Chapter One: Equus Non Grata

Chapter One: Equus Non Grata

"Coming up with words is, like, really hard."

There were two possible explanations.

The first was that something had gone wrong with the flow of time.

The second was that he was incredibly slow at his job.

While the first was absolutely ridiculous, it was something beyond his power to fix, and therefore comforting to ponder as he sat there leering at the green text glaring at him from the screen of his terminal. Would it not be so much easier to just be the victim of some mysterious temporal anomaly, instead of some stallion sitting there in the dark on a cinder block, capable of solving the problem with some obvious action?

...

His magic unscrewed the cap of a nearby flask before it floated over to his lips so that he could take a swig.

"Fuck it." His hooves rose then typed out some adequate text that he would have to stop staring at immediately, before he could recognize the ways that literally everything was completely, irredeemably wrong with it. He then saved it, checked it over, copied it to the loaded holodisk, ejected said holodisk, and levitated it into his nearby saddlebags.

"Done," he proclaimed as he made up for last night's shower by magically grabbing a pouch of orange fluid that had been lying on the floor next to his neglected bedroll. As he sipped the contents he stepped over to his open saddlebags and checked over his supplies.

One pistol, slightly rusty, with half a magazine of bullets.

One half filled bottle of filtered water that would not slowly kill him.

A sack of ten bottle caps... maybe less.

An empty jug much larger than the first bottle.

Some... 'tools'.

One folded up, very important piece of paper.

One even more important holodisk containing, among other things, a document that he should probably go over again, because he might not have maintained the narrative and thematic cohesion while also using the word 'nary' far too-

"Nope. It's done. It's fucking done. Just get out before you decide to sit your ass back down, and waste more time playing Striped Menace," he scolded himself as he decisively closed and latched the saddlebags before he could ponder his failures any further. He sucked down the last of the orange fluid, tossed the empty plastic pouch into the pile of garbage in an otherwise unused corner of his blissfully gray concrete shelter, then pulled on his usual 'traveling' outfit consisting of a well worn rag or two duct taped together into a crude coat that would give ponies the impression he had been out and about. The saddlebags followed the coat, and while he strapped them into place, taking special care to keep his flanks covered, he approached a steel ladder that was built into the wall.

Moments later the thick steel hatch in the concrete foundation of what remained of a house destroyed centuries prior gave a loud metallic groan as it was forced open. A bleary eyed unicorn stallion emerged from the bomb shelter, squinting through his partially cracked glasses against the sudden onslaught of light from the bright sun above. He was surrounded by a slowly recovering landscape with a sprinkling of young trees bearing sparse amounts of orange and yellow leaves. Off in the distance in one direction was the vast blue sea stretching out to the horizon, and in the other direction the terrain steadily inclined upward. At the top of the hill was a large settlement with a massive old world space observatory as its centerpiece. Above him was clear blue skies, and a mid morning sun beaming its warmth and joy down upon him.

"I miss the clouds," he muttered bitterly as he started walking uphill.

*** *** ***

Her eyes fluttered open and then blinked a few times before the mare groaned and dug her face into the nearest pillow while her wings drew the comforter back around her.

"Come baaack," she whined to the dream that was quickly escaping from her memory. There had been a beach, or at least what she had imagined one would be like. Any further specifics were already gone, but it had left her feeling content and warm as though an old friend was leaving after a pleasant visit. She yawned and then let out a tired groan as her legs and wings alike stretched beneath her bedding, eyes closing to try and go back to sleep since she had not a care in the world.

...

"Oh, wait!" She shot awake as she remembered something very, very important. The pegasus mare set aside her pillow and then burrowed her way out of the nest of an unsettlingly large amount of additional pillows arranged atop her bed. With one last yawn and stretch she trotted over to her bathroom.

After freshening up and combing out her bedmane, she stepped out and spent a couple moments looking at the half finished painting on her easel that sat next to a few shelves full of painting supplies. It was mostly just a sky so far, a lovely blue sky with a bright sun and a couple distant clouds. She had been pondering what kind of landscape to paint below it, and she smiled in a silent thanks to her passing dream for making it easier to decide. But that was for later, right now she had very important things to be doing!

"Oh? You're certainly up earlier than usual," remarked the unicorn mare sitting at their dining room table as the younger pegasus strolled downstairs.

"Good morning to you too, mom!" she replied with a smirk and proceeded to look for a peach in their fridge.

"What's the occasion?" the older mare asked as she returned her attention back to her book and took a sip of her tea.

Her daughter nudged the refrigerator door shut with her hoof and then walked over with a peach in her mouth before setting it down on the table. "New issue of Starlight Serials goes to print today!"

"Oh... that," her mother sneered disdainfully at her response.

"Yes, that. I've read everything I want to read from the observatory library already, Starlight Serials is constantly publishing new stuff, and we've had this conversation a bazillion times already," she replied.

"Poppy, I've made my peace with your... taste in literature. What I fail to understand is why you insist on going to Outwall yourself. It's dangerous out there. You should ask somepony from SHS to go get it for you instead," her mother reminded her while putting her book aside.

"Mom, I can fly. There might not be another pony in the entire Radscythe that can say that. If something bad happens, up I go!" she said with a demonstrative flap of her wings. "What are they going to do about it?"

"Ah yes I see your point, you're obviously completely safe. Hopefully, nopony ever invents something that can fire bullets or laser beams at anypony. You might be in trouble at that point," her mother snarked back while frowning at her.

"For duck's sake, the trading post is in line of sight of the checkpoint!" Poppy countered. "You act like I haven't been out there also a... kerzillion times."

Her mother let out a long sigh. "Sweetie, I love you. Even if you've been out there ten 'kerzillion' times, which again isn't actually a number, the only time I care about is the time you're out there and something does go wrong."

At being reminded that the obviously fake number was obviously fake, Poppy proceeded to roll her eyes and then take a bite of peach.

"I doubt you're going to listen though, and you're too old to be sent to your room anymore, so just please do me a favor and have somepony from SHS come along with you to the trading post, alright?"

Poppy smiled and nodded cheerfully at her mother's reasonable request. In a completely unrelated event, two primary feathers on her wing out of her mother's view briefly crossed, for completely unknowable reasons!

"Good. I'll not worry as much then," she said while levitating her book open again to resume her reading as Poppy swallowed her bite of peach.

...

Her mother made it through half a page before the sensation of her daughter boring a hole into her skull with her eyes became a bit too distracting. "Yes?"

"I'm... going to need seventy-five caps to buy the new issue," Poppy confessed, the tips of her two front hooves pressed together sheepishly.

Her mother blinked. "I gave you three-hundred caps last week. What happened to them?"

"I might have used half of them to buy really fancy pillows."

...

"Pillows."

"Really, really fancy pillows," Poppy assured her.

"Fine. What about the other half?"

...

"Other... somewhat less fancy pil-"

"Nevermind," her mother cut her off as she set her book aside again and got to her hooves. "I'm just going to be happy that, thanks to me, my daughter gets to live so comfortably. I'll be right back."

By the time her mother returned from upstairs with a bag of caps, Poppy was tossing a peach pit into the garbage bin.

"Here's two-hundred caps, because I know you're probably going to look around for any art supplies you can find too," she said to her daughter with a smile as she levitated the money into the pair of saddlebags hanging from a hook by their front door.

"Aww thanks, mom!" Poppy beamed as she trapped her mother in a tight hug.

"Grk!" Her mother took a moment to pat her daughter on the head affectionately prior to magically prying her hooves off. "Just remember to get that escort, please," she reminded her.

"I will," Poppy began as she trotted over and pulled on her now bottlecap laden saddlebags. "I won't I won't I won't," she continued under her breath as she made for the door, only for somepony outside to knock before she could reach it. She opened it a crack and peered outside to see a familiar stone blue stallion in a nice clean suit. "Oh, good morning mayor," she greeted while opening the door fully.

"Good morning Poppy, just making the morning rounds to make sure all the council members will be there for the meeting today," the mayor explained as Poppy's mother walked up behind her.

"Morning, Platinum Band. Care for some tea, since I can't seem to get back to reading to save my own life?" she offered with a half lidded smirk at him.

"Sounds nice, Diamond Eyes. I'm afraid I can't stay for long though, busy as usual," he said to the matronly mare with her mane hanging over her shoulder, tied up in a black velvet band.

"Hrm, sounds like I should get that tea brewing then," she replied, then turned and sauntered back to her kitchen while making it difficult to not spot the golden watch cutie mark adorning her flank.

"So where are you headed today Poppy?" Platinum Band asked as he stepped aside to let her pass.

"Just going out to do some shopping, no big deal, bye!" Poppy replied quickly in an attempt to leave.

“Are you just going to leave without putting this peach pit in the trash?” Her mother scoffed.

“I… what?” she looked back in confusion. There was indeed still a peach pit on the counter. She blinked a couple times, eyes going from the peach pit to the trash can and back. “Oh, I’m sorry… I could have sworn I had already,” she said while trotting back over and dropping it in the trash can.

“I swear Poppy, you’d lose your own wings if I wasn’t here to keep an eye on them,” Diamond Eyes chuckled, giving her daughter an assuring pat on the head.

“I know… thanks, mom,” she said sheepishly, perking up again just as Platinum Band was about to ask something else. “Okay gotta go, already late, bye for real this time!” she interrupted while practically galloping past him, zipping out the door and down the corridor before anypony could ask anymore questions.

The mayor blinked and then sighed as he stepped into their apartment. "Since you let her go, I'll assume she explained things to you adequately."

"Let's just say I'll be questioning some of SHS later this week," Diamond Eyes replied as her magic closed and locked the door behind him.

*** *** ***

"Perfect timing!" Poppy chirped as she emerged from the stairwell into the sunlight beaming down onto the observatory's slot deck, something only able to be enjoyed for a few hours each morning. On her way to the stairs down to the ground level she returned a few waves and greetings from their neighbors from the inner apartments. While life in the observatory was universally leisurely and relaxing, she still did not envy her neighbors who only had balconies overlooking the slot deck instead of balconies carved out of the outer observatory hull with views overlooking the entire town and surrounding countryside.

The dome was reserved for only the most affluent of Starlight Hill, but the denizens of the lower level were still plenty important. While there was a small staff of office ponies ensuring that business proceeded smoothly, the bulk of the floorspace was devoted to the barracks and armory of Starlight Hill Security. For the most part, Poppy got to see them as normal ponies out of uniform going about their day in their off duty hours, but even inside the observatory there were always four officers at their posts in full uniform, without exception. The first pair guarded a thick reinforced steel door that was the first of several layers of protection guarding the orchard down below that had been key to the town's success. The second pair stood watch at the entrance, keeping track of every pony that entered and exited.

Poppy approached this second pair with a spring in her step. They may have looked imposing in their black and blue, steel plate reinforced Stable-Tec security barding, bearing a somewhat faded number 50, but they were still just friends as far as she was concerned. It was a sentiment they had in common.

"Mornin' Miss Crafts, Starlight Serials I assume?" one of them asked cheerfully, already moving to unlock the front door for her.

"Yep! Morning, Mister Frontline! How are you doing today?" she asked in reply.

"Another day another apple," the stallion answered with a shrug after opening the door for her. "Just make sure you tell your mother I gave you the appropriate hassling if she asks," he requested in jest.

"Hehe, I will! Thanks!"

Poppy stepped out into the sunlight again, strolling along the quaint little cobblestone path leading to the observatory checkpoint ahead. Around her was an actual honest to goodness lawn of lovely green grass along with an assortment of flower beds along the walls of the observatory, all of which had only been made possible just shy of half decade ago when the clouds had cleared away. Ever since the absolutely delightful amount of green had grown in fully, Poppy would be hard pressed to count the hours she had spent reading or napping whilst reclining on the soft grass. It made for an especially appropriate place for her yearly reading of her favorite book as well.

Enclosing this enormous grassy circle of leisure surrounding the observatory was a tall concrete wall topped with barbed wire, the only way in or out being guarded by the ponies at the first checkpoint she would need to pass on her way to her prize. The gate was every bit as thick and steely as the security door inside of the observatory, and at each side there was a tower giving the guards on the inside of the wall a view overtop of it. Two more security officers were posted outside on the ground, and a fifth slowly patrolled around the inside making sure nopony who dared to climb over would be inside for long. Poppy only had to give one of the ponies in the tower a wave before she got a nod in return. The mare up top pressed a button activating a pair of motors that raised the gate for her, allowing her to continue her trip.

She always found it amusing how much less the security ponies worried after her when compared to her mother. It made sense though. They knew better than her mother ever could that she had come from tough, resilient stock.

Inwall district was itself also quite the luxurious destination. The many buildings had been designed by the finest architects caps could buy, and constructed from the best materials said architects could source. The roads were neatly paved and lined with refurbished street lights and regularly placed benches without a spot of litter to be found thanks to diligent sanitation workers. The shops promised only the finest of products, the restaurants served only the best of food with the finest of service, and though the housing could not hold a candle to that of the observatory itself, a pony could still count themselves supremely lucky to live there.

Poppy hated it.

More specifically she hated being there while also being the daughter of a mare on the Starlight Hill Council. Ambitious rich ponies catching the scent of Poppy's connections ensured she had a lot of 'friends' that there with whom she preferred to converse as little as possible. As such, she headed straight for the checkpoint into Midwall while trying to be as inconspicuous as-

"Oh, hello there Miss Crafts!"

Ducking heck.

Poppy cringed and started walking faster as the aggressively smiling mare that had snuck up beside her matched her pace. "Uh, hi."

"Fancy seeing you out here! Say, how about we get some breakfast, huh? My treat!" the mare offered cheerfully as they both broke into a canter.

"Oh, thank you, I appreciate it. But I'm busy. Like, super busy. All day," Poppy lied while trying to avoid eye contact.

"Aww what a shame, but hey as long as we're out for a morning jog together, I've got a swell idea the council would just love to death!" the mare pressed further as they broke into a gallop.

"That's nice, I'm sure you gave it a lot of thought," Poppy stalled as she caught the eyes of one of the checkpoint guards while galloping toward them.

"I certainly did! Anyway-"

"Ma'am, kindly stop running near the checkpoint. That is against SHS regulations," the young security stallion requested firmly, stopping the mare in her tracks.

"Oh, I'm not running, we're just out for a jog, isn't that right Miss... Crafts?" The mare looked around, only to find that there was no longer a pegasus anywhere in sight.

"Like I said, stop running near the checkpoint, and continue with your day as usual, ma'am," the guard repeated.

"I hear you loud and clear, and my usual day includes jogging with my good friend Poppy Crafts! If you would kindly point out where she went? I seem to have lost track of her, silly me!" the mare said with what one could assume was an attempt at a disarming chuckle.

"Move. Along. Please," the guard repeated for a third time.

"Well, Trail Blazer, you can certainly depend on your boss getting a piece of my mind, and I hope it gets your smug ass assigned to Outwall for the rest of your fucking life," the mare smoldered with an angry glare, her mask slipping for a moment before she went stomping off.

...

"Is she gone?" Poppy asked in a hushed whisper from her spot hiding behind the sandbag checkpoint barrier.

"Yeah, you're safe," Blazer answered as he unlatched the gate. "You really should just fly over Inwall, I promise we won't tell Diamond Eyes."

"I'd take you up on that but, I don't want to risk my mom seeing me from the balcony. She'd probably lecture my ears off for a good hour when I got back if she caught me flying," she lamented before giving her friend a hug of appreciation. "Thanks, Trail Blazer."

"Just doing my job... but if you insist on thanking me, you can meet me for dinner later," he said, returning the hug with a devilish smirk that made her cheeks brighten a bit.

"Oh gosh, again? Sure," she replied with a nod and a giggle. "I have to get going though, bye Blazer!"

"See you at six!" he called out after her as she cantered away into Midwall district.

With that unpleasantness out of the way, she was finally in her home away from home. Midwall ponies were more the down to earth sort that knew one could get more flies by just leaving honey out instead of hunting the fly down relentlessly and shoving honey in its face. SHS had a bit less of a presence, but metal pipe guns from the local smith were cheap, and Midwall ponies were not the fragile sort. Even if that was not enough of a deterrent, the district's outer wall was fitted with four automated gun turrets. They were usually meant to point away toward Outwall, but if anything happened behind them it would be a simple matter of turning them around.

The architecture and infrastructure was a good bit rougher, being largely improvised from salvage. Between all of the ponies in Midwall there was more than enough know-how to keep things up and running though, and with the local district businesses bringing in caps from visiting caravans, there was always enough extra money on hoof to pay scavvers for replacement parts. They were always far more busy than Inwall ponies though. With no premium charge on their goods, they had to make up for it in volume, and there were always things breaking from sheer age that needed repairing or replacing. Overall, Midwall was not lacking in quality of life, but much more had to be done in order to earn it. Still, things were improving. Inwall used to look like Midwall after all, and Midwall used to look like Outwall… or at least that's what Poppy had always been told.

With nopony to chase after her in pursuit of political favors, she felt free to actually do some shopping. Her first stop was of course her favorite store in Midwall, the Starlight Stockpile! She trotted in beneath the large sign overhead portraying a yellow shooting star soaring across the store's name, and was displeased to see the owner currently dealing with two Starlight Hill Security guards. That was fine though, she could browse and then give her a proper greeting when she had finished with them.

True to her mother's prediction, she found a few bottles of paint that struck her fancy. She was running low on those particular colors, and who knew when the caravans would bring more? It was a bit of a niche product, and it needed to be produced brand new instead of scavenged, so it was often not worth carrying around for trade. For all she knew, her being there to buy them was the only reason anypony in the Mainstreet Caravan Company even bothered to bring them. Unfortunately, when she made it back to the front the owner was still engaged with the two SHS ponies, even after she had taken the time to find a few replacement brushes to boot!

"I don't rightly know where exactly, but word has it that he always heads to the southwest after leaving the Outwall gate. Funny direction for a courier to be going if you ask me," the elderly earth pony mare at the counter finished explaining.

"Is that all you can give us then, ma'am?" one of the guards pressed further.

"Can't really think of anypony else that would have a reason to do that. Sorry," she replied with a shrug.

"Really? You've worked in this shop since you were a young filly a century and a half ago, and you can't think of one other pony that would have a beef with the mayor?" the other guard asked while leaning over the counter, her eyes shrouded from view by the visor of her security helmet with teeth bared in a silent snarl. Whatever they were doing, they had apparently been at it long enough for things to become a bit tense. "We're Starlight Hill Security, we can't exactly do our fucking job if all you can give us is one description and a vague direction, you old hag."

"Hey!" Poppy shouted as she dropped her paint and brushes on the counter, catching their attention. "You're right, you are Starlight Hill Security, and that means you should be better than to use foul language, and boss around Miss Closeout!"

The irritated unicorn mare security guard's baton levitated out of its holster and prodded Poppy in the chest threateningly. "And who the fuck are you, exactly?"

"Oh, right, what are you going to do? Beat me up?"

"No idea. Keep runnin' your damn mouth instead of answering my question and we might find the fuck out."

"I'm Poppy Crafts!"

"And... ?"

"From the observatory!? Councilpony Diamond Eye's daughter!? The only pegasus pony in all of the Radscythe?! You lay one hoof on me, then you can bet your rumps that the mayor himself is going to drop the hammer on you so ducking fast you won't even know what hit you!" Poppy countered as she batted the baton away.

"Aw shit, hold it," the other guard stallion intervened, quickly pinning the baton to the floor with his hoof as the guard mare let out a grumbling sigh. "We're sorry Miss... Crafts? We're new to the force and we just got a little too eager to find out who issued the anonymous threat on Mayor Platinum Band."

Poppy's eyes widened at hearing this, her stance relaxing a bit now that her attempt at persuasion had defused the situation. "What? He never said anything about that to me or my mom, and we talk every day!"

"He wouldn't have. We're trying to keep it relatively quiet while we look into it. Better to catch whoever's responsible than to scare them off so they can come back again later, you know?" he explained.

"I suppose... I have no idea who would do something like that though. Everypony I know seems fine with the job the mayor is doing," Poppy lamented, a bit crestfallen at being unable to help.

"That's alright ma'am, we're here to make sure he'll be fine, with help or otherwise." He turned to the store's owner. "Miss Closeout? I'd like to apologize on behalf of SHS, nerves have been a bit frayed recently, considering the situation," he offered.

"Well... I certainly don't appreciate getting raked over the coals in my own store, but I'll let it go this once. Just don't do it again, or I'll be complaining to your higher ups!" Closeout scolded while scowling at the two of them.

"Understood, have a nice day," the stallion said with a nod before motioning for his fellow guard to follow and heading for the door.

The guard mare holstered her baton and then turned to leave, giving Poppy a sidelong frown as she trotted past. "'Ducking'? Seriously?"

"Duck off," Poppy repeated with narrowed eyes as the guard mare continued out the door.

"Thank you kindly Poppy. I could've handled them myself, but you certainly did save me a heap o' time," Closeout admitted as she started for the doorway to the back room. "Mind if I have Clearance ring you up? I gotta go out back and give the ol' punchin' bag a few licks to work off wanting to slap that mare's helmet right off her face!"

"Sure, I don't mind," Poppy agreed with a nod.

"Clearance! Come ring up a customer for your grandma while she kicks things!" she called out. Seconds later, hurried hoofsteps approached in reply before a freckle faced teenaged mare emerged. She was about to greet Poppy, but then saw that Poppy was indeed Poppy and gave a little gasp as her cheeks colored ever so slightly.

"Miss Crafts! Hi! Um, how are you?" she asked clumsily as she started looking over the paint bottles and brushes.

"I'm great! How about you?" Poppy chirped back.

"M-me too! Um, what are you up to... today?"

"I'm headed to Outwall to buy the new issue of Starlight Serials, and I figured I'd stop here on my way and buy some things. Shame you don't seem to have any new pillows in stock, but I'm glad you had the paint," she answered, setting a hoof on one of the paint bottles with a smile.

"Hey... great, I mean, sorry we didn't have any pillows. Um, do you mind if I ask... something?" Clearance asked.

Poppy blinked. "Not... really?"

"What uh... what do you do with all the pillows you buy, exactly?" Clearanced inquired further. "I mean it's none of my business, obviously, just... curious. You… kind of buy a lot."

"Oh, hehe, is that all? I just make a big pillow nest out of them," Poppy answered as her smile returned. "Mom won't let me grab any clouds, so I try to make the next best thing to sleep on."

"A pillow nest? Huh... never seen that before," Clearance responded while adding up her total on a piece of scratch paper with a pencil in her mouth.

"Really? You should come try it out with me sometime then," Poppy offered.

Clearance's face turned somewhat more red as the pencil dropped from her mouth. "W-what?"

"Yeah! We could hang out and chit chat and read and stuff," Poppy added. "It'd be really nice having a friend over that wasn't from the observatory or Inwall for once."

"Oh, right! Obviously that's what you meant!" Clearance stammered a bit before awkwardly clearing her throat. "B-but I agree, it would be great to hang out with you. Plus I'd get to see Inwall and the observatory."

"Eeh, skip Inwall," Poppy advised with a slight grimace, motioning with her hoof dismissively.

"B-but I'd love to see all those new buildings you all built there from the ground up! Brand new, without a scrap of salvage worked into them! I couldn't skip that," Clearance began. "Whenever I have to go get something for grandma, I always stop at the checkpoint as close as the guards will let me, and just look inside a little bit."

"Wow… I guess I never really thought of them that way," Poppy pondered while tapping her chin. "I doubt I could give you a tour myself without getting mobbed by Inwall ponies, but I could see if I can get an SHS guard to take you sightseeing a bit, if you'd like."

Clearance's eyes widened yet again. "You'd do that for me?"

"Sure! I can't guarantee anything, but I've definitely got enough pull in SHS to make it worth trying," Poppy affirmed.

"Alright, I'll uh... try not to get excited until you know for certain, but thank you so much, even if they say no," Clearance beamed, looking as though the counter between them was the only thing keeping the young mare from crushing Poppy in a hug.

"You're welcome!"

"So... um... that'll be fifty-three caps for the paint and brushes. Is that all you'd like today?" she asked after slipping back into business mode, but remained visibly more chipper than a few minutes prior.

Minutes later, Poppy strolled out of the Starlight Stockpile with a lighter bag of caps, intent on making one more stop in Midwall before heading to her final destination. It was on the other end of one of the district's dedicated farming plots where an assortment of earth ponies could be seen toiling at all hours of the day weeding, pruning, watering and... getting another thing that plants needed.

She made it a point not to ask where they got that last thing.

The farmer ponies mostly sold their produce to other denizens of the district, since the Mainstreet Caravan ponies only seemed interested in the produce that came from the orchard below the observatory. The Midwall farms were mostly comprised of the hardier types of hybrid crops that could be easily grown at the surface. Poppy had never been a fan of tatos or mutfruit, but there did not seem to be anything wrong with razorgrain, and it was difficult to mess up something as timeless as corn. She returned a few waves from the friendlier ponies, and ignored a few glares from the less friendly ponies that were visibly resentful of an observatory dweller deigning to walk among them.

Past the farms was a peculiar little shack constructed around the salvaged shell of a Sparkle-Cola machine, and it was probably her favorite thing in all of Midwall. The building was painted red to match the partially faded paint job of the machine around which its front facing wall was built. To the side was a door that had never been unlocked in all of her numerous visits, and apparently barely anypony in the entire town had ever seen the pony that was inside.

They did at least know there was a pony inside though... either that, or a friendly ghost that loved Sparkle-Cola almost as much as Poppy. Liking it more than her was impossible, because Poppy was the biggest fan of Sparkle-Cola that ever was, and nopony would convince her differently! She bought one every time she was in Midwall, because she loved the carrot-ey goodness contained in every refreshing bottle.

Naturally, this interest had arisen in the first place because Diamond Eyes had told her never to drink the stuff. Really, how could Poppy deny herself such a centuries spanning taste sensation when the only thing to worry about could be taken care of with the very occasional dose of Radaway? Her only lingering complaint was the inability to decorate her own room with Sparkle-Cola memorabilia without her mother getting angry.

The machine mostly did not function on its own, save for one part that Poppy adored. Whoever was inside had managed to find a vending machine with the advertising screen on top still in working order. Not only that, but they somehow managed to keep finding holotapes of the old ads that used to play in the old world!

"Ooh, you found a new one!" she gasped as she saw a new animation playing on the screen. As usual, the stars were the peppy looking mare, Spark, and her dour looking companion, Fizzle.

"Hey Fizzle, you know one thing I like about Sparkle-Cola brand soda pop?" Spark asked, happy and energetic as ever.

"I wouldn't even be able to guess, I never drink the stuff," Fizzle grumbled with her usual frown.

Spark then pulled a laser rifle out of nowhere and blasted Fizzle, resulting in the other mare glowing brightly and disintegrating into a small pile of ash.

"It really helps you keep it together!" Spark said with a big smile toward the camera before the Sparkle-Cola logo popped up.

"Oh Fizzle, when are you going to try a Sparkle-Cola already?" Poppy asked while giggling to herself and taking a seat in front of the machine. She counted out twenty caps, then pulled open a small metal drawer that had been welded onto the machine's casing in place of the coin slot, and put them inside before closing it. There was a pause as the pony inside counted up the caps, and then placed an ice cold Sparkle-Cola into another, larger drawer that had replaced the usual retrieval slot before pushing it out for their customer.

"Thank you!" she exclaimed, hoping the always silent occupant could hear her. Poppy then popped the cap off, stashed it away, and took a gulp from the bottle before letting out a contented sigh. She had a little extra spring in her step as she started heading for the Outwall checkpoint with her soda bottle held against her body by a wing.

*** *** ***

"So this'll get me into Midwall?" The leather armor clad mare scrutinized the authentic looking document on the counter before her.

"I guarantee it. But go off and do something else for a day or two before you try it. It'd be bad for business if ponies kept walking out of my shop directly to a checkpoint. Give the guards some time to forget your face," the stallion behind the counter replied while adjusting his ratty looking necktie. Even if it was slightly dirty, a bit of fancy clothing tended to stand out to customers in Outwall.

"Riiight, good idea." She neatly folded up the forgery. "What was that name again?"

"Welded Wire. If you want to get something into Midwall past SHS, he's your guy. He's not free, but he's worth every cap, and he keeps his mouth shut. It's a hell of a better deal than trying to do it on your own, that's for sure."

"Yeah don't worry about me trying it. I don't want needles anywhere near the only good hiding place I can think of," she replied as she tucked the document away into a pocket on her armor.

"No shit, I saw a stallion try it one time... or something similar at least, considering."

"A stallion? You fuckin' kidding me?" she inquired incredulously.

"Swear to sunlight! The moron thought he was home free, but then he sat down wrong, and down he goes from a mysterious case of his heart exploding!" he explained.

"Well shit, if that's the kind of competition I can expect I'm gonna be drowning in caps soon. Thanks again, I'll be back in a couple days."

"Sure thing."

She pulled an about-face toward the door but found a gray unicorn stallion standing there glaring directly at her.

"Uh, Blueline? Who's this guy?" She glanced down at the pistol holstered on her hoof.

"Him? He's another customer of mine. Isn't that right, Seventeen?"

He winced at the name but dutifully eased up to give a practiced answer. "Yeah... yeah it's fine. I'm not here to make trouble. Your business is none of mine."

"Then next time keep the stink eye to yourself, asshole." She strode past him and out the door.

"You've got a lot of nerve getting here late and then making my customers nervous, Seventeen." Blueline turned and input a code into his wall safe, not bothering with a greeting.

"I got here before printing, didn't I?"

"Most ponies understand that 'on time' means 'early enough.'" He counted out a payment of caps and laid it on the counter. "So yeah, you got here before printing, but no, you're not on time. You're late as fuck. Again." He covered five caps with his hoof and dragged them away from the rest. "Do it again and I'll take off ten caps."

"Wait, what the f-"

"Or I could take off ten caps right now if you'd like."

"No! I... okay. Okay, I'm sorry. It won't happen again, Blueline," the other stallion relented. He took a holotape out of his saddlebag and slid it across the counter.

"Good. Take your caps, get the fuck out, and have it here on time next week." Blueline took the holotape and shifted his attention to a terminal hooked up to his printing machine. While he busied himself inserting the holotape and editing some files together, Seventeen counted out the small pile of caps. He finished counting them, raised an eyebrow, then counted them again and frowned.

"Hey, this is only sixty caps. You're ten short," he accused his associate.

"No, it was ten short before you got here late. Now it's fifteen short," Blueline answered without looking away from his terminal.

"Why?"

"Because I decided that's what you get paid now. Why else would it be?"

"That's not fair!"

"You know what's not fair? Even after that, I still have to sell eight copies before I start making one cap of profit off your shit, and I'm lucky if the caravans buy nine in one-"

"I'm here!" Poppy cheered as she burst into the room, and was nigh instantly standing at the front counter trotting in place with a wide, excited smile plastered on her face. The two stallions both flinched at her rapid entrance, but Blueline quickly recovered.

"Hey there Miss Crafts! You’re having a good morning, I hope?" he greeted her, slipping back into his customer friendly demeanor as he typed hurriedly at his terminal.

"Yep, and I'm about to have an even better morning!" She all but openly shoved Seventeen to the side and earned an entirely disregarded scowl for her trouble. "Lay that new issue on me!"

"Well! As fate would have it, this courier just brought the last story, and now all I have to do is copy and paste it onto the end of the issue, then amend the table of contents," Blueline assured her, hitting a last few keystrokes before the connected printing machine sprang to life and whirred loudly as it printed out pages and dispensed them in a neat stack. Seventeen left his caps on the counter rather than grab them and leave just yet. He was now decidedly interested in this exchange.

"You're a courier?" Poppy inquired as she turned to the stallion beside her.

"Uh... yeah, I am. See?" He opened his saddlebag and out levitated a document that unfolded to reveal a genuine enough Moonlight Express courier pass. Before Poppy could get a closer look, it was refolded and hidden away in his bag again.

"Wow! I would never have guessed. You must be really tough to go from town to town all on your own with those rags instead of any armor," she admired while looking him over.

He fidgeted slightly from the attention given to himself and his cobbled together coat of rags. "I uh... yeah, sure."

"Anyway, that'll be-" Blueline paused a moment to calculate something in his head "-nine caps for the newest issue right off the presses... or out of the printer, as the case may be."

Seventeen's eyes narrowed. Since when did Blueline need a moment to remember his own prices? For that matter, why had those prices not been posted anywhere? The stallion could afford to run an entire store, but was priced out of buying a plank of wood and some paint?

She gasped. "Really?"

"Really," Blueline nodded with a smile.

"Wow, thank you so much Blueline!" Poppy gushed as she fished out the required caps.

"What's the big deal? That's just his usual price," Seventeen interjected with absolutely no ulterior motive.

"Pfft, no it's not!" she replied with a wave of her hoof at his ignorance. "It's usually seventy-five caps. He's giving me a huge discount!"

Blueline groaned quietly.

"Oh, then no wonder you're so excited. What a great guy, huh?" Seventeen deadpanned, giving Blueline a sidelong stare.

"He is! If I wasn't afraid I'd mess up his suit, I'd fly over the table and hug him!" Poppy agreed as the reality of the situation managed to fly over the only pegasus in the room.

"Thank you for the consideration ma'am." Blueline made a show of adjusting his tie again. The printer finished with the last page and announced it with a loud beep. He picked up the stack and flipped through it to make sure the pages were correctly ordered.

Once he had ensured everything was right where it belonged, he carefully straightened the stack and clamped it between two boards with the side intended to be the book's spine sticking out. Layered applications of Wonderglue and gauze topped off with a covering of duct tape made quick work of the binding, and given the remarkable properties of the adhesive, there was all of second to wait for it to dry.

"There you go, still warm even."

"It is! This is as fresh as a book can possibly be!" Poppy rubbed her cheek against the newly made paperback adoringly, finding it every bit as warm as Blueline had suggested. "Thanks again, Blueline!"

"My pleasure," he answered as she hovered out the door using her forelegs to lovingly hug her new purchase, leaving Seventeen and Blueline alone again.

"So... eight copies, huh?" Seventeen asked smugly with an accompanying grin.

"Hrm." Blueline looked down at the meager pile of caps on the table, then swept half of them back into his bag. This immediately smacked the smug grin off the other stallion's now quite aghast face. "That ought to do it."

"What the fuck, Blueline?!"

"Hey now, c'mon Seventeen. I'm giving you a bargain too, just like her! I'm only charging you thirty or so caps for mouthing off to my customers in my own store. See, usually I don't pay anything to assholes that do that, so you might consider being a bit more grateful." He ejected the holotape from his terminal and placed it back on the counter. The relevant contents had already been copied and it was no longer a bargaining chip to be kept.

"I can't buy a week's worth of food and Radaway with thirty caps!" Seventeen countered, hopping up to place his forelegs on the counter.

"Not my problem. Get off my counter, or you're leaving with fifteen instead."

...

Seventeen begrudgingly got down off Blueline's counter, teeth clenched as his insides practically smoldered.

"Good boy."

"Fuck you. I don't have to put up with this," Seventeen spat back at him in an ill considered outburst.

"You don't? Why’s that?” Blueline snorted in amusement. “What are you going to do besides put up with this?" he asked while poorly containing his laughter.

"..." Seventeen silently started to reach for his slashed pay, only for his employer's hoof to intercept his own and pin it to the counter.

"No no no, you're not leaving here without explaining exactly what other kind of work you can even get in this town. I'm really curious, because last time I checked, everypony here hated you so fucking much that the only way you can come in to get drinking water is with the pass I made you. I mean, it's so bad that I can't even have your name anywhere in my periodical, because Midwall ponies would catch wind of it, and then run me the fuck out of town. So tell me, in detail, what you're going to do instead of putting up with this," Blueline repeated at length, chuckling at him.

"..."

"Guess you think twenty is enough then?"

"Nothing, okay?!" Seventeen finally succumbed. "You can do literally anything you want to me, and I can't do a thing about it," he admitted further with all the weakened spite he could muster.

"And maybe after a week spent starving and glowing, you'll remember that a little better, you miserable fucking excuse for a stallion." Blueline let go of his hoof, and Seventeen scrambled to grab away his pathetic payment before it could get even more pathetic. "Next time, just get here early, and keep your mouth shut. Then you'll get to walk away with sixty-five caps like normal, and this'll all be water under the bridge."

"Why did you bother lying in the first place?" Seventeen asked bitterly.

"Because time is money, and I've got better shit to do than have this conversation. Now, again, get the fuck out of my store," he concluded while pointing towards the door to Seventeen's left. The thoroughly brow beaten stallion glanced down into his mostly empty bag of caps, sighed, and then did as instructed without uttering another word.

*** *** ***

'Outwall' was a name steeped in sarcasm, as it implied a district existing in a space where no district was to be found. Instead, Outwall was merely the sum of space between Midwall and the perimeter fence meant to delay would be aggressors long enough for the automated turrets atop Midwall's wall to politely show them the door. It was a ten foot high barrier, made out of chain link with interwoven razor barbed wire, and topped with lead pipes that had been sharpened to a point and then left out in the weather to rust. The rust had the dual benefits of both producing many infected wounds in particularly enthusiastic intruders, and also allowed the occasional bits of blood to blend in well enough that one was not likely to notice them.

While there was actually a gate to this fence, it was less of an actual checkpoint and more an assignment to scare members of the SHS into compliance. During the odd period of having no trouble makers in SHS to punish, it also served as a dandy way to haze new recruits as a wonderful welcome to the team.

The only bit of Outwall that was developed was a stretch of beaten path that one might generously call a road between the fence gate and Midwall checkpoint. To the sides of this path, a number of enterprising scavvers had pieced together stores catering to the needs of passing caravans. The Starlight Hill council had never approved the building of such stores, but they seemed to keep the caravans happy, and so they were left to do as they pleased… to a point. It also helped that any caps they made usually wound up being traded into Midwall, which was enough to ensure that any wasters aspiring to cause the shops of Outwall Road any trouble usually found themselves on the wrong end of an unexpected turret malfunction.

The rest of the un-district was formed of several groupings of tents. The less business savvy scavvers slept there when they were not out finding bits and bobs to sell to the businesses of Outwall Road, which were in turn sold to the caravans, who then sold them to Midwall, saving them the trouble of scavenging for themselves. Much like the shops, the stray scavvers were tolerated because of their indirect usefulness to Midwall, combined with the fact that most of them were too downtrodden and exhausted to be much of a threat anyway.

So it was that nopony batted an eyelash at the sight of a gray unicorn stallion sitting outside of the Starlight Serials building, quietly swearing at himself as a flask hovered in front of him.

"What the fuck is wrong with you? Ooooh yeah, you've got so many fucking options in this town don't you, moron?" He took another swig from his metal flask. It was either his fourth or his third... or fifth. He had already lost count. "Why do you keep even talking to ponies? It never ends well. Just shut the fuck up for once in your life. Next week just walk in there, give him the holotape, take the caps, and leave. Is that so complicated, you dumb shit?" he chastised himself while tapping his forehead in some bid to physically shove the lesson into his thick skull.

Seventeen sighed and gazed longingly with exhausted eyes at the floating flask. After much hesitation, he managed to screw the top back on and levitate it back into his saddlebag. "You can get shit faced when you get home," he reminded himself as he got back to his hooves. His effort was immediately rendered moot by the sudden presence of a gust of wind and a pair of blue eyes uncomfortably close to him.

It should be noted that a certain young mare's claims of being the only pegasus around, while not necessarily completely correct, were at least not much of an exaggeration. As such, the pony populace of Starlight Hill, and the Radscythe at large, were woefully unaccustomed to the idea of other ponies being able to literally drop right out of the sky.

"Hi I'm Poppy, what's your name?!"

That same mare also had a bad habit of completely failing to take into account any of the above.

"FUCKING FUCKETY FUCK," Seventeen exclaimed as he reared up in shock and stumbled backward against the wall with forelegs flailing defensively.

"Oh! Um... I hope you're just surprised, but if that is your actual name would you mind if I called you 'Ducking Duckety Duck' instead? Or maybe just 'Ducky' for short?" she asked with ears lowered while backing away a step.

The stallion remained on his back hooves against the wall for a couple more seconds until he was completely sure Poppy was not a local trying to sink a knife between his ribs and run off with his caps. He dropped back down to all fours, glanced down his muzzle at his off kilter glasses, and nudged them back into place while aiming a severe frown in her direction. "Good news then, that's not my name," he answered brusquely as he stepped past her and toward the checkpoint.

"Oh, thank goodness! So what is your name then?" She turned and caught up at a brisk trot.

"And why would I tell you that?" he asked in return before looking ahead and groaning at the amount of ponies that were lined up waiting to be let in.

"I told you my name, so it's only polite to tell me yours," Poppy explained and then waited, beaming expectantly.

"Oh. Is that how that works? So if somepony came up to you saying they were there to kill a mare named Poppy, told you their name, then asked yours, you'd tell them?" he inquired snidely as he took his place in line.

"Well, wouldn't the pony know what I looked like if they were there to kill me?" Poppy stood beside him, sidestepping as needed as the queue advanced bit by bit.

He opened his mouth to speak, but then closed it, brow furrowing briefly before he took another go at it. "I mean… okay... I guess... but that’s not the point. Are you obligated to tell the pony your name just because they gave you theirs first?"

"Why do they only have my name though?"

"Are you going to tell the pony your name or not?!" he repeated.

"How is that anything like what we're doing now? Do you think I'm here to kill you? Because I'm not," she assured him.

"Okay listen, I don't have to tell you my name, and I don't want to, so I'm not. Glad we got that cleared up," he said decisively.

"Hope you got your papers Seventeen, or else we'll be having some fun tossing you over the fence," an attendant SHS unicorn mare sneered as they reached the head of the line. "Might not quite make it over the spikes this time... or will we? Who knows!"

"Oh that's your name, neat!" Poppy chirped victoriously.

"Fucking Celestia torch it," he swore under his breath while presenting the courier pass. The guard took it, gave it a glance over, and then sighed in disappointment.

"Alright Seventeen, in accordance with Starlight Hill's agreement with The Moonlight Express, you're entitled to an hour in Midwall to trade ,and a gallon of drinking water for the road. But if you're not back here and headed out after that, we're coming for you. Understood?"

"Yes ma'am," he complied. The guard levitated the pass back to him, but before he could grab it with his magic, a cream colored hoof snatched it out of the air. "Hey!"

"Huh... it says here that your name is Chapter Break," she managed to read before a light blue, rather irritated looking magical aura reclaimed the pass. "Why is everypony calling you Seventeen?"

"That is none of your business, now leave me alone," he scowled as he stepped through the checkpoint.

The SHS unicorn mare that had inspected his pass smirked, and gave a silent nod to her earth pony mare partner who knowingly returned the grin. As Seventeen passed her, the other mare stuck her hoof out and tripped him up at an opportune moment. The stallion let out an exclamation and stumbled forward a few steps, but before he could regain his balance a push from a magical aura that flared up and disappeared in the blink of an eye sent him falling to the ground.

"Oh no!" Poppy gasped as she galloped over with worry, but then glanced down and noticed that his flank was momentarily uncovered. His cutie mark was nothing more than the letters XVII.

He silently yanked his rag coat and saddlebags back into place with his magic, and took care to not look back at the guards who were enjoying a brief chuckle at his expense. Best not to give them any excuses.

"Get a move on, Seventeen. Tick tock," the earth pony mare reminded him.

"Are you okay?" Poppy asked as she held out a hoof to help him up, only to have it swatted away as he stood up on his own.

"I'm just dandy, go away. I've got an hour to do a week's worth of trading," he said dismissively, resuming his trip into Midwall.

She continued to not listen and trot along following behind him. "So, Chapter Break... you mind if I call you Chappy?"

"Yes. I mind. A lot.”

"What's with the Roaman numerals? Do you have zebra ancestry?"

"I don't know."

"Okay... what does it mean though? It's just a number."

He stopped unexpectedly, causing her to bump into him as he looked back at her. "What do you want?"

"Wh... what do you mean, Chappy? I just wanted to make friends with this interesting new stallion I'd just met, that's all," she answered, eyes diverting momentarily.

"Back at Blueline’s shop you shoved me out of the way and then took off with your book. The only reason you even noticed me was because Blueline pointed me out. Then suddenly you come back because, out of the blue, you wanted to be friends? Bullshit. What do you want?" He turned round to stare her down.

"I uh... it's just... I..." Poppy sighed and drooped slightly in defeat. "Fine... you caught me." She opened her saddlebag and pulled out the new volume of Starlight Serials. After opening it to the table of contents page, she turned it toward him and pointed to the entry at the very bottom. "Blueline said he took the story you delivered today, and added it to this volume as the last one. That story is chapter 33 of 'Darkest Dawn' by Silken Tome, and she is my favorite author ever. So I put two and two together, and realized that you might have met my favorite author ever, and might be able to tell me where she lives!" she explained, subconsciously beginning to hover in place in her excitement.

Chapter Break opened his mouth in preparation to deny everything. The excuse that he was just given packages by his boss sounded plausible enough in his head.

"I mean, I'd understand if you don't though. I figured it was a possibility that you were just given packages to deliver with no questions asked," she added.

Chapter Break closed his mouth in preparation to nod in agreement. A sense of relief washed over him as he realized she might be out of his mane for good in a mere few moments.

"So that's why I memorized the employee number on your courier pass! That way, even if you didn't know, I could take your number to The Starlight Express central hub myself to ask about the source of the package! But that would take a lot longer, so I came back to ask you'd met her yourself, just in case," she concluded.

Chapter Break opened his eyes as wide as could be, unprepared for the brief bout of sheer terror that had him grab hold of her shoulders and pull her down to the ground. "NO!"

She stared at him in surprise, as did a few nearby Midwall residents. He looked around awkwardly, then let go of her and backed away with a forced polite smile that convinced the onlookers to resume going about their business.

"I mean... no. That won't be necessary. I have met her, and there is no need to waste time contacting the central hub about me," he clarified as calmly as he could manage.

His world instantly became a very loud, very cream colored, and very constrictive one as he was struck by a flying hug from an overjoyed, squealing pegasus mare. It was surprising the amount of force she was able to muster with such a short distance, certainly more than enough to knock Chapter Break off his hooves.

"I CAN'T BELIEVE IT OH MY GOSH THIS IS THE BEST DAY EVER!" her outburst continued as she nuzzled him.

"Get off me!" Chapter snarled as he made a futile effort to pry her off of him with his magic. After a few moments she seemed to get a hold of herself again and let the stallion up, containing the last of her outburst behind a hoof as she trotted in place some more.

"Okay, okay, sorry! Too excited!" she apologized breathlessly. "Now, tell me where she lives."

He grunted as he got back up. "What? Do you really think she'd want to keep paying me to do this if I tell ponies where she lives?"

"You don't understand though, I'm her number one fan! How could she not want to talk to her number one faaan?!" she implored with big dewy eyes.

"I could think of a few reasons," he grumbled to himself under his breath while brushing bits of dirt off his saddlebag.

"What was that?" she asked, leaning in closer.

"Nothing. Look, it's a moot point anyway because... she, uh... she hands me the holodisk at a public meeting place. I don't know exactly where she lives, okay?" he answered, hoping against hope that it would be enough to placate her as he started toward the market.

She was not.

"That still works though! I can come along with you for the trip, and next time you meet up with her I can come with you! I get to meet her, she gets to keep her privacy, and you get to keep your job."

Worse yet, she was coming up with progressively more reasonable solutions!

"Can we talk about this later? You heard the guards. I have an hour to refill on water, buy a Radaway and... then have it for dinner I guess," he groaned morosely as they rounded a corner, bringing the unmistakable sight of the Critical Chemicals shop into view. The modified neon sign hanging over the entrance portrayed a mare in stable barding who, over the course of three frames, checked the flow of the syringes held in each of her front hooves before winking with a grin at any would-be customers.

"Um, do you... usually have Radaway for dinner?" she inquired with a slight raise of her eyebrow.

"Oh yeah. All the time. It's the secret ingredient in all my cooking. Really adds that kick," he deadpanned.

"Don't you get paid enough to buy food too?" She stopped him short of entering the store with a hoof laid on his shoulder. He shrugged it away.

"Usually, but not this week. Between my two options, I'd rather lose some weight instead of get cancer and slowly fucking die," he elaborated before stepping into the store with her in close pursuit.

"So you brave the Radscythe in nothing but a set of rags to get Silken Tome's holotape here on time, and they don't even pay you enough caps to live on? That's terrible!" she lamented as she trotted up to his side. "Haven't you considered getting another job?"

Chapter grunted in irritation at the question, grabbing a single packet of Radaway off the shelf and levitating it along on his way to the front counter. "Nope. There isn't one to find."

"I'm sure if you just asked around-"

"There isn't one Poppy, trust me." He set the Radaway on the counter and then emptied his bag of bottle caps. "Besides, if I took another job, then how would your precious stories get here?"

The mare behind the counter spent a moment counting them up before frowning and taking back the packet. "You're five short, pal."

"Forty caps was fine last week," he reminded her.

"Yeah, but that was last week. This week they cost forty-five caps. Now either pony up the five caps, buy something cheaper, or be on your way," she laid out his options in no uncertain terms.

"Couldn't you please give him a little bitty discount just this once, Double Dose?" Poppy asked as she once again pushed him aside, producing another grumbling sigh from him.

"You know this guy, Poppy?" Double Dose asked a bit skeptically.

"Yeah, he's my friend," she ever so eagerly proclaimed.

"Huh... would never have guessed," the other mare replied, looking Chapter up and down briefly with disdain. Still, she seemed to trust Poppy's judgment, and put the Radaway back on the counter. "Well... if it's a friend of yours, I suppose I could give a discount, just this once. Don't go telling anypony though, especially not for him."

"Thank you very much!" Her eyes shifted to Chapter, motioning happily for him to take the merchandise.

He snorted in contempt, levitated his caps back into his bag and made for the door. "We're not friends," he insisted on his exit.

Her smile morphed into a frown of frustrated determination as she briefly apologized to Double Dose and winged it after him, landing beside him in short order. "Chappy, please, I'm trying to help here."

"You're not trying to help, you’re trying to trade. You're trying to get me to owe you one, so that I'll do what you want. Plastering a nice face on that doesn't make it any different," he elaborated instead of telling her to leave again as though it would make any difference. "And stop calling me Chappy."

"I'll have you know I help ponies out here in Midwall every day, and I don't expect a thing in return!" she corrected him indignantly.

"'Out here' in Midwall? That explains a bit. You some Inwall pony trying to look better than her friends by coming out and throwing caps at us filthy peasants?" he mocked her in reply as they drew closer to his next destination at the nearest public water valve.

"What? No! I'm not one of those Inwall posers, I'm from the observatory. My mom's on the council!" she corrected him again, this time sounding genuinely insulted!

"Oh, so you're just bored then. I'm glad we can amuse you so much." He levitated his empty plastic jug out, turned the valve, and started filling it with water from the spigot. "Pretty easy to make yourself feel better by spending somepony else's caps, isn't it?"

"Oh my gosh, how can anypony be this cynical?!" she asked in disbelief with face firmly in hoof before recollecting herself for another go at it with a calming exhalation. This was truly an unprecedented encounter for her, but she was still going to make it work! "You're overthinking this way too much, Chappy. But if you have to think of it like that, just think of it as me having a vested interest in you staying healthy because you bring my stories to Blueline, okay?"

He was silent, watching the jug until it was completely filled, then turning off the valve and screwing the cap back on before stashing the jug away again. "Was being honest so hard?"

"I've been honest from the start!" she insisted with a stomp of her hoof. "You just twist everything I say into something terrible!"

"No, I've been untwisting everything you say," he insisted as he lingered there seemingly without another destination for the moment.

"Never mind, just never mind," she acquiesced with a dismissive wave of her hoof. "If you want to do this like a trade, then fine by me. I'd like you to take me to see Silken Tome, and in exchange I'm willing to buy you supplies. Does that sound fair to you?"

"It's fair to me, yes," he admitted.

Poppy gasped as her wide eyes sparkled in joy, standing on the tips of her hooves as her wings fluttered!

"But it's not fair to Silken Tome. You have no idea how much she values her privacy," he added.

Her hooves thudded back down to the ground dejectedly, the stars gone from her eyes and her wings drooping. Still, one pony being mean and refusing to be unhelpful did not mean she was out of options.

"Fine then. If you won't help me, I'll be happy to just go straight to the Moonlight Express and get help from them instead, even if it will be way more of a hassle. Have a nice day," she said in parting before turning to leave.

The word 'shit' proceeded to pass through Chapter's mind rapidly, and with many terrified permutations as he realized the gravity of his error. His body acted ahead of his mind, and before he knew it he found a golden tail in his mouth with Poppy looking back at him in confusion with a slight blush on her face. Clearly he had her attention, but what to actually do with it was another matter he had not exactly resolved yet. He spat her tail out, for starters.

"Um... you can't do that! Because... because um... you see... if you do that..." He kept on stalling clumsily as his mind raced for something, anything to keep her from contacting the Moonlight Expres! But then he mentally stumbled upon it, and it was so simple yet so effective! Chapter stopped his stammering and then affixed an even glare on her. "Poppy, I am Silken Tome's personal courier. If you try to get her location from the Moonlight Express, I am obligated to warn her that you're coming."

Poppy's eyes shot open in genuine shock. "You wouldn't!"

Oh thank Celestia's blissfully lethal flames, she was buying it!

He wanted to sigh in relief but knew he had to keep selling it even harder.

"I would, and don't think that you being able to fly will make any difference. Even if you can zip over there faster than I ever could, your request would take at least two weeks to work its way through the bureaucrats at the central hub before they could even give you a yes or no. By then, Silken Tome will have moved elsewhere to get away from her crazy stalker, and all the trouble you'd have gone to would be for nothing!"

"That... that's not fair," she whimpered, feeling defeated enough to slump into a sitting position.

He let himself have his sigh of relief, now that it could be disguised as one of exasperation.

"Yeah, well... I guess for once in your life you're not going to get something you want, just like the rest of us. Goodbye," he said in parting as he started to hurry away. She was chewing up more of his time than he had ever imagined with this desperate desire of hers. He had little to no trust of the SHS guard's promised hour, since historically it had averaged out to maybe forty-five minutes before the guards started looking for him to escort him out. Now that he was finally free of that crazy mare's obsession he was free to do what was needed to make up for the lack of-

"Wait, wait! Chappy, stop!" Poppy piped up as she landed in front of him.

He groaned wearily. "What is it?"

"What if I offered something even better than just basic supplies? Something only I can give you?" she asked with a confident half lidded leer as she stepped closer.

Chapter’s eyes widened and he backed away a step. "Are you coming on to me?"

"Oh my gosh! No!" she blanched as her face turned positively crimson. "I'm offering to get you some fresh produce from the stable's orchard, because I'm an observatory citizen and they'd actually let me in to buy some!"

"Oh! That's what you meant by only you! Not… the other thing I thought that-"

"What kind of mare do you think I am?!" she furiously interrupted the panicking stallion.

"In my defense, you have been kind of desperate," he pointed out as he stood his ground.

"I..." She mellowed the death glare she was directing at him. "Okay... fair enough. Just as long as it is established that I am not that desperate."

"It is very established, yes."

"Good. So how about it? Will you take me to meet her if I can get you a batch of the tastiest, juiciest, most nutritious food in all of the Radscythe?" she asked again now that she was no longer blushing herself to near death.

Chapter brought a hoof up to rub his suddenly aching forehead at her continued insistence, and opened his mouth to decline yet again. But then, before the words could leave his mouth, another brilliant idea shot through his head. Perhaps it would make for awkward trips to town in the future, but he had to consider the present where he was facing down the reality of a week with no food or Radaway, and the clock was ticking! He made a show of silently reconsidering the offer and then reluctantly nodded. "That sounds like a fair deal actually. I'm sure Silken Tome would understand."

To the ground he went again.

"AAAAAAAAA THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!" Poppy shrieked in merriment as she crushed him in another hug and nuzzled him adamantly. He faked another smile and awkwardly patted her on the head until she released him and jumped back to her hooves. "Okay, stay right here! I know you don't have long so I'll try to be as fast as I can! Between picking them and filling out forms it'll be about twenty or thirty minutes."

"That sounds perfect, get goin'!" Chapter encouraged while still laid out on the cobblestone.

"Aye, Chappy!" she beamed as she galloped back toward Inwall giggling in merriment!

He stood up and remained in that spot for a while longer. When he was absolutely certain she was well and truly gone, he promptly abandoned his post. Chapter Break made his way back to the market row, and proceeded to window-shop, keeping an eye on the ponies milling around him going about their day. When the opportune moment came, and nopony was paying him any attention, he quickly snuck behind the Starlight Stockpile store. Fortunately, neither the old granny or her granddaughter were out back, and his luck held as he lightly pressed his ear to the back door and heard nopony in the back store room either.

"Guess we're digging into the bobby pin bargain bin again this week," he muttered to himself as he levitated out a flat head screwdriver and a small bundle of bobby pins tied together with a string.

*** *** ***

"Just take the darn hint already, I'm not interested!" Poppy grumbled after the SHS guard at the observatory checkpoint had to stop yet another pony with political aspirations that would not leave her alone. She could not believe the nerve of some ponies! Was doing as requested and leaving somepony alone so difficult?!

Though Poppy was quite intent on getting the produce that would buy her way to the meet and greet of her life, she immediately felt tension in the air as she approached. Her suspicions were confirmed when she entered the observatory. The ground level was being used as a staging area for a squad to assemble and gear up, and the expressions on the guard's faces ran the gamut from worried to angry as they pulled on their equipment.

"Frontline? What's going on?" she asked as she stepped aside from the main path to stay out of everypony’s way.

"Lead Shoe radioed in two minutes ago while patrolling Midwall. He found Night Stick and Clip Clop dead in an alley with all their gear stripped. The captain doubled up patrols and ordered a squad assembled specifically to track down and bring in whoever did this," the door guard explained.

"That's awful!" Poppy whimpered. "Officer Clip Clop was doing so well after that drug smuggling bust too."

"What's making it worse is that the Starlight council voted to keep the gates open. Nevermind keeping a murderer from getting away untouched, apparently keeping the caravans moving is far more important," he added, which certainly explained the anger she could feel in the room. "So we just have to get out there as fast as we can, and hope."

"That's even more awful! I'm sorry Frontline. I'm sure mom voted against it," she assured him with a gentle hug. "Plus if daddy were still captain he would definitely have ignored that order."

"He sure would've, Poppy," he replied while giving her a pat on the back. "But don't worry about it. Nopony else is going to get hurt on our watch today. You can count on it."

"I know I can. Good luck," she said with an assuring grin in parting before heading deeper into the building. The news of two officers dying was most definitely a blow to her mood, but she had to keep her head up and just trust in SHS to take care of the problem like they always did. She hoped those two rookies that had been giving Closeout a hard time were alright. A double equicide so soon after joining the force would certainly make for a rough introduction for them!

The decision to keep the caravan ponies moving instead of locking the place down until the perpetrator was found was something she disagreed with, but she at least understood the reasoning on some level. She was nowhere near well versed on the subject, but thanks to her mother's position on the council she was always in a position to overhear quite a few things.

If what Poppy had heard was correct, Starlight Hill had been getting even more business after the unfortunate abandoning of a large farming settlement further to the east a few months prior. Caravans had been coming and going with such frequency that a lock down of even half a day would mean tens of thousands of caps worth of business lost. More caps in Starlight Hill meant things improved for everypony that lived there, so she gave the council the benefit of the doubt and assumed they had some kind of greater good in mind, even if she would not have voted for it herself. Maybe if business kept up, Outwall could pull itself out of poverty and build its own proper wall!

"What would the next district be called though?" she mused aloud as she trotted along. "Outerwall I guess... then what, Outestwall? Could we make an Outerestwall after that or would we have to start thinking of different things to name districts after?"

"Nah, the council would probably just keep adding more '-est's to the end," remarked one of the SHS officers guarding the outermost orchard security door, having apparently been in earshot.

Poppy blushed slightly at being overheard but let out a pleasant chuckle as she approached the two mares. "Yeah, they probably would!" She adopted a more somber expression afterward. "I'm sorry to hear about Clip Clop and Night Stick. Did either of you know them?"

"I mostly just remember having to save Clip Clop's dumb ass after he got himself taken hostage," one mare replied glibly.

"And Night Stick was always a loner. Always told him getting too far from his backup was going to get him killed. Apparently I was right," the other added with a sigh. "So what do you need, Pops?"

"I'm after some fruit and veggies from the orchard. I'm trading them to somepony for a favor," Poppy replied.

"Got the caps to pay for 'em?"

"Yepperoni!" She pulled out her bag of money with her mouth and gave it a good shake to let them hear it was still heavy with caps.

"Alright then, go on through." Both officers simultaneously held up their badges to a pair of scanners. Satisfied with the presented credentials, the door beeped and let out a few metallic clanks from inside as the mechanisms unlocked. The two mares then took hold of a large handle on the side and grunted with the effort of pulling it with enough force to slowly swing the door open. "Elevator's down right now, so watch that first step," she advised.

"Ooh, neat! Thank you!" Poppy answered in appreciation as she cantered past.

Beyond the door there was a spiral staircase that led a ways down into Starlight Hill's namesake hill. After a roughly fifty foot descent it deposited a pony into a large chamber surrounding an enormous elevator. Had the elevator been in its normal raised position, one would see a gear shaped metal platform with a large yellow '50' painted on its surface. With the platform far, far down below, it left nothing but a gaping chasm surrounded by a metal railing that had been installed after the mechanism responsible for moving the safety cover had broken. Adding in the railing and relying on ponies to not be idiots had been a much simpler fix than to repair the old world Stable-Tec machinery.

For a unicorn or earth pony, the lack of a platform would have meant being doomed to stand there until it was brought back up again. But Poppy and her wings could freely hover down to the bottom in complete safety.

'Could' was a key word in that sentiment.

"WEEEEEE!" Poppy cheered as she reveled in the sensation of the air whipping past her mane as she dove her way down the elevator shaft in free fall. If her mother was not going to let her fly as she pleased, she would take any chance she could get to satisfy those rarely indulged pegasus urges.

As she neared the bottom, her wings flared out and gave a few strong flaps that righted her body in a sharp upward turn, then hovered gracefully down to the floor to land between two crates filled with freshly picked Stable 50 orchard produce. While it was true that those were fresh, she had promised the freshest, and as far as she was concerned that meant freshly hoof picked. She crossed the underground chamber and entered through the open stable door. From there it was a quick trip through the entryway, into the atrium, down the stairs past security, and then down another hallway into the orchard.

The stable was still in fairly decent condition, although nopony had lived there since far before Poppy had even been born. She still spotted a few maintenance ponies going about their duties keeping the important systems in working order, and making sure the place did not rust away. Most of the living space had been repurposed for storage of valuable merchandise and equipment, including the heavy gear and weaponry that SHS would fall back to in a real emergency. Fortunately, Poppy had yet to ever see them need to resort to such things, and hoped to make it through life without that ever changing.

The two main components of Stable 50 that had remained absolutely vital over the centuries were the water talisman that kept Starlight Hill well stocked with rad free water, and the orchard that had been responsible for the town's immense wealth.

According to the old stories, the ponies of Stable 50 had spent nearly one-hundred years eating nothing but apples and recycled nutrient wafers. When Overmare Beryl Blossom had elected to open the stable, they found themselves at a competitive trade advantage due to having a generous surplus of food production. This advantage only became more pronounced as they traded for rare seeds that had been lucky enough to avoid the taint of balefire radiation, increasing their variety of crops bit by bit as the new plants flourished in such a safe environment.

Eventually, demand became so great that they had to tear through the original stable walls, thankfully being intelligent enough to leave the main supports in place, and dig out new underground chambers to expand their output. After several such expansions, Stable 50 felt more like a mere attachment to the orchard rather than the source of it.

The variety of untainted old world produce and the sheer size of the operation were only two of the pillars that held up the success of Starlight Hill though. The third was a workforce of salvaged Handy robots working day and night. Thanks to a few technically gifted ponies, they even supervised and maintained themselves, only requiring a steady supply of scrap metal and replacement parts alongside the occasional change in orders that was handed down from the council.

Such a feat had actually proven far simpler to accomplish than one might have thought. Instead of reprogramming every single Handy robot, they only needed to modify a few of them with more advanced cognitive processors capable of organizing and repairing the numerous drones that just mindlessly followed orders. These command bots had each been given their own particular paintjob to make them instantly stand out from the rest of the plain gray drones, and since they were the only ones that would interact with ponies, they had likewise each been given their own distinct personality interfaces.

"Poppy, darling, good to see you! We were expecting you after hearing you plummeting down the elevator shaft again," a white painted command Handy with a sophisticated feminine voice module greeted as she diverted from her task and floated over. "To what do we owe the pleasure?"

"Hello to you too, Supervisor White. I'm down here to hoof pick some fresh produce to trade for a favor. I hope it's a good time for it?" she asked hopefully.

"Hrm..." the robot hummed contemplatively, one of her eyes turning back to the other Handy bots at work. "Well we are in the middle of a harvest, so you would be temporarily in the way of the drones for a few moments, but it shouldn't make for too much of a disruption. I assume you have the caps to pay for them?"

"Right here in my saddlebag," Poppy assured her.

"Wonderful," she replied before moving closer and bringing a claw up to her 'mouth' to speak further at a conspiratory whisper. "I'd give them to you for free for being such a darling, but Supervisor Orange would put up such a fuss over it."

"Ah heard that!" another feminine, but deeper and more twangy voice modulator sounded from across the orchard.

"Case in point," White said with a sigh before turning towards Orange. "You heard her Orange, she is paying her way, as is proper. You've no need to worry."

"Good. Ah don't gotta remind ya how Purple'll bust a gasket if the accounts are off by even one dang ol' cap!" Orange shouted back.

"And yet you oddly persist in doing so," White snarked before turning back to Poppy. "Carry on darling, and have a lovely day."

"Thanks, you too!" Poppy cantered past her toward her favorite sections of the orchard, drones stopping or moving aside as needed. She still had to hurry!

*** *** ***

There were two basic tenets to going 'shopping' that he held as sacred.

The first was obviously to not get caught 'shopping'.

The second, somewhat less obvious tenet was to go 'shopping' at multiple stores, and only 'purchase' one or two items from each. If a pony noticed an entire shelf of inventory suddenly having gone missing, it would throw up rather a lot of red flags. If only one or two small things went missing, the average pony was likely to just look around for them for a few minutes before scratching their head and shrugging it off as being merely misplaced or miscounted.

These were usually easy to accomplish, but for some reason SHS had been out in force, hellbent on making the former damned near impossible. After far more close calls than he was comfortable with, Chapter was finally back at the checkpoint in the line to exit, much to the obvious approval of the guards who would not have to track him down. Usually they were all for trying to make good on their threat of attempting to toss him over the spike covered Outwall fence, but it seemed like they had other priorities on such a hectic day.

They were also searching everypony's bags.

He stood there trying to look as stoic as he possibly could, but that only made him worry that he looked suspiciously stoic, which would only draw more attention to him! Maybe something more casual was a better way to blend in? But what degree of casualness would work? It was the same problem again! Plus if he looked too casual they might think he was on something!

He looked around at the ponies around him to read their expressions. They were mostly bored. Could he fake bored sufficiently, especially right then? Maybe he should just step out of line and go pay Welded Wire a visit. He only had forty caps to his name but it had to be cheap to get groceries out, especially compared to-

"Well look who's early for once, and nervous as shit!" one of the mares taunted as he reached the front of the line without even realizing it, eliciting a momentary dumbfounded expression not entirely unlike a deer caught in a pair of peculiarly advanced headlights somehow capable of impaling it on a fence. "Open up your bags or we open 'em for ya, Seventeen."

There was nothing for it. If he ran or refused the search he would just get the tar beaten out of him and tossed into a cell anyway. They knew he was there to stock up, so a saddlebag full of old world food boxes and a couple packets of Radaway would not look suspicious on its own... but then he had no idea what SHS was so riled up about either. He could be precisely the pony they were looking for in a crackdown on 'shopping' after one too many missing Fancy Buck snack cakes had served as the straw that broke the camel's back!

Chapter mentally steeled himself for the horrible outcome of this search as he obediently opened his saddlebags, gulping nervously.

Each mare took a saddlebag and proceeded to rifle through it. When they did not immediately beat him into the ground for his 'purchases' he started to dare let himself feel a tiny bit of relief, as they would have immediately noticed had that been what they were looking for. His relief was momentarily strangled by renewed anxieties as the unicorn mare levitated his pistol in front of him.

"What's this?"

"It's mine, for self defense," he answered quickly.

"Yeah, it's also standard issue for all SHS officers," she countered as she turned the gun this way and that, giving it a thorough inspection.

"Those 10 millimeters are kind of all over the Radscythe though," the earth pony mare pointed out, instantly becoming Chapter's favorite mare of the day despite the earlier impaling threats.

"This one's way too much of a rusted piece of scrap to be one of ours too," the unicorn added, turning up her nose as she partially pulled back the slide to glance into the currently empty chamber. "Still… gonna run the number anyway, juuust in case." The earth pony mare stood in front of Chapter Break to make it absolutely clear he was not yet free to go as the unicorn took a seat and started typing the serial number into her Pip-Buck. "532-52749-32518... no match. Alright Seventeen, you're clear. Hit the road."

He was all too happy to oblige and make a beeline for the Outwall fence gate at that awkward pace where a trot was not quite fast enough, but a gallop would probably arouse more suspicion than it was worth. But his pace was irrelevant. He had already skyrocketed to the maximum level of suspicion he could possibly hold without even knowing it, only the one holding that suspicion was not an SHS guard. She was currently perched on the very tip top of the observatory quietly fuming as she watched him leave town.

Poppy had run herself ragged getting just the right collection of fruits and vegetables from the orchard before winging it back up the elevator shaft and back to Midwall, only to find Chapter Break was nowhere to be seen. There had been no mistaking it. She had been ditched, and his entire offer had been a lie just to get her to leave! Nopony had ever snubbed her like that, nopony ever! Not only was she more determined than ever, but now it was personal!

Once she had realized she had been conned, she had ignored her mother's wishes and flown straight to the top of the observatory where she would have a commanding view of the entire town. But in the end, she only had to watch one part of it that she knew Chappy would have to pass through on his way out, and her stakeout had paid off!

She would get to meet Silken Tome, she would shake her hoof, she would have a wonderful time talking to her, and then she would get the autograph of her dreams before laughing in Chapter Break's big dumb stupid meanie face!

If he was going to be all sneaky about this, then two could play at that game. It would not even be fair. She had pretty much won this sneak-off the moment she had been born. Poppy took to the sky again with a sly smirk.

*** *** ***

Finally, it was over! He had his food for the week, two new packets of Radaway, a freshly topped off supply of drinking water, and was not currently in a jail cell. He even had caps left over from buying a fresh bottle of sanity to keep his flask well stocked. The one thing he never 'purchased' was booze, because no matter how little of it went missing, somepony would definitely notice.

It was not his preferred Neighmeson, but he could tolerate any kind of swill as long as it got the job done. Speaking of getting the job done, the swigs outside of Starlight Serials and the additional two, or three, or four, or however many he had taken outside the gate in celebration of his continuing freedom were starting to catch up with him, and life felt a little better.

But by far the best thing of all right then was the lack of even a single pegasus in sight!

The pegasus that was out of sight alighted on a thick tree branch overhead as the unicorn below kept going along on his leisurely pace through the previously long dead wood that was only now showing signs of green unrelated to balefire. Several curious crows joined her but were ignored as she kept her eyes squarely on her quarry.

Poppy had been tailing him ever since he had strolled out of Midwall district, and even though things were proceeding as smoothly as she had hoped, she had failed to take her lack of flight conditioning into account. All things considered though, if slightly sore wing muscles were the worst complication she ran into in the course of her little plot, then she was going to count it as a win. Besides, Chapter having taken a turn into the woods had given her ample perching spots to rest up for a few moments. Everything was going to plan, and the smug satisfaction radiating off of her face was palpable.

Unicorns -- they never see that follow-you-from-above-where-you're-not-in-the-habit-of-looking trick coming.

"The hay is this stuff anyway?" he asked himself with a mumble as he examined his flask hovering at his side, as though it would somehow detect the brand of alcohol inside. The small bottle he had drained into his flask and tossed away had indeed had a label, but he could not remember what it had said for the life of him. "Like uh... 'wind' something... was it 'wild'? It was definitely a W word."

He stopped to concentrate. His muzzle scrunched, his eyes closed, and his mouth hung partly open due to the sheer might of his concentration!

"Hwuuuuh-CHOO!"

He may also have just been sneezing.

"Bless you."

"Thanks," he replied with a sniff. "I swear, if I caught something back there I'm going to-..."

Chapter looked over his shoulder and upward to see a cream colored pegasus sitting on a branch, both hooves clamped over her mouth and eyes wide open in shock at her own idiocy. Poppy glanced at one of the crows perched next to her and then uncovered her mouth. "Um... caw?" Following this she let out a yelp of surprise as she was magically yanked down off the branch by her tail and fell to the ground below right on her backside. "Oooowww," she whined as she rubbed the sore spot on her rump.

"What is wrong with you?" Chapter asked quite rhetorically as he advanced with his pistol drawn.

"I should be asking you that! You promised you would stay put until I got back, and here I only find you after that by perching on top of the observatory and watching the checkpoint!" she retorted. "And put that gun away, we both know you're not going to shoot me! You'd be in enough trouble if I just told SHS about you yanking me out of that tree!"

He grunted in annoyance while keeping the pistol at his side. "Tell me, at what point did I promise any of that?"

"What do you mean? You promised right before I left to buy this for you!" She opened her saddlepack, showing off the variety of fruits and vegetables that now filled it.

"No I didn't. I said it sounded like a fair deal, that I was sure Silken Tome would understand, and that it sounded perfect. At no point did I agree to anything you said, or promise to do anything. You just assumed as much," he pointed out.

"Oh duck that! You knew exactly how literally anypony would interpret that when you said it!"

"Um...'duck' that?"

"Duck it!" Poppy repeated with a stomp of her hoof.

"Holy shit. Does your mommy not let you use naughty language or something?" Chapter laughed mockingly.

"Don't change the subject!" she barked with a slight flush on her cheeks. "You did promise, you do owe me, and you are going to do good on that by taking me to see Silken Tome!"

"No. I'm not taking you to see Silken Tome. Keep your food, go home, and leave me alone you spoiled, crazy bitch," he dismissed her as he got back on his way.

She gasped incredulously as she galloped up next to him. "I am not a bi- ...witch!"

"You're right. I'm sorry. It was really insensitive of me to not ask if you preferred 'cunt' instead," he replied flippantly.

Poppy hopped in front of him and scowled angrily. "I dare you to say that again."

He made a show of inhaling and bringing his face closer. "Cuuuuuuuuuuuun-tuh," he hissed before stepping around her as she waved away the smell of whiskey from his breath with a scrunched up muzzle.

"That is it! The deal's off! You don't get any food, and I'm still following you anyway! I tried being nice, but you just had to go and be mean for no good reason, and now you're going to pay for it! When we get to Silken Tome, I am demanding she fire you immediately!" Poppy seethed with indignation as she followed behind him. Chapter only started laughing. "What is so funny?!"

"I'll tell you later," he answered, clearly unworried about that particular threat as he let out a last few snickers.

Even though the booze was still working its magic, he still had the good sense to be quietly worried about the situation in general. She was right to call his bluff on the gun, and because she was an observatory citizen he could not so much as lay a hoof on her without SHS hunting him down, no matter how far out of town he fled. But he could not just let her follow him back home either.

He briefly considered passing his hold in the ground off as some kind of checkpoint, but then she would likely either blab about it to some other actual courier, or obsessively check the place over and over until his continued presence there became too unusual to keep up the act. If she uncovered how fake his courier pass was, and he could no longer fake his way past the Starlight Hill checkpoints, he was doomed. His finances were already barely keeping him fed and rad free. They could not buy water for him too, and even though his 'purchasing' ability had seen him through so far, he highly doubted he'd be able to sneak past the guards and fill a gallon jug before slipping out undetected.

If things got to that point he may as well go all out and plot to steal Stable 50's water talisman. He would either get all the water he would ever need and get to hear about a bunch of ponies he hated dying of thirst, or get caught and thrown in a cell where they would at least feed him.

They could also just kill him too.

Chapter did not totally hate the idea.

"Why don't you like me?" Poppy asked, breaking him out of his ponderings.

"Are... are you serious?"

"I am totally serious! I'm the nicest, prettiest mare I know, and all I'm asking is that you just put up with me for one trip. What's so bad about me that you won't do that? How could you not like me?" she asked in earnest, cantering for a moment to catch up with him.

"Holy shit... I might have had some grudging respect for you if you'd kept up the whole 'I am the fucking empress and you will do as I command' act, because that would have at least been honest. But this? You will do literally everything in your power except for respecting somepony else's wishes when they tell you 'no,' but then ask why they don't like you? I don't like you because that. You're forcing me to lead you to Silken Tome against my will, because fuck me I guess, but also poor Poppy because Chapter Break won't enjoy her divine presence and give her compliments? Fuck you," he spat back bitterly before taking another sip of sanity.

"Maybe if you drank less of that nasty stuff you'd be less nasty yourself," she growled in reply. "And for your information, you are the first pony to have any issues with fulfilling my reasonable requests of them! Everypony else has been happy to help!"

"Yeah, and I'm sure the fact that you’re the daughter of a council pony had nothing to do with that," he said with a roll of his eyes. "I don't know what your version of 'nice' means," he continued, using the levitating gun and flask to make accompanying air quotes, "but the version most of us use doesn't include a loophole where it's okay to turn into a spoiled bitch if somepony doesn't give you what you want."

"Don't call me a witch!" she repeated, loudly.

Chapter snorted in further amusement. "What's the problem? I didn't call you a witch, I called you a bitch! But I apologize anyway, because I already forgot that you prefer cun-"

"Oh my gosh, stop!" Poppy cut him off with a hoof on his muzzle before he could scandalize her pure ears any further. "If this is what talking to you is like, I'm fine just walking and not talking!"

"Finally," he grumbled as they settled back into silence.

They were approaching the turn off of the main road that would lead them to his bomb shelter hideaway. If he just kept going along the main road, it would keep Poppy away from his home, but at the cost of limiting his escape options. As hesitant as he was to consider the other choice that brought her closer, it did seem to be the more promising due the remnants of forest having much more potential. He knew his way around those woods, and she quite likely had no idea. Losing her would be far easier, and even though he would be leaving her lost and alone, she could just fly up above the recovering forest and fly straight home whenever she wanted anyway.

"Um... why are we turning?" she asked as they diverted into the woods.

"What happened to not talking?"

"I'm still going to ask simple questions, for goodness sake!" she countered.

"Fine. We're taking an easier route not a lot of ponies know about. The main road doesn't take as long, but raiders and bandits also know to hit it, and we're not exactly a fully armed caravan are we?" he explained, taking one last sip of his whiskey before putting the flask away. He then stumbled his next step but caught himself and continued onward.

Poppy could not help but notice the lack of anything he could have tripped over. She let out an irritated sigh but said nothing, figuring it was best to let it go unless he tried to drink any more.

They continued on in silence for a while, Poppy keeping a close eye on Chapter until something else caught their attention. The area ahead had a much thinner concentration of trees, the forest having been partially cut back centuries ago to make way for a cozy little neighborhood. All that remained was the occasional foundation and bits of wall that had not yet been completely destroyed. Standing watch in the road next to one of the ruins was a pair of unicorns, a mare and stallion, that had already spotted them. They both wore well polished armor plates held in place by an assortment of leather straps over form fitting black barding. Assault rifles were strapped to their sides, and each had a holstered pistol on their foreleg.

Poppy's eyes widened at the sight of such scary looking strangers, and she suddenly became all too aware that she was beyond the fence without a single SHS officer in sight. Chapter on the other hoof seemed more perturbed at the open hatch in the ancient house wreckage, and the brief glimpse of a similarly armored mare that partially emerged with a small shoebox in her hooves.

"Found his 'reading' material, still no leads on where he is though, General," the mare reported briefly before descending again. Poppy's ear twitched at the sound of her voice, and she felt her chest tighten with a sense of something being deeply wrong as she tried to place where she had heard it before.

"Thanks, but I think he found us," the other mare with a dark viridian coat and pale pink, swept back mane replied before starting to approach. It was difficult not to notice the nasty looking scar traveling diagonally across her neck and up along the side of her jaw and cheek. "Would you happen to be Seventeen?"

Much to Poppy's horror, Chapter immediately leveled his pistol at her head and switched off the safety. "Get whoever is down there out here, and leave."

The General did not react in the slightest to the threat, the bored look on her face undisturbed as she briefly moved her head slightly to the side looking at his gun. "Well, that's just rude. Do you think it's wise to be starting a fight with us right now, little buck?" she condescended.

"I'm pretty sure I'll be able to shoot first, and also I'm pretty sure whoever you've got with you doesn't want you dead. Now leave." Chapter repeated as Poppy started backing away nervously.

"Stay there and on the ground, miss. we'd rather not go skeet shooting yet," the mare immediately said in warning, causing Poppy to freeze in fear.

"Do I have to start counting?" Chapter reminded her.

"Not really, no. Command Post? Forelegs please," she requested of the stallion behind her, whose amber magic aura started leisurely drawing his sidearm.

Chapter depressed the trigger of his gun, but nothing happened. Before he could even properly recognize something was wrong, a Pip-Buck on Command Post's foreleg rapidly beeped twice prior to the aura around his gun turning green. Two shots rang out and .45 rounds tore through both of Chapter's forelegs causing him to shout out in pain and crumple to the ground bleeding. The light blue aura around his own pistol shifted to a pink hue as the general took hold of it and immediately started giving it a closer look.

"And the filly, Steel Mills?" Post asked, looking over the top of his green tinted sunglasses with a cocky smirk as a last wisp of smoke left the barrel of his gun.

"She's probably about to piss herself, so I doubt she's going anywhere," General Mills replied without even sparing the terrified, shivering pegasus a glance. "Get Lower and Pipe Wrench up here."

"Ma'am."

"What the fuck?!" Chapter gurgled through his teeth as he writhed in pain.

"I suppose I should give you credit for at least turning the safety off," she began indifferently. "Bit of advice regarding the N99 though: if the hammer isn’t back, it’s a dead giveaway that the idiot pointing a gun at you forgot to load one into the chamber." She proceeded to do what Chapter had neglected, chambering a round into his gun before making sure he stayed put by stomping a hoof down onto one of his bleeding forelegs and causing another cry of pain to rip out of his throat. "As for you, sweetheart, would you kindly take a seat until we get this all sorted out?"

Poppy sobbed, now outright crying in utter terror as she nodded in compliance and sat down.

"Good girl. Now, Seventeen, we have some business to discuss, and if I like what you have to offer there's a healing potion in it for you. Otherwise, you'll be walking this off on your own... and any supplies we found down there belong to us now, in either case," Steel Mills explained.

"Wasn't much of any worth down there aside from a terminal, unfortunately," an earth pony stallion reported as he approached alongside Command Post and another unicorn mare.

"Speak for yourself, Lower. You know how hard it is to find these so well preserved?" the less restrained unicorn mare added as she admired a foldout picture from a magazine floating in front of her, with the box she had brought out moments prior now resting on her back.

"Why the fuck would I know that?” he replied with utter disinterest.

Pipe Wrench lovingly deposited the magazine back into its box before noticing Poppy cowering a distance behind General Mills. She squinted briefly, then smiled maniacally. "Hey, General, I'm about to make your day!"

"Oh?" General Mills’ ears perked up as she looked over at the other mare.

"That filly right there? Poppy Crafts. We met her in some half dead hag's junk shop. She got all high and mighty about how she's from the observatory. Little miss 'duck off' here even bragged about how she's the daughter of a pony on the Starlight Hill council."

The morning events finally clicked into place in Poppy's head.

There had never been any threat made against the mayor, but these ponies did want to bring him harm. Lower and Pipe Wrench had killed the two officers for their gear to use as a disguise. They had used the made up threat as a pretense to ask around trying to find anypony on the inside that would be willing to help them, and apparently Chapter Break had been the stallion they eventually started seeking out.

Poppy’s blood ran even colder as she realized the true depths of her oblivious blunder.

"A council pony's daughter, you say?" General Mills turned to Poppy. The smile on her face was gentle and warm, yet somehow that made it all the more terrifying. "You're right, Pipe Wrench. That does make my day," she purred as she stepped closer to Poppy, still magically holding Chapter's gun.

Poppy let out a squeak as her fear overcame her desire to not anger these ponies and she finally took flight. She managed to get high enough to be well out of hoof's reach when three magical auras grabbed her back hooves and tail, bringing her to a halt as she desperately flapped against the efforts of the three unicorns to bring her down. Barely able to see through her own tears as she slowly started sinking down, she redoubled her efforts, flapping her wings harder than she had ever flapped before! Her descent stopped, and as her muscles burned from unprecedented exertion she started to rise, bit by precious bit. One aura relented, and then another, but the last was particularly strong and persistent! But at last she felt the magic gripping her relent, and she shot off into the sky, free as a bird again!

She had to get home fast, and-

"I'll be honest Miss Crafts, we can't do much at this point!" Steel Mills called out from the ground. "You're out of range of our horns, and you're not much use to us dead, so we'd rather not shoot you out of the sky! At this point, what happens next depends entirely on how much you value this stallion! I am going to give you thirty seconds to think it over, and if you'd rather stay up there, then I'm putting two shots through his skull!!"

Poppy stopped, hovering as she turned around and saw Mills keeping Chapter's bloody hoof stuck to the ground while pointing his own gun at his head. "But you said you needed him!"

"You get away and he's useless to us, ma'am! You'd warn SHS, and they would know to look for him!" she elaborated. "Twenty seconds!"

"But SHS was keeping a close eye on him anyway!"

"..." Mills looked down at Chapter, then back up to Poppy in the sky. "If you would prefer, I can shoot him right now! You're making him sound rather useless to us with that talk!"

"Nononono don't shoot him!" Poppy begged with outstretched forelegs.

"Fly away, fuck these assholes!" Chapter called up, only for Steel Mills to pistol whip him across the muzzle for his trouble.

"Ten seconds, Miss Crafts!" she repeated, now pushing his head into the ground with the muzzle of his gun.

Poppy hovered in place, looking down at Chapter Break, then over to her safe home waiting for her. She could be back and completely safe in ten minutes flat. But in spite of every horrible thing the stallion had said about her, her eyes were still drawn back down to him lying bloodied and helpless on the ground.

He flinched as Steel Mills fired a warning shot into the ground next to his head, his ears ringing as dirt was kicked up into his face. "Shit!"

"Five seconds!"

"Okay! Okay! I'm coming down!" Poppy finally relented as she started steadily drifting downward. "Just don't hurt him! Please!"

"Fly the fuck away you stupid bitch!" Chapter shouted again as Poppy touched down.

"Could you maybe stop calling me names while I'm saving your life?!" Poppy retorted shortly before Lower tackled her to the ground, holding her there securely as Pipe Wrench pulled a rope out of her pack and began securing her wings.

"You're not doing jack shit! They're just going to shoot me anyway!"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Mills admonished as she brought the gun away from his head. "There's no reason to be so negative, Seventeen. The world is bad enough these days without assuming the worst."

Poppy had no idea what would happen from then on, but in that moment she still managed a bittersweet smile through her fear and tears. If nothing else, she had just saved somepony's life. No matter how bad things got going forward, she would always have-

Steel Mills casually fired two shots into Chapter Break's head.

"He was right, but that level of pessimism is still not a good way to go through life," she mused as she dropped his gun on top of his twitching corpse.

The screaming from Poppy was cut short by Pipe Wrench's hoof pinning her muzzle to the dirt. The frighteningly enthusiastic mare then gleefully held her stolen SHS baton against her victim's cheek. "I warned you about running your mouth, Ducky," she purred mockingly.

The beating came hard and fast. The only good thing left in Poppy's day was the fact that she was knocked unconscious relatively quickly.

Author's Notes:

Going to be completely honest, I'm sort of terrified to post this, but as a birthday gift to myself I'm forcing myself to do so, because waiting wasn't working.

Bit of backstory on this:

In 2018 while my dad was dying there was a lot of time where there was just nothing to be done... while thinking about how my dad was dying. I spent plenty of time with him during his decline but he slept a lot and generally encouraged me and mom to still do our own thing because it made him feel at home like he wanted to feel. So I needed a distraction... a LONG distraction. Fallout Equestria was easily long and distracting enough to qualify.

I can't rightly recall if I finished reading it before or after dad was gone, but I did finish reading it. I can't exactly remember what started the idea for this afterward, but I think it was a conversation with Poppy's creator that suggested the barest form of a simple idea that I started habitually fleshing out in my head while I was busy at work when I still had a job, and now THIS is here.

Anyway, to address the elephant in the room, yes, I am using my OC Chapter Break as one of the main characters in this. I intend him to be his own character and not a self insert, which is something that Punchdrunk Promenade gave me enough confidence to try again, since he and Poppy seemed to go over well with people that read that story. I also want to balance him out with other OCs from my friends, with their permission of course, and tossing around ideas with them now and again these past years has been fun. Hopefully the whole thing eventually turns into something enjoyable to read!

The plan is a 4 or 5 part self contained story initially. I have this first chapter and the second chapter done, and I intend to post the second chapter next week. The third is PARTIALLY done but still needs a good lot of work, and parts 4 or 5 are going to be a while if I'm being honest. After that, if not sooner, it's back to finish Reunion.

Anyway it's 2:30 AM as I write this author's note, I'll probably post this in the morning after waking up. Hopefully you all enjoy my birthday gift to me after this account has spent a few years not posting anything!

Chapter Two: Chain of Command

View Online

Author's Notes:

Content Warning: Attempted NonCon

I'm not sure if "attempted" qualifies as needing the NonCon tag, but out of an abundance of caution I'm adding the tag to the story anyway. Gore/Violence/Death/Narcotics/Profanity are all common enough FoE tags that I doubt further clarification is needed (correct me if I'm wrong obviously) but Sex/NonCon are ever so slightly more sensitive topics, and I'll be posting warnings like this for any chapters that broach the topic, even if nothing graphic happens, or if things are only implied to happen 'off screen.'
Sorry if I'm stating the blisteringly obvious here. Posting this is new territory for me, and though I write grimdark I don't want to just blindside any readers with any particular kinds of grimdark they don't want to engage with without giving them a heads up. Future warnings will be more brief, but this time I feel uneasy enough attempting this that the only way I could force myself to proceed is if we had a brief chit chat about it.

Chapter Two: Chain of Command

“I’m going to kill you SO MUCH.”

"This... has not been a good day, fillies and gentlecolts," Platinum Band said grimly from his spot at the head of the meeting room table. It currently had the aura of an execution chamber, with the top brass of SHS all assembled to see which heads would roll. "Two officers are dead. Their gear is still missing. There are reports of two ponies in SHS kit wandering around Midwall completely unaccounted for in the patrol schedules. Finally, not a single one of your officers was accompanying Miss Diamond Eyes' daughter as she was wandering outside of Inwall today. As of this moment, two murderers have likely escaped, profits are down ten percent for the day, and lest I forget, I have a wailing banshee currently confined to her apartment threatening to do all sort of varied and horrific things to both of my testicles if her daughter is not safe at home five minutes ago. I don't really know why she had to specifically say both testicles, I've never heard a threat that singled out one testicle in my entire life that would make that kind of clarification needed, but here we are all the same."

The SHS officers said nothing as they stared him down.

"I suppose I should clarify a bit further. I require an explanation for this shit, and I'm content to sit here glaring at one another until I get one, Captain Street Block," he amended.

"We might have contained and resolved the situation if the council hadn't tied our hooves by preventing us from locking down Midwall. I'm sure the families of those officers would like to know exactly how many caps you all made by letting their murderers go free," the captain inquired sharply, clearly surrounded by ponies that shared her sentiment.

"You would do well to remember whose guns those caps pay for," the mayor sneered.

"You'd do even better to remember who's holding those guns right now."

Platinum Band regarded the captain for a moment and then parsed over the rest of the officers. He had called them into the meeting for a proper dressing down after the day's bungling, but SHS was clearly there to do the same to the council. He closed his eyes, let out a quiet breath, and straightened his tie. This was not a political battle he could afford to fight, and as tempting a hill as SHS was trying to make for him with such blatant threats, he knew better than to die on it. Still, he was not about to retreat. Merely standing one's ground did not necessarily invite retaliation, especially not from those that desired to not fire the first shot.

"Captain, I will not accept this excuse. Under your predecessor, I have personally seen SHS handle far more dangerous situations than this in the past. In the aftermath of this, I will expect evaluation and alteration of SHS procedure to reduce the likelihood of another incident like this one. For the moment though, I will... content myself with just knowing what you're doing about this currently," he replied evenly.

There was a moment of heavy silence.

"Our options are limited. SHS is equipped and trained to fight a battle inside of the fence where we already have solid footing. If we have to fight outside, things can get dicey real quick. Standard procedure for a missing pony is to deploy SAR to the surrounding area, but this is different. The ponies we're likely looking for are demonstrably willing and able to kill two fully armored patrol officers in broad daylight with nopony being the wiser until hours later.

“Accordingly, we're searching the surrounding area with doubled up patrols of officers in heavy riot kit. Each patrol has been given flares and ordered to operate within a certain distance of one another to minimize time between flares going up and backup arriving. Even with these precautions, if they haven't found anything by sundown I'm pulling the officers back. Given what these animals accomplished in broad daylight, I imagine we'd be stuffing the Inwall morgue to capacity by sunup if we kept our ponies outside after dark.

“Other than that, we're investigating in Midwall and Outwall with all the thoroughness we are legally permitted. That is all," she reported at last, her expression making it clear that this was all the mayor was getting whether or not he found it satisfactory. Regardless, the captain and the mayor talking instead of maintaining a standoff brought a good deal more ease to the room than before, or at least as much ease as could be managed given the circumstances.

Platinum Band rested his head in his hooves for a moment, letting another breath out in a hiss between his teeth. He cleared his throat and then passed a hoof through his mane, now looking at the entire room again instead of just the captain of security. "Alright. I'm hesitant to let you pull them back, but I will defer to your judgment. We don't need any more dead officers today."

"Thank you, mayor. Your concern is touching," she deadpanned. "Now, everypony get back to work. I'll be escorting the mayor to his apartment and then joining you shortly."

The other officers gave a prompt 'ma'am' and then dutifully filed out of the room, leaving Street Block and Platinum Band alone. She moved to the door, but then rather than escort him out, she poked her head out into the hallway, glancing to and fro before closing and locking the door, leaving them alone.

"Captain?"

"Trust me, you'll thank me for discussing this in private." She strolled over and took a seat in the chair next to him. It would not do to raise their voices to one another from opposite sides of a long meeting table. "Their cover story was that they were two SHS officers investigating a threat on your life by asking Midwall locals about who might have motive to do such a thing. They were looking for an inside pony, mayor. They were coming after you specifically."

"..."

"It was really risky too. If they had been caught it would have been two ponies versus the entirety of SHS inside the wall, and even if they had made it out alive, any plan they might have had would be useless since we would know to look for them. Not to mention they passed up a prime opportunity to cause catastrophic damage and steal an obscene amount of caps worth of goods in Midwall. So the question I'm asking myself right now is: what makes ponies like them look for a way to get to you specifically, at great risk, while passing up numerous opportunities?"

"..."

"On top of that, Councilmare Diamond Eyes' daughter is most likely in their custody, she's making all kinds of threats to your genitalia, and nopony has been given the order to call in the particular guns we both know can resolve this situation. One might think something had been done that they would find... distasteful."

"What are you implying, captain?"

"I'm not implying anything, mayor," she waved a hoof dismissively. "That would create needless tension between the council and SHS, and we don't need that right now. Instead, SHS has already released a public statement that we were indeed in Midwall investigating such death threats, and that during the course of these investigations two officers were killed by unknown ponies. The records have already been altered to reflect more patrols in Midwall than we actually had, so nopony is likely to know there were any imposters at all. As far as they know, two SHS got killed by unruly Outwallers who stripped their gear and ran for the hills to sell it. The councilmare’s daughter getting kidnapped outside the wall is just an unrelated incident."

"I've done nothing worth covering up," he reminded her pointedly.

"Of course you haven't. But now the ponies that voted you into office have one story, and could be given another in the form of a theoretical break in the investigation. There would be no arrests, of course, but the political fallout for you would be quite... inconvenient. I don't keep careful track of what goes on in the council meetings, or who ponies vote for, but I know what a pony that's rearing for a fight looks like. You aren't one."

He spent another few silent moments trying to massage away the headache in his forehead. "What do you want, Street Block?"

"What I want is for you to just eat whatever shit sandwich you're trying to dodge by not calling them in. If you clean your plate, then SHS doesn't rock this boat, and our ace goes back up our sleeve until the next time you want to make it fucking impossible for us to keep this city and stable safe," she answered firmly.

"What assurance do I have that you won't hold this theoretical ace over my head for any little thing that SHS wants in the future, then?"

"You have the assurance that we'll have to maintain a working relationship afterward, Platinum Band. We want a fight with you and the council about as much as you want a fight with us, but we're not going to take this sitting down after two of us died. You let the council slap us in the face, so we're here to kick you in the dick for it, and it ends there. Now if you'll excuse me I have to get back to work cleaning up your mess."

Street Block did not wait for a parting pleasantry in return, simply getting up and leaving rather than providing the promised escort. Platinum sat there wordlessly for another long, long while. The captain was usually the reserved, properly spoken sort, and to hear her speak so... freely was more than a bit unnerving on top of everything else. He let his head slide down his hooves down onto the table and let out another snarling sigh.

"Fuck."

*** *** ***

Her eyes remained firmly shut against the pain that had been the only thing to draw her out of that dream. The sound of gunshots still echoed in her mind as she instinctively tried to reach for a pillow. All she got for her efforts was a shooting pain along her back and the realization that along with the variably sharp aches along her barrel and the piercing headache behind her puffy feeling face, she could not feel her wings. She could only open one of her eyes fully, the other swollen half shut. Her eyes began tearing up as she whimpered against the pain of lifting her head and looking back at her wings.

They were completely mangled. Swollen, bruised, and bent in all sorts of wrong directions along with many a missing feather. Pipe Wrench must have done a number on them after she had been knocked out.

Poppy shuddered with a barely restrained sob as she buried her face in her hooves, not caring how much it hurt. She did not want to know where she was. She did not want to know how she had gotten there. She did not want to know how long she had been out. All she wanted was to just fall asleep and wake up in her pillow nest content in knowing that all of this had been a nightmare, that she had yet to go get the new Starlight Serials, and she had not gotten Chapter Break killed by merely being there as the better option in whatever plan General Mills was hatching.

She heard a stallion yawn nearby, and then the creak of a chair being pushed back before he took a few steps closer. "So I was half asleep but I'm pretty sure I heard something. You awake, princess?"

It was Lower's voice. Poppy stayed as deathly still as she could, hoping he would lose interest and assume she was still asleep.

Her act became rather difficult to maintain when a gun fired, a bullet bit into the concrete a yard or so above her head, and she was showered with a small smattering of dislodged chunks. She instinctively cried out and curled up, hooves defensively covering her now ringing ears as her headache shot through her skull anew with the literal explosion of sound.

"Yeah, you're awake," Lower observed, his voice muffled by the .45 Auto pistol in his mouth. Her ears stopped ringing in time to hear him holster the weapon and trot away, presumably toward the door she heard opening. "Enjoy your accommodations, the general will be in to see you as soon as I track her down."

"The fuck was the shooting, Lower?" asked a concerned stallion from outside.

"What, you've never heard of an alarm clock before?" Lower replied before the door shut behind him.

Poppy laid still in silence, hoping that perhaps she could still just drift off back to sleep. But after only a few moments she realized the futility of it. Even if she could stop the pain long enough to drift off, they would wake her up again anyway. She needed to know where she was, or at least get as close to knowing as she could manage. Her legs bore several dried over gashes and bruises but everything still worked, albeit quite painfully. A whine of pain left her as she shakily stood back up and spent a few moments panting before looking around.

Wherever she was, the room reminded her of the infirmary back in the observatory. There were still a few traces of carpet on the otherwise concrete floor. What had once been a bedframe now rested in the far corner, the reason she had been lying on the floor made plain by the fact that it was so rusted through that it had buckled and collapsed in the middle. Theoretically, if one did not mind the dip in the middle, they would at least not be sleeping on the floor, but they would also likely be waking up with tetanus. There was a broken window letting in fresh air and cold which still kept her inside thanks to the improvised welded rebar grid that had been bolted over it. A similar barrier did much the same thing on the other side of the room where once there had been a window in the wall dividing the room in two.

The old rusted door was still plenty sturdy, and locked tight. Even if she was in shape and had the inclination of testing her bucking strength against the worn hinges, Celestia only knew how many ponies with guns were waiting to put her back in there. There was also a small slot crudely carved into the bottom of the door to slip things inside without opening it.

On the other side of the door was a desk with a terminal and chair, presumably where Lower had been sitting before her stirrings had caught his attention. The screen was full of text formatted like one of her books, but she could not quite make out what it said. There was nothing in the way of a key in view either, not that there was a way to get to it from there even if there had been one. She was trapped fairly effectively. With one last point of curiosity remaining she turned to the window, hesitated a moment, and then gasped with pain as she hopped up to place her front hooves onto the bars and look out.

It was a beautiful sunset illuminating a peaceful beach, the ocean waves lapping at the shore. She silently looked out at the sight before choking back a sob, equal parts elated and mournful. Poppy had finally made it to the beach, but she could scarcely imagine a worse way to get there. Extending out from the ocean and into a part of the building she could not see were a pair of large pipes that had been rusted through long ago. There were numerous clusters of broken eggs, suggesting an infestation of some sort that had been dealt with recently.

Poppy wanted out. She wanted to go down to that beach and watch the sunset and walk along it listening to the ocean waves, but for the moment all she could do was gaze at it from afar. Even that was only temporary, as she soon felt her battered legs growing more and more sore from the basic exertion of remaining up on two hooves to see out the window. Eventually, with great hesitation, she had to tear herself away from the sight. She sat down again, leaning against the wall, panting in distress as she waited for the pain to subside. The fatigue was not going anywhere anytime soon though.

She lingered there trying to retreat into her little beach fantasy when she heard the door open again. Lower was back, and following him was Command Post and Steel Mills. Poppy froze, keeping her frightened eyes on them as she instinctively pressed against the wall a bit harder as though it would somehow protect her more thoroughly for it.

"Good, you're awake," the general began as Lower took a seat and went back to whatever was so important on the terminal. "No pains unrelated to the beating, I hope?"

Poppy said nothing as she scooted back toward the corner, further away from them.

"Splendid. Post? Take a message," she ordered.

Post brought up his PipBuck, adjusting the dial a few notches before pressing a couple buttons. "Go."

"This is General Steel Mills of The Regiment. You know why I'm trying to get in touch, 78. The longer you take to get back to me on this frequency, the less pleasant life becomes for her. I don't have any particular thing for her in mind, so we'll both just have to use our imagination going forward. Message repeats," she said before motioning for the recording to end.

"Interval?" he asked as he set to fiddling with his PipBuck again. "Keep in mind I'm going to hear it every time it plays while you're deciding."

"Two minutes should do it. By now he should be stewing in it enough that we won't have to wait long anyway."

Post grumbled, but dutifully pressed one last button without protest, causing the message to repeat on the PipBuck's speaker. "Fine."

"Good. Find anything yet, Lower?" she asked the other stallion over her shoulder.

"Nothing yet, ma'am," Lower replied, sounding even less content with the situation than Post. "Sure was nice getting to walk around a bit though," he added while stretching his legs out and producing a pop or two.

"Stay on it. Both of you stay here and come get me when-"

Poppy's ears perked up when she heard a familiar voice from Post's PipBuck.

"This is 78 responding. Repeat, this is 78 responding. Do you read?"

"Well shit that was fast. Guy must've been drinking at his desk or something," Post noted with some amusement before stopping the broadcast, hitting the transmit button, and holding it up for Steel Mills to speak.

"Reading loud and clear, 78. Also it is proper radio procedure to end all transmissions with 'over.' Over."

"Don't fucking lecture me after the shit you just pulled, Mills. You could have talked to me instead of killing two-"

Poppy stood up as quickly as her damaged body could manage. "Mayor! Mayor please help! We're near the-"

She yelped as she was magically yanked into the bars separating her and the four Regiment ponies in the other half of the room, now forced to stare right into General Mills' eyes as her horn kept her pinned to the bars. "Shush."

Poppy shivered and nodded, grimacing as more tears streamed down her cheeks.

"You do have her, you fucking animals! Tell me she's alright, at least!"

"..."

"Over!" he acquiesced.

"I could tell you that, but I'd be lying. My mare Pipe Wrench had a good time with her wings the day before last. Don't think she'll be flying away anytime soon unless you have some Hydra handy, over," she answered while leisurely pacing back and forth.

There was a pause, presumably so that Platinum Band could get himself back under control judging from the barely restrained edge in his voice. "Don't hurt her anymore. As long as you can do that for me, you have my promise that we can talk this over and resolve things peacefully. But if you harm another hair on her coat, I can't give you that assurance any longer. Over."

"Hrm," answered the clearly unamused general.

Mills' magic pulled Poppy's hoof through the bars before violently twisting it round until bone cracked and tendons snapped, letting the mayor hear the resulting screams of agony before the pegasus was tossed into the opposite wall and crumbled into a wailing heap.

"That was the sound of her not walking away anytime soon either. Didn't hurt any of her hairs though, so I imagine you won't have a problem with it, over."

"Stop! Just... fucking stop, okay?! What do you want?! Over," Platinum band begged, sounding at the verge of tears.

"Are you crying, 78?" she chuckled, now quite amused indeed. "What I want is... hrm... three extra zeros ought to do it. Over."

"I... don't have that many caps, but I could feasibly make up the difference by hiding that kind of expenditure from the treasury in an unrelated motion to the council without raising too many eyebrows, over."

"I'm sorry I meant to say five zeroes, over."

"Are... are you insane?! I'm not even sure the entire city put together could pay that!"

"..."

"Over, damn it, over!"

"Those are the terms, 78. Have the caps in three days, or the replacement courier for the one we just domed is going to start bringing her back to you in installments. Over and out."

"Courier? Wait, you-"

Steel Mills reached up and cut off the PipBuck's radio herself before Platinum Band could say anymore. "That oughta do it."

"Why?! Why are you doing this?!" Poppy cried out from her spot writhing on the floor. "You sneak into Starlight Hill without anypony knowing, but then kill two officers and rile everypony up! You hold me for ransom, but then demand more caps than we can possibly give you! It doesn't make any sense!"

"Oh sweetheart... we're not here for caps, not anymore." Mills raised a hoof up to the bars. "We're here to throw rocks at the flashadore nest, and you're the best rock we could have ever hoped to find."

Poppy tried to look up but found it impossible to do anything but lie there curled up protectively around her broken leg and weep loudly, back legs periodically kicking helplessly against the unceasing pain.

"Post, start getting the troops on breaking camp. We're out of here except the skeleton crew and a few bots," Mills turned to leave.

"Yes ma'am. I'm staying though," he replied as he adjusted the green tinted glasses on his face.

"Excuse me?" She stopped short of the door, looking back at him.

"I'm staying, General," Post repeated unwaveringly.

"..." She opened the door with her magic and stepped out with him following. "We'll discuss this later."

"It hurts so much! Please, give me something! Anything! It's too much!" Poppy cried from the other side of the bars, her voice straining from the effort of forming actual words instead of yet more screaming.

"Walk it off," General Mills replied callously as she slammed the door shut behind her.

Lower waited a few minutes to hear the metallic hoof steps walk away before he got off his chair, reached into a small pouch on the side of his armor at the hip, then slid a syringe of Med-X under the door through the slot. "It's going to be irritating enough reading through this shit without listening to you bitch in there," he explained and returned to the desk.

Poppy bit her lip as she felt an extra twinge of fear in her gut at the sight of the syringe, but she was ultimately hurting more than she was afraid of needles. With a shaky hoof she grabbed the syringe, pulling the cover off the needle with her mouth, then hesitated before plunging it into her leg and pushing the plunger. She whimpered as at first the only result was adding an intense burning on top of everything else, but within seconds the burning quickly receded and took the rest of the pain along with it leaving her leg blissfully numb. Then when the drug hit her brain she felt the tension in her entire body ease a bit, letting her finally relax and catch her breath. She closed her eyes and kept as quiet as she could, silently thanking Lower no matter his intentions.

The tears still flowed though, and she could not get back to sleep. Now left alone with her thoughts she was all but forced to relive the sound of those gunshots and the sight of a stallion twitching on the ground. He had died. All that he had wanted was to be left alone, and because she had refused to give up, he was dead. "Chappy," she whimpered to herself below her breath, body shuddering with silent sobs as she mentally begged for forgiveness.

*** *** ***

"..."

"So... mind telling me why you keep getting into fights?"

"..."

"Well?"

"What's 'dying'?"

"What... do you mean, exactly?"

"What does... 'dying' mean?"

*** *** ***

There was a round, pale shape overhead of him shining a light down on him. He could hear a feminine voice, close yet distant sounding all at once. The blurry shapes resolved bit by bit, and the muffled noises started resolving into words. It took him a few seconds more to understand them again as he peered cluelessly up at the three mechanical eyes focusing on him.

"He is waking up! I can scarcely believe it, but he is waking up!" the spherical machine hovering over him proclaimed in a very noticeable Fancey accent as it brought one of its arms to his face. A light on the tip turned on, and after his irises contracted she drew it back a bit. "Please follow the light if you are able," she instructed before slowly moving it back and forth, the stallion's eyes tracking it quite capably. "Wonderful! If you are able to speak, please tell me your name, and where you are from."

"My... uh... my name is... Chapter Break," he replied, still bewildered. "I'm from... Starlight Hill."

"Most excellent! I have no documentation to compare this to for proper confirmation, but your certainty is encouraging all the same. My name is Sarissa. You were brought to us two days ago with gunshot wounds to the head and legs. I will be honest, most of us did not think you would make it. In fact, we initially thought you were dead when you were brought to us. However, I do not have programming that allows me to let a patient die, if there is a chance," the Miss Nanny robot explained as she poked at his foreleg, getting the reaction she was seeking when he pulled it away from her. "Good, the nerves are still working."

There was a disappointed growl to his other side. "Pony lived. Was hoping to eat pony."

Chapter shifted his head to see the somewhat less pleasant sight of a hellhound in a green army helmet and goggles leering down at him with his toothy maw.

The reflexive panicked flailing that immediately followed sent his cot tipping over, and he felt something rip out of his foreleg as he tumbled over. He bolted to his hooves and tried to gallop away but only made it two steps before tripping over a cord and face planting his way out of the tent. Chapter scrambled another meter or so before he realized he was in an encampment of some sort, surrounded by ponies in dark green combat barding and army helmets staring at him in surprise.

Sarissa sighed as she floated out of the tent with the hellhound chuckling as he emerged behind her. "I suppose that is one way to remove an IV and test motor functions."

"At least pony is funny, if we can't eat him," he remarked as Chapter continued to look around in enduring confusion.

"Just tell Copperhead that my patient has woken up before you make him any worse," Sarissa requested, shooing him away with a motion of one of her arms as she hovered toward the freshly awoken stallion.

"Fine, better things to do anyway," he agreed as he headed off as asked. While the hellhound was still a good head or two taller than even the tallest stallion, he was not the expected towering pillar of muscle bound horror. In fact, by hellhound standards he looked like an absolute runt. Chapter kept these thoughts to himself though. A smaller than anticipated hellhound was still a damned hellhound, and he was fine with those claws and teeth continuing to stay outside of his delicate flesh that had ever so recently proven to indeed be ever so delicate.

"Can you stand?" Sarissa asked as the armored ponies in the camp gradually lost interest and went about their day.

He looked up at her, then down at his hooves. It took an extra bit of effort to get the metaphorical rust off his joints, but he was able to manage it fairly easily, even if his legs felt a bit shaky. If she was telling the truth, and he had actually been out for two days though, it made sense. He took another, calmer step, stumbling slightly but able to catch himself before trying a few more and getting back into a steady gait before stopping.

"Splendid, I am most pleased that you have made such a miraculous recovery... barring unseen complications in the near future, of course," she beamed, slowly floating around him as the two extra eyes not looking him in the face scanned him over thoroughly.

"Okay um... Sarissa, was it?"

"Oui?"

"What the hell happened, and where the hell am I?" he asked while turning back and forth to examine the surroundings. The markings on the barding everypony was wearing was unfamiliar to him, and even when he spotted a banner bearing an emblem it did not remedy the situation for him any further either. It was a jawless equine skull with two bayonets crossing as they entered through the eye sockets and exited beneath the upper teeth. The grim symbol was surrounded with a hexagon of text reading 'qui nos opprimere velint, illos libenter devoramus' and he had no idea what that meant either!

"I am truly sorry, but all I can tell you about what happened is that you were brought to us in critical condition from two gunshot wounds to the head and one to each foreleg. They told me nothing of how that happened. I simply concerned myself with your immediate care instead of asking questions."

Chapter's eyes were already wide as could possibly be from recent events, so he simply reached up and felt the heavily layered bandages covering his head. They did not feel encrusted with blood, indicating that they had likely been changed on the regular, likely by Sarissa herself. He also finally noticed the dressing covering his two front legs as well.

"However, I can inform you that you are in Razorcorps Outpost 13. Usually there is not as much of this hustling and bustling, but it is being used as a staging area after we received an order for service from Starlight Hill. I am told that the daughter of a high ranking mare has been kidnapped, and we have been contracted for the retrieval," she explained as he brought his hoof down to put some weight on it. He winced, no longer in too much of a blind panic to realize his legs hurt and his head was pounding. "Oh, excuse my error. In all this commotion I forgot to give you Med-X to alleviate the pain now that you are awake," she added, one of her claws folding back to make way for an injector. "Please hold still."

"No! No no no, no, I'm fine. Keep that stuff away from me," he warned her off, stumbling back a step as though she were offering an injection of acid instead of painkillers.

"But surely that must still hurt?" She kept the injector out but did not press things by moving closer.

"I'm fine. No drugs, alright?" he repeated angrily at her insistence.

"Very well, no drugs." The injector retracted. "Please let me know if you are to change your mind."

"I won't, just give my flask back and I'll be... where's my flask?" All at once he realized all of his missing stuff was, in fact, missing. His flask was gone, his gun was gone, his water was gone, his 'purchases' were gone, even his...

"Now now, I hardly think alcohol is a proper replacement for-" she did not finish her scolding before he was limping back to the tent with all the speed he could muster.

Ignoring the overturned cot and knocked over IV stand, his eyes darted about in the tent until he spotted his saddlepack lying on the ground next to his folded up traveling coat. He almost tripped yet again as he darted over and looked inside, and much to his dismay the only thing waiting there for him was the rusty 10mm pistol with the magazine next to it now three bullets lighter, and his partially broken glasses. In mounting desperation he limped around the tent looking frantically along the ground, hoping against hope that it had simply been dropped on the ground by accident.

"Huh... we had you pegged for a rayote feast, pal," somepony said from the tent flap.

Chapter looked up to see a terrifying, pale, armored ponnequin standing there holding the flap open and looking inside with a pair of amber glowing rings staring out from pits of blackness.

"FUCKING FUCKER FUCK!" Chapter recoiled back into the tent wall in horror. The center pole was knocked off balance, and the living ponnequin calmly took a step back as said pole took the rest of the tent frame with it, and trapped the terrified stallion beneath an olive drab colored canvas.

"This stallion is... strung high, you would say," Sarissa said apologetically as the lump beneath the collapsed tent started trying to find its way out.

"Can't say I blame him, last couple of days must have been interesting. I'll take it from here, Sarissa. If he needs any more medical intervention, you'll be the first to know," the ponnequin assured her as he started circling the tent wreckage to intercept the horned squirming lump.

"Merci beaucoup, monsieur. In that case I will begin preparing supplies to handle any injuries after the mission." Sarissa gave a little salute with one of her arms before taking her leave.

The ponnequin took a seat on the ground and waited patiently for Chapter to work his way to the edge. At last, two bandaged grey hooves poked out followed by his head, eyes blinking against the sunlight before opening wide at the seated ponnequin looking down at him. The two stared at each other for a good ten seconds before anxiety managed to force noise out of Chapter's mouth.

"So what are you, exactly?" he asked somewhat bluntly, still mostly hidden beneath the tent.

"You been living in a hole in the ground for the last five years?" the ponnequin snarked.

"Yes. Literally."

"Oh... fair enough then I guess," he stood up again. "I'm a synth, 'synthetic pony'. I know the eyes and plastic skin look creepy and all, but I'm not going to steal your soul or anything, alright? Name's Copperhead, yours?" He extended a hoof to help Chapter up.

The still mostly concealed stallion spent a moment examining the hoof, noticing the small glimpses of underlying machinery visible in the tiny gaps at the wrist joint. It took another couple seconds before he accepted the offered hoof, and groaned with the ache and effort of pushing himself out from beneath the tent and standing. "Chapter Break."

"Good. I heard you asking about what happened?"

"Uh, yeah," he nodded nervously, still not quite at ease with the ponnequin machine stallion yet.

"Well, a little over two days back, a mare walks in here carrying you on her back. You looked pretty damn dead, so we told her to go find a ditch somewhere else to toss you into, and leave us alone about it, but she insisted you were alive. Sarissa took a look, and then immediately demanded you be brought to the medical tent for surgery, despite our objections."

"Objections?" Chapter asked with narrowed eyes.

"Hey, you were a corpse as far as we were concerned, and a stranger. We had no reason to dump medical supplies into a longshot when we might need them later, but good luck convincing Sarissa not to tend to every stray dog somepony brings in," Copperhead clarified firmly.

"Hrmph."

"Anyway, I wanted to ask this mare what happened, but after turning away for a couple seconds, she was completely gone without a trace."

"What?"

"Yep. Not a single pony spotted her leaving, and that's even more impressive for how much she stood out in that getup she was wearing. She had a black long coat covering her body, matching wide brimmed hat, and a long purple scarf. I couldn't get a look at her eyes thanks to the hat, but I managed to catch a bit of blue muzzle above the scarf, and she wasn't even trying to hide that blonde mane of hers. Ring any bells?"

Chapter shook his head. "I have no idea who that is, or why she would have bothered."

"Then I guess that'll either wander off into history, or come back around again. If you can't answer that question, maybe you can answer this one," the synth began as he took a seat again. "The last ones in Midwall to see the mare that went missing saw her with a gray, black maned unicorn stallion wearing glasses and a patched together coat… just like yours. Then mere hours after we get here to go after her, that stranger carries a carcass matching that description perfectly right into our camp. Mind telling me how she got outside the fence, or are you going to try passing all of that off as coincidence as though I'd believe you?"

The unicorn stallion's eyes widened and began looking around quickly.

"Yeah, good luck trying to run out of here, pal. Sarissa would just be scolding us for a damn week after we got done putting more holes in you, so save us all the trouble and give it to me straight," Copperhead reminded him curtly.

"Look, she was following me in secret from above, okay? I didn't do shit to lead her outside the fence! For that matter I couldn't have possibly done more to try and stop her from following me!" he explained nervously. "I even faked a deal with her, just to fool her into going back to the observatory to give me time to get out before she got back!"

"Wouldn't happen to have proof of this, would you? Because from where I'm standing it looks like the only deal you struck was with The Regiment to lure her out, only when you delivered her you got paid a couple of 10mm rounds instead of the promised caps," the synth elaborated as those two dark pits narrowed. "Then again... your story matches up with accounts of her galloping back to the observatory rather suddenly. So, assuming for the moment you're telling the truth, why did she follow you in secret?"

Chapter released a shaky exhalation as he sat down as well, hoping it would make him look less like a flight risk to the ponies with guns that surrounded him on all sides. "I wri- I work for an author, delivering chapters of her story to a printing shop in Outwall. The council pony's daughter really likes the story, apparently, and she got there just as I was delivering it. By the time I was leaving the shop to resupply, she had deduced that I was the cou- delivery pony working for her favorite author. From there she just decided I would be taking her to see her, because fuck my professional relationship with my boss, I guess."

"Okay. If you're making all this up I've certainly heard worse improvisation. Doesn't necessarily rule out you taking some blood money on the side, but it's a start. Again, got anything to prove the story you're telling?"

"I was carrying the holotape with her story on it. That's what I was looking for before you scared the piss out of me. Would that be enough to convince you all I had nothing to do with The Regiment?" he asked hopefully.

"Huh." The corner of Copperhead's artificial mouth pulled back and his eyes briefly diverted. "The good news is-"

"Oh no," Chapter lamented, knowing full well that no sentence starting with the phrase 'the good news is' in the history of eternity had ever contained good news that was not completely eclipsed into irrelevance by the shadow of some other unholy thing that came after.

"I know, let me finish," Copperhead nodded with an upraised hoof. "The good news is that if you had that holotape, contents intact, and she told the same story, that'd be enough to convince most anypony. The bad news is that The Regiment takes all holotapes and any other kind of data storage device they can find when looting, just on the off chance that they can get a pay day off of what's on it. If they can't find anything worthwhile they delete everything and take it for their own use."

"Awesome. Great. Survived being shot in the head twice just so SHS could execute me. I'm going to have to find Sarissa later and thank her so fucking much for letting me experience a good hanging instead of just being gone in a gunshot! Fuck!" Chapter ranted before crumbling to the ground in despair and hiding his head beneath his hooves.

"You could be right. Then again, that all depends on how much there is on that holotape."

"I guarantee you there is nothing on that holotape worth saving."

"I'm not talking about usefulness. I'm talking about volume. Unless things have changed without our knowing, they don't have any kind of program or spell to look through everything on the holotape for them. They have to do it the old fashioned way. That takes time, and it's only been a couple days since they even got a hold of it."

"Wait, really? How fast can they read?" Chapter asked, emerging from his hooves.

The synth pony rolled his eyes. "I couldn't tell you, but next time they let me stroll into one of their outposts I'll hand out some tests, have 'em time themselves, and they'll make a nice neat chart for you. That, or maybe we should just assume they haven't deleted it yet."

"Okay so... option one is hope my neck breaks when they open the trap door. Option two is to somehow get the holotape, that might not be deleted, back from the ponies that effortlessly took me down a few days ago."

"Not exactly one to accentuate the positive... or the obvious, are you?"

"Like what, exactly?"

"I mean... there's the whole waking up after getting shot in the head thing, for one. You might not know this, but that doesn’t usually happen," Copperhead explained, looking rather perplexed that he was having to do so. "For another, you woke up in an outpost full of mercs aiming to take down the ponies that have your holotape anyway. The fact that they dusted you in seconds doesn't mean much if you've got us working for you."

"Yeah, outpost full of mercs, Copperhead. In case you failed to notice I'm not exactly drowning in caps right now," Chapter pointed out.

"Clearly, but compared to the rest of your tab it's not really that much to add onto it. We'd basically be keeping an eye out for the holotape while doing what we're already being paid to do, that should be pretty cheap," Copperhead countered.

"Look, 'cheap' by your standards is vastly different than 'cheap' by my- WHAT FUCKING TAB?!" he asked frantically in sudden horror.

"Sarissa's good and all, but she can't bring ponies back from the brink of death with nothing but well wishes. Between all the healing potions, magical bandages, and drugs she used, you're looking at a ballpark figure of seven-hundred caps already."

"Seven... hundred," Chapter quietly boggled at the amount. "I never even consented to treatment in the first place!"

"We didn't exactly consent to treating you either, and now we're out medical supplies that might have been used to help one of us later."

"You can't just overlook this? Seven-hundred caps has got to be chump change to you ponies!" he pleaded, noting all the very well maintained gear that everypony walking about was wearing.

"You're right, but the Razorcorps didn't get that way by just forgiving debts when asked nicely, so even if I had the authority to do it right now, I wouldn't."

"If you can't, then who can?" Chapter asked, seeing a glimmer of hope. Perhaps if this synth pony could not be reasoned with, there was another actual pony who could!

Copperhead hesitated another moment before he answered. "I can arrange payment over time, if that's what you're wondering."

"It's not."

"Of course it's not," he sighed. "There's only one pony that outranks me, and though I doubt he'd give you any breaks either, he'd technically be able to."

"Then let's go talk to him instead," Chapter suggested as he limped around the tent a ways then pulled the edge of the collapsed canvas up with his magic and retrieved his coat and saddlepack.

"He's busy. Why do you think he sent me instead of coming himself?" Copperhead objected as the unicorn stallion slipped back into his cobbled together coat, spending a moment making sure the Roaman numerals on his flank were covered.

"So when would be a better time to talk with him?"

"Probably after we get back from the raid. Once we get the councilmare's daughter back she'll be brought here for Sarissa to look over before we take her back to Starlight Hill. There ought to be plenty of time then." His words were lacking more conviction than ever and Chapter did not fail to pick up on it.

"By then it'll be too late anyway! Unless you're planning on letting the suspect go so I can sift through the place when you're done clearing it out, assuming The Regiment ponies didn't run off with it, and it didn't get blown to bits by either side either. Or would you prefer bringing the holotape back so I can buy it off you with all the caps I don't have?! Oh, but don't worry, I can pay in fucking installments over a few years instead, you know, after they leave me hanging from my neck for a day and then toss my corpse over the Outwall fence for the bloatsprites!"

"Yeah... shit," Copperhead relented. "I'll catch hell for it but we'll go talk to him. Come on."

"I'm going to die if this doesn't go well, so pardon me if I don't care that you might get yelled at," Chapter vented his frustration as he followed behind, a small grunt of pain accompanying every step.

"Must be some story on that holotape for her to follow you with this winning attitude of yours," the synth shot back as they headed deeper into the camp. Chapter had a reply spring to mind but he at least had the good sense to bite his tongue now that he was making progress, silently keeping pace with Copperhead.

He made it a good fifty steps before he crumpled back down to the ground, unable to bear the pain as it ramped up hoofstep by hoofstep and finally became too much. "Fuck!"

"What's wrong? Didn't Sarissa give you any Med-X?" Copperhead stopped and turned back.

"No! I told her not to!" Chapter hissed as he flopped over onto his side to take any and all weight off his forelegs.

"Now why the hell did you do that?"

"Why the hell didn't you just give me another potion or two to finish the job?!"

"What, would you prefer eight or nine-hundred? Maybe make it a nice even thousand?"

"So Med-X is fine but you won't spot me another healing potion?!"

"Who said we'd be spotting you the Med-X? It would just cost less," Copperhead corrected him.

"Celestia burn me to fucking ashes!" Chapter swore as he took a few moments to breathe deeply and let the pain subside. "Please... one free favor. I need a xander root... and a hoofful of broc flower petals. They grow all over the place around here... there might even be some inside the outpost," he begged.

The synth sighed irritably. "Fine, you can tell me your issues with Med-X later. What do those things look like?"

"Xander root looks kind of like a buried onion from above, and broc flowers have orange petals, with yellow in the middle," he explained, trying to move one of his forelegs again and wincing. It had mysteriously failed to spontaneously heal in the intervening seconds following his collapse.

"Alright, don't go anywhere." Copperhead trotted off, leaving Chapter biting back another bitter retort. He instead decided to occupy a bit of his time looking around what he could see of the camp from his spot on the ground.

The outpost was built around an old world spark battery charging station, the ancient husk of which was difficult to miss looming over the surrounding tents. A lookout tower had been built on the roof, complete with a dish and antenna for radio transmissions. There was a tall wall running along the perimeter made of thick wood posts connected by scrap metal. It looked insufficient to repel the larger varieties of ammunition, but they would only need to rely on it to hold potential enemies back long enough for the six defensive turrets along its length to resolve the situation. They were a bit puny compared to the guns along the walls in Starlight Hill, but they also looked far more portable, and could concentrate fire more effectively with more turrets and less area to cover.

The ponies that occupied that outpost looked like something ripped from an Equestrian military propaganda poster. Though there were the odd bits of rust and missing pieces, for the most part every single one of them was fully equipped with restored and repainted military combat barding, versatile ablative plating that would offer protection from many sources of potential harm, though not the best possible protection for any one specific type. Chapter had only ever seen one or two pieces of the pre war combat gear on ponies passing through Outwall, so it was rather striking to be suddenly surrounded by numerous full suits of it.

They weren't skimping on the weaponry either. He was too ignorant to appreciate the finer differences between the two, but the Razorcorp rifles definitely differed significantly in appearance to those that The Regiment had been carrying. There were no wooden grips or hoofguards for one, and the Razorcorps rifles had a lot more... rail... thingies along the barrel.

Chapter had no idea what to call them but contented himself with knowing what grips, hoofguards, and barrels were.

As he laid there pointedly avoiding eye contact with anypony he became more and more achingly aware of something else gnawing at him, making him try and remember how long Sarissa said he had been out of it. In spite of doing nothing, his heart was racing, he was sweating lightly, and his whole body felt like it was quivering inside. His eyes started darting around looking for something, but nothing in his immediate vicinity caught his interest. Chapter wearily rolled back onto his hooves and stood up, risking further pain as he meandered around, but did so very, very slowly. Eventually he found what he was looking for and sat down again right next to it. After making sure nopony was keeping an eye on it, which was unsurprising given that it was just an empty Fyrefly brand vodka bottle, he discreetly levitated it into his pack and hobbled along.

His next target was a bit more valuable, but proved far easier to find. He had to wait a bit longer before he was confident nopony was looking at the unattended canteen, but soon enough had the opening he needed to unscrew the cap of both containers and pour some water into the empty bottle until it was a little over halfway filled. Chapter closed them both, put the canteen back exactly the way he'd found it, and put the partially filled bottle away. This had been done not a moment too soon as it was only an extra half a minute before Copperhead returned.

"So much for not going anywhere," he said through a roll of cloth in his mouth as he rounded the corner of a nearby tent, having had to look for their prisoner patient.

"I was uh, lying on a rock. It started hurting," Chapter quickly lied.

"Whatever. Is this what you need?" Copperhead laid the bundle down and rolled it open with his muzzle. The bulbous root was exactly what he needed, and even though not all the orange flowers were correct, there were enough actual broc flowers for his purposes.

He grabbed the root with an anticipatory grimace before taking a large bite out of it, face contorting unpleasantly as he chewed into the incredibly bitter flavor. This was followed by biting the blooms off three of the broc flowers and continuing to chew until his magic started unwrapping his leg bandages. Spitting the pale orange mixture out onto one hoof, he smeared a bit of it over the lingering bullet wound in one leg, then switched hooves and repeated before popping what was left back into his mouth and swallowing it while his horn rewrapped his bandages.

"Does that actually work?" Copperhead asked as Chapter made a face before spitting out any remnants of the foul tasting mixture lingering in his mouth.

"You're supposed to cook it down to a powder for full effect, but this still works a bit if you don't have time," he said, standing up again. His stance was still a bit unsteady, and he still winced with each step, but it was not quite as bad. More importantly it was not getting any worse now. "I should be okay to walk now. Don't expect a canter or anything."

"Oh good, I was worried this wouldn't take long enough."

Judging from first impressions, Chapter Break did not like synths very much.

*** *** ***

There had been three of them, all wearing the same glorified stable security armor adorned with the number fifty. Apparently this had been their excuse for 'riot gear', which basically translated to slightly more interwoven armor plate panels. Two of them had been carrying hunting rifles in battle saddles while the third, presumably the one in charge, had been a unicorn carrying a personal riot shield and a combat shotgun. These three ponies were some of the best that Starlight Hill Security had to offer, and surely were the sort to strike fear into the citizens of their city that would ever do wrong.

They were also very… very dead.

"The unicorn looked cocky so I popped her smug face first," the Regiment sniper explained as he proudly paced back and forth behind the three corpses that had been dragged there a few hours ago by his spotter. "You should have seen the look on the two mud ponies as they realized what kind of badass they were up against," he continued ever so humbly.

"Wouldn't want ponies being smug now," General Mills deadpanned as she stood there with Post and several other Regiment at her side, awaiting any useful information.

"After the other two got done pissing themselves wondering where the shot even came from, they started trying to run for a nearby building, and I got the one bringing up the rear in the leg. Waited to put in the killshot until the one in front looked back and saw him crying for help, then, blam, right in the temple!" the sniper continued.

"Quick Scope."

"I let her reach the door, but only because I had the doorknob sighted in already. I don't think she was expecting her hoof to vanish in a red cloud when she touched that thing, heh!"

"Quick Scope, relevant facts please," she repeated.

"Then as she was trying to run down the street I took her apart, limb by limb, shot by shot, until she was on the ground screaming so loud I could hear it from the top of the Super Duper Mart! I left her like that until-"

The grip of a magically levitated .45 pistol nudged his chin up, bringing his eyes to his General and his mind away from his all too fond memories. "Intel. Now," she repeated through her teeth in such a manner that made it clear there would be no further chances to comply.

"Right uh... city limits, south side along the Criollo highway, about eight hours ago," Quick Scope reported promptly. The pistol levitated upward and gave him a condescending pat on the head of appreciation before returning to Steel Mills' holster.

"Guess he's done even trying to be subtle," she sighed, looking back down at the three slain riot officers. "I wonder how many other patrols he sent out so far in this direction, just so these three he sent directly to us wouldn't seem so suspicious?"

"Do we care enough to look for them?" Post asked.

"No. If they're equipped like these three they won't be anything to worry about, even if they make it here past our lookouts. This is even assuming they haven't returned to Starlight Hill already," she declined. "Quick Scope, you and Range Finder rest up for your next shift. The rest of you, strip the gear off these ponies and dump 'em in with the clawlurk leftovers."

They sounded their acknowledgements and got to work as General Mills and Post set themselves to take a stroll around the perimeter away from most every potential prying ear.

"How much longer until our assets are out of here?" she asked at length.

"Shouldn't be more than one or two trips more. We'll have everything valuable out of here hours, maybe even a full day before anypony shows up," he reported, magically nudging his glasses back up his muzzle.

"We'll be accompanying the last convoy out of here, then."

"You will. I won’t."

"Post, that is an order from the fucking general herself. You are leaving," she insisted with a sneer.

"Milly, I told you I'm staying," he likewise refused to budge.

"Why?!" Mills demanded at a less than steady volume.

"Because I need to kill him."

"What the fuck good will that even do?" She snatched the glasses off his face with her magic, curtly folding them up and dropping them to the ground so she could look him in the eyes. "You think the Razorcorps are going to shrivel up and die if you manage to kill him here? If anything it'll just piss them off more, they'll have an even bigger murder boner for the rest of us, and I'll be out a second in command!"

Post levitated his glasses back up, looked them over a moment, then blew a bit of dirt off of them before putting them back on. Mill's eye twitched during the achingly extended period of silence. "I wanted to stay in Sparkle Land and fight to the last pony. You got me to call everypony back and evacuate by promising we'd get him later, but all you've done for the four years since then is have us lick our wounds in the tunnels and take jobs for caps. I'm done waiting."

"Fuck you!" she shouted as her horn flared up with angry magic. "We still have Foalsom, we still have outposts at every mass transit station we can access, we are not just licking our wounds in the fucking tunnels, and you don't get to act like we are just so you can pretend this makes any sense! You will be with the last convoy out of here, and that's that!"

"Or you'll what, Milly? Shoot me?" he replied, unswayed as ever.

The two stood there glowering at one another for a while before an exclamation from the other side of the building caught their ears, only to be supplanted by the sound of a distant gunshot finally reaching them. After scanning the nearby skyline of ruined buildings did not reveal any shooter, Mills looked up to the nearest sentry on the roof above. "Hey! What was that?"

"Looks like somepony shot Quick Scope, ma'am!" he called down.

"Oh no. Not Quick Scope. Help. Murder," she monotoned before turning to go investigate only to be met with another unwelcome sight on another corner of the same roof. "Oh, fuck me. That bitch is getting on my nerves."

"What's wrong?" Post asked, looking up as well.

"I put Pipe Wrench up there. That's not Pipe Wrench. Two guesses where she went," she grumbled with hoof on her face as Post confirmed that it was indeed not Pipe Wrench standing at the indicated spot.

"I'll take care of her. Go pretend to care about finding that sniper," he offered before starting to trot toward a nearby door into the building.

"Yeah, she was always more afraid of you," she agreed, but then stopped and looked back. "Post."

He halted short of the door and listened.

"I promise, we'll go after him soon," she implored him.

"I've heard that too many times already."

"You'll content yourself with hearing it again then. Both of us are leaving, even if I have to put a few bullets through your knees and drag your sorry ass onto a spark wagon myself." She trotted off before he could respond, uninterested in arguing the point any longer.

"What a waste of ammo that'd be," Post muttered to himself as he glanced back up again at Pipe Wrench's assigned corner. After a moment's thought he found himself smiling again and stepped into the building, intending on making a short detour. "No harm giving her a few minutes while I hedge my bets..."

*** *** ***

There were a few new bullet holes in the wall. It had taken Lower a couple more shots to teach Poppy that she was not welcome to speak unless ordered. Ever since then he had been left in relative quiet to continue looking through the holotape's contents, intruded upon only by the periodic caws of a crow that had taken to loitering about right outside the prisoner's window. He had on occasion pondered just shooting it, but experience told him that he was unlikely to actually hit the damn thing, it would only be replaced by another filthy flying rat, and he could use that ammunition for more productive purposes, like getting Poppy to shut up if she spontaneously decided to start mouthing off again. As it was she was sitting calmly, looking exhausted and miserable as she tried to distract herself with some crow watching.

The gunshot outside scared the crow away. She let out a little whimper and laid back down again.

His eyes lowered to the next line of text and he let out a tired groan. "Might want to use something other than 'nary' again, dipshit," he grumbled to the absent author as he kept on reading.

"D-did you say 'nary'?" Poppy asked as she limped over to the bars. "What are you reading?"

Lower drew his pistol and-

"Wait! I'm sorry!" she pleaded, instantly in tears as she cowered back. "Don't shoot, I was just curious about what you've been reading all this time. W-wouldn't it be nice to take a break for just a minute or two to answer me?" she attempted to reason when the gunshot did not immediately follow.

He sat there with the grip of the gun in his mouth a few moments, then grumbled and placed it back in the holster before turning back to the terminal. "Why so curious all of a sudden?"

"Because um... because Silken Tome uses that word way too much. She's my favorite author," Poppy explained timidly. "I love her work to pieces… but I notice things."

"Good guess then, her name's plastered on all this shit," Lower replied, motioning toward the terminal without looking back at Poppy.

Her eyes went wide. "Are you reading the holotape that Chappy had?"

"I don't know any 'Chappy', but we got this holotape off your dumbass friend after he tried to take on four of us with a busted pistol he didn't even know how to use, yes," he confirmed.

The bars rattled as she threw herself at them with a sudden unholy energy, causing Lower to flinch back from the unexpected charge. "Can I please have that holotape? Please?!"

"Back the fuck up first."

"Sorry," she apologized as she backed up a step. "Can I please, please have it though?!" she continued to plead.

"No. Standard procedure is check through all procured data storage devices for potential intel and then-"

"There's just stories on there though, nothing that ponies like you would be interested in!" Poppy pointed out.

"Huh... and you know this because... ?"

"Chappy was a personal courier for Silken Tome. He would deliver her stories to Starlight Serials every week," she explained further. "As far as I know he didn't work for anypony else, so her stories would be the only thing on that holotape!"

Lower paused for a moment, then closed the file he was currently reading and started looking over the titles of all the other files. None of them sounded technical or official, just insufferably pretentious. He opened a couple and scanned over a few pages of each, finding line after line of strategically worthless prose. If he did exactly as procedure instructed, he was looking at hours of more reading that would likely not yield anything of use, and all of it would be spent next to the prisoner that only stopped talking when bullets were involved. The scale in his head started tipping in a new direction.

"You're certain about that? There are just stories?" he asked as he turned toward her.

"Yes, and... getting them back to Silken Tome is the least I can do... after getting Chappy killed," she sobbed softly before wiping the tears from her eyes. "So if it's useless to you all anyway, it would mean a lot if I could have it instead."

He turned back to the terminal, letting his hoof tap on the desk several times as he weighed his options. Ultimately he shrugged his shoulders and tapped a few buttons on the keyboard. "Alright, you can have it. Saves me some time anyway." Lower briefly waited for a last process to finish, then pressed a final key to eject the holotape from the terminal. He stood up, grabbed it in his teeth, walked over to the cell door, dropped it onto the floor, and kicked it through the slot.

"Oh thank you so much! You're the nicest pony in here!" she gushed as she limped over and scooped up the holotape. "I'm gonna get you home, I promise," she assured it as she hugged it lovingly with her one good front leg. Finally she had a chance to redeem herself!

"Now be quiet. I'm going to get some sleep before-"

Pipe Wrench cut him off by opening the door. Poppy visibly shrank back at the sight of her. "Lower, some sniper nailed Quick Scope. Mills wants you out there to help a squad search the city over for them."

"Never mind," Lower grumbled as he dutifully shouldered the rifle that had been leaning against the side of the desk. "You coming?"

"No, I'm switching out with you to guard our guest. Mills said you've had enough of a break in here," she explained.

"Huh... she's having you guard her?"

Poppy realized she still had the holotape held in her hoof and looked around quickly for a place to hide it while the two Regiment ponies were distracted by one another.

"Yeah, she is," Pipe Wrench confirmed with an edge of annoyance in her voice. "You going to stand here keeping Mills waiting?"

There was nothing in her cell that would keep the holotape completely out of sight, no obscuring bits of furniture, no small piles of junk, nothing. Sensing that the distraction was drawing to a close, she did the best thing she could think of and set the holotape down on the floor in the corner next to the door so that it would be hidden whenever the door was opened.

"Alright. No skin off my back if you're lying," Lower replied before stepping out.

Pipe Wrench shut the door behind him with a nudge of her hip, then grinned at an increasingly nervous Poppy as her horn lit up and locked it. "Hey there, Ducky," she said as she drew the stolen SHS baton out of its holster at her side.

"H-hi?" Poppy squeaked back.

"How have you been?"

Having no idea how to respond to that question coming out of that mare, Poppy silently backed as far away from the bars as she could manage.

"What, too good to talk to me, even with your wings clipped, and in a cage?" Pipe Wrench persisted mockingly as she opened the drawers on Lower's desk one by one until she found the key and levitated it out, taking special care that Poppy saw it dangling in the grip of her magic.

The impending presence of that mare in her cell caused her to become somewhat more active. "No! I just... I don't know how you want me to answer that question!"

"Hm, that's fair," Pipe Wrench replied as she slowly slid the key inside and then twisted it in a sudden loud motion that made Poppy visibly flinch. "Suppose it's obvious what an absolute bitch of a time you've been having ever since I got to put this thing through its paces," she continued while giving her stolen baton a flourish as she opened the door and stepped inside. Poppy backed away to the farthest corner as Pipe Wrench closed the door behind her with a smile and started advancing slowly. "So let me ask a simpler question instead, you got a stallion back home waiting for you?"

Poppy thought back to Trail Blazer and felt a pang of regret for missing their date. "Why?" she asked rather than answer the other mare's question.

"Answer or don't, doesn't really make much difference," she answered with a shrug. "I was just curious if this baton here is going to be your first boyfriend or not."

"First... boyfriend... what do you-" The last horse crossed the finish line and she suddenly felt the simultaneous sensation of the blood draining from her face and her gut clenching as she backed her rump into a corner and tucked her tail firmly between her legs. Poppy turned toward the door and drew a breath to cry out for help but found her plea silenced by a magic aura around her muzzle as Pipe Wrench drew closer, chuckling as the pegasus mare tried desperately to shake the magic off her snout as though it were possible.

"See, broken bones mend, but this? There’s no coming back from this. You and your smug, rich bitch ass are going to remember me forever. Helps that you're just my type too," she elaborated, licking her lips.

Poppy gave up trying to cry out and reared up defensively, striking out with her forelegs. Pipe Wrench leaned back to avoid the flailing hooves with an amused grunt before magically slamming Poppy against the wall and pinning her forelegs up over her head. Knowing it would be impossible to struggle out of her magic without her wings, she instead lashed out with her more powerful back legs and actually managed to land a blow on the side of Pipe Wrench's muzzle. The Regiment mare reeled back a step, looked down at the small droplets of her own blood on the floor below from the resultant gash, then growled and wound up a powerful baton strike to Poppy's exposed side that struck with a meaty crack and provoked a muffled scream of pain as the captive mare curled up in agony with her thighs tightly together.

"Look at me, bitch," she snarled while using the baton to force Poppy's gaze up to meet hers, "That was two or three ribs, and there's plenty more where that came from. I'm going to hurt you no matter how this goes, but you got a choice to make. You can either be a good girl so I’ll be inclined to leave you able to walk when I'm through with you, or you can keep being a cunt about it, and I break everything but that useful jaw of yours. Understand?"

An amber aura started tinkering with the locked knob of the door.

Unable to call for help, and knowing that Pipe Wrench would make good on her threat, Poppy's body shook with muffled sobs as tears streamed down her cheeks unrestrained. She wordlessly nodded, and then reluctantly relaxed helplessly, unable to stop shivering at the cocktail of daggers pumping through her heart.
Pipe Wrench did not pin her back legs to the wall, seemingly more satisfied by Poppy's own despair doing the job for her. "Good girl. Once I'm done making you used goods, I'll show you some better ways to use that mouth of yours," she said as she dragged the tip of the baton down along both broken ribs, humming with pleasure at Poppy's pained writhing, then down along her side, across her completely still thigh, and then-

"Holy shit, you must think we're a couple of fucking morons," Command Post said as he stood in the now open door, having not even had to use any kind of tools to undo the lock with his magic. "Blade Spark's coat is barely even in the same color category as yours, and did you assume we weren't going to notice you suddenly wearing a helmet out of nowhere when we looked up? At least try next time, because this is insulting."

The baton dropped to the floor, as did the pegasus who was now free to wail for help unhindered by all the magical auras that had just collapsed. Wide eyed with terror, Pipe Wrench slowly looked to her superior officer through the bars, not saying a word. He had clearly already figured out everything and had caught her in the act. What words were there to possibly say?

"HELP ME! SHE'S TRYING TO-"

Post's magic grabbed Poppy by the head and lifted her up into eyesight with him. "Yeah, no shit, now kindly shut the fuck up," he ordered before dropping her.

She curled up in the corner hugging her tail with all four legs, still trembling with adrenaline and silently crying her heart out.

"You. Out here. Now," Post commanded with a motion of his head. "Lock the door and give me the key."

Pipe Wrench offered no contest as she stepped out of the cell, locking it behind her and levitating the key to rest at Command Post's hooves.

"Huh, looks like she got a shot in too. Nice," he casually mused, glancing at the gash on the side of Pipe Wrench's muzzle as he levitated the keys back into their proper desk drawer. "Present your side arm."

"What?" she asked in confusion. "But-"

"Give me your fucking pistol, Pipe Wrench," he repeated a bit more forcefully.

Without further protest she floated her gun out of its holster on her foreleg and toward him, the aura around it turning amber as he took hold of it. He gave it a good once over, turning it this way and that, pulling back the slide to glance into the chamber and everything.

"Seems to be well looked after, good work," he complimented. "Except for one thing..."

The .45 auto pistol twirled around before the grip smashed into Pipe Wrench's face. She grunted and staggered to the side a step, but remained standing and made no move to defend herself. She was pistol whipped across the face again, and again, and again. The blows came one after another until the reality of her flesh and blood body took its toll, her legs wobbling before she collapsed from the repeated strikes to her head.

"It's covered in blood," Post clarified as he let the gun drop to the floor, now spattered in blood from Pipe Wrench's thoroughly tenderized face. “A Regiment officer shouldn’t be walking around with a dirty pistol like that. For shame.”

She coughed a few times and then spat out the blood that had been pooling in her mouth, groaning as she started struggling back to her hooves as her head kept swimming. "Just... answer one... question for me... please," she asked before sucking in a hissing breath at the throbbing pain of trying to blink.

"Shoot."

"Why are you... protecting some spoiled rich bitch... from the observatory?!" she hissed with restrained anger.

"Protecting? I'm only here to rough you up for disobeying orders. Still, that's a good question," he said, looking over at Poppy still curled up in the corner. "I mean, both of us know the plan, right? What's the harm in letting you get a bit of that ass before it all goes down? It's not as though you'll have another chance."

Poppy let out another sob and curled tighter.

"I... what?" Pipe Wrench's face softened, an eyebrow raising as her head tilted.

"In fact I think it's a complete waste, myself. Imagine the caps she could bring in for us long term," he mused further.

...

"What are... what are you doing, Post?" she asked in earnest, afraid to move a hoof lest she set off the metaphorical minefield that had suddenly appeared around her.

"Look, Pipe Wrench, I don't know what that mare does for you, but she clearly does something the other mares here don't, or else you wouldn't be here disobeying orders. Is it the wings? I'd kind of get that. Not many pegasus ponies around-"

"Fuck off, that's my business," Pipe Wrench interrupted him harshly. "Now answer my question!"

...

"Sir," she corrected quickly after the throbbing pain from her head reminded her to whom she was speaking.

Post snorted in amusement before continuing. "What I'm doing is giving you options, Pipe Wrench. You do something for me, and I pull the right strings so she winds up with the Regiment for good... so long as you can get her out of here. Otherwise, you can go back to your post like normal, but that means things go as planned, and this is the last time you see her."

"I..." she began, pausing to glance over at Poppy. "I'm not agreeing to anything until you tell me what you need me to do."

"Of course you won't, that's just bad business," he replied with an agreeable nod and an assuring wave of his hoof. "I have a... slight alteration to the plan that I'd like to make, but General Mills is dead set against it. She'd rather break my legs and drag me out of here than let me have my way on this thing. What I need for you to do is be another set of hooves for me, and temporarily take her out of commission so that the chain of command falls to me, just long enough to get this thing on the right track."

The fear on Pipe Wrench's face was strong enough to be seen even through the mess of drying blood, bruises, and clotting gashes. "Are you fucking kidding me?!"

"Nope. I am dead serious here."

"What's so important that you have to have me risk getting executed to let you do it?!" she demanded while daring to get into his face.

He did not flinch backward or let his eyes deviate from hers. "I'm going to kill Razorface."

"...what."

"Whenever they get called in on us, he shows up. He'll be here, and I'm going to kill him."

"No, I know that part. How do you just kill him once he's here? Is your 'slight adjustment' to have everypony stay and try to kill every single one of them?!"

Post laughed outright at the suggestion. "Fuck no, I'm not delusional. Even if we kept everything here we wouldn't be able to hold this place, and even if we did have enough to hold it, it's not worth holding anyway. What I want is for you to take care of Mills for me, then the two of us stay behind, plus a few extra bots. I get that shit sack away from his ponies, you guard the blonde bitch, and then after I'm done killing him we slip out with your rage-fuck toy and put her to work where you're free to drop some caps into a night with her whenever you want... provided you don't rough her up too much."

Poppy let out another shivering sob as she debated just covering her ears until they were gone.

Pipe Wrench looked at him incredulously... then looked away and started pacing, eyes going back and forth as she chewed on her lip in contemplation. Her commanding officer waited patiently with a smug grin on his face as she deliberated. Finally she stopped, glanced into the cage one last time, and then turned back to him. "What about afterward? You don't think General Mills is going to have us strung up for undermining her like this?"

"I'll take responsibility for everything, and if you do your job right, she won't even know it was you. She's not going to have me killed over this, and she's likewise not going to come down on anypony for following the orders of the highest available officer at the time either."

"Okay, so then what about the merchandise in there?" she asked while motioning back to the cell with her head. "She's no good to me if the general gets rid of her out of spite, or some shit."

"Trust me, Wrench, it'd be far from the first thing I've done under General Mills' nose. The merchandise will never be more than one thorough cleaning away whenever you want her," he assured her.

"And you're that damn sure you can get him away from his troops?"

"Yep," he said without hesitation.

...

Pipe Wrench closed her eyes, let out a long sigh, but then could not help but grin maliciously as she opened her eyes again and nodded. "I'm in."

"No."

Mare and stallion alike looked back into the cell, surprised that the quivering mass of pegasus inside had found her voice so suddenly.

"I won't let you do this," Poppy said meekly as she unsteadily stood up.

"Oh? How're you gonna stop us, then?" Pipe Wrench winced as the grin she intended to make proved to be a bit much for her currently half broken face. She had to settle for a lesser smile that did not quite match her mood.

"I'm going to tell Lower when he gets back, and then he's going to tell General Mills," she answered with a bit more vigor behind her voice as she moved toward the bars. "And she's going to lock both of you up!"

"Oh, right. We did just talk about that whole plan in front of somepony, didn't we?" Post remarked casually without a drop of worry in his voice as his horn lit up.

"You're darn right you did!" she confirmed as she hopped up to place her good hoof against the bars. "So unless you want to get in the most trouble you've ever been in, you'll stop this and let me g-"

Poppy gagged as Post's .45 pistol zipped across the room and into her open mouth. It pressed against the back of her throat with such force that she was reduced to flailing weakly as she stumbled back on two legs until she was against the wall again. Her unbroken hoof moved to try and pull the gun out of her mouth but she stopped in terror as the hammer clicked back, her vision blurring with tears again.

"You're not going to do shit, Pop-... what was that name you call her, Wrench?"

"Ducky."

"Right! You're not going to do shit, Ducky. You're going to do whatever we tell you to do, because all we have to do is apply just a slight bit of pressure, and you'll fucking fold. Turns out having mommy's caps solve everything for you isn't that great for growing a spine, is it? Before now, I bet the only problem you ever had was trying to stave off boredom while everypony toiled to bring you everything you'd ever need... because you're a house pet, Ducky. You're a house pet that some rich hag pushed out of her cunt one day, because she was bored too. So be a good little pet for master, and sit!"

The magic holding the pistol moved it downward while still in Poppy's mouth. She could do nothing but let out another muffled sob between a few gags as she was forced down to sit on her rump while still pinned against the wall, the broken wings trapped between her back and the concrete just making it all the more painful for her.

"While you're at it, you might want to reconsider how valuable you think you are to us. If my mare here didn't get off to the sound of your bones breaking, I'd be able to pull the trigger right now, and the original plan would still go off without a hitch. We aren't ransoming you, after all. You're just bait that's already lured the quarry. So be a nice purse puppy and thank her for saving your life, Ducky."

"That's right. Thank me," Pipe Wrench chimed in as she moved closer to the bars, the slight blush to her cheeks betraying her enjoyment of the proceedings.

"Th-thank... you... Pipe Wrench," Poppy managed to choke out through her tears. The gun finally pulled out and she fell forward onto her hoof again, coughing with the lingering taste of metal and gunpowder on her tongue.

"Now all you have to do is not give master a reason to come back here. Think you can manage that, poochie?" Post asked as his magic used Poppy's own coat to wipe the saliva off his gun before it retracted out of the cell.

She kept her head low, shuddering a few times before wordlessly nodding.

"Good girl."

"Fuck me but I'm going to enjoy remembering that one later," Pipe Wrench hummed as she turned away from the cell. "What's next?"

"What's next is you get your ass to the medic's room to get patched up and retrieve a gift I left for you with some instructions. Meanwhile, I get back to Mills and tell her I did exactly what I just did to you," he replied, holstering his gun as he left the room with her following behind. The door clicked shut behind them, the metallic clunk making the silence afterward all the more deafening.

She sat there for a few moments quivering, and then did exactly what Post said she would. Unable to even curl up thanks to her newly broken ribs, she simply collapsed onto her unfractured side and laid there looking at the wall in front of her crying as much as her broken body would let her without hurting even more. She felt like there was a cold knife in her gut that had nothing to do with her ribs, but thinking about what had just put it there only made it hurt more while driving it deeper. It was all she could do to skip over it back to other horrible things as a distraction before it could pierce anything vital.

Why had she not just flown home with her book? She could be reading it, right that very moment, maybe even with Clearance at her side in her pillow nest while they waited for one of the SHS guards to be free to give her a tour of Inwall like she had been promised. She could be on another date with Blazer, sitting next to a handsome stallion feeling those wonderful butterflies in her belly as they ate dinner and sipped some drinks. Her starving belly grumbled at that thought. Even if none of that happened she could be comfortably at home on her own instead, looking at a canvas and wondering what amazing colors she would use to fill it. But no, meeting Silken Tome had seemed more exciting than all of those things, so she passed up everything precious in her life and got a stallion killed... because she was bored.

Poppy let out a wail at the thought, covering her face with her good leg and crying into her hoof some more. She could still hear the gunshot. She could still see him falling.

Up until that point, she had been fairly confident that she was a good pony. She had said all the right things, thought all the right thoughts, and felt all the right feelings. But she was no longer certain that any of that counted in the face of not having done the right thing.

Her implosion was interrupted by the sound of something small dropping onto the floor about a foot in front of her. She uncovered her red, puffy eyes and blinked a few times to clear her vision. With a weak grunt of discomfort she reached over and picked it up with her hoof to bring it closer.

It was a little metal disk of some sort, partially rusted away but still mostly intact. The imprinted design had clearly seen better days but was still mostly legible, portraying some kind of cute furry creature she had never seen before. It had a black nose, whiskers, two tiny glistening eyes, no visible ears, and it was holding something shaped like a five pointed star in one of it's little paws. There was text in a circle around the image, but only part of it was legible.

terein Bay Aq

"What's this?" she murmured. Something shifted in the window and pulled her attention upward. The crow was back, and apparently it had brought along a gift. It let out a small caw and then occupied itself preening a feather here and there while looking around.

Poppy looked up silently, at a loss for what to do next. Her chest was tight and she felt sick to her stomach, her body demanding she lie there and continue crying until she was exhausted enough to pass out again. But even though her newly returned guest was just a crow, ignoring him to cry herself to sleep felt strangely rude. She swallowed again, her throat still sore from how hard Post's gun had been pressing against the back of it, then whimpered as she struggled back to a sitting position.

"Thank you for the gift... I'm sorry I can't be happier right now."

The crow replied with another caw.

"I also wish I could understand you."

The crow pecked a few times at the rusty bars then turned to survey the surroundings outside.

Whether it was curled up in misery on a mattress in a Regiment outpost somewhere, or in the arms of her mother on her couch, she could cry her heart out later. She was with a friend for the moment... and that made it slightly easier to not think about anything. That's all that mattered.

"I... hope I get to see one of these furry things someday... it looks cute," she sniffed while looking down at the old world artifact.

Don't think about it.

Don't think about it.

*** *** ***

"So you couldn't save the three SHS officers?" he asked as the mare licked her lips from her sip of beer, then adjusted the brim of her hat that was definitely not Razorcorps standard issue.

"No. I would've liked to, but I had to move too slowly to keep out of sight. By the time I got there, they were already being put on display by that prick, so quick revenge was the best I could do for them," she sighed somberly, though her mood quickly corrected with another drink.

"Alright then. Monterein Bay Aquarium. Thanks, Skeeto. Go say hi to Gnat, he's been doing those 'I miss Skeeto' beeps and blips," he dismissed her.

"Aww, poor thing!" Skeeto hopped up and exited the charge station building, stepping past a rather imposing zebra stallion and a middle aged earth pony mare already eyeing up the map on the table.

"Monterein... that's about a day's march from here?" he guessed while looking over the map, adjusting his helmet.

"Give or take a few hours, sounds about right," the mare confirmed.

...

"So… Haylinas manages to find rad free dirt in their caverns, with enough room to start growing pre-war crops and using them to trade with Ponzales, because they're closer than Starlight Hill here in Gallopata Park. Raider activity along the 101 skyrockets out of nowhere and, conveniently for Starlight Hill, the random raiders are coordinated enough to make sure nopony ever gets a call to us. Now the Regiment for some reason are ransoming a councilmare's daughter, and Platinum Band just so happens to send a squad of SHS officers directly to them, letting him explain away knowing where they are," the stallion thought aloud. "All complete coincidence, of course."

"Do we still intend to honor the contract, in spite of the obvious?" the zebra asked.

"We're not gonna leave her there just because the mayor's less clever than he thinks he is. I'm more wondering how exactly he pissed them off this much, and what I'm going to do to him after we retrieve the councilmare's daughter... assuming SHS hasn't strung him up by then," he mused as he magically popped the top off another bottle of beer.

Not too far away outside, Skeeto was trotting over to a small workstation flanked by two power armor racks. Hanging from each was a restored old world exo-frame with the mostly worn away remnants of 'EXO-1' engraved onto the flank where one would expect a cutie mark on a pony. They were being cleaned and checked over by a young stallion and an ancient protectapony that looked held together by improvised bits of junk and was covered by a flaking coat of dark blue paint.

"Hi Fishstick," Skeeto said to the young stallion as she approached.

"Oh, hi Skee-"

"Shut up Fishstick," Skeeto interrupted as she trotted by.

"Oh, okay Skee-"

He was again cut off by the happy beeps and blips of the protectapony as it promptly diverted from its task to ungracefully shamble over and pluck her off the ground with a firm hug.

"Hi Gnat, I'm back!" she replied, smiling as she returned the hug as her back hooves dangled and the beer bottle that had been floating by her side was set on the nearby tool bench. "I missed you too!"

After nuzzling her sufficiently, he set her down and then began scanning her as he circled around her... very, very slowly.

"No, Gnat, I'm fine. You don't have to do a medical scan... ugh," she sighed in resignation knowing he was programmed to worry until he could confirm she was medically sound. Things would go faster if she just stood still. Following two minutes of this she was unable to help but turn her head as Copperhead strolled past with an unfamiliar gray stallion limping at his side who was doing a poor job of concealing his laughter. Gnat gave the familiar 'error, restarting scan' bleeps due to her movement, and paused before attempting another circle. "Oh for fuck's sake, Gnat!"

"You know, you've been a pain in our asses already. You might try not laughing on top of that," Copperhead scolded Chapter Break as they walked into the building and headed down a short hallway. Empty power outlets and sockets on various parts of the walls spoke of a plethora of long useless vending machines that had been stripped out. The place was not the cleanest it could be, but it was still visibly looked after, and would not have been out of place in Midwall. It certainly looked better than Chapter's hole in the ground at any rate.

"I'm sorry, but what kind of a stupid ass name is Razorface?" he snickered between grunts of discomfort with each step as they rounded the corner. "Does he shoot razors out of his face?"

His blood ran cold as he looked at the ponies in the room he had just entered. The zebra was staring death at him, the mare's mouth was in a bit of a screwed up smile as she contained her own mirth, and the stallion at the table facing away from him was a full head taller than him, at least. His ears were also raised, easily having heard Chapter's remarks. There was a heavy pause before his horn lit up with a light orange aura, leisurely levitating over an aluminum bat that had been leaning against a leg of the table. To call it a mere aluminum bat did it no justice though. The business end was adorned with a couple of miniature rocket boosters on one side, and an unfriendly looking set of spikes on the other. As though that were not enough to make Chapter Break start slowly taking a step back, the spikes briefly sparked as he tested the attached battery. It also bore a small partially worn down logo with the words 'Kingdom Champions', but that was of comparatively little concern. "Yep, still works," the stallion observed as he turned around.

He was a yellow coated, orange maned unicorn, his mane sticking out from beneath his green, white star adorned metal helmet, and his muzzle bearing a well trimmed, slightly curled mustache over a small, triangular goatee. His eyes were hidden by a pair of aviator sunglasses, and the bulk of his body was contained within a well maintained set of heavy combat barding over military fatigues. The thing that caught Chapter Break's eye the most were his stripes, or at least what looked like stripes. At some point in his life, somepony had done something to him egregiously damaging enough to leave behind large, ugly scarring in a pattern resembling zebra stripes. His face bore a few extra that did not conform to the pattern, likely just battle scars, the most prominent of which were the scars going from the corners of his mouth all the way back to his jawbone. "As for your question, no, I can't shoot razors out of my face. But that would be pretty cool."

"Oh... okay," Chapter Break mumbled, ears lowering as he cowered back another step. He was then convinced that retreating back any further was a bad idea by the deathbat that floated over to rest firmly against his shoulder, a silent reminder that those boosters could switch on at any old time.

"So, Copperhead, get anything useful out of Sarissa's stray, here?" Razorface asked as he stepped out into the hall just enough to look over to the synth stallion.

"Nope, he remembers about as much as you'd expect somepony to remember after getting shot twice in the head," he answered.

"Alright, unsurprising. Next question!"

Chapter Break let out a yelp as the rockets briefly fired and he was slammed into the nearby wall.

"Why is this little traitorous shitstain in my building and also alive?"

"Because I don't think he was dealing with the Regiment," Copperhead explained.

"Right. Let me guess. He said he didn't do it."

"He also owes us money."

"Oh shit that's right." He turned back to their 'guest', suddenly more interested. Chapter Break groaned as he sat up, rubbing the sore spot on his shoulder that was sure to develop into a nasty bruise. The deathbat opted to leave him alone as it floated back over to Razorface while he walked over to loom over the gray stallion. "Turns out we have things to discuss after all, now get up," he ordered before stepping back into his makeshift war room.

Moments later Chapter Break was seated meekly on one side of the table, with Razorface standing imposingly on the opposite side. Copperhead was guarding the door. He did not yet know the names of the zebra and mare at his side, but that was of little concern to him. The room's single lightbulb was, of course, positioned perfectly to make the leader of the Razorcorps cast a shadow over him.

"By my bookkeeping, you owe us a sum of seven-hundred caps for medical services. Since you're technically in our custody for having lead the councilmare's daughter to the Regiment-"

"I didn't, though!" he interjected. "I told Copperhead already, I had no idea these 'Regiment' ponies were waiting for me, and I did everything I could to stop her from following me!"

"Of course, because it's a well known fact that despite all evidence to the contrary, nopony has ever done anything wrong!" Razorface replied with sarcastic enthusiasm. Chapter Break was then boosted into a nearby wall by the Kingdom Champion a second time. "Also, interrupting is rude."

"Would you stop that?!" he groaned in pain as he stood up.

"No. Since you're in our custody, we'll have a couple of grunts escort you back home, you get our caps, then you'll be escorted back here to settle the debt. Then we'll... I don't know, feed you to Dogmeat or something. He was kind of looking forward to it before you woke up after all."

It was difficult to tell if Razorface was kidding or not, so Chapter Break opted to not even try. "But the Regiment robbed me blind. I don't have one cap, let alone seven-hundred."

...

"I need your help getting something back, too," he admitted further, doubting his position could get any worse anyway.

"You need... more services that you're completely unable to pay for, then?"

Chapter Break was only able to sit there and quietly panic inside of his own head for a few silent moments before replying with the terrible, horrible, awful truth of his situation. "Yes."

...

"Please don't rocket me into the wall again," he begged.

"Hypothetically speaking... what would you need us to get back for you?" Razorface asked, indulging him for the moment but obviously none too pleased about it.

"They uh... they took a holotape of mine. Copperhead already told me their policy on holotapes, but there's probably enough on there that they haven't gone through and deleted it yet."

"Hrm... retrieval is normally two-hundred caps, but since we're already heading to Monterein Bay anyway, I'll cut off half of that as a favor, and only bring your total up to eight-hundred caps."

"I... okay." Chapter rubbed his forehead with a hoof, then let out another nervous exhalation. "I know you think you're being generous, but the issue is still that I don't have the caps to give you."

The larger stallion gave an irritated snort. "Think, huh?"

"The... real issue here is... I need the debt forgiven outright."

...

Chapter Break began to sweat.

"You propose, then, that we retrieve an item for you from a hostile stronghold, at great risk and expense, after having used a substantial amount of medical supplies keeping you alive... and then you pay us nothing," Razorface recapped with an even tone.

...

"I mean... when you say it like tha-"

He was rocketed into the wall a third time.

"Motherfucker!" Chapter swore after having fallen to the ground again, a hoof holding onto his aching shoulder that only compounded the lingering pain in his forelegs.

"Your negotiating skills suck, kid," the general answered dismissively as his bat floated back to him. "Try again."

"By doing what? I don't have your caps! Is there some magical way I can say those exact words again, and you'll suddenly be fine with it at complete random?" he asked while pulling himself back up with the table.

"No, that would be dumb," Razorface replied. "Asking if we can set up payments might go over better though."

"But there's no point! I don't have that kind of money, and I can't get it either!" He had managed to sit, still holding on to the edge of the table with his less agonized foreleg.

"So even if we give you a month or two, you can't get together eight-hundred caps. Why the hell is that, exactly?" the larger stallion asked in annoyance.

"Every cap I make is spent making sure I don't die of starvation or rad poisoning. There's nothing left after that. If I use it to make payments to you instead, all that will happen is that I turn into a very thin, glowing corpse in a hole somewhere, far before the thirty years it would take me to pay that off!" Chapter tried to expound with mounting anxiety.

"Not my problem. Get a better fucking job," Razorface verbally batted him away indifferently.

"How?! All of Starlight Hill despises me! The only reason they let me in to get drinking water is because of my courier pass, what makes you think anypony will-"

The mare's face pulled back into another grimacing smile, unable to contain a snort of mirth as she covered her mouth with a hoof.

"-...what?" Chapter asked as he turned to look at her.

"No, nothing, keep going," she urged him with a restrained chuckle.

"Crystal Clear is laughing because a scrawny little bastard-"

Chapter Break winced.

"-like you isn't Moonlight Express material. But, even if you looked the part, you'd still be a liar. They pay well enough that eight-hundred caps wouldn't be this big of an issue. So, either you're a cheapskate that managed to get hired on by nothing but the grace of Celestia, and now you're trying to bullshit your way into saving some caps, or you're a forger. Which is it?" Razorface inquired severely.

Aside from the subdued snickers from Crystal, the room went deadly silent as everypony waited for Chapter Break's answer. He sat there looking lost as that internal trembling kept gnawing at his progressively more panicked mind. Obviously his usual cover story was not going to work with these ponies, but if he admitted the truth and word got back to Starlight Hill, there would be no point in getting the holotape back. Even if all SHS did was ban him from entering, the wasteland would still kill him long before the Moonlight Express could hunt him down for imitating one of their couriers. He looked back at Copperhead standing in the doorway, the synth giving him an unsympathetic shrug. Saying nothing and walking away was clearly not an option either.

"Look... General, let's back up a bit here and-"

"Cheapskate, or Forger. Pick one," Razorface cut him off as his revolver levitated out of its holster and dropped onto the table. "Now."

...

"I... write stories for Starlight Serials. I needed the fake pass as a cover, so that ponies would think I was just delivering them for somepony that lived somewhere else, because anypony in town that gives me a job would get tossed out. Being able to get drinking water was a side benefit," Chapter hesitantly conceded, letting his head rest on the table that may as well have been a chopping block.

"..." The revolver lifted off the table and back into its holster. "Okay. How old are you, kid?"

"What does that have to do with-"

"How old are you?" Razorface repeated sternly.

Chapter blinked but ultimately answered the question. "I'm twenty-two."

"Mhm," he nodded. "So you've had a good decade or so where one could reasonably expect you to learn how to do something useful. If making shit up and writing it down is the only thing you've got going for you now, it's pretty safe to say you completely failed at that. What's even worse is that after wasting all that time, you're now wasting my time bitching about how it's everypony else's fault you can't even scrape together eight-hundred caps."

The younger stallion sat there stunned for a moment before an ugly scowl washed over him. "If nopony in Starlight Hill will even give me a fucking chance, how is that not their fault exactly, asshole?!" he snarled.

The zebra stallion frowned sharply before taking a single step toward their prisoner, but was halted as Razorface raised a hoof.

"You know why I even need that holotape so damned badly?! It's because they'd rather hang me to death than believe the daughter of their own councilmare without evidence! They'd call her a fool right to her face just to get the pleasure of finally killing me! You've got the fucking balls to tell me that it's my fault I can't make a decent living in a town full of ponies like that?!" Chapter Break demanded as he placed both forelegs onto the table, well past the point of giving even a split second's thought to any of the words pouring from his mouth.

"Why don't you leave?" Razorface asked simply.

"Because you won't let me go!"

As Crystal Clear started snickering again, Razorface glanced to his bat briefly, but then diverted his attention to an issue of Guns and Bullets sitting on a nearby shelf. It was magically rolled up prior to zipping over and roundly striking Chapter in the head.

"Ow!" He flinched briefly but then furiously swatted the weaponized magazine away with his hoof.

"If everypony in Starlight Hill hates you, why haven't you moved on? There are other settlements with better prospects where nopony knows you, and gunshot wounds aside, you have four working legs. So, why are you still here?" the general elucidated.

"Because here is still better than being a pile of yao guai shit, or a decoration in some raider camp!" Chapter retorted. "The wasteland will kill me if I leave. I mean, fuck, you saw what the Regiment did to me!"

"Oh yeah, they wiped the floor with you, no question," Razorface started with a chortle, only serving to make the other stallion seethe all the more intensely. "But the Regiment isn't the wasteland, and the wasteland is only likely to kill you. Starlight Hill, on the other hoof, seems dead set on killing you, assuming you're telling the truth. So given the choice of maybe dying, and definitely dying... why are you still here?"

Chapter Break opened his mouth to speak but spent a moment saying nothing before closing it. The other ponies in the room silently watched him as a bit of the fire left his eyes and he was reduced to looking down wordlessly at the table. Soon he looked back up, the glower on his face returning as he chose to completely disregard the question. "You know, you talk shit on my negotiating skills, but maybe you should make something other than shooting my way out of here sound like my best-"

"Zax," Razorface said as he returned his attention to the map as though Chapter had suddenly ceased to exist.

"What do you mean Za-" Chapter began to ask before a zebra stallion's hoof practically teleported into his face from across the room. He could recall being punched harder, but never quite so effectively. A wave of sharp pain radiated through his entire body from the point of impact, and he fell limp to the ground as his limbs turned into spaghetti and most of his muscles opted to stop listening to his brain.

"I uh... just meant to take his gun, not punch his soul out of his body," the general clarified as he glanced up from his planning.

"You never told me not to punch his soul out of his body, either," Zax countered while poking around in Chapter's saddlebag until he found the rusty 10mm pistol. Chapter Break could do nothing to stop any of this, though since he was still conscious and breathing, he felt mostly safe in assuming all the talk of punching his soul out was an exaggeration... mostly.

"Hrm... I guess I didn't." Razorface levitated the weapon over after Zax held it up, and could not help but look at the neglected firearm with a bit of disgust. "Look kid, I'm not going to act like getting threats of violence is a deal breaker, we'd be out of business out here if it were, but this on top of you being a disrespectful, lying, lazy little shit to us? I have no desire to take a contract from you. All I want is the damn caps you owe us, and that's not going away just because you want it to really badly." He pulled the magazine out of the pistol and then cycled the action to eject the chambered round. "Get your ass out of my building and have somepony cuff you when you can move again, we've got shit to do."

The gun was levitated over to drop on top of the helpless stallion. Copperhead stepped aside to make way as Zax pushed him out the door with his muzzle, then stepped back into the planning room to resume discussion of the coming battle.

"Well... I got you here at least," the synth pony said in parting as he too joined them inside.

Chapter Break was left able to do little besides stare down the hallway with his back against the wall, feel the steadily increasing tremors inside, and contemplate his approaching end. He could not even chew himself out for having run his mouth again, because there would have been no point anyway. No words, no matter how well considered, would have changed the fact that he was not worth the kind of caps he needed to buy his way out of his situation. Telling stories was the only thing he could do, and it was as useless as the gun he had never bothered learning to properly maintain.

No, that wasn't true. The gun had worked fine when it had shot him in the head twice. It was not well taken care of, but it still functioned. It was more useful than he was... and it was the only thing he had left. Chapter weakly levitated the gun off of himself, looking at it as he tried to assure himself that the wasteland would only likely kill him.

"I think I have just the thing for this place," Razorface mused as he looked over to Copperhead. "Remember the shark tunnel?"

"Yep," Copperhead nodded.

"What the hell's a shark tunnel?" Crystal asked.

"It was a tunnel with really thick reinforced glass walls at the bottom of a shark tank. Ponies could walk through it and see the sharks swimming in their artificial habitat around them," the synth explained.

"He tried going through it as a colt, but got too scared by the violin music on the speakers and the dark lighting," Razorface recalled with a chuckle.

"Anyway," Copperhead resumed, ignoring the recollection, "that glass had to hold back water pressure, the odd shark hit, and whatever else would try to break it, because if it gave in everypony inside would drown. That's got to be thick enough to stop anything short of a gauss rifle."

"Yeah, he already sees where I'm going with thi-"

"Hey!" Chapter Break interrupted from outside the room.

Razorface let out a weary sigh and answered without turning around, "Yeah, what?"

"I can't get your caps but... I'll fight for you. I'll help you fight the Regiment!" he offered with a noticeably shaky voice.

The scarred stallion let out a single amused grunt at this. "Kid, even the greenest greenhorn stationed here would be able to take one look at you and know you're not the sort that could do eight-hundred caps worth of fighting. Fuck off."

...

"Then just kill me, please."

...

Razorface turned around. "Excuse me?"

"Look, if I don't have that holotape, and you all turn me over to SHS, all the politicians are going to have a grand old time dragging me through some circus where they jerk off about how virtuous they are in front of the ponies that will vote for them, and then I'll hang. If I'm going to die anyway, I'd rather be killed by ponies that don't care, because you wouldn't waste any time, and you wouldn't parade me the fuck around after," Chapter Break explained, tears forming in his eyes despite his best efforts. "So just... empty the whole clip this time, or bash my head in with a rock, or slit my throat. I don't care so long as it's over quickly."

The general silently looked over at Copperhead, and found the synth looking back with an unwavering gaze and a neutral expression, waiting. He glanced over to see Zax looking absolutely disgusted at the gray stallion, and Crystal lingering in impatient silence at the newest interruption. With another grumbling sigh he stepped over to Chapter Break, ignoring the slight smile that came to Copperhead's face.

"First of all, it's called a magazine. Second, what you do with your own head, and your own gun, on your own time, is your own damn business. If you want to take that quick road out of town, you're on your own. Nopony here is going to help you with that. Third, you owe a debt to us, and until that's paid off you pretty much belong to me. I'm not about to tolerate some punk damaging my property either, understood?" he asked as he towered over the prone Chapter Break.

"Uh... y-yes sir," he stammered, still unable to move for the most part.

"Good." Razorface's magic took hold of Chapter and stood him back up, leaving the still mostly paralyzed stallion to stand there on wobbly legs trying his best to regain command of his own limbs. "I'm still not wiping away the debt, but I am going to go far, far out of my usual way and cut you a break. If you're willing to put your ass on the line out there with us, and you live, I'll drop the recovery fee, and instead of owing us seven-hundred caps, you'll owe us a favor. When that favor is called in, you will drop everything to do it, and you will not ask questions. Is that also understood?"

"I uh... I understand," Chapter confirmed with a shaky nod.

"One more thing," the general said before viciously yanking the younger stallion off his barely functioning hooves by the collar of his taped together coat. "If I ever find out this whole bit with you being the most pathetic stallion I have ever met is some act you're putting on to skate around paying up, I'm going to tear off your legs, stab out your eyes, then toss you into the ocean so you can live out your last as a buoy," he threatened in no uncertain terms.

"I mean... I'd probably die of blood loss way before you got around throwing me in the-"

*** *** ***

"I swear to Celestia," Skeeto hissed through her teeth as Gnat was just a few steps from finishing his circling scan, "if something interrupts him now I am going to lose my shi-"

Chapter Break was rocketed out of the nearby window, flinging him in an arc that curved perfectly to have him smack right into the side of Gnat as the protectapony was taking its last two steps to complete the medical scan. After he impacted with a clang and sickening crunch before collapsing to the ground gritting his teeth and gripping his shoulder in agony, Skeeto was left standing in shocked silence as Gnat stood stone still following the severe jostling.

...

The protectapony gave a cheerful beep indicating the scan's success.

"Praise the fucking sun!" Skeeto swore in relief, finally able to take another sip of her beer as Gnat began clomping back over to tend to his assigned EXO-1 frame.

Razorface took his time strolling out after his guest. "Next time you feel the urge to correct somepony over something that doesn't matter, remember this and shut up. Got it?"

"Nngghh, got it!" Chapter managed to choke out as he laid there writhing in agony. "I... I think it popped out of the socket!"

Razorface's magic aura enveloped his shoulder before another sickening crack was heard and the stallion's groans turned into excruciating cries.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAA THANKS I GUESS?!" he shouted, the pain spiking considerably.

"Yeah, putting it back really hurts," the general said as he put the lone 10mm round back into the magazine, loaded it back into Chapter's pistol, and chambered a round. "Before I let you tag along to Monterein Bay with us, I need you to do one very simple, incredibly basic thing for me."

"Okay... what is that?" he asked, panting for breath as the edge started fading off the pain in his bruised up shoulder.

Minutes later he found himself standing at an improvised firing range with Razorface and Copperhead. The targets in front of the sandbags down range were bullet hole riddled chest plates and helmets painted with bullseyes and mounted on poles. Even having just met them for a couple minutes prior to being shot, Chapter was able to recognize the bits of armor as having come from the Regiment. Several Razorcorps ponies stood off to the side, having made way at the general's command to let Chapter have a turn.

"Hit the target. If you can do that, then I'll give you a healing potion to stop the limping, and two magazines of ammo for your gun," Razorface commanded as he stood at Chapter's side and back a few steps. "Assuming you know how to shoot, that is. You do know how to shoot, right?"

"I... have a grasp of the concept of shooting, yes," Chapter answered carefully.

"Then this shouldn't be any trouble at all, should it?" Razorface floated the young stallion's gun over, and after a bit of hesitation on Chapter's part the orange aura shifted to a blue color as he took hold of it.

"Right... very... very simple really. Just uh... load a round," he started, pulling back the slide.

The unfired round that popped out was caught by Razorface's magic before it hit the ground, the general saying nothing as several of the ponies off to the side snickered.

"Then... take the safety off." It clicked off without incident and he leveled the gun with one of the targets. "Line the sights up and..."

Copperhead noticed another issue with Chapter’s technique and opened his mouth to speak before another wave from the general silenced him.

"...then you pull the trig-"

The gun fired, recoiling directly backward into Chapter's face. Once his muzzle had taken the brunt of the impact the gun's muzzle lifted upward, landing a secondary hit right on his horn before it flew upward and fell on the ground just to his side as he collapsed gripping his now bloodied face. This of course provoked unhindered laughter from the assembled soldiers, but Razorface did not appear nearly as amused.

"MY FUCKING HORN!"

"You can't even shoot right at a range. How do you think you're going to fare in an actual gun fight, exactly?" he asked pointedly as he picked up the 10mm pistol, shook some dirt off, then popped the spare bullet back into the magazine, again.

"Hey," Copperhead interjected, "he hit the target, just like you asked."

Razorface looked over to see that the bullseye mark did indeed have an extra dent from a fresh bullet impact. It was far off of the center, but it was not a miss either, and that really was all he had asked. He aimed a blank stare at Copperhead, whose only response was to motion with his head toward the Razorcorps soldiers. The general was given the choice of either keeping to his word, or trying to weasel his way out of it in front of his own ponies, which was no real choice at all. "Fuck."

"Nice job, Muzzlebite!" one of the laughing soldiers jeered.

"Luna's lewd lips, they named him too," Razorface groaned with a hoof planted firmly on his face.

*** *** ***

"So they bought it?" General Mills asked the stallion at her side.

"Yep. The D-grades think they're being left here to hold the aquarium against any more SHS patrols while we head north to deal with a Redeemer attack on the Trotsonville Airport," Post confirmed, the two well out of earshot of any other Regiment ponies as they stood on the roof overseeing the loading of the last shipment of supplies to be brought back to the nearby tunnels.

"Are our girls deployed?"

"Two of them are now patrolling the streets, yes."

"Good. They ought to cause some damage if the D-grades can't manage it." She frowned as she caught sight of something that did not sit well with her at all. "Post?"

"Yes?"

"Why aren't those two loaded onto a wagon already?" she asked as she pointed at two still figures covered with sheets stained by hours upon countless hours of use in a workshop. One was tall but clearly equine in shape, while the other was simply far larger than any pony could manage and only had three legs.

"I gave the order to leave them here. I'll need them," Command Post explained plainly.

"You will, huh? What will you need them for?" she asked with narrowed eyes, giving him a chance to back down.

"I'm staying to kill Razorface, that's what I will need them for," he answered without hesitation or even a diverted gaze as he stared back through his glasses. "We have a location that's far away from his reinforcements, and equal parts defensible and disposable. This is the perfect chance, and I am still done waiting."

Her eyebrow twitched and her face soured into a barely repressed scowl, but she said nothing save for ordering him to follow her as she trotted over to the roof access leading to the building's maintenance stairwell. After a brisk trip to the front door spent in tense silence they emerged from the aquarium employee entrance and made a beeline for the two sheet covered figures. Any Regiment ponies unfortunate enough to be nearby quickly noticed the deathly aura radiating off their general and practically stumbled out of her way. "Post, all you have to do is not say a word, and I will forget this ever happened," she hissed through her teeth as they approached.

The two ponies assigned to guard the valuable equipment caught sight of Steel Mills, glanced to one another, then shared a nervous gulp as they dutifully remained at their posts.

"You two, go grab another couple grunts and get these loaded up like they should have been an hour ago," she commanded, mindful that they had only been following orders as she tried to keep the edge out of her voice.

"Ma'am," the two stallions nodded as they took off at a hurried trot. Soon they would return, the cargo would be loaded, and the whole stupid mess would be resol-

"Stop," Post intervened as he walked over to the contested cargo. The Regiment stallions did as requested, but looked over to Mills with confusion, clearly unnerved by two officers trying to give them opposing orders. "These are staying here, there's no need to load them."

"Ignore that order. Go," Mills repeated as she now openly glared daggers at her second in command, waving the two stallions away as they promptly got back to it. Regiment ponies nearby were starting to become a bit more interested in the unfolding spectacle than their proper work.

The two stallions caught in the middle of it were halted again in an even more persuasive fashion as Post's rifle and sidearm zipped over to point at them as they floated in their path. "Obey that order. Stop."

The onlookers were suddenly disarmed as pink levitation magic snatched up all nearby weaponry, Posts' included, from every single mouth, holster, or battle saddle in reach. His two guns had been swiftly repaid by at least fifty or so pointing back at him courtesy of Steel Mills, the General not even breaking a sweat as she leisurely levitated the considerable arsenal surrounding her second in command. "Post, I don't lack sympathy for your position, but this ends now."

"It does, huh?"

She nudged her muzzle into one of the pouches on her side and pulled out a set of hoof cuffs that were then dropped at Post's hooves. "You can either put those on and allow these two to escort you into a cage for transport, or I can put as many bullets into your legs as needed. Your call."

"The whole point of this operation is to make sure that Starlight Hill doesn't get away with fucking with us, but what does that matter when he got away with fucking with us already, because you're too busy clinging to what we have left to go after him?!"

"Thirty seconds, Post."

"I don't lack sympathy for your position either. We got our flanks handed to us. I understand you need to protect the Regiment. I get it. But you're not thinking straight about this, or else you'd realize this is a golden opportunity."

"Twenty seconds."

"We could stab them right in their damned eye, Mills! The entire Radscythe would know about it! There's not a raider tribe around that wouldn't be eating out of our hooves after that, and all it will take is a little more invested resources!"

She brought up her hooves to gently hold his cheeks as she brought her face close enough for their horns to cross. "My brother is not 'a little more invested resources', you stupid prick," she whispered to him before releasing him and backing away a step. "Ten seconds."

"Fine... fine, Mills. You win," he finally relented, sighing as he picked up the cuffs. "Even if I still think you're making the wrong choice, what can I do about it? You've got me covered from all angles, and even if you only had one gun I doubt S.A.T.S. would be of any use, since you're doubtlessly watching my every move."

"Thank you, Post," she said with sincere relief as he put one of his hooves in the cuffs.

He was about to put the second cuff on, but then paused. "Although... you know... three hours ago," he said as he took his glasses off, "you weren't."

Steel Mills flinched to the side slightly as something struck her in the neck, compromising her concentration and sending half of the guns dropping to the ground as the remainder started to sag steadily. She reached up to feel her neck and found something stuck there, yanking it out and seeing that she now held an emptied syringe dart with her blood dripping off the needle. Her eyes started to droop as her body started feeling very, very heavy.

"Oh wow. That sure was lucky for me, wasn't it?"

"You... bastard," she slurred, attempting to advance on him menacingly but only managing to stumble into his outstretched hooves. One by one the other guns dropped as the magic holding them wobbled and collapsed until her magic had released all of them. "You... conniving... ass," she murmured as she weakly attempted to sock him in the jaw, accomplishing little else beyond tapping him on the cheek. As her vision faded bit by bit, she leaned on him more and more as her limbs started growing too heavy to move.

"Shh, it's okay, I'll be okay," he whispered to her as he held her close. "Just take a nap and let me do this for us."

She twitched a few more times as she tried to defy the drugs overwhelming her system, but it only took a few more moments for her body to go completely limp as her eyes slowly drifted closed. "Ff..fffffuuuuuck..."

Post held her a few moments longer to confirm she was out cold before gently setting her down on her side as comfortably as he could manage. He then stood and slipped his hoof out of the cuff before looking at the small crowd that had gathered to see what he would do.

"Well... looks like General Mills is unable to command us right now, so you'll be taking orders from me for the moment." He magically plucked his rifle and pistol from the pile of guns, casually looking them over before holstering the pistol and shouldering the rifle. "Unless somepony has any objections, of course?" he invited while slipping his glasses back on.

The Regiment ponies silently looked to one another, collectively knowing that they had just seen incredibly shady events taking place. However, the enduring silence confirmed that none of them were up for giving Command Post any hassle about it, and they wound up offering no resistance as a few shook their heads, content with following Post's orders until the general was slightly more conscious.

"Good. Leave these two bots here, and move the two northern turrets inside. I have a better plan for them than to keep them sitting there with nothing to shoot at," he ordered as he gently lifted Steel Mills off the ground with his magic, cradling her comfortably without letting any of her limbs dangle awkwardly. There was not much he could do about the drool dripping from the side of her mouth though. "If anypony has any questions, I'll be inside after I get her safely set up in the medic's wagon. Understood?"

"Yes sir!" barked one of the higher ranked soldiers.

Command Post nodded before carrying his sister off toward the caravan that was set to leave within the hour, leaving the assembled ponies to turn their attention to the pile of weapons that General Mills had dropped.

...

"So how do we figure out whose gun is whose?"

"Fuck if I know."

Melancholy Hill

by Chapter 17

Chapter One: Equus Non Grata

Chapter Two: Chain of Command