you did with the reservoir?”

“No, it's too far. We'd be better off following the ravine itself, seeing if it flattens out anywhere.”

“But you could climb down, right?”

“Yes, but I couldn't get you down as well. So there isn't any point.”

“But the river's still there, right? Couldn't you bring up some water to drink? We'd need it if we’re going to take another route.”

“You're right. Wait here, and I'll try to get down.”

After checking the cab, finding a flare gun jammed beneath the desiccated husk of the driver, Sugarcoat climbed down the tanker itself. It had been carrying fuel, it seemed. Off to Las Pegasus, or Appleloosa, or any of the other towns that lay beyond the scrubland-made-desert.

She hopped down into the ravine, letting herself drop off a low-hanging back tire of the trailer, her feet squishing into the mud below. Like the rest of Equestria, it was grey and filthy. What water there was – that little liquid yet unmixed with the perpetually falling ash – had been polluted by the leaking petrol, rendering good for nothing, not fire, nor thirst.

After following the ravine downstream for half a mile, and seeing only more dark mud, undrinkable as the sky itself, Sugarcoat turned around, and hauled herself back up the trailer, and discovered that Lemon Zest had disappeared.

“Lemon! Where are you?” Sugarcoat yelled.
“Worry not your mind with such things, wench!” Somebody who was definitely not Lemon Zest yelled back.

Sugarcoat drew the flare gun, pointing it nervously in the direction of the voice, started back slowly toward the bridge. It was cover, from whatever else lurked in the night.

A second pair of footsteps joined hers as she walked back to the truck, and then a third and a fourth, trying as hard as possible to be quiet, and back her against the ruined vehicle. Slowly they all creaked along the rickety timber, breathing heavily, gambling on the others to shoot – or fall – first.

Something broke with a sick crack. Somebody screamed. The flare flashed blue, harsh and bright against the cold black. Another screamed, caught alight. Illuminated by the flaming warrior, clawing desperately against the fire on his uniform, Sugarcoat saw two of Sombra’s men, a third struggling his leg out from a cracked plank a few feet back.

One of the men drew his pistol, emptied its magazine uselessly into the wood. Sugarcoat drew a knife, and it joined the bullets; its intended target lunging to the side. Sugarcoat fumbled for her spear, undoing its clasp, unfolding all six feet of wicked murder. She got halfway before the shaft caught a machete, shattering into glinting splinters. Trenderhoof tugged out his sword, swung again for his opponent’s neck. Sugarcoat ducked, kicked him in the crotch. He yelped, and stumbled back into his flaming comrade. Both collapsed into a frantic blue bonfire; the one that was rapidly consuming the rest of the bridge. Behind them, the third soldier continued to hack away at the jagged splinters with his axe. Sugarcoat paid him no heed, jumped into the dark muck below.

Another crack – running on adrenaline by now, Sugarcoat prayed that it was the bridge, and not her leg. She ran downstream again, as the warriors above scream and shouted, cursing and begging for help. One foot in front of the other, like she had done endlessly for the last three years. Run, pant, get away. Run, stay low, don’t get shot. Sugarcoat kept moving, following the rock walls of the shallow ravine, its twists and turns extinguishing the bright blue flare’s flames.

She stopped in the tracks once she heard the explosion; an incredible, deafening gunshot-like bang as the fires found their way into the tanker. The fireball half-blinded her as it rose above the gorge, a brilliant red and purple firework against the shadowy sky. Away from the fight, and the flames licking the petrol-infused mud that had all but dried up a mile back, Sugarcoat collapsed against the cold stone, promising herself a rest – not permanent, just a quick breather before continuing her quest.

10: A Nightmare on Elm Street

Ground zero. Canterlot High. A blackened crater, nothing left but rubble and debris. A great hole in the ash clawed out by some terrible cosmic hand. Nothing lived in that place. It was quiet, quiet enough to hear one's own heartbeat, Sugarcoat noticed.

But her heart did not beat. Nor did her lungs draw breath – she dust, like the rest of the dreamscape. In the distance, a sun began to set. It wasn’t the Earth's star though – this sunset was hued a sickly green, a strangled blue and an unhealthy pink. It moved slowly, swaying languidly against the grey sky, like a complementary dot of paint being lazily smeared across a monotone canvas.

In the twilight haze it offered, the only light in Sugarcoat's dreamed up world, she saw a statue – crumbled and defaced, but still rising proudly above the desert. It was a horseman, and his steed reared proudly even in the apocalypse. Like a skyscraper dreamed from marble the structure towered over the dust, the sediment beneath it still miraculously preserved.

Then the sun set – and everything went black. With the loss of sight, came sound. Evil cheers, hooting and hollering, screaming and shouting, all in profane praise to some horrid king. Shapes moved and twisted around Sugarcoat, jagged and edged and dancing with locked hands around the foot of the statue's spire. It was a ritual, and the inhuman clarity of the bizarre cries combined with the occasional fiery touch of the knife-like figures sickened Sugarcoat.

As the things danced, still shadowed and chanting their alienages, new lights resurfaced. Three of them, resembling spotlights, flickered into being around the statue. One revealed a knight, with his blackened plate mail glinting in the moonlight. The man himself faced the sculpture, and he wore an ermine cape that flowed in some unfelt wind – its impossible proportions letting it twist and entangle the pitch-black dancing fiends below. The cloth gave the girl brief glimpses of their features – the demons waltzed on needlepoint tiptoes, their hands ended equally, with dagger-like claws stabbed into their neighbours wrists. The horrors had no proper mouths, rather their heads were split lengthways – leaving two hornlike, from between which their song emanated.

The knight above waved his hands in some obscene parody of a conductor's orders, and the monsters below followed. Wrenching free their claws, taking sometimes chunks of their comrades flesh with them – drawing gouts of steaming tarlike blood – they screamed in unison. The noise was nightmarish; a collection of shattering glasses and crashing cars and weeping women. It continued as the things skittered toward Sugarcoat, now corporeal and terrified.

She ran, tripping and stumbling in the darkness, fleeing desperately up the crater – its gigantic size rendering it steep, yet hopefully surmountable. Screeching the horror followed, clawing and nipping with burning horns and fingernails. Sugarcoat shrugged them off, whipping one with the butt of her shotgun – it tumbled silently into the heavy mass of sharpness below. Another one was stabbed, and the knife faded harmlessly into its matte-dark flesh.

The pursuit continued, boiling hot in the night, dead yet still hungry with the whoops of the nightmare fiends. Sugarcoat hurt – everywhere – as the things landed slice after slice into her. She fought back as much as she could, her arsenal of weapons quickly disappearing into the incorrigible demonic horde. Soon she was left with only her spear, jabbing and staggering up the endless hill.

It was now too steep to climb. Back against the crumbling wall of ash, Sugarcoat battled the army of evil. The spear, stolen from a raider in what felt like another lifetime, she managed to hold them at bay for hours – slashing and hooking and battering back the beasts with the broken haft of polearm. The knight turned to her. Though miles away, Sugarcoat saw his face with perfect clarity. It was the grey of the rotting dead; doughy and with a sick pallor; and it was bent into an arrogant grimace. The man flew down to her, eyes trailing a purplish smoke that faded into the ever-present smog. The demons parted as he approached, bowing down in reverence as their king passed through.

He sneered, arms spread apart in a mocking boast of an offered hug. Neck twisted to breaking with a wrenching snap, his head swivelled back to the statue. There, the second light flickered, giving light to cowled and crooked figure – bent and bowed by old age, it hung in the air, balancing its ghostly thin body on a cane seemingly carved from bone. Then the knight's head twisted the rest of the way round, contorting and narrowing as it moved. The formerly lush and glossy black hair matted into a stringy lime green, while the face grew pink and gaunt. Once back round, it was indistinguishable from Lemon's face when Sugarcoat had first rescued her.

Save for its eyes. Those burned with a horrid eagerness, and they waved and rolled madly in her desiccated skull. Three times they danced; once, and they flashed each colour of the rainbow. Again, and the world shattered to the cries of the screaming fiends. Once more, and the dark silence returned, rushing around Sugarcoat, whirling quiet and disorientating blindness. As it did, Lemon's smile grew even wider – a white crescent against the night, expanding until the eyes themselves – still stuck in their glimmering glare of depraved hunger – were skewered upon it. Pierced by fangs, they popped – splattering the stunned girl with gore.

11: Sweet Home Alabama

The blood felt cold against her face, refreshing almost. It was cold, and calm in the now-silent night. It didn't stink of death, and it now had the consistency of a moist towel. Sugarcoat almost enjoyed it, until the voices returned.

“Wake up.” Said the voice, in an out-of-place Southern drawl.

Sugarcoat tried her best to ignore it, hoping that this new demon would get tired of her, and returned to whence it came. At this moment in time, that seemed to be either Tartarus - reputedly below the Earth's crust, where nightmares rested and planned their assaults on the dreaming world - or South Canterlina - geographically below the Mason-Dixon line, where the tea was sweet and the chicken fried.

“Come on, Sugarcoat, wake up. You've already slept for two days straight. Anymore and I reckon we'll need far more than just first aid and cider to put you back together.”

Realizing she was actually awake, Sugarcoat reluctantly opened an eye, steeling herself for another confrontation with Sombra’s forces. What she saw, however, was not a gruff man in camouflage armed to the teeth. Instead she saw a girl about her own age, in an old stetson, scuffed cowboy boots and a patched flannel shirt.

“What? Where am I? Where's Lemon?” She asked, sitting up.

“Hey, not so fast. You've got a bad fever, so take it easy.” Applejack said.

“I'll take it easy after you answer me. Where are we? Where is Lemon?” Sugarcoat asked, reaching for a knife that was no longer strapped to her hip.

“This here is Appleloosa. If you're looking for lemons, I'd suggest you hit the road."

Sugarcoat rolled her eyes, “Don’t laugh at your jokes. Especially if they aren't good, which your wasn't.”

“Well next time, maybe I'll leave you to die of an infected arm in the desert then if you gonna be so ungrateful.”

“Fine. I'm sorry. I just don't like surprises. Or people stealing my things.”

“Calm down, I didn't take your stuff. I just moved your kit over to one side so didn't accidentally cut yourself when you rolled over.”

“Then where is it?”

Applejack pointed to a wooden cabinet in the corner of the room; it was padlocked and, behind its glass screen, Sugarcoat could see her equipment, save for her weaponry, piled within it. The other corners of the room contained the bed Sugarcoat was lying in – Applejack sat at the foot of it. It wasn't a very large room but it was comfortably warm, and the bed was comfortably soft.

“Alright. Next question: Why-”

“There's a facecloth on your head to treat the fever. Braeburn and I rescued you after we saw the flare you fired. And no, we ain’t planning to kill you or anything.” Applejack explained, “That all answer your questions?”

“All but one: When can I leave?”

“You can leave right now if you want. I ain’t keeping you here.”

“That’s the first piece of good news I’ve heard this day.” Sugarcoat said as she climbed out the cot, steadying herself on a bedpost. She managed to stumble for half a yard before her legs gave out. Applejack caught her before she hit the floor, and laid her back on the bed. Sugarcoat winced as the other girl brushed her arm – the aching pains had returned with a vengeance.

“Of course, just because you can leave doesn’t mean you should.”

“I’m clearly too sick to walk, and your lessons aren’t helping with that.”

“Fine then. Twilight reckons you’ll be alright in a week or so, if you keep eating and drinking water. I’ll bring something by in a bit.” Applejack said, leaving the room, shutting the door behind her.

Alone, Sugarcoat lay back in her bed, stared at the wooden-plank ceiling, and began to think. From what little she had talked to the farmer, Applejack didn’t seem to be the type of person to lie. And, from what hospitality she had shown so far, Sugarcoat guessed that she wouldn’t exactly be too opposed to giving away some much-needed supplies. But, then again, wholesome and generous people didn’t exactly impale their enemies on the dead trees surrounding their town. And Twilight was another thing entirely – a real ray of hope. Sunny did mention that the bookish girl was also invited to the Las Pegasus 12^th Annual Young Scientists’ Expo, after all. And, if the completely non-athletic, and completely impractical Twilight Sparkle could survive this wasteland, that meant Sunny could too.

A knock on the door broke Sugarcoat out of her half-asleep train of thought a few hours later, and soon afterwards, the door opened to reveal Twilight herself, and a plate of food.

“Hey, Sugarcoat. How are you?” Twilight greeted, setting the plate of pancakes down on the nightstand.

“Alive. Thanks to you apparently.”

Twilight blushed, “It was nothing, really. Just a dose of penicillin and a splash of rubbing alcohol. You should be alright in a few days.”

“Well, I’m grateful for the help. You did save my life.”

“You should thank AJ, she found you. I just patched you up. Besides, you already did that yourself, I really only redressed the wound.”

Sugarcoat picked up the plate of pancakes – five of them, stacked and drizzled with syrup, sprinkled with sugar and cinnamon. Still warm, the food looked about as good as it smelled – completely delicious, with a hint of apple. She took a bite, and then devoured the rest.

“Slow down before you choke. I can make more.”

“You made these?” Sugarcoat mumbled, in between mouthfuls.

“Yes? Cooking is easy – you just follow the instructions to the letter. It’s like performing any experiment really, except that you can eat the outcome.”

“About three years ago, before this all happened, you were going to a science fair, right?”

It took Twilight a few seconds but eventually she nodded, “Yes. The Las Pegasus 12^th Annual Young Scientists’ Expo. I never actually arrived though, as there was this massive explosion followed up by an earthquake. It must have been an 8 on the Richter Scale to cause this damage. I guess that would be the apocalypse everyone keeps talking about.”

“Was Sunny Flare with you?”

“No, I know she was going but we didn’t travel together. I was going with AJ in her brother’s truck. We stopped in Appleloosa for the night and, well, we never left.”

“Didn’t you want to track down your parents? Or your friends? Or your boyfriend? Why did you just stay here?”

“I considered it but, I don’t think I’d find them. After all, look at me. I know I’m a genius, but I’m not built for exploring an irradiated wasteland. I could be more use here – repairing things and trying to keep everyone else alive.”

“So, you have no idea where Sunny is?”

“I’m sorry but I really don’t. Was she important to you?”

“She’s my girlfriend. I was going to propose to her after we graduated. Of course, she was important to me.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry. That must’ve been awful.”

“That’s putting it lightly. I was devastated.”

A glimmer of surprise crossed Twilight’s face, “I didn’t realize you cared that much about her. You never seemed like the type to.”

“Just because I don’t broadcast every emotion I have to the entire world doesn’t mean I don’t have emotions.”

“Sorry, it seems that my... uh... original assessment of you was way off then. But, what where you going? AJ filled me in on how she found you, so what were you doing trying to cross the Moojave alone?”

“Firstly, I wasn’t alone. Lemon Zest was with me. I was trying to get to Las Pegasus, as that was the last place Sunny had been to. I was ambushed by a surprisingly competent gang of raiders, and I managed to escape but I think they must have taken Lemon. I must have passed out at some point, and I woke up here.”

“I see. But how did it take you three years to get from Canterlot to Las Pegasus – it isn’t that long of a journey. It should only take a day or two by car.”

“It’s a much longer journey when you start from Detrot, and you don’t have a map. Or a car. And you’re constantly being stalked by deranged cannibals.”

“Oh yeah. I heard about them. Sorry you had to go through all of that.”

“Stop apologizing. It isn’t your fault and it makes you appear weak. That is not a good thing in a place like this.”

“Sorry.”

Sugarcoat glared at her.

“So, what are you going to do now. I mean, after you’re alright to walk again. You could stay here. We’d welcome that company.”

“Thanks, but no thanks. I had originally planned just to scavenge some more food and water, and then continue on my way. If Sunny is still out there, I plan to find her.”

12: Uptown Girl

Dear Book

Found Appleloosa. Lost Lemon Zest – was kidnapped during encounter with Sombra's Legion. Escaped but was wounded. Passed out and rescued by Appleloosa townsfolk. Native Twilight Sparkle and Applejack are here. Spent the last three days recovering. Finally eating properly. Apple Family can cook. Sheriff has been showing me around. They impale raiders' corpses on dead trees. Town has population of about 60 – largest I've seen so far. All are armed. Twilight claims food supply due to her and Applejack's old science project: Cactus-Apple Tree hybrid designed to survive in outer space. Kept people fed while Sheriff Braeburn Apple kept them ordered. Will stay until the weekend.

“You sure do like writing in that thing. You gonna publish it one of these days?” Braeburn asked, as he and Sugarcoat sat on camp chairs with rifles in hand, in the ruined church spire, overlooking the Warning Wood, and the grey sandy desert that encroached upon it.

“I don't plan to but its good to keep a journal anyway, whether its for writing or drawing or both. It does wonders for your mental health.”

The sheriff scoffed, “You think the reason you ain't howling at the moon right now is cause you write down your thoughts and feelings and doodle pictures of your dream boyfriend?”

Sugarcoat glared at him, “No, the reason I'm not howling at the moon right now is because I can't see the moon. If you could keep your eyes off of me for more than two seconds, you'd realize that it's overcast.”

“Hey now I was not looking at you. I was keeping an eye out for Injuns.”

“I think the Buffalo Tribe can look out for themselves.”

“Well...” Braeburn scratched the back of his neck, “I sorta meant more one specific Injun.”

“My point remains valid; you should be keeping watch. Or did you just invite me here so you could goof off and stare through some girl’s window?”

Braeburn blushed, “It ain't like that, honest. I was just tryna give you the genuine Appleloosa experience and show you what life in my town was like. Ain't my fault Little Strongheart likes to change clothes with curtains drawn open.”

“Well you have certainly convinced me.” Sugarcoat said, standing up, packing her journal away.

“That's great!”

“It definitely is, yes.”

“So you wanna keep your current cabin or-”

“I'm leaving on Sunday. Thank you for the food, and the medicine and the supplies, but I still have a girlfriend to rescue.” Sugarcoat said, climbing down the ladder to the church's floor.

“You know that's a real shame. We coulda used a lady like you round here.”

“I know. Feel free to follow me out into the dangerous wasteland where you’ll probably die in the first hour because you've wasted your life playing cop in the Flyover Country.”

Much to her relief, Braeburn did not follow her down. And much to her relief, her shift as town guard had ended with the sunrise. Most of the townsfolk had risen long before that though, going out to patrol the nearby wastes or tend to their bountiful harvest of zap apples.

Sugarcoat wandered through the town for a bit, continuously being surprised at how... normal everything seemed. No matter how many times many times she walked through Appleloosa's streets, she was still shocked at how unremarkable the place was. People woke up, went to work, went home to their families and ate dinner. There wasn't any frantic fleeing from frenzied madmen, there wasn’t any nervous searching of ruined homes for food. The home here were intact, inhabited and there inhabitants tried as hard as they could to just get on with their lives, as if the outside world had never died at all. Of course, even here the apocalypse left its mark. Scorch marks and bullet holes spoke of still-recent conflicts, and the general weariness of the Apples sometimes showed through their hospitable demeanours. It reminded Sugarcoat of Saraneighvo, another city determined to leave behind its tormented past and move forward into a new world.

Sugarcoat's wandering had brought her to the town bakery – nobody really used money anymore, but eating zap apples raw grew tiresome, fast.

“Hey, you're Silverboat, right? The survivor from the desert?” Greeted the woman behind the counter – cheerful, with frizzy purple hair.

“My name is Sugarcoat. You should try harder to remember names, maybe you'd have more customers then.”

Sugar Belle muttered something under her breath. “Well, it isn’t like I sell things anymore. Haven't since Glimmer took over. If you're looking for something to eat, you'll have to wait another hour at least.”

“I'm not. I'm looking for Twilight. Besides, you use too much baking soda in your muffins. They’re inedible and taste like rocks. And this is coming from who once tried to eat pumice.”

“She's in the back. I’ll fetch her.” Sugar Belle said, walking into the building’s kitchen. A few minutes later, a lavender-skinned girl coated from head to toe in pale green flour emerged. “Hey, Sugarcoat. What is it?”

“Good morning, Twilight. Can I borrow a dog?”

“A dog?”

“You mentioned that Spike had puppies. I saw one while in Canterlot and it could talk.”

“So that's where Spike #19 had wondered off too! I was so worried, is he okay?”

“He was alright. He's tough.” Sugarcoat said, remembering how the dog had tasted. In hindsight, that can of cream of mushroom was definitely past its sell date though.

“Thank Celestia! So, why do you want to borrow one of them exactly? Wouldn’t it be impractical to take an animal out into the desert?” Twilight said, brushing the flour off her apron.

“Probably. But if they're capable of speech, they should be trained to track something, right?”

Twilight nodded. “Yes, I suppose they could. Being Spaniel-Jack Russel hybrids, they wouldn't be particuarly good at it, but I reckon you could try. Spike #4 did mention that he wanted to explore the outside world.

“Thanks. Where would he be right now?”

Twilight scratched her head, managing to get a handful of flour in her hair. “I guess he'd be patrol right now, probably with Cointreau and Triple Sec.”

“I'll go and find them then. Thank you for the advice.”

Sugarcoat found the Orange twins an hour or so later, while walking down the path to the desert, through the Warning Wood. The brothers were hunkered down behind an overturned sports car, trying their best not to get shot. Their dog was barking up a storm, occasionally peppering his howls with some particularly creative insults. Across the road, behind a sand dune Sugarcoat saw their attacker – a solitary man wearing what appeared to be a full set of plate mail.

From her position at the edge of the forest of dead people, Sugarcoat readied her rifle, and aimed a shot at the knight. The bullet flew true, and dinged off of the man's chestplate, knocking him to the ground and knocking the pistol out of his hands. Her second shot jammed the rifle – a cartridge stuck out of the gun's body, like a brass thumb from a clenched fist. The gun's owner swore, and started running back to the town proper, hoping that the boys would take the opportunity to flee back home too, if not right then, then when the soon-to-be-rung alarm bell was sounded and the reinforcements came thundering down the hill

13: Pretty Little Liars

“Hey! Four eyes! You wanna go fuck up an army?” A Manehattanite accent yelled, as Sugarcoat worked in repairing her rifle. She ignored it, continuing to pry the misfired casing out of the rifle's chamber.

Triple Sec tried to kick the door door open, Sugarcoat yelped, dropping the gun. It clattered to the floor as the Orange let himself in, cursing and hopping on one foot, holding the other in his hands.

“Don't they teach you to manners in Manehattan?”

“You're one to talk. Thought you wanted to go chase Sombra's Legion. But instead you're here, hiding like the rest of this damn town.”

“I’m planning to go save Lemon, yes. But I need a working rifle before I do that.”

Triple Sec looked at the mess of parts covering Sugarcoat's bed. Various bits of black metal in varying conditions, with greatly varying origins littered the girl's bed – surrounding like a halo what once was a bolt-action rifle.

“Yeah. I guess you do. That’s why I came to get you. Nobody else here has the balls to go and actually avenge my brother.” The boy sighed, brushing his messy ginger hair out of his face.

“My condolences. Now, if you excuse me, I need to figure out how to replace a trigger.”

Triple Sec didn't move and continued to stare at Sugarcoat's makeshift workstation, and the miscellany of parts within it. He had an idea.

“Which is something I can't do with you looking over my shoulder. Please leave before I have to throw you out.”

“I got a truck.”

“Good for you. Take a drive instead of a hike, I don't really care."

“I mean I got a working pickup truck. Like, right here outside.”

Sugarcoat looked up. “How?”

“Jacked it.”

“Does it have fuel?”

“Like, duh it has fuel. I'm saying you and I take it before Applejack figures its gone. If I drive fast enough, we ought to be catch those Sombra assholes before they get back to their base, right?”

“Correct. But that doesn’t solve the fact that I don't actually have a working ranged weapon anymore since Braeburn confiscated my pistol.”

Triple Sec shrugged, and then reached into the duffel bag he had slung over his tracksuit jacket. “Here.” He said, tossing Sugarcoat a revolver. “Take it. It was Cointreau’s and since he don’t need it anymore, you do.”

Sugarcoat caught it, holstering it immediately. “Thanks. Though getting to Sombra's fort and back is at least a two-day journey by car. Hypothetically, we could actually intercept them, since they would be on foot or bicycle. But, do have any rations and supplies? I don’t really want to starve half to death again.”

“Yeah. I stole enough for three people for a week each. So, are we going or what?”

“We might as well. It's the best the chance we have of actually rescuing Lemon Zest.” Sugarcoat said, getting up to unlock the room's cabinet. From it, she removed her coat and backpack, donned both and holstered her knives.

“You ready or should-”

“Let's go.” Sugarcoat said, “No sense in waiting around then.”

They left the battered cabin and Triple Sec was correct, he did possess what was disputably a truck, hidden behind the building itself, half-covered up by a pile of dead branches. Those they brushed off, and climbed into the cab. The machine smelled faintly of apples, and apple accessories - gunpowder, for instance. Triple Sec reversed it out of its hide, and nearly managed to flatten Braeburn on way.

"Hey, what the fuck?" The sheriff yelled, The hell y'all get a pickup from?"

"We going to avenge this moron's death. Feel free to come along!" Sugarcoat explained as the truck barrelled through the town.

Fifteen minutes into the journey and Sugarcoat was deeply regretting her decision. Applejack's truck – which she had inherited from her brother, Big Mac, which he had inherited from his father, Bright Mac, in a tradition that probably went back another three generations – had suspension that felt like an I-beam wedged between two lumps of cement. The bright red Frankenstein of a car – made of mismatched pieces of parts, paneling and wood planks – handled horrifically and skidded back and forth down the pothole-filled road on glass-smooth tires. The air conditioning was long-gone and the deathtrap relic of a vehicle’s seatbelts were worn to thin strands of cord. Somehow, the contraption still possessed an intact cassette player, which Triple Sec had declared his – and subjected the surrounding landscape to Blackfoot, at a volume high enough to drown out even the rumbling clanking of the car’s makeshift roll cage.

Sugarcoat kicked herself for letting Triple Sec drive. Seemingly unaffected by the truck’s bone-cracking shaking, he sped down Appleloosa Hill, toward the grey expanse of sand, and toward Sombra’s Legion. Trying to distract herself from the near-lethal car sickness, Sugarcoat stared at the ramshackle floor of the truck. Once she noticed the hole in it, revealing the tarmac blurring by only inches below, she closed her eyes, hung onto the office-chair armrest, and tried not to be sick.

The alleged truck screeched to a halt minutes later, jolting Sugarcoat into the dashboard, which was fortunately padded in case of just such an incident. Sugarcoat looked up, unrolled the window, and threw up.

“Next time, I’m driving.” She coughed, once finished.

Triple Sec, meanwhile, looked no worse for wear. He was green, but he had been born that way. Looking through the binoculars he had borrowed from Sugarcoat, he said, “They’re not following.”

“Who?”

“Apples. Sure, they can see us – a bunch of them are camped out by that creepyass graveyard forest of theirs, but they aren’t chasing us. They’re just there, watching.”

“Good. Why did we stop exactly?” Sugarcoat said, looking up at the surroundings – a bloodstained stretch of road, with a scorched and sandblasted Porsche lying to one side. Just looking at the ruined car made Sugarcoat feel sicker than she already was – something looked off the way the two burned corpses looked emptily out at the desert, and at her.

“For starters, you looked like you was gonna die. That and this was where Cointreau got shot by that dickhead in the helmet. I sorta wanted to, y’know, pay respects.” Triple Sec explained.

“Go ahead. I think I'm going to lie down in the back of the truck.” Sugarcoat said, climbing back into the pickup, using one of the bags her companion had brought along as a pillow.

Try as hard as she could, she couldn't keep her eyes closed, let alone sleep. The air itself felt stale as the sense of discomfort grew. Sugarcoat sat up, looked over at Triple Sec. The boy was busy hammering a post into the dirt beside the road – the pounding of the wood reminded her of the clunking of the truck – returning the nausea to her stomach. She looked back over at the car.

The skeletons were staring at her.

Or, at least, it seemed like they were. Their eyeless skulls and blackened papery skin seemed locked in perpetual scream – both realizing that something had gone terribly, horribly wrong. One held its arms out before it – they ended halfway down the forearms, in jagged stumps. That one was missing most of its face - as if it had been shot point blank in the jaw.

“I'm done.” Triple Sec said, “I guess my brother can rest a bit easier now that he's got a gravestone.”

“Were you two close?”

“Yeah. We were twins. Nobody could tell me and Cointreau apart, not even Mom and Dad. Course, we had to be close. Manehattan was a pretty shitty place to grow up. Me and him and our little sister were picked on pretty bad there.”

“I’m honestly sorry to hear that.”

“Yeah, I mean, it was a great city and all, but the people there weren’t exactly nice. They’d stab you in the back the minute you looked away.”

“I certainly know what that feels like. It was almost refreshing to leave all that behind. Until, well, they started doing it to me here too.”

“I guess I got lucky after when Mom sent me and Cointreau off to this place then. Can’t imagine what Manehatten is like these days. Though you said you’d been there, right? Is it bad?”

“I went with my previous girlfriend before the apocalypse. I didn’t enjoy the trip too much. Suri tried to steal a pair of high heels and managed to get us both arrested.”

“Shit, really?” Triple Sec laughed.

“Seriously. We broke up once we returned to Canterlot city. I gave up caring about fashion after that.”

“Sorry to hear that actually. I mean, dealing with Manehattanite cops is brutal to start with, and then getting dumped? Ouch.”

“I broke up with her. I’m glad she’s dead to be honest.”

“Fuck, you killed her?” Triple Sec said, taking an involuntary step back from leaning against the truck.

“Of course not, but that’s her car over there.” Sugarcoat said, pointing to the crashed convertible. Its number plate read “SUR1” and one of the corpses still wore said girl's favourite blue ascot.

“Huh. Nobody ever really cared to check who drove that thing. We just sorta figured it was haunted and tried to leave it alone.”

“Haunted? Ghosts aren’t real. I agree I feel uncomfortable just looking at it, but it isn’t haunted. That’s impossible.”

“Dude, I once saw Twilight shoot laser beams out of her eyes. If she says that shit’s haunted, I’m believing her.”

Sugarcoat glared at him, “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“She said you and her went to school together, right? And then she turned into a fucking demon? Magic is totally real, and Suri’s car is definitely haunted.”

“Yes, Twilight did try to steal Equestrian magic, which corrupted her and briefly transformed her into some kind of monster. Operative words being "Equestrian magic". From what I’ve seen, the portal to the fantastical dreamland of talking ponies doesn’t work anymore. Therefor, magic and all other supernatural phenomena are no longer possible.”

“Yeah, no. Explain how that thing is so creepy then.”

“Placebo Effect. You’re scared of it because you believe its haunted because everyone thinks its haunted. Furthermore, you subconsciously associate it with the deaths of your brother and pet dog, therefor cementing the idea of ghosts in your mind. It is not haunted, and I’m going to prove it.” Sugarcoat said, climbing out of the truck.

She walked over to the car, and started to search it. Its passengers, Suri and another girl, scarred beyond recognition, were completely and utterly dead. The glovebox was empty, and the boot of the car was locked. While inspecting it, Sugarcoat faintly heard something tick, like a watch. Putting her ear to the trunk, she heard the ticking grow louder – it was fast yet regular, and it was accompanied by the subtle scratching of a record needle.

“There’s something in there.” She said, “I’m going to pick the lock, and take whatever it is out, to show you that there is nothing special about this car, alright.”

Triple Sec shrugged, “Don’t come crying to me when those zombies wake up then.”

Dr Hoove’s screwdriver made short work of the lock. The trunk popped open to reveal two suitcases, and a small polystyrene crate. Sugarcoat loaded the suitcases into their truck, and then went to examine the crate. Inside it, was another box, wrapped in bubble wrap. Said box was about the size of her fist, made from ebony wood and decorated with delicate gilt filigree. One face was made of glass, revealing the source of the ticking – an intricate combination of gears and other machinery. The box also had a crank on one face, a large switch protruding from another, above a small plaque.

“Analogue Brown Noise Generator. Designer: S. Flare. And S. Polomare!” Sugarcoat read, noticing that Suri’s own addition was scrawled on separately with a silver pen.

“Okay. What does the box do?” Triple Sec said, his own pistol drawn in case any corpses had any funny ideas.

“It generates brown noise.”

“No shit, Sherlock. What is that?”

“It’s a subsonic frequency that causes nearby people to hallucinate and experience feelings of intense paranoia. In layman’s terms, it makes you think that there’s a ghost nearby.”

“Can you turn it off?”

Sugarcoat flicked the switch. Immediately, the ticking ceased, and a weight was lifted from her chest. She pocketed the box, and returned to the truck, making sure to get in the driver’s seat this time.

14: Princess Bride

“Can you drive any slower? I mean seriously?” Triple Sec complained as he and Sugarcoat drove through the Moojave.

“I can, yes. But I’m trying not to get a puncture. If you paid attention to anything that didn’t directly involve you, you’d realize that we don’t actually have a spare tire and these roads aren’t exactly Germane quality.”

“It’s been what? Three hours and we’ve done like 100 miles. Come on, we’re never gonna there going like this!”

“I’m trying to flank them. If the map’s correct, we should be able to take an road that let’s us catch the party walking on foot by surprise instead of driving up screaming at them.”

“Oh.”

“Think before you fight. It helps.”

The battered truck drove on for another two hours, across the barren grey sands – the weak sun beginning to set by the time Triple Sec caught sight of people. There were twenty of them in total, walking along the highway, their features left dark in the evening cold. He made out that some were being dragged along in chains, and that a couple of soldiers rode in a golf cart, one on the roof swivelling around a makeshift ballista.

Sugarcoat stopped the truck, parking it beside the crumbling ruins of a pylon, and grabbed her kit. Cointreau’s pistol, five knives, and two bottles of moonshine she’d taken from the Appleloosa brewery on her tour around the town. She tore two strips of cloth off from the seat of the truck, shoving both into the bottles, and then jammed a swiped loaf of bread over the barrel of her pistol. Signalling to Triple Sec to stay silent and follow, she approached the road as the sun dipped below the horizon, now-silenced gun in hand.

Sombra’s Legion had busied themselves with making camp, on the slope opposite the pylon, surrounding the depilated ruin of what was once a toll gate. Patchwork tents were erected, rations were distributed, spirits were downed and merriness was starting to be made. Only a few men patrolled the perimeter, one still operating the cart’s crossbow – now equipped with a searchlight. Their few prisoners and slaves were kept to one side, closest to the husk of the counting office, their chain hammered into the concrete wall.

“You got a plan? There’s more of them than I thought, and I don’t see that knight asshole from earlier.” Triple Sec whispered.

“Do you see the largest tent, in the middle of their camp. The one with the silver designs?”

“Yeah. So, what? Looks pretty gay if you ask me.”

“Take this.” Sugarcoat said, handing the boy a Molotov cocktail and a lighter, “Light it and throw it once you get in range. My guess is that’s where their ‘King’ is hiding out. Getting rid of him will throw the rest of his men into disarray. And if we don’t see each-other again…”

"Yeah. No, I betcha we will. No way am I dying to these posers."

"But, if either of us dies, thanks. Thank you for the help."

Triple Sec nodded, setting off toward the tents once the search light had passed by. That Sugarcoat sneaked toward, ducking behind the rubble and forgotten cars whenever it drew close. Soon she was crouched behind an old Mini, taking aim. Nobody heard the soldier slump down, head shoving the beam of light harmlessly into the sky.

She moved onward to the little building itself afterward, shuffling against the boom to avoid being seen. Two guards stood beside gatehouse, one smoking and the other running a whetstone over his machete, orange face screwed into an intense glare of concentration. Sugarcoat hid on the other side of the concrete wall, against the dusty counter and already-looted till.

Something exploded. A massive fireball bloomed into the sky as Sombra’s embroidered nylon tent caught aflame. Gunshots rang out in the moonless night. Men screamed, running about, firing blind and searching for their assailant. Sugarcoat stabbed a guard when his back was turned. He yelped and coughed blood. His comrade whipped out his machete and assumed a fencing stance. Realization spread across his face as he realized who he faced.

“Well met, Amazon. Mine name is Snails.” He said, bowing lightly.

“Leave now and I’ll let you live. There’s a town about two hundred miles west of here. They’ll take you in.” Sugarcoat said, reaching for her gun.

“That’s not a possibility. You killed my brother. Snips fell by your hand.”

“He shouldn’t have been an idiot then. I don’t kill smart people. They know how to get out of the way. So, I’ll ask you again, are you smart?”

“Mine name is Snips. You killed my brother. Prepare to die!” Snips quoted, charged forward, swinging his machete. Sugarcoat sprung back as the blade swooped down. Then, while the young soldier raised it again, Sugarcoat shot him.

“I guess you weren’t. Too bad.” Sugarcoat said to him as he bled out on the sand, hands clasped over his stomach. She kicked him down and hung the makeshift word on her belt before starting off to find Lemon.

All around, men panicked, frantically shovelling sand onto their burning tents. One the other side of the camp, gunshots still fired, Triple Sec screaming insults from his barricade inside an old bathroom. The men clustered around him like confused moths fleeing a flame. He was a surprisingly good shot, Sugarcoat noted as she sneaked around the toll plaza’s perimeter.

The counting office was a small shed open to the desert, its rusted fence long since clipped away and its stash of dollar bills long since looted. There was a chain wrapped round one of the bars on its windows; it led to a small group of women, huddled around each-other and hiding as best as they could from the chaos unfolding. Sugarcoat spotted Lemon’s bright green mess of hair among the crowd, and she rushed over to her after ensuring any nearby soldiers were either distracted or dead.

Four bullets later, Sugarcoat was busy try to pick the lock on Lemon’s chains. The other three women stood back as far as they could – their faces were vaguely familiar in the firelight, but Sugarcoat couldn’t place them beneath the coats of grime and blood they all wore. They muttered between themselves, in a hissing language best liked to a snake trying to speak Roaman.

“I’ll get to you all afterwards. Be patient.” Sugarcoat said, while attempting to weave her screwdriver into the tumblers of the padlock.

“You know, Su, I don’t think they speak Ponish.” Lemon said.

“Then mime to them, or do charades. I don’t really want to have to leave them here.”

A few minutes later and Sugarcoat heard a scream over the sounds of gunfire. It was Triple Sec.

“Fuuuuck! Run, Sugarcoat! I’m out! They got-”

The boy’s cry was cut off by another rain of gunfire. Sugarcoat sighed, and shot the lock of Lemon’s chains. “Let’s go. I’ve got a car about a mile away.” She said, taking her friends hand.

“But what about the Sirens?”

Sugarcoat looked at the trio of former-villains, disorientated and terrified. With a name to their faces, they looked far more familiar. Neither Sonata, Adagio or Aria looked in to be in good shape, not even for the wasteland. Hollow cheeks, sunken eyes and chapped lips were the order of the night. None of them had their Amulets; the magic allowing them to communicate gone again.

Sugarcoat tossed Adagio her screwdriver.

“Take it.” She nodded as the Equestrian looked at the object like it was beamed down by aliens. “It is yours now. Take apart the lock. Run away.” Sugarcoat explained.

The Sirens looked between each-other. Sonata nodded, “Thank.” She whispered, her face contorting into a tortured grimace as she forced the near-silent words out. “Thank you.”

Sugarcoat nodded, took Lemon, and ran. Her last few bullets were put to good use picking off the few soldiers who caught sight of her. The grey men fell one by one, bicycles tumbling and blood spurting as Sugarcoat resorted to throwing knives behind her as she fled. Soon the road came into view, and an arrow tore into Lemon’s leg. She screamed, and collapsed. The soldier atop the toll gate cheered and starting reloading his ballista. Sugarcoat gulped, lighting the second fire grenade, forcing her aching muscles to obey. It soared like a comet in the black sky, exploding onto the archer moments later. He stopped cheering.

Sugarcoat, half leading Lemon and half carrying her, started back to the truck, hurrying after she heard the roar-like rev of a motorbike sound in the distance. The truck itself was just as she left it; a mess of parts and pieces that was barely roadworthy. But what it lacked in safety, it made up for in speed. Sugarcoat hoisted her friend up into the passenger’s seat, climbed in herself, and floored the accelerator.

“Hey. Sugarcoat?” Lemon said, her voice barely a whisper, barely anything at all over the frantic chaos of the night. The two girls had been driving for about half an hour now, Sugarcoat stopping only long enough to first aid Lemon’s wound.

“Yeah? What is it?”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. There’s nothing to be sorry for. I would have done that for any of my friends. To be treated like… that… is just wicked.” Said Sugarcoat, as the truck clattered down the pothole coated road, looking like the Moon’s cratered surface in the cold light of the truck’s one working headlamp.

“No, Sugarcoat. I mean that I’m sorry. You didn’t need to do this.”

“For? You haven’t done anything wrong. Getting shot wasn’t your fault. You’ll be alright. It’s only another thirty miles to Appleloosa. Besides, you’re my friend. I didn’t want to lose another.”

“I’m sorry for being such a load, okay?”

“You weren’t a load. You were – are – my best friend.” Sugarcoat said, and they kept driving for a while, in silence.

“Play me a song.” Lemon said a few minutes later.

“How does Queen sound? That’s what’s next on Triple Sec’s mixtape.”

“That sounds great. Thanks.”

Sugarcoat put the worn cassette back into the truck’s player, and Under Pressure began to play. Lemon smiled, nestling her head against the seat cushion. She looked peaceful in the half-light, tired and overworked, but peaceful; in a pale, weathered sort of way. Like an old Roaman statue, carved from pink granite and stolen away by some brave explorer. Sugarcoat smiled. She had won. They would both be fine. Lemon Zest could play guitar to her heart’s content in Appleloosa, and Sugarcoat had the supplies she sought, more than enough to make it to Las Pegasus with a vehicle and a map on her side.

Sugarcoat’s eyes were beginning to grow heavy by the time the Western town came into distant view. Not wanting to crash – it or herself – from exhaustion, she pulled the truck over, driving a few hundred metres offroad, coming to a stop next to an outcrop of rock, turning off the lights once she was sure nobody was following. Sombra’s Legion, it seemed, had finally given up their chase and were content to lick their wounds. She hoped the Sirens and Triple Sec had gotten away; they were all good people or, at least, they tried to be.

Lemon was already asleep, and her leg had stopped bleeding. Miles back, Sugarcoat had bandaged the wound as best she could, snapping off the arrow’s shaft and wrapping a tourniquet around the leg. Trying to pull out the arrow now looked like a bad idea – with Appleloosa so close by, she decided to let Twilight have a look at it tomorrow, and to try sleep tonight. She curled up as best she could in the driver’s seat, wrapped in a worn coat, the truck’s rickety heaters stopping her breath from misting up the cab’s cracked windows. She didn’t dream.

Brushing the sleep out of her eyes, Sugarcoat yawned in the chill morning sunrise. Beside her, Lemon slept peacefully – still and quiet. Sugarcoat decided to let her sleep another hour, and started the truck back to its home. Appleloosa proper came into view forty minutes or so later – a foreboding forest of corpses surrounding the only safe town Sugarcoat had seen since the apocalypse began. She passed Suri’s car, and Cointreau’s gravestone, on the way and she felt in her coat pocket for the curio she had taken yesterday – she didn’t feel angry at Suri for stealing it, not particularly – but, while off, the device gave her some kind of solace. If she could find something of Sunny’s, even if it was stolen and abandoned in the middle of nowhere, she could see her girlfriend again. She stopped the truck before starting up the hill to the town, and turned to her friend.

“Hey, Lemon. We’re here.” Sugarcoat said, brushing a hand over her friend’s face. It felt cold, colder than it should even in the icy dawn. “Lemon, we’ve arrived. At Appleloosa. Come on, wake up.”

Lemon didn’t move at all.

“Lemon. This isn’t funny. Let’s go.” Sugarcoat said, beginning to panic, shaking her friend’s corpse. “Wake up!”

An arrow crashed through the truck’s windshield, showering both girl’s with glass, thudding into seat cushion just inches above Sugarcoat’s head. She screamed, louder than she already was. Another arrow followed it, clanking into the bonnet of the truck. A staccato rain of bullets hammered down moments later, kicking up dust and rust and scraps of paint into the air as Sugarcoat reversed the vehicle as quickly as possible.

Once a safe distance away from small arms fire, back at Suri’s car, Sugarcoat stopped driving. She sat up, banging her head against the arrow above her. It had a message tied to it, paper wrapped around the arrow’s shaft. That Sugarcoat ignored, brushing the glass shards off of herself with her coattail, and then she turned to Lemon.

She had been shot. Repeatedly. Six holes dotted her chest, black spots in the otherwise greyed school uniform. None of them bled. Her face was set in a subtle smile – sad, yet content. Her leg was coated in dried blood, the arrow still sticking out of it like a lighthouse in a lake of brownish-red. Sugarcoat started to cry.

15: Hirugashi

The gunshots echoed throughout the small settlement. Meanwhile Twilight Sparkle sat in her lab a dour frown on her face. Applejack had told her that Sugarcoat was not allowed back after her and Triple Sec had taken the truck out on their fool’s errand, and that Braeburn intended to follow up on that statement. Twilight did not like the decision and had gone to Braeburn to protest, only to be confined to her ‘home’ under house arrest.

She had spent the time in her lab trying to distract herself with science. After a few hours she gave up, as she just wasn’t dedicated to her effort.

Finally in the early morning hours she heard the first volley fired. She cringed as the peaceful morning was disturbed, again and again. After several minutes of constant gunfire the cold sun had crested the horizon and the Appleloosans ceased their battery.

Applejack returned and told Twilight that she was finally released from her house arrest around noon. As Twilight stepped out among the other survivors she glanced from person to person, wondering how such a nice family had violently turned away Sugarcoat, a girl who was just desperate to protect what was important to her. Each Appleloosan smiled at her as she walked by and she in turn gave a small wave, but as her thoughts wandered she couldn’t bring herself to feel comfortable there.

A few days later, Twilight had buried herself in her work. She had been attempting to get something mechanical to work, she knew combustion engines could work and assumed steam power would work. She tried electricity, only to get no response, she used a battery; again negative results. Finally she was experimenting with magnetism. As a warm-up of sorts, she had fashioned a rudimentary compass out of a dish and needle and a tupperware lid, strangely the needle kept pointing south, instead of north.

---

“Dammit Twi! We have been over this!” Applejack’s country twang reverberated through the house as her worn boots paced holes in the rug.

“No Applejack, we haven’t.” Twilight retorted tersely from across the room. “You have dodged the topic without actually explaining anything time and again. Why don’t we look for anyone else, and why couldn’t we take in Sugarcoat and Lemon Zest?”

“Nothin’ Doin’ Sugarcube… We ain’t fixin’ to discuss this, it’s dangerous out there and here…” her lips drew into a thin line. “Here we have each other.” Applejack pulled her hat down to cover her eyes.

“We have each other!? Those two were our friends, and Triple Sec is your family! How can we just force them to leave and not help them? Who is it that they have?” Twilight shook her head, “Ugh! This isn’t even about that! I found something, an anomaly! During my tests of rudimentary machines and devices I discovered that there is a huge magnetic disturbance to the south! We need to find out what that is!” Twilight had a stack of papers in hand and began to walk towards AJ.

Applejack’s eyes narrowed and her pacing came to a stop. Straightening her back she stood at her full height and crossed her arms. “Now Twi, we can’t be dividin’ ourselves because ya’ THINK ya’ found some sort of who knows what out in tha’ wastland!”

Twilight paused midstep. “You don’t believe me? So what, if I disagree with you I get exiled just like they did? I stayed here because you were a friend, I had you here! I could have gone to search for my family, I could have searched for the other girls, but NO! I stayed here with you to help develop this community.”

“That ain’t fair! They endangered us. They stole from us. They ain’t us. They made their decision, end of discussion!” Applejack stormed out of the house.

---

King Sombra lurked in the dark innermost chamber of his mobile fortress a trio of soldiers standing a few feet away nervously awaited his orders. He furrowed his brow; he knew that they only obeyed because of the reputation he had built across the last three years. Most of that had come from what various members of his entourage, the so-called Legion, had done, he himself focused only on survival. Nothing ends a king’s survival faster than his own underlings, so he took extra care to continue his charade.

He turned and swung a whip of barbed wire at a bound girl behind him. She tried to scream through her gag; the threadbare cloth was tried into a clumsy bow and her underclothes hung in bloodstained tatters from her lithe and bruised body. Her cream skin marred with scars, her hair was hacked short, obviously it was surely once long puce and sandy locks. There were a few fresh cuts in a rough heart shape where Sombra had used her for a display previously. She screamed and writhed against her restraints, a large bow placed precariously upon her privates.

“You dare approach me without locating any of the intruders?” he arched his eyebrow and stroked his goatee. “DARE NOT RETURN AGAIN WITHOUT A BODY, be it alive or… elsewise. Lest I slaughter you to death myself!”

The three young men scrambled out of his chamber, excited shouts scrambling other the soldiers. Sombra’s lieutenants hurried towards their bikes, the scratched-up rasty frames creaking and sagging beneath their bulk.

---

The chill wind blew through Cloudsdale, Indigo writhed against her restraints. “STUPID FUCKING CUNT! WHEN I GET OUT OF HERE I AM GONNA KILL YOUR WORTHLESS FUCKING KNOW-IT-ALL FACE RIGHT OF YOUR STUPID SKULL!” her voice echoed through the ruined down, eventually disappearing into the sands just like her captors had. She had been there tied up for days, her stomach ached, her lips were chapped, and her mouth felt as dry as the rest of the ashen desert. After days of futile struggling Indigo finally let up; nothing was going to change and the thick robes were as strong as the day Sugarcoat tied them. She was boned.

She smirked at her last thought, of course as she was getting ready to die her last thoughts were innuendos.

Then in the distance she heard something. It was carried on the wind, like dogs growling. After a few minutes the sound had grown exponentially.

Something was coming.

Out from the clouds of smoky dust, a gang of motorbikes roared, followed by a battle-scarred pickup truck. “I can work with this.” Indigo let a thin smirk grace her mangled lips as the rumbling grew in her ears.

Author's Notes:

And here ends Act 1. Thanks to Hubris von Ego, who wrote most of this chapter.

16: Viva

----------------------Dear Diary
We encountered a gang of raiders today; fourteen of them in total. They were attacking a survivor tower. It was a massacre. We scored a whole quiver of arrows off of their leader, as well as enough food for us for another week. Excellent.

Finishing the last sentence, the girl shut her journal and slipped it back into a pocket in her satchel. She had started the entry shortly after waking up. She planned to make it a habit of it. She then scouted out the perimeter of her camp before she packed up. Her patrol through the dawn’s early light revealed little more than the thick dust, rotting corpses and fortified ruins typical to Las Pegasus of the ruined casino.

She pulled the hood of her cloak further down around her face to keep the early morning sun out of her eyes. She then adjusted the strap on her quivers, picked up her bow and set out of the hotel’s foyer. The sun had risen higher by that point, shining weakly behind the omnipresent clouds of ash, casting the destroyed city in a perpetual gloom.

Other people, those lucky enough to have survived the initial cataclysm with mind or body questionably intact, had fled up the stairs of the hundreds of towering concrete blocks that comprised the Las Pegasus Strip. There they hunkered down with a few decades’ worth of tinned food, slowly but surely rebuilding society from their own ideals, expanding and connecting their little fiefdoms and citadels with an intricate system of rickety rope bridges and death-defying leaps. Only their bravest dared to traverse the down below, on the shadowy streets where all manner of horrors lay in starved wait.

The girl nocked an arrow in her compound bow. A second later, the arrow whistled into a man’s skull, pinning him to a filthy brick wall., Dark blood, thick as tar splattered against the wall, dripping disgustingly. The lone zombie spluttered and gurgled as the magical unlife faded from its eyes yet again. She could’ve sworn that she’d shot him last month. No matter. He might have picked something useful up since then.

She walked over to it, ripping the arrow out of the corpse. It slid to the ground, leaving a brownish trail of filth down the wall, obscuring some graffiti. She cursed as she rifled through the creature’s rags, finding nothing except for long-dried gore. The archer had hoped to find a wallet, or perhaps a ring of keys. The former held cash; that made for good fuel; and the latter was always good as improvised brass knuckles. She’d lost her last set persuading a pair of foolhardy scavengers back up to the rooftops, where they belonged. This was her domain, and sometimes she even enjoyed ruling it.

She pulled a nub of chalk out of her pocket, the girl drew a white arrow on the building, in the opposite direction of course, to throw off any raiders. Didn’t need more of those, killing them only brought others back stronger, and angrier. Once finished, she continued to sneak through the dark streets, on the lookout for any supplies the Roofers may have neglected to find, or any supplies their scavenging parties might have surrendered to the raiders down below.

She didn’t think of herself as a raider. Those killed for fun, not in self-defence. That was the difference. Whether or not it mattered anymore was up for debate. A year ago, she’d stumbled on a coven of witches or, at least, they’d claimed to be witches. They smelled more like out of work florists, clustering around an old funeral parlour, ripping peoples’ hearts out in exchange for some kind of supernatural power. Whatever their Tirek was, he was powerless against a good tomahawk to the skull of his high priest.

Something glinted in a store window. She rushed over to it, hurrying across the street, half-crouching in case anyone patrolling the bridge above was in a grappling mood. Her axe cracked the window open, and she slipped her cloak off and laid it across the protruding shards of glass before clambering inside. Her heart sank as she realized what the darkened storefront held: clocks. No wonder in hadn’t been burgled yet. You couldn’t eat those, and they didn’t make for good weapons either.

Still though, one or two might be of use. The girl shoved a few of the more intricate, not to mention smaller, clocks and watches into her knapsack. They might not be any good for something practical, and silver casings wouldn’t burn, but a companion of hers’ liked to pick them apart. When the girl had found her, unconscious and dehydrated in an overturned truck on the city limits, she’d had one of them with her. Or at least, she had the remains of one; the timepiece had cracked open, showering her with tiny brass widgets, screws and gears and springs. Still recovering from the crash, she spent most of her waking hours trying to reassembled the bizarre little box.

As she poked through the abandoned store, she spotted a cash register, lying untouched on a counter. That she wrenched open, stuffing the wads of cash into the pockets of her windbreaker. The coins she left,. those were too light to slingshot at anything, unless she wanted to merely annoy them; in her experience, that never helped. After that, she sneaked through the backroom of the store, hoping that whoever had owned this place had the prudence to at least leave something of use. A shotgun, maybe, or something of that ilk to fend off the inevitable horde of rioters or looters that sprung up every election season.

No such luck. All the storeroom of Grandfather Clock’s had was, well, clocks. The girl groaned in frustration, smacking her axe against the face of one the larger offenders, shattering it. As she tugged the weapon out of its inner workings, she noticed something. The case of the machine she was resting her foot against while trying to extricate her axe from it was made of wood. That, she remembered with a madcap grin, was flammable. And she liked fire. It scared off the undead like nothing else, and the fact that you could cook your food off it didn’t hurt either.

The pair of men didn’t see her, not immediately; her muddy brown cloak camouflaged her fairly well in the dark and dusty storeroom, but they might have heard her tomahawk come loose They definitely heard her crash into a pile of cuckoo clocks after she lost her footing yanking her tomahawk free.

“Shit! What was that?” One said, raising his rifle and scanning the room. He didn’t spot the girl, hiding behind an overturned grandfather clock – the timepiece, not the salesman – trying to unholster her bow without knocking anything else over.

“I don’t know, brother of mine, but I highly suggest we proceed with extreme caution.” His mustachioed counterpart said, drawing a sword.

“And extreme prejudice.” His brother said, flashing a grin.
Flim and Flam each flicked on a torch, illuminating the dusty room in a hungry yellow glow. Like red-haired panthers, the two of them prowled through the store, searching for the source of the disturbance.

Once they’d exited the immediate area, the girl flicked up her hood, just high enough to see. In their infinite brilliance, they’d left the way up to their skyscraper open; the reinforced car door lay ajar, with a pinprick of light at the very top, promising enough food not to starve.

She knew that it was a bad idea. The lower quarters of any Roofer territory were invariably crawling with angry residents, armed and always begging for fresh meat. The girl noticed as she tiptoed closer, that the stairs were made of wood, and considering that an earthquake had long knocked out any smoke detectors, the lighter with the shield engraved on it felt almost like another finger. A finger she flicked precisely once, against the threadbare carpeting of the blockaded emergency exit.

Time to go!

An arrow shattered the clock, just inches away from Flam’s neck. The second sliced half of his moustache clean off. Only then did he scream, scrambling for his sharpened fencing sabre. “Who goes there?” He squealed, alerting his brother, “Come out where I can see you!” He panicked, waving his sword around.

The third arrow thudded squarely into his chest, slowly drowning the blue and white stripes of his waistcoat in red. Flim yelled furiously, more of an animalistic cry than a real threat, and showered the room with bullets. The fire made it hard to see.

Under the cover of both smoke and darkness, a shred of cloth tied around her nose and mouth, the girl crawled right past the shooter’s downed brother, and right up to him. Axe in hand, she whacked it into his neck. He went down without a sound. Before the flames reached his body, the girl had torn off his bandoleer, and slung his AR over her own shoulder, right next to the compound box and the pair of quivers. Then she ran like hell.

Her legs ached, her heart pounded and her lungs burned with more than just exhaustion by the time she arrived back at her campsite: A hole-in-the-wall sort of bar, almost invisible to the naked eye. The tough steel door, as well as the surrounding brickwork, was entirely coated with old election posters, proudly claiming Big Daddy McColt’s superiority over all other competitors. She tapped her knuckles against a panel of paper-coated steel, the resulting rhythm eventually rousing her roommate from her slumber.

“Stop knocking or else somebody will hear the secret code, Sour Sweet. Unless you’re being chased, in which case you shouldn’t be knocking at all because you’ve just led them to our hideout.” Sugarcoat shouted, from inside.

“We’re not being chased, We were trying to wake your lazy ass up because you spend all day lying in bed while We go out risking our life to keep the both of us alive!” Sour shouted back.

She heard the first of the door’s many locks clunk open, and she breathed a sigh of relief. If nothing else, finding Sugarcoat was simply a godsend due to how convenient she made it to be able to properly hide. This place was far more secure than her last camp, nothing more than a locked room half-buried under the exploded rubble of a power station.

Eventually, the clicks ceased, and a slot in the door creaked open, revealing a pair of cracked orange glasses and tired purple eyes, half intensely scrutinising Sour and half wishing to be back in bed. Sour crossed her arms and scowled, “And a good morning to you to, sleepyhead, now let Us in before We burn this place to the ground!”

“Password accepted. Welcome home.”

Author's Notes:

Well. We're back again with this. I had decided to rewrite this story a few months back, hence why this was never completed. However, I did have a few chapters of it already written. Those I'm posting now, partly because I like the work and want to see its reception and partly because, well, there's no advertising like actual advertising.

17. Game of Thrones

Triple Sec didn’t know much. In fact, if he was ever questioned, you’d be quick to admit that nothing at all. However, being huddled against the front door of a toll gate bathroom, trying not to breathe too loudly in case any of Sombra’s Legion spotted him didn’t really give a good opportunity to admit anything. At least, not anything that would have resulted in him not being executed and, as he was led to believe, eaten. Hopefully in that order too.

“Seriously. This is the most bullshit job ever. Who the fuck does Sombra think he is ordering us around?” Said one a soldier, slamming open the door, walking into the bathroom, gun in hand. Triple Sec stifled a scream as the old wood whacked against his bandaged shoulder.

The soldier was built like a brick shithouse, two thirds as wide as he was tall, and an equal combination of muscle and bad attitude. He stalked the room with hungry eyes, his angry glare slowly fading to boredom when he found nothing. Triple Sec shuffled up against the door, pressing himself against the wall, clutching the handle and hoping that only he thought his heartbeat’s pounding sounded louder than gunfire.

“Yeah. Total waste of our time. You think we should just turn around and head back, Score?” Asked another soldier, entering behind him, kicking the door, hitting the boy again, who bit through his collar trying not to shout.

The third soldier, a higher ranked if the chevrons spray-painting onto his jacket were accurate, shrugged as he walked in, “He said we better bring back proof that we checked this place out before getting back. Either that or he’d flog us again.”

The other two soldiers winced at the thought. Despite their size, strength and general renown as the best fighters of Sombra’s Legion, neither Dumb-Bell, nor Hoops particularly wanted another meeting with a cat-o-nine-tails for disobeying a direct order from their King.

“Maybe we take that bottle of hand soap over there, Score? I heard they drink it like vodka in Haysinki.” Hoops suggested, walking over to it.

“Yeah but we should totally drink it first. That way we don’t gotta share with the rest of the crew.” Score said, scanning the room.

Apart from one extremely terrified teenager cowering behind the door, the depilated bathroom of the Moojave Toll Plaza contained nothing of interest to the three raiders. Cracked mirrors and tiles lined the room, leading into sinks long since emptied of water and toilets long since clogged with filth. The place stank. It stank as though it once reeked of an open sewer, until it had been muffled by years of choking ash and general neglect.

Hoops wrenched the bottle of sanitizer out from the wall, kicking up a new cloud of dust as he did so. Cracking the glass case open, he sniffed it before raising it to his lips. He had drunk worse.

“Hey! Leave some of the rest of us, Hoops. I haven’t had a real drink in weeks.” Dumb-Bell protested.

“Blow me, dickhead. I found it, I drink it.”

“Thought you’d said you share.” Score said, walking over to the other raider.

“Yeah. I did.” Hoops said, wiping the last of the watery gel off his chapped lips. “But that was before I figured out it tasted pretty good. So, what are you gonna do about it?”

“Put your face through that mirror, for starters.”

“Oh yeah?” Hoops asked, drawing his knife. He had picked nasty length of rusted serration out of another raider’s skull two nights before, after a certain “Dread Assailant” had thrown it in there.

“Yeah, dickhead. We can tell Sombra that the girl got you. Isn’t that right, Dumb-Bell?”

The other soldier nodded, shoving a magazine into his pistol, aiming it at Hoops.

Hoops took a step towards Score, a look somewhere between fury and shock on his face, a grimace that bulged the veins in his neck and showed of a set of teeth in remarkably bad condition. Score smirked, and grabbed his hand, twisting the bowie knife out of it.

Meanwhile, Triple Sec stayed hidden, just like he had been for the last two days. The bleeding had mostly stopped now, but his throat felt like he’d gargled with broken glass and his stomach was rumbling nearly loud enough to hear over the upcoming scuffle. He eyed the door. Standing between him and a long hike back to Appleloosa was a particularly solid soldier, with a particularly unpleasant looking pistol pointed at one of his comrades.

Hoops swung his spare fist into Score’s jaw, cracking it into the mirror. Glass rained all around as Dumb-Bell fired off a shot, not entirely sure of who he was supposed to be aiming at. Unless he was aiming at the towel rack, he missed. Score spat the blood in Hoops’ face, brushed a shard of glass off his charcoal-coloured fatigues, hopped down from the counter, his own knife in hand.

“Stupid move, asshole. Now I’m gonna enjoy killing you!” He said, lunging forward.
Drunk on ego and off-brand hand sanitizer, Hoops failed to dodge, and six inches of razor-sharp dagger tore into his shoulder. He screamed, and lashed out a kick at Score. It caught the other raider in the crotch. Hoops followed it up with a knee to the face and smashed his combat boot down again after that.

“Stop killing each-other, you idiots!” Dumb-Bell yelled, firing his pistol for effect.

Both idiots obliged, looking up from throttling the other. Triple Sec dashed out from behind the door, diving for Dumb-Bell, elbowing him in the gut and grabbing his gun.

“Aight!” He said, pointing it between the three soldiers, “Hands in the air!”

Hoops let go of Score, stretching his arms up until his fingers brushed the ceiling. Dumb-Bell shuffled back, doing the same. Score gasped and spasmed like a bloodied trout on the tiles, his face slowly faded from bright blue to its usual brown.

“Now, youse dickheads are gonna let me go. Backs up against the wall, and count to fifty.”
“Fuck you.” Hoops said, reaching for his own pistol. Triple Sec shot it out of his hand, blasting it and a few fingers into mangled disrepair. Hoops screeched, clasping the wounded limb. Triple Sec then shot him again, splattering the row of sinks with blood, brain and bits of bone. The dead soldier slumped to the ground, inches away from his comrade. Score sat back, wide-eyed and mouth hanging open.

A few seconds passed in still silence as the remaining three men stared each-other down. Then, steadying his arm on the counter, Score pulled himself to his feet, slipping in the pool of blood, and limped over to the closest wall, standing against it and attempting to count as high as he could. He wasn’t very good at it.

“That’s right. One. Two. Three.” Triple Sec said, before the roar of a dirt bike interrupted him. He spotted Dumb-Bell speeding off into the desert, kicking up a cloud of grey sand as he fled. Then a fist whacked him upside the skull.

Blinding pain burst through his head, the boy collapsing to the floor as Score dived for the pistol. Triple Sec lunged for it too, knocking it under Hoops’ corpse. Score knocked the breath out of him with an elbow to the ribs, following it up with a few frantic punches and jabs.

A hand on his ankle tugged him back, reflexively he kicked at it, his trainers crunching into Triple Sec’s nose. The boy screamed briefly, clutching his face, falling back as more blood splashed onto the tiles. Score grabbed the gun, and ripped his knife out the dead man’s shoulder for good measure. Pointing both at Triple Sec, he climbed back to his feet and breathed a sigh of relief before speaking, “Any last words, shitstain?”

“Yeah, actually. Catch!” Triple Sec shouted, tossing something at Score before jumping for the exit.

That thing was a grenade. It went off with a deafening bang and a cloud of smoke seconds later, blinding Score before he had a chance to click the empty gun after him. Coughing and choking, he tripped over Hoops’ leg and fell to the floor, slick with blood. The ringing in his ears soon faded to darkness after his head cracked the tiles.

Triple Sec leaned back against the stucco wall of the bathroom, panting, almost hyperventilating as he watched the clouds of grey dust swirl and blacken the pastel rays of the morning sunlight. His face burned with pain. He coughed out a few globs of reddish snot before picking himself up, and limping towards the pair of dirt bikes, blurry and fuzzy from the broken bones and lost blood and rusted and weathered from years of violence.

He fumbled his aching body onto one of them, reaching for the key. His hand found nothing. Wiping the gore off his face with the sleeve of his tracksuit, he glanced back at the bathroom. The abandoned facility had thick white smoke streaming out of the windows, and coughing and cursing could be heard from within. He groaned, looking back at the bike before dismounting it.
He almost walked into Dumb-Bell’s machete. The pommel snapped something when it bashed his kneecap, and neither man was sure if the wood or the bone gave first. Either way, Triple Sec crumbled down to the dirt, screaming and clutching his leg with both arms. The soldier stood over him and sneered before delivering another kick to his knee.

“Come on, did you really think you could win?” Dumb-Bell said, before wrenching one of Triple Sec’s arms into the air, dragging him towards his own bike, parked a few yards away behind the bullet-riddled counting office.

“Choke on shit, you medieval motherfucker!” Triple Sec said, weakly struggling against the warrior’s iron grip.

Pulling a roll of duct tape from his pack, Dumb-Bell taped both Triple Sec’s hands to the bike’s fenders. He revved the bike, chilling what blood the boy still had left to his.

“Don’t you Manehattan bitches like riding?” He said, with a predatory grin.

“No! Hell no! Do not start that thing, it’ll tear my legs off!”

“That was the plan, idiot.” Dumb-Bell said, climbing onto his bike. It sagged beneath his weight.
“Shit, please! I can be useful! I promise!” Triple Sec said, kicking against the wheel with his good leg, tugging against the tape.

“Oh yeah? We’re going to kill and eat you anyway, what difference does it make if you die here or back home?”

“I… uh… I’m from Appleloosa! Yeah. The redneck town right in those hills over there. I know how their defences work, like their patrols and stuff. If you don’t kill me or anything, I could tell your boss all that. Wouldn’t that get you a bigger reward, if you brought me back okay and I had info too? I mean, maybe he’d let you have another go with that blonde slave you was talking about?”

Dumb-Bell generally thought about three things, namely food and fighting and fucking attractive women. He’d already had his fill of the second for the day, but the third was hard to come by in the Equestrian Wasteland. Perhaps, the city kid actually had a point.

“I don’t know, man. What’s in it for me?”

Triple Sec wasn’t exactly an intelligent person by any interpretation of the word, but he thought his captor was in a class all of his own right about then. “Hey, I said that already. Sombra’d be real pleased if you bring me back and I bet he’d give you, like, access to his stash of champagne or something. How about that?”

“Yeah. Okay.” Dumb-Bell said, slicing off the tape around Triple Sec’s wrists. “Hop on and if you try anything stupid, I’ll fuck you with a cactus.”

Triple Sec smiled nervously, and half-dragged and half-hopped onto the bike behind the gigantic soldiers. Everything hurt and the suspension, which hadn’t been oiled, ever, didn’t help with that. He passed out repeatedly during the ride back to Sombra’s fortress, Dumb-Bell having to tape him onto the bike’s panelling to prevent him bashing his skull open on the rough tarmac.

Four hours later, his barely-alive body was deposited with a wet thump on a cot in the fort’s infirmary. To Dumb-Bell’s infinite disappointment, the curvy slave with the big hair had escaped the night before. Sombra presented him with an entire can of hot dogs and a case of beer for his efforts instead. The soldier demolished both with a gusto rarely seen outside of a starving dog.

---

After leaving his sole remaining Lieutenant to his dinner and finishing up the afternoon’s drills, King Sombra left the mess hall, walking through the grey dust of the campground across to the infirmary. The guards outside bowed and saluted as he approached, stepping aside and allowing the monarch inside.

He made straight for what had once been an office, now a private room-cum-surgery. The latter function was all but complete, albeit in the clumsy triage manner typical to his Legionnaires.
Filth splattered the walls an unclean rust brown, and trays of discarded surgery implements and or cutlery lay scattered about every available surface. Other surfaces weren’t available due to being coated with blood, dirt, and rags made into bandages. Triple Sec lay in the centre of the mess, sprawled out on a fold-out camp bed, his leg and face wrapped in the tatters of an old uniform. He moaned weakly in his shallow sleep. Sombra thought that he looked almost pitiful, like a battle-scarred tangerine puppy.

“Forsooth, mine wretched assailant awakens once more. Speak, Orange one, and state your case.”

Triple Sec blinked awake in the dim light of the former pump station of the reservoir. “What?” He said, spotting the man standing above him.

Sombra stood at six feet, though a far narrower six feet than any of his minions. A ragtag assortment of armour and cooking implements scattered around and lashed to his person, with spots of his bleached grey uniform visible underneath the suit. There was a crown clumsily cut from a paint can balanced on top of his black mullet, and his ashen pallor was twisted into a prideful sneer beneath his beard. He wore a blanket painted like ermine as a cape, and he kept a pair of sharpened fencing sabres sheathed by his side. He looked regal. Though only if regal had been squatting in the garbage dump behind the Renaissance Fair for the last month.

“The fuck?” Triple Sec mumbled, “Where am I and who the shit are you?”

“Such a brutish tongue, lout. Ye ought to know that your betters deserve far more.” Sombra said, taking a seat on the office chair beside Triple Sec’s cot. Triple Sec inched back.

“If you’re my better, all you deserve is a kick in the pants. Your asshole goons roughed me up something bad.”

Sombra’s sneer faded into a passive line of mild disappointment and heavy tiredness, “And for that, the Legion apologises, Master Orange.”

“Yeah sorry isn’t going to put my nose back on straight. You fucked up a real Roaman profile there, dude. I ain’t ever getting that back.”

“Sacrifices must be made. Now, mine servitors inform me that ye possess vital stratagems. Praytell of their contents, shall ye?”

“Ponish motherbucker, do you speak it? I got no idea what you’re talking about right now. Can you cool it with the theatrics please?”

Sombra stood up, and looked around the room until he caught the eye of his bodyguards. Both men he ordered out the room, before sitting back down, and pulling a bottle out from the cabinet beside the cot. He unscrewed it open, taking a swig of the cognac, before offering it to his prisoner.

“What? You’re offering me a drink? Thought you were going to interrogate me.”

“Truth be told, boy, you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. Drink up, you look like you need it.” Sombra said, any trace of the mangled Middle Ponish long gone from his voice. Triple Sec eyed the bottle for a few seconds, before shrugging and taking a swig. The VS cognac was rough and strong, more suited for cooking than for drinking. Triple Sec coughed half of it back up.

“The heck is that stuff, paint thinner?” He said, wiping the last of the alcohol of his face.

“Perhaps it should’ve been. Now, tell me about this Appleloosa place. It sounds rather promising, from what my subordinates have claimed.”

Triple Sec narrowed his eyes, “What do you want to know?”

Sombra shrugged, “Anything, really. If it’s a town, it means that they can feed themselves. How can they do that when nothing grows in this Wasteland?”
“I’m not sure of any details but as far as I known, they got a special kind of tree that didn’t die with the rest of their crops. They use that to feed everyone.”

“Ah, I see. And how much is this everyone then?”

Triple Sec scratched the back of his head in thought, and then stopped when his fingers brushed the bruise Score had given him. “About fifty people, I guess.”

Sombra’s eyes grew to the size of dinner plates, “Fifty people. Does that include civilians, women and children?”

“Yeah. It does. Everyone’s got a gun though so I wouldn’t exactly call them civilians.”

“Then I must commend you, boy. I thought my Legion here was the only civilization still around in this hellhole. Well done indeed.” He said, offering his hand.

Triple Sec didn’t shake it. “What’re you congratulating me for? I did nothing.”

“I am congratulating you for successfully fending off the horrors of this wasteland, for participating in a surviving society, for actually outmanoeuvring my army. I am impressed.”

“Hey, I didn’t do it alone. But thanks anyway. That mean you ain’t going to kill me though?”

“Of course not. Why would I execute such a valuable asset?”

What little colour there still was in Triple Sec’s drained right out of it. “What do you mean? I am like your slave now?”

“That could be arranged, yes. But I was thinking more on the lines of advisor. Somebody to bounce ideas off of, somebody with enough brain cells to bang together and make a spark, somebody who hasn’t yet been brainwashed by this cult of mine and still has an original idea floating around in their head.”

“Shit, really? But I killed like ten of your guys! And you’re just going to forgive me? What makes you think I’ll even join you?”

Sombra scratched his beard, and took another gulp of cognac before answering, “You are useful to me dead or alive. If you refuse to cooperate, I will cut your throat open right now and feed you to my men.” He gestured to one of his swords.

“Aight. To be honest, I always hated those redneck Apples with their stupid ideas of family and stuff anyway. It ain’t who you’re born with, it’s who you find. If you promise you ain’t stabbing me in the back or nothing I guess I can work with you.” Triple Sec said, shaking the general’s hand.

“Excellent. Welcome aboard, Sir…?”

“Triple Sec Orange III. But you call me your new ideas guy.”

Author's Notes:

And here we go - the conclusion to Triple Sec's story. If I was going to actually write the 2nd Act of this, there'd definitely be another Face-Heel turn involved, either for the Legion as a whole or just for Triple Sec back to Sugarcoat's crew.

18. Inception

Sugarcoat awoke to the sound of gunfire. Creaking an eye open, she groped for her cellphone, tapping off the alarm, Tchaikovsky today, and rolled over. There wasn’t anything important happening this morning, so she could sleep in. There was, however, that date with Sunny in a few hours, but that wasn’t for a while, and Sunny herself would probably be late as well, likely fidgeting with a gadget until the last possible second and then some. Sugarcoat smiled beneath the covers, closed her eyes and started back to sleep. Getting up, or even moving, felt impossible, and the only thing she felt ready to do was curl up all catlike beneath the sunrise’s cheerful pastel rays.

But she couldn’t sleep. Not properly and no matter how hard she tried; eyes screwed shut, curtains drawn dark, sheets kicked to the carpet, and fan lazily twirling, something was keeping her up. A few minutes later, well into the day now, she realized what it was. Specifically, it wasn’t the famous Russian cannon that completed her favourite song.

It only sounded like gunfire from a distance but, up close, when she let the memory sharpen and refine, she balked at what she remembered. What she heard. What she saw. Days, months, years; all filled with terrifying, chaotic pain and bizarre, awful confusion. Sugarcoat liked order. She preferred routine; the precise, the pleasing, the perfect. Her nightmare was none of the above.

She was wandering, for years on end, through a swirling black sandstorm, each footstep jabbing at her soul like white-hot nails, each breath like raw fire at her spirit.

Sometimes, through the screaming haze of razor ash, she would spot a face. Somebody she knew, usually, but always somebody… wrong. Twilight Sparkle had aged years, and looked as if she hadn’t slept for any of them. Indigo Zap had fangs. And Sunny Flare was dead.

The creaking mayhem of cracking glass and crunching steel and crushing bone, all played at once to a horrid baseline of short circuits and sizzling tech. It was the same sound, played on a broken record spun and rewinded ad nauseum. Rubber burned, flesh rotted and Sugarcoat couldn’t sleep and Sunny Flare was dead.

She reached for the glass of water kept on her bedtable, beside a pair of framed photographs; one of her and her parents, one of her and her girlfriend. The water tasted like blood. Until that second, Sugarcoat had no idea what blood tasted like, not that deep arterial fear tainted lifeblood that stains both lips and souls. But she understood exactly how it felt. Her throat cracked with thirst once she was finished, and only then did her arm finally return to her control. With shaking fingers, she let go of the glass. It exploded to the floor in a brilliant nova of gory reds and bombshell yellows and nuclear oranges. It made the same sound as her sandstorm dream. Sugarcoat gasped, catching sight of her reflection in the mirror-like shards strewn across her room.

She was hurt, badly. Rust-old blood and years-long scars nicked her face. Her cheeks were gaunt and her eyes sunken. Her lips were chapped and one of her pigtails was missing. She hadn’t done her hair yet, not that morning, and the way her reflection stared back, it was like somebody had died. Like Sunny Flare was dead.

Sugarcoat blinked.

The sun went behind a cloud and the world was bathed in a sickly grey gloom, and the shards of glass stopped telling the past. Breathing heavily, she stumbled out of bed, tripped gingerly over the mess on the floor, limped over to her wardrobe, and shrugged on a dressing gown. After that, she walked downstairs and made herself a cup of tea with eight lumps of sugar, and as the day progressed, the horrors of the night faded to the back of her mind, kicked aside by ballet stretches and university pamphlets and engineering side projects. That wind turbine did need building, after all.

Her phone rang while she was tinkering with a propeller. It wasn’t who she had hoped it was.

It was Trenderhoof.

Sugarcoat finished tightening the bolt first, and received an earful for her tardiness.

“Sugarcoat! Where are you? The movie started ten minutes ago and Sunny’s freaking out over here!” The hipster complained.

“Good afternoon, Trenderhoof. Why are you, specifically, telling me this?”

“Because you’re never late. Get off your ass and find her, please!” He yelled.

Sugarcoat rolled her eyes. Her girlfriend was such a drama queen. She slipped off her gloves and smock, tugged on a tattered leather jacket, and started for her bike. “I’m getting there.” She said, “Your whining is irritating. You should really stop doing that if you want to keep dating Suri. So by all means, continue being an effeminate consumerist, just don’t do it near me.”

“Gah. Fine. Didn’t Sunny tell you? We’re on a double date.”

Sugarcoat sighed, “As always, your level of tact continues to astound me. I’m literally considering not driving to the mall now just because I’ll have to tolerate you and Suri for three hours.

“Just once, can you do me-” He started.

“But, I actually like Sunny. So, I’ll be on my way.” She hung up.

She shoved the phone into a pocket of her cargo pants, and revved the bike to life. It was more scratched up than she remembered, with the original green and black paintjob almost sandblasted off. She should probably stop lending it to Indigo, she didn’t even wear a helmet. Her rather confusing choice of decals did help either. What even was “Sombra’s Legion?”

That would stay a question for dreams, Sugarcoat thought as she drove through Canterlot City, weaving through the traffic and around the myriad of potholes that now coated the road. Somebody really should get to those one of these days but, then again, Mayor Mare had other priorities to worry about and the streets were still manageable. If not a bit dusty, she noticed, taking a second to wipe a layer of greyish dirt of her helmet’s visor while stopped at a traffic light.

And there was the mall, rearing up like a second sun to welcome the riding girl to the early afternoon. Bike steered into a free parking space and leather jacket stuffed into a storage compartment along with her old CPA Motorcross helmet, Sugarcoat set out to find the theatre. One thing she noticed, as she walked through the strip mall, was how everything looked a bit less well kept than she remembered it being. But, then again, she rarely ever went shopping on her own, and begin frog-marched around by the rest of the Shadowbolts was always distracting enough. Sunny Flare had her boutiques and tech stores to fawn over, Lemon Zest would drag her to some or other record store the second she let her guard down, and both Sour Sweet and Indigo Zap never refused a trip to any establishment that offered survival gear, sports kit, or cheap beer, or any combination thereof.

Besides, Canterlot City was never a particularly safe city, and a cracked window every so often was to be expected. And there wasn’t anything too odd about a few stores being barred shut at this time of day; many did take Mondays off after all. Of course there wouldn’t be too many people around, it was only 14:12 on a workday, Sugarcoat noted, checking her phone. After examining her hair in a mostly intact storefront and only mildly wincing at the mess it was in, the girl put on her best ‘Oh no, I’m not annoyed at all’ smile and stepped into the theatre’s lobby.

“You’re too late.” Muttered Trenderhoof, dressed in charcoal Legionnaire fatigues and refusing to make eye contact.

“No, I’m merely late. Who are you trying to impress this time, Trenderhoof? Did you find yourself a new army brat to disappoint?” Sugarcoat said, looking around the debris-filled room, her fake smile vanishing as she acknowledged the decrepit scene before her.

“You’re too late.” He repeated, checking his watch.

“I’m not.” She denied.

“I’m going to go in there and find her!”

“If this is a prank…” Her breaths sped up with her heart beat, “this isn’t funny.”

“Tell me what the fuck is going on!” Sugarcoat threatened. She blinked. Since when did she threaten people?

The hipster sighed, brushing a speck of dust of a cracked and duct-taped pair of glasses. “Sunny was dying to see you.”

“I’ll find her.” Sugarcoat eyes widened. She turned and ran.

“But you’re too late.” Triple Sec called out, walking out of the bathroom, wringing his hands on a bloodstained hand towel.

“Who’re you? And what do you know about this?” She yelled over her shoulder, realizing the truth as the world deteriorated around her.

“You didn’t save me.” He said, pointing to an angry crimson line that ran down the side of his head.

“And you sure screwed up trying to help me.” Lemon Zest said spitefully, leaning against the raw concrete of the wall, head eerily still despite the music thumping out of her earphones.

“Yeah, bitch. You left me to fucking starve!” Indigo Zap swore from her perch in the building’s decaying rafters.

“And you brought chaos into my home.” Twilight Sparkle said, walking into the lobby.

“All of you, calm down!” Sugarcoat said, ignoring her own command, “I didn’t do any of that!”

They all approached, walking and climbing and limping and crawling closer to the girl. A girl reaching for a knife. A knife that wasn’t there. A sword she never used. A flare gun she never owned. A spear she never stole. A rifle she never shot. But they remembered all of that, and they kept walking closer.

Sugarcoat blinked, hoping this was just a dream. That all was not a dream. As she took a step back, she felt the wall’s cold concrete against her back. They were close now. Indigo’s teeth were filed to a point. Lemon didn’t have eyes. Trenderhoof looked beaten. Twilight looked almost reluctant to move. She stared back uneasily towards the exit.

Turning her head slightly, Sugarcoat spotted a handle, still a glossy gold against the morbid drudgery. Mustering everything she could, she wrenched it open and jumped inside just as a blade pierced into the wall where she had been a second before.

The dead and the damned screamed in anger, in utter anguish, as Sugarcoat ran into the darkened theatre. The projector was broken. The light flickered a harsh bone white as a half-blurred cityscape appeared on screen, the sound of flapping film echoing around the hushed room. Indigo Zap rushed after her, screaming profanities, lunging for Sugarcoat, the glint of a blade flashing in the darkness. Sugarcoat ducked the assault, shifting behind her angered assailant. She lashed out with a closed fist, landing a punch to the temple of the madwoman. It cracked her skull, the cacophony of crashing cars ringing the room as a truck rolled by on screen. Indigo Zap collapsed to the ground to move nevermore.

She sprinted away from the downed raider. She panted with exertion, the seconds becoming hours as the screaming rose in pitch. The deafening sounds of betrayal,hate, and pain echoed from her temple. Sugarcoat tripped over all something. She looked over at what had caused her spill, it was a device, a familiar machine. Where had she seen it before? At a science fair? No, the fair had never happened, because the world had ended.

Sunny Flare was dead.

She picked herself up and put on her glasses. It was then that it started to set in, Sunny Flare was dead. There right in front of her.

But she wasn’t alone. Suri Polomare held the corpse in her arms, and ran her tongue over the charred, deadened flesh.

“Get off her! NOW!” Sugarcoat ordered.

“Or what? She never loved you, Sugarcoat. Get over it. Sunny Flare is dead. And even if she wasn’t, you didn’t have a future with her.” Suri smirked, standing up from her seat and tossing the body to the side.

“You lie. You always lie. You lie, cheat, and steal and I have nothing but contempt for you. You took her from me!” Sugarcoat said, reaching for the box on the ground.

“And you’re a stubborn, ignorant girl who can’t accept the truth even when it's literally in front of your face. Your point, dearie?”

“Don’t say that. Don’t you dare fucking say that! Only she can say that.”

“Not anymore.” She smirked, “and you can’t stop me. I’m dead too. You know this. You accept this, but that’s not all. Nothing stops Death.” Suri said.

“You’re wrong. Get away from her. Let her die in peace.” Tears welled up in Sugarcoat’s eyes, “Get away from her NOW!”

Suri didn’t move, a narcissistic smirk plastered across her face. “Or what? You’re just so close, but you haven’t moved for three years.”

“I’ve moved all over the country, I’ve looked for her. Here I find her, dead and gone, in YOUR arms. I’m tempted to kill you right now.” Sugarcoat said, wrapping her fingers around the sharp corners of the brown-noise device.

“Take your best shot, but you can’t move if you do that.” Suri said.

“I can move. What are you talking about?” She sniffled.

“Moving on, Sugarcoat, obviously. For a smart girl, you can be so slow sometimes, dearie.”

“Stop saying that!” Sugarcoat took a defiant step forward.

“Start listening then, dearie. Not only is Sunny Flare dead, but she never loved you in the first place. She used you.”

“YOU’RE WRONG!” Tears flowed freely from her eyes.

“Us thieves are so much alike, you know. I guess that’s why we are together, even after her little arm-thingies blew both of us to Tartarus. You saw my car, right? Who do you think was sitting next to me? Whose luggage did you think you stole. Whose project are you holding? Why don’t you get it?”

“Why should I? Why should I believe you, Suri?”

“Because I’m right and you know it. But, if want proof, go check your phone. What was the last message you received, before the world went to shit? Read it to me.”

Sugarcoat checked her phone. “Its from Sunny. ‘Best of luck.’ it says.”

“The whole thing, Sugarcoat. Not just what you want to read.”
“I can’t remember what it says. None of this is real, including this version of you and Sunny. Because the real Sunny Flare is not dead!”

Suri rolled her eyes. “Idiot. You do remember it because you never forget stuff like that. That’s why you survived in the first place. You were so shocked that you dropped your phone right off the balcony in your Detrot hotel room and then it, along with every other piece of technology in the world, exploded. If you didn’t read the text properly, you’d have just stuck the phone back in your pocket and died along with the rest of us when the thing blew your arteries open.”

Sugarcoat looked back down at her phone. It buzzed and chimed with the sound of a new message. She didn’t remember the chime being the sound of the apocalypse. The phone was flicked open, the password was entered, and the message was read:

Sunny Flare, 14:13

Hey, Sugar. Sorry to do this all by text, but the reception’s super awful on the road and I really didn’t want to cut out halfway through breaking up with you. Which is what I’m doing. Yeah, sorry. This isn’t working.

Please don’t take this away wrong. You’re an amazing person. You absolutely, definitely are. You’re brave and honest and you give amazing advice. You’re beautiful even without designer brands and makeup. You gave me the most amazing gifts a girl could ask for.

But I’m not an amazing person. I lied to you, and I want to stop doing that. I took all that love you gave me and okay this is really hard to say but I cheated on you. I’m really sorry for doing that but I don’t want to be with you even if you’d still accept me. Which you’d probably do since you’re you and you’re still awesome even if I’m a lying cheat.

Suri Polomare and I are going to Las Pegasus together. Like, Together together. This wasn’t my choice, not completely. Suri got tired of not being my favourite and made me choose. I don’t want to go into all the reasons why now and this is getting extremely long as is but let’s just say that I never felt like I deserved you. You’re too good for me, in a way that she isn’t. So yeah. I guess this is goodbye then.

We’ll still see each-other in school I guess. For the one semester we have left, anyway, but after that it's up to you. If you want to quit the Team, I won’t stop you. If you want me to go and never talk to you again, I understand. I’ll leave immediately then. I guess that while us Shadowbolts might Play to Win, we don’t really Win Together. It was a stupid motto anyway. Man, we were stupid at 14. I guess one of us still is.

Best of luck

Sent from Sunny Flare’s Wristomatic 2000, patent pending.

“You see?” Suri asked, arms crossed and Sunny’s corpse hanging off one of them. “Do you finally get it?”

“Suri Polomare? I don’t know if you can hear me, if the real you can hear me right now, FUCK YOU.”

Suri giggled, “I’m not the one you should be mad at, Sugarcoat. After all, you always said that I’m a liar, a cheat, a thief. Be mad at your girlfriend. Oh sorry, I mean your ex-girlfriend. After all, she stabbed you in the back. I just gave her the knife.”

Sunny Flare was dead. But that doesn’t matter in dreams. So she stood up and brushed three years of rotting in a desert off her face. And there she was, standing at 5’6” with a goofy smile on her face and some kind of scientific machine Sugarcoat still didn’t quite understand on her arms and, even though she didn’t have any designer clothes or good makeup on, Sugarcoat still thought she was beautiful.

“I am sorry.” Said Sunny, “But this really is goodbye. It isn’t all bad though. You’re still everything I said you were. And maybe you’re even better now, considering you lived and I didn’t and because you’re still alive and all that, you can change. So just get over it, alright, for both of us?”

Sugarcoat didn’t know what to say. She didn’t know if she could even talk anymore. She didn’t say anything. She didn’t need to. Sunny picked the phone out of her hand and tossed it aside. It exploded into a ball of dawn smoke, pastel pinks and mint greens and solar blues, with the sound of a fist banging on a sheet of metal.

Author's Notes:

And here is the next chapter - a dream sequence looping back into chapter 17. This one I recall being pretty tricky to write, getting Sugarcoat's mindset on point was difficult, especially after all the crazy shit she's seen over the course of this story. And yes, Sunny is dead and Sugarcoat's whole quest was a 3-year Shaggy Dog story. But I thought its still a fun journey.

19. A Wonderful Life

Sour Sweet tossed her bag of loot on the bar, a half-rotted stretch of wood already long-since coated with random bits of plunder. It hit the planks with a rattling crunch, the thousands of pieces of bronzed gears and varnished panels and shattered glass quickly becoming indistinguishable within the piles of trash that filled the bar’s common room. Sugarcoat merely raised an eyebrow.

“Did you find anything useful, or are we eating canned soup again?” Sugarcoat asked.

“That’s a nice surprise, I didn’t think we had any left after you scarfed the lot.” Sour said.

“We’ve still got enough food for a few days.” Sugarcoat said, limping over to the bar, fishing out a cuckoo clock from the nearest heap of junk.

“Yeah, I guess you’re right. We’ll be totally fine for the week, and then we’ll starve to death because somebody expected Us to do all of the work.”

“I’ve told you before, Sour Sweet, I’m injured. As much as I want to help you scavenge for vital supplies, I can’t.” Sugarcoat said, loosening a side of her threadbare bathrobe and pointing to the bundled of bloodied bandages that coated her shoulder.

“Thanks for reminding Us, Sugarcoat. What do you think We are exactly, a brain-dead idiot who forgets that they saved their best friend’s life by dragging them out the burning wreckage of a car crash and shoving their ungrateful bones back in the right place?”

“I’m flattered.” Sugarcoat deadpanned.

“We try, We really do” Sour Sweet smiled, “but it is so hard to actually get anywhere dragging around a sad sack that can’t get over herself. Can you remind us how long its been, y’know since we’re so forgetful?”

Sugarcoat rolled her eyes, not looking up from her spot in a booth, where she was surrounded by a pile of gears and the shattered remains of the analogue brown noise device.

“Come on Sugarcoat, We saved your life remember, the least you can do is not fucking ignore Us!” Sour shouted, marching over to the scratched wood bench where her friend was buried in her work.

“It’ll be three months tomorrow, Sour Sweet. It takes people a long time to heal, especially if the medical care they receive isn’t hospital quality.”

“Was that an insult?”

“Do either of you want it to be?” Sugarcoat said, before looking back down and unscrewing the box’s plaque for the eighteenth time that month. Suri’s own addition to the brass plate had long since been scratched to illegibility.

Sour Sweet groaned and turned away. “You’re impossible.”

“At least both of you can agree on that.”

A few seconds passed, silent save for the clicking of unfitting gears and Sour’s heavy breathing. The mantra wasn’t working. The mantra never worked. Cadence was a liar. Sour stood up and walked into the safehouse’s storeroom.

“You know” Said Sour, a few minutes later, once she had returned carrying a half-eaten bag of nearly expired jerky, “That’s actually a really nice table. In fact, it's the best one in the whole bar and I really would like to actually use it one of these days!” Sour slammed the bag, and her fist, on the metal, knocking a cascade of golden widgets and rusted dust off of it.

“You could just eat in your room.” Sugarcoat said, gingerly bending down and waving around a magnet to catch the errant components.

“My room’s comfy and all, but it's a damn storage closet I can’t even stand up in without banging my head on a pipe that still somehow manages to drip even though we’re in the middle of fucking desert!”

“I’m getting better. It should only be another month or two.” Sugarcoat said, sorting the miniscule gears back into their appropriate cans and jar.

The sound of clinking brass against tin and steel against glass filled the air for longer than either girl wanted it to. Eventually, Sour spoke, “Do you know how hard it's been?”

“I can imagine. You weren’t the only one to spend the last three years of your life in an apocalyptic wasteland.” Sugarcoat said, screwing a cracked mason jar shut.

“And I hope you don’t mind Us asking, Sugarcoat, but what was the scariest thing you ever did? When was it that you felt like your heart was going to explode right out your chest exactly?”

Sugarcoat dropped the jar.

“The fight outside the gas tanker. I honestly thought that I was going to die right there, having lost Lemon Zest and having never found Sunny Flare. Does that answer your question, or I should tell you the story in excruciating detail, again, just so that you can fall asleep without spending half the night bickering with yourself?” Sugarcoat said nearly a minute later.

“Thanks, but We neither need nor want your sympathy. We want you to be useful, for fuck’s sake, We want you to actually do something and not be some shitty kind of leech in our miserable life!” Then Sour Sweet smiled or, at least, she tried to, “And in case you were wondering, We’ve done worse than your little firefight. Risking my life in this shithole city is all We’ve been doing for the last three years and now that We’re also doing it for somebody else, maybe, just maybe, We might actually appreciate some gratitude.”

Sugarcoat raised an eyebrow.
“We’d appreciate getting the old Sugarcoat back. Because she wasn’t some useless, misanthropic layabout who hides behind an injury she doesn’t have anymore and whines about her dead girlfriend all day while her actually-alive friend goes outside and fights zombies, fucking zombies, to make sure the both of them have enough to eat!” Sour continued, “Now, is that really so much to ask?”

“Sunny isn’t…” Sugarcoat started.

Then she remembered the dream.

Sometimes, the things you left for dreams don’t want to leave just yet.

“I never asked, did I?” Sugarcoat finished.

“Asked what, exactly? What Our life was like, living in fear every day because some psychopath who was even crazier than you might try to abduct and torture you? That she might then try and rip your heart out in a sacrifice to their fucked-up god? That, even if you get away, and escape their Tartarus-on-earth tower city, they’re still looking for you? That once you think you’re safe, you have to kill your friends, again and again and again because they don’t die no matter what you do? That you see your allies, those people you thought you could trust, slowly turn into mindless undead monsters? That when you find somebody, somebody you actually genuinely like, and you find that she’s okay, she hasn’t gone mad yet? That might really just need a shoulder to cry once in a while…” Sour blinked the tears out of her eyes, “Yeah, We know exactly what that feels like. We lived through it.”

Sugarcoat looked down and sighed. “She really is dead.”

“My condolences, Sugarcoat, We’ve only been telling you this for the past two months.” Sour Sweet put a hand on her friend’s shoulder, who, for once, didn’t wince.

“Yes. I should’ve believed you.” Sugarcoat said, looking over to the boarded-shut window where, among most of the other furniture, a single pink suitcase lay, still unopened, with a nametag still unread.

“We don’t have to do much. Not immediately.” Sour said, sliding onto the bench next to a blankly starting Sugarcoat, sliding an arm around her and pulling her into a hug, “We should just do something, alright? To get you off of your ass and back on your feet.”

“Thank you.” Said Sugarcoat, “I promise that I’ll pay more attention to your… issues in future.”

“That’s so considerate of you, it isn’t like everyone else who said that didn’t but We appreciate it anyway.”

“I’m serious.”

“I know, you’re always so serious you sucked the life any party you ever went to.”

Sugarcoat smiled weakly, “I know. It was important that Indigo Zap knew the difference between a barrister and a bannister before she tried to slide down the former.”

“There she is!” Sour hugged her friend harder, hard enough to actually hurt, “Now we’ve still got a few hours before sunset, so let’s go and kick some ass!”