Hey guys, this is just kind of an experiment to see how people like the story and if FiM and Metro can work together to make an enjoyable story. Comment if you think it should be continued. Please, be honest, but nice. Hope you enjoy.

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A soft light just barely crept through the tattered tent that had over the last few years become Rainbow Dash's home, here in the land of eternal twilight. The metro system, a sprawling system of tunnels and stations, had become their prison, their fortress, their home. It became safety from the caustic outside world that had been destroyed about seven years ago in 'the Conquest'. The numerous stations home to the relatively scarce remainder of the species.

Groaning as she sits up, half awake, Rainbow rubs her temples in pain, trying to ward off a headache. She stands up, stretching, and readies herself for the day, the somewhat relieving sound of music coming from outside the tent in the middle of her tent circle on the south-west corner of her station-home, Outreach. Letting her thoughts wander to the expected events of the coming day, she ties her boots and pulls on her somewhat protective vest that was issued to her when they all had to make a move for the metro in those last few dwindling days, when the weather teams were re-directed to form a makeshift militia. Nopony knew what strange manner of outsiders and mutants would find their way to their new metro-home.

"Hey, Dash? You awake?" she hears a familiar voice from outside her small canvas living space.

"Yeah, I'm awake. What's up?" she replies as the head of her longtime friend Twilight Sparkle comes into view in her tent.

"It's 0630, role is in fifteen minutes, just wanted to make sure that you're up." The purple unicorn pauses, a far-off thinking look coming across her face. "Do you think we'll ever get back to the surface?"

"If the scientists have done their homework right, we'll be back up in about thirteen years. Assuming the mutants don't get to us first." It wasn't just empty pessimism; the mutants had been becoming ever more daring and vigilant, attacking more often and with greater resolve. "Did you hear about Cloudpeak?" the pegasus asks, raising an eyebrow and finishing the knots on her steel toed boots. Twilight just shakes her head in a negatory response. "I heard that a huge wave of the things swept through, took the teams hours to deal with them all and call the area secure again." She tells the story with a sad, disgusted look, filled with disdain for the mutants. "There were apparently dozens of them."

After a few moments of silent thought on both sides, Twilight says, "Well, we'd better get going if we want to be there in time for role."

"Good idea." The friends get up and walk towards the main gathering area, a flat iron boarding platform with megaphone poles with which announcements are made. Lining up with the rest of their corner of the station, the two friends looked over the ponies lined up on both sides, with drowsy looks and demoralized posture. The looks of people who have seen their homes turned into a hellish landscape. The looks of Equestrians. The Colonel of this corner starts to call out names, each one followed by responses ranging from a small, defeated grunt, to a loud, very intentionally psyched up confirmation of presence.

"Fery vell. All sektors, to jour duties," comes the heavily accented voice of the supreme commander of the station over the megaphones. [A/N: yes, there is a difference between 'c' and 'k' to me; 'k' is a harder sound] The assembled ponies then go about their business, most of the militia going to the armory, merchants going to their various stands, and scientists and researchers going to their labs, leaving the platform with only a small few ponies present.

"Dash?" Twilight gets the sky blue pegasus's attention, "Do you ever wonder how the others are doing in their stations?"

She looks sad, remembering the four other ponies that they had grown near inseparable friends with over the years. The only thing that could really separate them is an apocalypse, and an apocalypse did the job.

"Of course. I think about that every time we do role like this. I can't help but wonder what they're doin', how they are, if their even still alive. Ya' know how many stations are attacked, how many ponies are injured, killed even." They both angle their heads down in thought, their eyes glassing over. "I just hope that they're alright, and try not to worry about it, 'cause ya' know? There's nothin' we can do about it if somethin' DID happen. And it tears me up a bit each time knowin' that."

They just stand there in thought for a minute or two, then Dash looks up at her friend.

"Hey, I've gotta get to the armory, I'm late again, I'm really gonna get it." With that she walks off through the familiar, under-repaired station towards the armory, getting ready for another boring, but stressful day of waiting for hell.

---

Hello again, I know it's short, but like I said: this chapter is an experiment. If even one person shows interest, the next chapter will be longer.

A/N: Hello! I promised last chapter that if I got even one review, I would continue, so here it is.

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"Nine-five, do you see anything out there?" the grey and white colt calls from the 40 meter.

"Nothing, but what else is new?" Rainbow answers with a sigh, wishing vaguely that there was even the tiniest amount of personality in the pony one post back. At least enough to refer to her by her name instead of the heartless, impersonal number issued to her by the higher-ups. At least she has Derpy at her post, providing laughs by the hour.

She let her thoughts wonder around her head aimlessly, going everywhere from her old house in Ponyville, to her less than pleasant life in flight school, to the workings of the AK that lie at her side, leaned against the sandbag wall. 'Am I really THAT bored? That I have nothing better to do than think about how my AK works?' she asks herself in amazement. Yes Rainbow, yes you are.

She's getting a bit drowsy, her night last night not exactly being restful, she can feel her eyelids slipping further and further, trying to press her into the void of sleep.

"Nine-five, you can wake up now, shift's over. Report back in an hour and a half," the soulless, boring pony from the 30 meter says dryly, obviously suppressing annoyance at her little breach in protocol.

"Ugh, could you at LEAST call me by my name? Why are you so-" she is cut off by the colt, who adopts a look of frightened confusion, shushing her and holding up a halting hand.

"Do you hear that?"

Rainbow listens for a few seconds, hearing nothing, "No, I don't hear anything. And you could be a bit more pol-" she's cut off again, this time stopping herself, hearing a soft, barely audible crunching of hoof falls on the gravel that makes up the floor of the passage to the strange surface, which is hidden behind two-ton blast doors, a look of fearful realization coming across her face. There's a loud clatter from the tripwires that they had set up to alert the pegasi to any not-yet-visible threats. The colt raises his well maintenanced Kalashnikov, flicking the safety off to semi-automatic at the same time Dash makes a dive for her own weapon, going prone and flicking the setting straight to fully automatic and sounds the stand-by alarm. A blood chilling screech fills the air, the vibrations shaking the cast iron pot of water onto the small fire that Dash had since forgotten is burning. Both ponies winced, a stinging pain in their ears, leaving a high pitched ringing dominating most conscious thought. Then appears the shapes, the haunting silhouettes of six or eight shadowy figures marching steadily towards them in even ranks. Dash hits the main alarm, calling all militia ponies in the tunnel to the forward post, the 40, in this case.

Another noise sounds from the ominous depths of the tunnel. Not a high pitched whine that leaves its unwilling audience deafened, like the last; but a low, thundering monotone with a dissonance-like wave to it that makes Rainbow's blood run cold, her face paling and her hair sticking up on end. The sounds of the hoof falls of their re-enforcements faltered, slowing down and some stopping altogether. Dash hears the sickening splatter of vomit on the ground. The figures are coming into better focus in the darkness of the tunnel; big, lumbering bipedal forms that were easily one and a half times as large as the normal pony. Dash and the colt next to her, two-seven, if his vest indicates correctly, are joined by the two or three ponies that were not deterred by the noise that made Dash's skin crawl.

A single, ringing shot sounds through the tunnel, making Dash jump slightly in her prone position and look to the source of the noise, two-seven's rifle, which has smoke peeling off of its barrel. She looks back to the still approaching figures, aiming at the middle of their formation. She pulls the trigger, letting a small burst escape her weapon, letting a triumphant grin spread across her face as she sees two of their number get chewed up by the bullets, falling to the ground. Her grin is quickly replaced by a look of absolute terror as they stand back up, close enough now to see some of their more obvious wounds. At least three bullet holes have appeared on both of their necks, yet they just stand up like nothing happened and let out another blood-freezing tone.

"Open fire! Get an M.G. down here! Focus on them one or two at a time, concentrate fire!" two-seven yells over the growing noise of gunfire. The sharp cracks of the AK's are quickly joined by the deep thump of the heavy machine gun, cutting the strange things down time and again until they went down and stayed that way.

The deafening noise in the tunnel suddenly stops, leaving a loud, high pitched whine in Rainbow's ears for the second time today, even through the ear protection she was given. Two-seven stood slowly from his crouched position behind the waist high sandbag wall, stepping forwards toward the motionless forms, keeping his weapon trained on them the entire time. When he is right next to them, he probingly kicks the first one, recoiling quickly in case it actually is still alive. He steps over them to check if they had anything with them, realizing with a small bite of fear that they didn't. The mutants did ever have any weapons either, but these were clearly not the common tunnel trash.

"Okay, all clear on this for-" his eyes fly open, widening in pain, "AHHH!" he is cut off when one of the number reaches out and claws his calf, heavily lacerating it. It grabs him by the ankle and pulls him down to the ground, screaming in agony and horror, pulling him away. He grabs for his side-arm by his thigh, pulling it out and emptying a full magazine into the creature's head, scrambling away from the lifeless beast. He painfully reaches the line, climbing over the sandbag wall, leaving a trail of blood from the still body. There is a small hissing sound as he lights the fuse of a grenade, lobbing it into the motionless heap of biomass, where it explodes, scattering black chunks of thing in all directions.

When Dash gets over the shock of the engagement, she turns quickly to see two-seven, supported by one of the ponies from further down the line, limping to the rear where the medical station is set up. So much for break, Dash says to herself staring in disbelief at the scattered pieces of thing and spatters of maroon blood that are spread throughout the tunnel.

Walking gloomily towards her tent, Rainbow reflects upon the events of the shift. A new breed of beast found, another threat to their isolated and glum lives, and a good soldier wounded and slowly dying of blood loss and an inability to make new, healthy blood cells due to the large amount of damage done to his leg.

"Hey Dash!" she hears the voice of her friend, but it does nothing to improve her mood, something the unicorn picks up on. "Is everything okay? I heard that there was a breach today," the concerned mare says.

"Yeah, I'm fine, but one of the ponies is severely injured. He may be dead now," replies the pegasus, her head lowering. The purple unicorn's shoulders slouch, her eyes softening even more.

"What was it? The common?"

"No, these things were like nothing we've ever seen before. They were damn near impossible to kill, just taking bullet after bullet and still getting up. The one that clawed two-seven had half of its side almost blown out," Dash remembers in disgust, the chewed up flesh of the monsters that somehow still managed to injure her comrade. Twilight gasps, covering her mouth, eyes widening in distant horror and fear. "Somepony is sending a description in to the Biological Association of Outreach [BAoO] for classification and naming."

The rest of the day carries on without a hitch. Everypony is nervous, but kept to their work as always. About four hours after the incident at the 40', an emergency meeting is held at the main meeting/ assembly area.

"I'm sure that all of you are familiar with the day's earlier goings-on, with the mysterious creatures at the 40'. Well, the BAoO has confirmed that this is a previously unidentified threat, and has done a complete write-up and classification on it."

It's amazing how much more efficient everything is in times of crisis and panic. Dash thinks, standing next to Twilight, who is obviously more interested in the whole thing than her.

"As quoted in the write-up, 'This previously unidentified creature, quickly becoming known simply as the 'Dark Ones', scientific Equus Mortem, has been sighted by sentries of Outreach Station at the 40 meter south-east post. These creatures seem to have a natural psychological weapon, being able to, through use of very specific frequencies of sound wave, tap into the brains activities, inducing feelings of fear, nausea, and hopelessness. A known biography of the creatures follows:

Average height: appx. 1.5 meters

Natural defenses: psychological, claws, teeth

Habitat: n/a

Food of preference: n/a

Breeding environments: n/a"

Dash and Twilight listen on in fear as the unknowns mount, leaving so much potential danger. Eventually, the meeting comes to an end, and the gathered ponies are dismissed to their tents. Dash and Twilight walk back in nervous conversation, pondering on unknowns until they find themselves at their side-by-side tents.

"I'm just gonna sit out here for a while and, ya' know, enjoy the fire, maybe tell a story or two." Dash tells her good friend, "See ya tomorrow." With that, Twilight waves and disappears into her tent.

"So," Rainbow hears a rough, foreign voice from behind her, making her gasp almost inaudibly, "I hear that you were there at the 40' today when shit went down."

"Yeah, I was. What's it to ya? Who are you anyway? You don't sound like you're from around here." she says, turning to face the other pony, a darkish, off-white pony with a black, close cut mane and a scar through his left eye. He is wearing a vest with many pockets, a tattered and beaten up one at that. The mark of someone who travels.

"My name is not important, but you can call me Hunter. And it's a lot to me, actually. I heard stories around, and remembered an old prophecy that said something about a new breed of terrible. I think that this might be it. I need to go to the surface, find their home grounds, and destroy them. That's going to be the easiest way to get rid of them."

"Okay. That still doesn't have anything to do with me being at the 40'."

"I was getting to that. I heard that you weren't affected by any of it. That true?" He asks, raising a testing eyebrow.

"I got a little scared at the noises and the fact that they just wouldn't die, but I definitely wasn't running scared."

"How about the common tunnel trash? They scare you at all?"

Rainbow lets out a sharp, amused breath, one corner of her mouth twitching up in a half-grin. "Pfft, no way. They aren't worth the cost of the bullets, much less the hesitation of fear." Dash says immediately and dismissively.

"Good, then you would be able to be trusted with my little mission, if you would choose to accept it." Dash's eyebrow perks up, suddenly more interested in this strange man. A mission, but to where? And for what?

"What's the mission about? How can you expect me to accept something that I don't even know anything about?"

"I'm afraid that I can't tell you unless you agree, but if you do, I can make it worth your while." Hunter adopts a little grin as Dash's interest spikes again at this. He reaches into his pocket, pulling out three large coin pouches, chuckling to himself as Rainbow's eyes widen and her jaw slacks at the sight, staring in disbelief.

"This will be enough to get you started, get you the supplies and through the first part of the mission. So, do I have your interest now?"

Rainbow refocuses. "I think you might have yourself a taker on this 'mission' of yours." she states simply.

"Good, now follow me." Hunter says, smiling and obviously very pleased with himself, motioning her over to an unpopulated and quiet corner. "It's very simple actually. I'm going to the surface to deal with these bitches once and for all. The thing is: I might not make it, and if I don't, I'll need somepony to do go to Central and inform them of the situation." Dash listens with focus and interest, her eyebrows both rising almost into her mane at the mention of Central, the location having an almost reverent ring to it in these dark times.

"So you're saying that you're going to the surface, and that if you die, I need to go to central?" Hunter nods, affirming that the information is correct, "How will I know if you're dead or not?"

"If I don't come back in three days, I'm dead, and you need to get to Central, which reminds me," he reaches into a pocket in the front of his vest, pulling out a small sheet of relatively thin metal with some markings on it hanging from a chain, "This may come in handy during the mission, if it comes to it." He hands her the chain. "Do NOT lose that."

Rainbow just sits there for a moment, taking the information in. "Am I allowed to bring my friend?"

"Sure, as long as you both can handle it, the more the merrier, I suppose. But word of this cannot let out." Hunter's face is one of deadly seriousness as he says the last bit.

"Okay," Rainbow angles her head down and slightly to the left, thinking. She nods. "Alright then, three days pass, if you're not back, we go." She extends her arm for shaking, which Hunter takes, up and down once, firmly.

Rainbow and Hunter then go their separate ways. Rainbow goes over to her friend's tent, tapping the solid concrete three times. "Come in." she hears from inside, pulling the fading green material aside.

"Twi', we may be going on a little trip in a few days." She explains the whole thing, about Hunter and his mission.

Twilight sits with a thoughtful look for a few seconds before responding. "Central, hmm? Well, it looks like we have a pretty high chance of taking a few weeks off, I think. We'd better get some sleep now, though. It's another early morning tomorrow, and time for discussion later. G'night" she says, rolling over and closing her eyes.

"'Night."

---

Hello again. So we've met Hunter! Yay! I'm gonna be gone for a week or so, but I will try to upload another chapter soon after returning. Maybe I'll even drag Bourbon into things soon. Until then, keep bein' Bronies... I guess. See you in a week /)*(\

Hey there again! Sorry this is so much shorter, but I haven't uploaded in a week, and I feel the need to submit something, no matter how short. More will hopefully be coming shortly, and I promise I will find a way to bring Bourbon into the next chapter, and maybe another of the mane six shortly thereafter.

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The next day, everypony is woken at 0615, as usual. The day presses on, no trouble, no announcements, no breaches. No sight of Hunter. And the shifts come and go, and the fires light the station alone as the power to lights is cut, signaling the arrival of 2130.

And the day after starts and glides smoothly by, the biggest issue for the common pony being the anxiety, the fear for the next attack. And the shifts come and go, and the fires light the station alone. No sight of him.

The third day. The day of truth. Had Hunter pulled through? Or will Twilight and Rainbow take a bit of a break from common duties. Morning role, nothing. Watch in the tunnels, nothing. The evening role comes and goes, with still not a trace of the man.

The two ponies go to the market and stock up on supplies for their journey, a weapon for Twilight, ammunition for both ponies weapons, a knife for each of them, food, water filters, gas mask filters, etc.

"Twi', d'ya have your stuff?" Rainbow asks cautiously and quietly through the dark, the fire but a smoldering pile of smoking logs behind me, a tribute to how old the night is.

"Yeah, you?" comes the reply as the purple pony comes into view outside the tent.

"Yup, now let's get a move on, don't want to keep Central waiting." Dash whispers smugly as they depart across the station, leaving the city limits straight through the pitiful excuses for guards that are stationed there. And so they begin.

The tunnel is dark, with the only light fading behind them as they walk further and further away from the station. Dash gets her flashlight, illuminating the path in front of them. The only sound in the tunnel is the soft crunching as they move across the gravel. A high whine suddenly pierces the air, making both ponies cringe, the sound of movement soon following. Rainbow sees them first, a small group of the ungodly mutants, the common trash of the tunnels. Taking quick aim, she lets off a burst, catching the beast in the chest, wisps of navy blood trailing behind the bullets as they rip through the beast's flesh with ease, dropping it in an instant. She hears the somewhat unexpected sound of a rifle discharging beside her, looking at the mare standing next to her, weapon resting on her shoulder, the barrel steaming with the heat of the gunfire contacting the cold, lifeless tunnel air. Two were dead, but there are still three or four that need to be taken care of, advancing at an alarming rate. Two more bursts of gunfire crack and echo through the tunnel, followed by the dull thud of dead and dying creatures. Dash tries to aim at the last mutant, but it's too late, the creature is already airborne, leaping at her with extended claws, saliva dripping from its needle-like teeth. It hits her full force in the chest, knocking her onto her back. Holding the gnashing teeth away from her with one arm, Dash reaches down to her thigh, pulling the combat knife that rested in its sheath and jabbing it into the thing's neck, penetrating and separating the spine with a satisfying, if sickening, muffled crack.

"Dash! Are you okay?" Twilight asks, reaching a hoof out to help her friend up. Dash takes the offered hand, pushing the lifeless and bloody form off of her chest and standing up.

"Yeah, I'm fine, thanks. Where'd ya learn to shoot like that? I've seen people on defense team with worse shooting ability, and no offence, but ya don't exactly seem the shooting type." Rainbow comments, truly impressed.

"Eh, maybe I'm not. But I am the pissed off at mutants type."

Rainbow shrugs. "Sure, why not."

They continue down the passage, more cautiously this time. The silence weighs heavy on ready ears, no sound coming from the tunnel at all. Dash's light goes out, and the darkness comes crashing down. They decide that it's far too late to turn back now, and press ahead into the dark unknown. Twilight is the first to detect just the faintest hint of light far in the tunnel, near certainly indicating a settlement of some sort. It presses them ever faster, almost sprinting, towards the light. Running and running, they Twilight starts to get winded, stopping to catch her breath.

"Dash, something *huff* isn't right *huff* with this*huff*. Look at the light," Twilight says, pointing at it, "It's not any closer than it was a minute ago. Something is off here."

An electric crackling fills the air, growing in volume until it fills the entirety of the very space in which they are standing, jumping through every individual particle until it held monopoly over the whole area. Tiredness forgotten, they run even faster towards the ever fading light, the mocking light at the end of this metaphorical and literal tunnel. Slowly, the noise dies down, becoming nothing, yielding power once more to the deafening sound of silence, pierced only by the heavy hooffalls on gravel, the deep, panicked breathing, and the thunderous heartbeat of the two mares as they run to the relieving light. They don't stop, or even slow down, until the blinding brightness of a spotlight hits them in the eyes, startling them enough to snap them out of their panic, tumbling into a heap on the floor, legs stinging with little gravel cuts.

"Stop! Who goes there?" A harsh, militant voice pours over them like a waterfall. The harsh voice pauses for a moment. "What? Ponies? I thought that the station back there had been wiped out." The spotlight dies away as the voice becomes less demanding, adopting an almost relieved tone. "Quickly, come inside the perimeter."

Rainbow and Twilight regain their footing, standing up and walking dazedly through the now open gate and into the foreign station.

---

Thanks for reading, and sorry again for the shortness. I will try to upload again in the next few days, but until then, bye. /)*(\

Hi all (if any), another chapter, hot off the keyboard. A little longer than the last, if only by a bit. Enjoy, and I'll see you at the end of the chapter.

---

It's a dreary place, with downtrodden ponies and lazy songs drifting in and out of tents and markets. The lights are flickering weakly, only serving to add to the saddening effect.

"Downset here is a bit of a downer station, if you haven't noticed," drifts the voice of the guard that's leading them through the station on a visual only tour of sorts. "The place is almost as defeated as the ponies that live here. We thought that the station down there, Outreach was it?, was either deserted or overtaken. Apparently we were wrong, though."

"Downset, huh? No offence, but the name fits, if you ask me." Dash says, looking over the sad station as she walks. The guard chuckles, turning to face them, walking backwards.

"You're funny, you are. What're your names, by the-" his eyes widen slightly, looking down at Dash's arm, his smile melting on spot. "Medic! We need a medic over here!"

The friends follow his eyes, down to Dash's arm, where they are both shocked to see several thick streams of maroon blood flowing down her wrist and hand, trailing behind them. Rainbow then remembers the earlier confrontation with the mutants in the tunnel. She had blocked with her arm. Stupid, stupid, stupid! She thinks as a new pony arrives at a run, a white rucksack with a red cross on it slung over her back. Rainbow winces as she dabs the cut with alcohol, quickly applying a bandage.

"Alright, that should do it. It'll be better in about a day, maybe two," the medical pony says as she walks off, meshing into the crowd.

"Alright, that taken care of, what are your names? You never answered."

"My name is Twilight Sparkle, and this is my friend, Rainbow Dash. We're, of course, from Outreach. We decided to go and see the metro, though." Twilight explains. He nods in understanding, turning around once again, continuing to his destination, the two friends following.

"So I guess you haven't heard about the hell that's spread over the metro in Outreach, have you?" The guard asks, his saddened tone returning. He takes their silence as a 'no'. "Well it's been nothing but war after war further north. The Soviets are rumored to have reformed, as have the Nazis, cults are forming all over. It's chaos." The mare's eyes widen at the news. The horrors that must be going on in the north are enough to make the blood drain from their faces. And they know that their friends are up there somewhere.

"It's been battle after bloody battle all over the place. As if the mutants aren't bad enough, ponies still haven't learned how to stop killing each other over relatively trivial matters."

After some moments of silence, they arrive at a small building, practically a box of sheet metal, a cage for the poor pony that had to stay there. Walking around to the back, the guard knocks on a small door.

"Hey! Open up!"

"Who goes there?"

The guard sighs. "Unit D.S.-1307, now open up."

The door opens, revealing a communications booth with a short range wireless transmitter/receiver, and a long range wired transmitter/receiver.

"Send a message down the line: Outreach is still inhabited. Their comm. unit must have taken irreparable damage, but the station is still alive." 1307 says as he walks into the already cramped booth, sitting down on a small wooden crate.

"'S anything interesting going on here?" He asks with a bored tone.

"Nothing. How 'bout by south?"

"If there was, would I be here right now? Nothing EVER goes on at south. I'm almost insulted that they stuck me at that hell-hole of boring." Agitation creeps into his voice. Dash understands exactly what he's talking about, being from the outer-most, and therefore most boring, post herself.

"Watch what you say, there was a breach at south in Outreach almost a week ago. These weren't the common tunnel trash, it was completely new. Sons of bitches were near impossible to kill, too. It took the full crew, a heavy machine gun, and a high-power explosive to kill eight of them," Dash says plainly, looking at the ground as she remembers the excruciating pain in her fallen comrade's face, and the military funeral which was held a day and a half after. The faces of the Downset soldiers were blank with shock.

"Okay evolution, seriously, what the fuck?" the stunned comm.s operator says.

Discussion continues for a few hours before all of them go to sleep.

"Well girls, consider yourselves privileged, you're the third and fourth ponies to EVER sleep in the comm. booth. I don't let just anypony do this," the operator says, making the two tired mares give a tired-high laugh. Minutes later, all of them are asleep.

The tunnel just stretches on endlessly, not curving, inclining, declining, nothing. There aren't even any offshoot tunnels or rooms. Dash is weighed heavily down by an invisible force, making each footfall send a renewed wave of pain up her tired legs. Her eyelids are heavy as led, and it takes all of her willpower to keep them open. Something is strange about this tunnel, but she can't really tell what. Suddenly, all of the lights die. Wait, lights? The tunnels didn't have any working lights anymore. She reaches to where she keeps her flashlight, but feels an intense stinging in her wrists when she tries to move them. She looks over her shoulder to find them bound with a glowing blue wire behind her back. A rhythmic thumping starts, enveloping the entire tunnel. All clear on this for- AHHHH! She hears the haunting scream behind her, turning to find the contorted face of two-seven, her fallen brother in arms. He is suddenly joined by two other ponies, both mares but one clearly older than the other. They are crying over his now limp body. A horrible remembrance sweeps over her: he had a mare friend, and they adopted a little mare together. They had planned their lifetimes together, she remembered Derpy's strange, but reliable voice, filled with unusual sadness. Tears start to well in her eyes. She closes them forcefully, but the image is still there, taunting her behind closed lids. She hears a small sound joining the thunderous booming still filling the empty tunnel. A soft dripping, as she feels burning trails of moisture run down her face. She feels a stinging pain as she falls to her knees, burying her face in her hooves, her shoulders shaking lightly with her sobs.

The noise suddenly stops, leaving the tunnel with nothing but a blue pegasus on her knees, the quiet sound of regretful sobs, and the drip of tears hitting the ground.

Why him? Why somepony with so much to live for? With a family? What did he do to get that? Her pained thoughts echo in the empty blackness.

"Dash?" a familiar voice calls out, forcing her head out of her hooves. "Dash! What's wrong?" She feels a light shaking on her shoulder, and a gentle hand petting her mane.

As she wakes up, Dash sees the concerned face of her friend hanging over her. Her throat is sore, as are her eyes. The dream washes back over her like a wave of overpressure, forcing a new stream of tears down her face.

"What's wrong? Did you have a bad dream?"

She nods her head, unable to form a sentence without choking on her words.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

Through her silent cries, she manages to explain the whole dream, leaving Twilight nearing tears as well. She looks over at the clock that is hanging on the wall. 05:48, they should probably go soon. She stands up, gathering her things quietly and going to the door.

"Where are you going?" Twilight asks.

"It's almost 06:00, we should probably get going." Nodding silent agreement, Twilight grabs her things too, joining Rainbow by the door, leaving a small note of thanks for the soldier and comm. operator. The two make their way past the outskirts of Downset, leaving the station behind, continuing on their journey to Central.

---

Dear all who were expecting Uncle Bourbon, I'm SO sorry! I really am. Next chapter, Pinky Pie Promise. I'll try to get it up in the next few days, but I've run out of pre-written stuff, so you're getting it only as fast as I can make it, which is, sadly, pretty slow. Until the Bourbon chapter, Do Svedan'ya. /)*(\

They walk on, silently preparing their minds for the hell they now know could creep out of the tunnel. With the floodlights behind them fading, Dash takes out her flashlight and fiddles around with it a bit.

"Whatcha doin'?" Twilight asks, giving a confused look to the malfunctioning light.

"Eh, I took some batteries from the comm. booth, so I'm putting those in."

Twilight eyes her friend, disapproving of her thievery. This lasted almost a few seconds before she busted into laughter.

"ONLY you, Dash. Only you would think 'Hmm, I need some batteries, let's steal them from ponies that are already sad. Even better, let's steal them from a run down, falling apart communication booth!'" she imitates with a comic Rainbow voice. Dash starts to chuckle at the accuracy of that assessment of her thought process. As they walk further down the deserted tunnel, they don't say much beyond commenting on things that they see in the tunnel. A strange form here, a weird shadow there, not much. The flashlight scatters strange, menacing shadows across the sides of the tunnel as they pass. They half of jump at a clicking noise to their left, quickly leveling their rifles at the source of the disturbance. Nothing.

"The tunnels make ya jumpy," Dash states. They keep walking. Snap! Dash fires blindly behind her in panic, hearing a whining sound as the high ring the gunfire left in their ears dies away.

"I've heard of these things," Dash says, looking over the mutant's corpse, "Their usually called Lurkers, they're famous for not attacking any group larger than two ponies." She pauses for a moment, "Which means we're game for the bitches."

Refilling her magazine as they walk, Dash thinks back on the past week. What the hell happened? she wonders to herself, What is going on in my life? I used to be an element! Now what am I? A grunt! A piece of cannon-fodder city guard! Twilight seems to sense her friends thoughts.

"Yeah, what happened to the old days, eh? Now we're two scared mares going down a dark tunnel, shaking in their boots about what might jump out at them. The elements are useless, the princesses are dead, and the entire race is afraid of the nightmare that's hiding just outside their city, waiting to pounce, waiting to drain every hint of life from the area. And we still can't stop killing each other, tearing each other apart by the seams. Why? Where did we go so wrong?" The sadness weighs even heavier now. Even the sounds of their steady hoofsteps are going numb, the sound seamlessly becoming just another unnoticeable part of the glum environment. It this is just past their first station, what would it be like later on? What about when they haven't slept well in days, maybe weeks? What about when they could hear the battles raging with their own ears, when they could hear the cries of dying ponies? Would they still have the strength to carry on? They are both starting to have their doubts.

A low metallic clinking catches their attention, bringing them out of their brooding.

"Ready to fire!" a shout goes out.

"Wait! You two, mares, get over here! Hurry!" calls another, more gruff voice. They run towards the source of the shouting, still in a mental haze. With a disturbance in their vision, and a low, dull thud, their senses snap back into action. A spotlight is in front of them, along with a number of ponies and a large machine gun with a shining, oily barrel. There is a loud shuffling noise behind them, and a low monotone fills the air.

They dive over the short sandbag barricade, immediately turning and bringing their rifles up, ready to let hell on whatever horrors the tunnel is unleashing. A whole swarm of mutants are bounding towards the line as they switch their safety settings to full and spray burning led into the soft, flappy flesh of the creatures. Dash notices through the combat that only she and Twilight are actually shooting. Looking around, the others have wide eyes and lowered weapons. Even the MG gunner, usually a job posted to only the most level-headed and unshakable of soldiers could react. Cursing under her breath, Rainbow stands from her crouching position, shoving the gunner from her post, grabbing the handle/trigger and sweeping the mutants with waves of half inch bullets as the thunder of the .50 overtakes the tunnel. The roaring thunder of the discharging mounted piece of weaponry shakes the shock out of the guard. They look around, as if confused, and then remember their situation, getting into full combat position and discharging into the horde.

The corpses mount as the engagement continues, eventually leaving the tunnel free of the skittering of little, clawed feet and damp crumps of bullets hitting the fleshy skin of the radioactive defects of evolution. A familiar sizzling sounds in the suddenly quiet tunnel as a small spark of light flies through the air and into the small hill of torn up bodies. An explosion rocks the post, sending dead biomass in all directions around the area, spraying dark red, almost black blood across the scene.

"Whew, it's a good thing you two were here, the entire station could have been overrun," a muscular white colt says to them, smiling grimly, "We owe you our lives and our station."

Rainbow's stomach growls angrily. "Heh heh, maybe you could start repaying with some food?" she says/asks sheepishly, earning a light chuckle from the colt.

"That'll do. Follow me," he turns around, motioning Twilight and Dash to follow. "Oh, and welcome Thirdborne."

The station has a rather steampunk appearance, with clocks and clockwork dominating the wide station. It's as if the entire place had been molded out of brass, the light of small communal fires reflecting off of nearly every surface to give the whole place a very well-lit atmosphere. The two mares are caught up in the new and foreign atmosphere; they had never seen anything like it before, having been stuck at the mediocrity that is Outreach for so long.

"And here we are!" the voice of the colt makes them flinch out of their thought, looking at where he is standing. He's standing in front of a pleasant building, with a large clock dominating the walls on either side of the stretched hexagonal door, one round, the other square, both ticking along quietly at exactly the same rate. A shining, polished wooden roof extending a good seven feet out of the actual building itself, with twisting metal support beams coming u out of the floor on the corners.

"The best casual eatery in all of Thirdborne, the Clockwork Café and Bar." He swings the door open and stands to the side, motioning them to go inside.

They all sit at an empty table and look over the menu, ordering when a young mare comes over and asks. They get their food and eat quickly, enjoying the food. They overhear a conversation from another table. Apparently, the word of Dash and Twi saving the post has already found its way around the station.

"Ah," the colt sighs, "Well, hate to rush out without givin' ya the whole tour, but duty calls." With this, he stands up and leaves.

"Nice guy," Twilight says, looking after him.

"Vell finally, I sought he'd never leave." A scratchy voice says behind them, making them turn around. The colt they see there is leaning back in his chair which is almost touching the wall behind him it's leaned back so far, his arms crossed behind his head. His voice has a sharp accent, his 'r's heavily rolled. "I've been looking to get out of zis station for a vile, but guards orders, nopony comes in or goes out unless zey are in a group of two or more. But nopony vill go vis me. Too scared of ze tunnels, or maybe too scared of me."

That's understandable; the colt has a rather menacing appearance. His coat is charcoal black, with a single band of white hiding under a thin layer of dirt on the outside of his forefooves. His mane is rather long and very unkempt; the sight of it would probably make Rarity faint. His eyes are a confidant blue, and probably strong enough to out-stare Fluttershy.

"So? What do you want?" Rainbow asks apprehensively.

"I heard zat ze tunnel's shit doesn't affect you two. Care to join me to Rathaus?"

Twilight and Rainbow give him a confused look, to which he pulls out a map with two marks on it. One of the marks is labeled "Currant" and the other "Rathaus". The station is conveniently close to Central.

"Okay, we can do that," Dash says after a moment of looking over the map with Twilight. "But first, what's your name?"

He scoffs. "My name? Vell, I'm not sure about zat," he pauses, "But you can call me Bourbon."

---

Hurray! Bourbon is here! It sure took me long enough, jeez. And it's EXACTLY 1500 words. So that's cool. Anyway, until next time, Auf Wiedersehen! /)*(\

I just realized, I haven't been disclaiming, have I? Well, at the risk of further copyright infringement: I own nothing. Read on, my friends, read on.

---

"What do you mean, 'I'm not sure about that'?' Rainbow asks, "You don't know your own name?"

"Vait a second, you're sure you'd be okay wis zis?" Bourbon expertly changes the subject, sipping from his drink.

"Well, yeah, I think. What even IS Rathaus?"

Bourbon chokes on his drink, his eyes widening in disbelief, and his chair falling back onto all four legs. "You've never heard of Rathaus? Ver are you FROM?"

"Outreach, where are YOU from? I've never heard an accent like yours."

"Rathaus is ze biggest collection of criminal scum in ze entire metro, how have the rumors and legends not reached your station?" Another pro subject change.

Twilight and Rainbow look at each other with shared confusion. "Then why do you want to go there?" Twilight poses the question both were silently asking.

Bourbon looks down at the table, sighing.

"I'm going to share vis you an old saying from my home town: you ask me no qvestions, I tell you no lies. Understand?"

They nod in unison, figuring that he had a very good reason for not telling them, but still silently wondering what it could be. Bourbon's head suddenly snaps up, as if noticing something for the first time.

"Vait a second, you came from Outreach? I sought zat station vas deserted?" A look questioning creeps over his face, as if not believing that was really where they came from.

"Yeah, everypony seems to think that, but it's still alive." This makes Bourbon lean back again, clearly thinking, muttering to himself. Dash picks up a few words. If Outreach is … no, no, no … but that means that … Could she still … alive?

"Who is this 'she' you're talking about? I probably know her," she says.

"And you said zat you vould accompany me, does zat still hold?" Dammit.

"Yeah, sure. But why do you keep changing the subject?"

He thinks for a few seconds about how to answer, knowing that if they're his ticket to Rathaus, he owes them at least an answer to that.

"Let's just say zat some qvestions are better left unanswered." Dash could live with that.

"Alright, so we help you to this station, do we get anything in return?" Twilight, who was mostly silent until now, asks. Bourbon reaches into his rucksack and pulls out two small pouches, laying them on the table in front of him.

"Fifty cartridges. Each. Do I have a deal?" He lifts an eyebrow.

Dash immediately replies. "Deal." She stretches her hand out to shake. Bourbon firmly grasps it, shaking it firmly.

He sits back for again and starts to chuckle.

"What?" Twilight asks.

"I just can't believe zat after all of ze tough guys I've been true, all of whom vere too scared to go. And now, my tickets out of zis little station and to Rathaus are two little mares vrom a little piece of shit station like Outreach. Ze vay life works…" He replies, chuckling at the end.

"Yes well, if you're done insulting our station, us two are gonna rest up a bit, and then we'll go." Dash says. She stands up and walks through the door to the shiny, brazen station, quickly followed by Twilight.

"Rainbow Dash! Are you crazy? Why did you say 'yes' to that guy?" Twilight whisper screams at Dash after they had left the restaurant.

"Hey, I figure: it's near Central anyway, we gain, and we're safer in the tunnels. It seems like a win-win to me." she explains. Twilight thinks for a moment, then nods in understanding and admiration of her friends quick reasoning. Rainbow Dash may not be the book smartest pony ever, but she had undeniable street smarts.

"I can see that, nice thinking on your hooves."

Dash and Twilight eventually find themselves at the market. Dash surveys the weapons and ammunition, while Twilight searches the books, trying to find something she hasn't read yet.

"You lookin' for a good weapon?" a slightly greasy mechanic says to Dash, noticing her looking through the armament, "Well, check this badass out." He takes out a high-tech looking rifle and places it on his sales table. It somewhat resembles a cross between an M-16 and a mace with a firing mechanism.

"This bad boy right here is a custom build, high power, high capacity, shock resistant gauss rifle. I can almost assure you that you won't find anything like it in the entire metro, except here," he says with a smug grin.

"What does it fire? What type of ammo?"

"Ah, that's the wonderful thing about gauss rifles, it fires anything that's metal. A small nail, a chunk of twisted debris, your enemy's disassembled gear, anything."

Dash is a little more than a tad suspicious. "I don't believe you," she says, narrowing her eyes challengingly.

"Then go ahead and test-fire it, there's a target back there," he points to a crudely drawn series of circles on a piece of plywood, "And here's a piece of a nail. Go at it." He loads the nail into the internal ammo store of the weapon, and hands it to Dash. She levels the rifle, aiming at the bulls eye, even though she still doubted it would work, and gently pulls the trigger. There is almost no noise, just the sound of the nail as it travels through space to its target, hitting it dead center.

"What did I tell you? Not another in the metro like it yet, that's the first production of the first model." The mechanic sits down and leans back, crossing his arms cockily behind his head.

"How much?" Dash asks simply. "Starting at 150 bits."

The mechanic almost falls over in laughter, given his precarious position.

"I'm sorry, did I just hear you say 'bits'? For money?" he asks, going into another laughing fit.

"Well, yeah. What does YOUR station use for money?" Dash asks, annoyed at the mechanic's outburst. This is about when Rarity would call him a 'ruffian'. she thinks.

"I can tell you what I use bits for, as test ammo for that gauss. We haven't used bits since the fall of old Equestria. We use bullets down here now. Much more functional." He explains, wiping away his laughter-induced tears. "Starting 50 bulle-"

"Done!" Dash cuts him off, immediately accepting the offer, seemingly to the mechanics surprise.

"Really?- A-ah, I mean yeah, sure, done deal." He outstretches his oily hand, with Dash takes and shakes heartily.

---

So, Dash has a gauss rifle. If I were there, I think I would shit myself. Then I would realize that Rainbow Dash is there, and hug her. 'Till next time /)*(\

Hey Bronies. Two chapters in less than twenty four hours. I approve. On with the next chapter.

---

Slinging the newly acquired rifle over her shoulder, Dash walks about the market, trying to find her friend. She finds her, of course, by a large pile of books, sorting through them.

"No. Nope. Already read it. Why do they even have this? That was a terrible book." she says to herself as she sorts through them, not finding anything of interest.

"Twi', I think it's safe to say that the metro isn't home to a single book that you haven't already read," she says, smiling at the unicorn's intellectual predicament.

"Yeah, I guess you're right. Not many made it under the surfa- What in Equestria is that?" she notices the gauss rifle hanging over Dash's shoulder, and takes immediate interest, not having seen anything like it before.

"This is a gauss rifle, apparently. It fires any old piece of metal, so we don't have to worry about having the right rounds, just the right diameter piece of metal." Twilight's eyebrows perk up with sparking interest in the strange device.

"Really? How does it do that?"

"Well, ah, heheh, um, it does… this thing… where it, you know, uhm-"

"You don't know, do you?" Twilight asks flatly.

"Nope! All I know, or care about, is that it does. Now let's go get some rest and then find Bourbon." So they set off, finding a quiet corner of the station, away from the main, crowded square and market. Laying down on their forehooves, they drift into the peaceful blackness.

"Hey, you two, vake up! It's time to get going." Dash's eyes open, painful with sleep, to the sight of Bourbon kneeling next to them. She looks around for one of the eighty-zillion clocks scattered around the station. 04:52.

"Bourbon, what the hey? It's four in the bucking morning." She says groggily.

"Correction: it's five in ze bucking morning, and vhat's more, it's time to go." Twilight is now also waking up, rubbing the sleep from her eyes.

"Ungh, what time is-"

"Almost five in ze morning, please, vake up, ve need to go." Annoyance is now starting to seep into Bourbon's voice.

"Oh, alright then, I'll just- Wait a moment, FIVE IN THE MORNING? Are you CRAZY?" Twilight is starting to shout, much to the disagreement of Bourbon, who is motioning frantically for her to quiet down.

"Pozhaluista, pozhaluista! Keep your voice down!" he whisper shouts, "Ponies are still sleeping, and it vould not be smart to vake zem up."

Twilight puts a hoof to her mouth. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to yell like that, but seriously? Five in the morning is go time?"

"For us, for today, yes. I'm sorry, I'll let you sleep really late tomorrow to make up for it, but ze normal vake up time vill be about 06:30, so I hope you can live vis zat, 'cause it's not changing."

They all get up, Twilight and Rainbow gather their things, and they all set out, leaving Thirdborne behind them. Twilight is almost sad to be leaving the clockwork station. Its engineers were sure to be good company, but maybe some other time. Bourbon turns on his light as the floodlight of Thirdborne fades behind them, illuminating the path ahead of them. The light seems to glint off of something that is somehow still even remotely shiny, catching all of their attention.

"Heh," Bourbon chuckles, "I've heard stories about zese. Ponies call zem ze 'singing pipes'." Rainbow and Twilight both give him questioning looks. "Go ahead and put your ear up to it, if you vant to know vhy. Just don't keep it zere long, ve have to keep going." Dash and Twilight inch closer to the pipes, which appear to have several cracks in them, listening for any noise. Sure enough, there is an almost melodic whistling coming from within.

"I've heard zat if you listen long enough, you can hear ze voices of ze dead. Vat bullshit." [A/N: Favorite. Game quote. Ever.] Twilight shudders. Bourbon starts to walk off, who is quickly followed by the two mares. He starts to sing something under his breath. It's not very loud, but still audible in the eerie, dead silence of the tunnel. Neither pony can understand it, but it's a pleasant tune that helps to lighten the dark, closing in atmosphere of the tunnel. Some scuttering to the side of the tunnel makes both Twilight and Dash move for their weapons, jumping back slightly. Bourbon doesn't even blink. Because he's Bourbon.

"You two don't spend much time in ze tunnels, do you?" They shake their heads, slinging their rifles back over their shoulders and falling back into their rhythmic stride. He just chuckles and starts to quietly sing again.

"What's that song you're singing?" Twilight asks, finally cracking under the pressure of her own curiosity.

"It's an old song from back home in Moscolt. It's called 'Katyusha', and it's so awesome, zey named a rocket launcher after it." Bourbon answers/explains with an unwavering and deadly serious tone. Dash's face goes slack with respect for the amounts of awesome this song must have.

"So you're from Moscolt?" Damnit, vhy did I say zat? Bourbon thinks. "Where's that?" You've got to be shitting vis me, zis is supposed to be ze smartest pony of ze group? Vay to fail, author.

"Again, you ask me no qvestions, I tell you no lies." Twilight sighs. Another respectably long period of awkward silence passes, with the only noise being the crunch of gravel underhoof. Suddenly, they all hear, seemingly at the same time, high energy, party style techno music from further down the tunnel.

"I'm not sure if you're hearing veird music, but I may have forgotten to mention, zis is a mental safety hazard tunnel." Bourbon says plainly, as if he were pointing out a clock in Thirdborne.

"Oh, well glad you warned us. And what comforting news!" Dash says, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

"Glad I could help."

The music gets steadily louder as they continue down the tunnel, two nervous mares and a Bourbon. A faint green light starts to come into view, illuminating a strange, but somehow familiar, shape that's moving, flailing its appendages about to the music.

There's a loud gasp as the shape suddenly jumps into the air, causing all three of them (yes, even Bourbon) to draw their weapons. The shape sprints over, yelling at the top of its lungs.

"OHMYGOSHOHMYGOSHOHMYGOSH! Twilight? Rainbow Dash? Is that you guys?" The voice is startling, causing the tow mares brief shock.

"Pinky Pie?"

---

I couldn't resist intro-ing Pinky with her having a party in a mental hazard zone. It just seems like something she would do. Anyway, sorry if you're reading specifically for the horror genre of stuff, but I've been awake for probably about 40 of the last 48 hours, and I can't write even remotely scary when I'm tired. But if you liked it, comment, and I'll make more. This may be my plot, but the writing is all for you. If you REALLY want a character or event, comment, and I will honestly consider it. Until next chapter (hopefully tomorrow), peace /)*(\

Hey Bronies! Got a review that inspired a shout-out to the people who have reviewed: FireBreath5150, Lyra Heartstrings14, and invaderASH247. Thank you all so much for the reviews, this story exists for and because of you. Here's a new chapter.

---

All three of them are confused. Why would Pinky Pie be here in the tunnels? A mental hazard tunnel, even.

"Pinky, what're you doing here?" Dash asks over the music.

"Uh, having a party, duh. It's crazy great in here. Best party spot EVER! Here, let me introduce you to my friends!"

Bourbon gives Twilight and Dash a look that's half-way between 'Do you know her?' and 'Oh, Celestia, there are others?'. Pinky leads them to a green glow stick sitting next to a huge pile of expended ones, next to a boom-box that's playing music that's probably too loud to be healthy.

"There's John, George, Amy, and Jean-Baptiste. They really know how to party!" Pinky says, motioning to a group of ponies.

"Ahm, Pinky Pie, was it? Pinky Pie, zose ponies are all dead, you realize zis, don't you?" Bourbon points out plainly as Rainbow Dash throws up and Twilight starts to sway unsteadily, both disgusted by the disfigured and bloodied bodies.

"They are not dead, they're just really REALLY hung over. They'll wake up soon. Isn't that right, Jean-Baptiste?"Bourbon turns to the Dash and Twi.

"She's your proble- I mean, friend, if you vant her along, get her, but I'm not spending any more time or energy vis zis." he says, walking past them towards the next station.

"Okay, um, Pinky, I would really like you to join u-"

"REALLY? You want ME to come with you to, um, place?" Pinky practically tackles Twilight in her excitement.

"Um, yeah, I would, uh, love you to!" Pinky's grin threatens to tear her face down the center as she stands up, smashes her boom box against the wall, and gathers her things. While she's gathering her stuff, Dash sifts through the trashed metal for ammunition. They have to run a bit to catch up to Bourbon, but when they do, they can start to see the light of another station, which they reach in a matter of minutes afterward.

"Hold!" a hoarse voice comes from behind an overturned wooden box that the guard is probably trying to fool themselves into thinking is adequate cover against the mutants, "What's your business in City?"

"Just passing srough, after, of course, getting a vire brush and polishing your voice," Bourbon replies sarcastically, "What are you yelling at all day? Hardly anypony passes through these stations."

The guard scowls at Bourbon as eh passes, but opens the main gate anyway. The station is actually fairly similar too Outreach in appearance, with an almost out-of-repair look to it. But that's as far as the similarities go. As said to the guard, they literally pass straight through, without even stopping to rest or get more supplies.

"Well that was a strange station," Dash comments as they leave the station behind.

"I think you mean AWESOME station! Did you see the market? They had a whole section for party stuff!" Pinky says, emitting what can only be described as a 'fan-girl squeal'.

"Well, the next station up is-"

"Ve're not going straight up," Bourbon cuts Twilight off, "Ve're going to ze nors-east. Ze station straight up vas Overrun by mutants a few monts ago. So ve are going to Trimelt. Ah, zis is our turn right here, actually." He spots a small shoot-off tunnel that is mostly covered in cobwebs, which erupt in multi-color flame as he burns them with a lighter that he pulls out of his vest-pocket. The tunnel is only really wide enough for one pony at a time to pass through, so Bourbon takes a lead and goes in first, followed by Twilight, Pinky, and Dash (in that order). The passage is colder even than the main tunnels, and so damp that they can feel it sucking the warmth from their bodies. The ceiling is dripping with a watery sludge that also runs down the side of the cobbled walls. They are about halfway through, when Bourbon suddenly stops.

"Do you hear zat?" he asks them, his ears perking up to double check if he actually heard anything in the first place, the rest do the same. For a few seconds, there is nothing, but then, there is a piercing, high pitched tone that screams through the air in the thin shoot-off. Bourbon gets his gun ready, as does Dash, using her tried and trusted AK instead of the new and not yet battle proven gauss rifle. They finish loading just in time to see the mutants flooding into the narrow tunnel, climbing over each other and the walls, racing towards what they hope to be their next, terrified meal. The two ponies fire into the waves of ever nearing mutants coming in from both sides of the tunnel, the muzzle-flashes reflecting off of their eyes and casting leaping shadows across the sides of the tunnel.

Then all of a sudden, an agonized scream is heard.

---

Not much, but I wanted to post SOMETHING today, because in about a week, 08:00 to 20:00 band camp starts up, which ends as schools restarts, and it'll just be a mess. Hopefully next chapter will be longer, but until then, D.F.t.b.A. /)*(\

Next chapter.

---

None of them can concentrate on the scream, or even register that it happens. They're too caught up in trying to beat back the stream of mutants. The deafening chatter of automatic fire is interrupted by two metallic clinks as Dash and Bourbon let their expended clips fall to the ground, quickly loading and readying another.

But just as they are ready to fire again, the mutants just stop. They turn and run back the way they came, leaving the tunnel silenced again, save for two ponies panting with adrenaline, and the fading echo of 7.62 rounds discharging. Dash and Bourbon are still in their fire-ready position, as if frozen by the engagement. Then, slowly and cautiously, Dash crouches down to pick up her empty clip, an action soon imitated by Bourbon.

"So vat ze hell vas ZAT about?" calls the question that everypony was silently asking. A light shines at them from the end of the tunnel, bright and clear, making all of the ponies reflexively look to its source.

"Bourbon? Bourbon is that you?" a calming voice calls.

"Koldan? Svatoye dyermo, it's Koldan!" Bourbon's rough voice is the happiest any of them have ever heard as he steps forward to bro-hoof/ shoulder bash the pony. He has a dark blue mane with a few unnatural crimson splotches and streaks of blood in it. His coat is a ghostly white. His hair is even more unkempt than Bourbon's, giving him an overall sloppy appearance. Dash notices that he isn't carrying a gun, but he has knives of all different sizes in sheathes in orderly rows and squares across his form.

"So who are these lovely ladies?" he asks, regarding the mares with a sweeping gesture.

"Some ponies from Outreach that agreed to accompany me to Rathaus." Koldan's eyebrows rise at mention of the station, "You know how ze guard forces are vis zeir 'it's dangerous to go alone' bullshit." Bourbon answers with a chuckle, smiling in happiness, rather than cockiness, for the first time since any of them had met him.

Looking his friend over, Bourbon notices a slight gleam on his leg. Looking closer, he sees Koldan's leg with several running crimson streams of blood.

"Koldan, vhat happened to your leg?" he asks in surprise, pulling a roll of gauze out of his rucksack and wrapping the injury.

"Eh, you know how the bitches are. Those teeth of theirs are sharper than I remember."

"Vell, zat should hold it for now. But ve aren't getting any closer to Rathaus just standing here, are ve? Let's go!" The rest of the journey to the next station is filled with the sounds of the two old friends joking and laughing, exchanging stories and hearing about each other's lives.

They get to the station gates without seeing a single guard. The group stops, and Koldan steps forward to the lock holding the gate in place.

"Watch out," he says, spreading a putty-like goo around the lock, then stepping to the side and bracing himself. He presses on the top of a metal rod, and the lock is blown off of the gate entirely, allowing him to swing it freely open. Rainbow Dash is appalled at the breaches in inter-station regulation displayed by this station, but walks in anyway, following at the rear of the group.

This isn't even really a station, as such, more like a depressing collection of tents with an unsanitary market. The 'citizens' are all either huddled around small fires, or at the market. There isn't a proper guard in sight.

"Life at this station, as you might be able to see, isn't really the best," Koldan says, "But it's a place to sleep anyway. The only people that stay for very long at all are the salesponies, most of the others are just passers-by."

A small group of large ponies appear on the other side of the station, all with very large weapons, and with full-face helmets. The largest member of the group steps forward, and yells in a harsh voice at the ponies gathered in the small tent-city.

"Хорошо, суки! На земле сейчас!" The ponies all start at the sound, immediately pressing themselves against the cold ground. The group goes around, and starts taking anything of value that they find.

"Hey! They can't do that!" Dash says with anger in her voice, her face contorting with rage at seeing the crime. She reaches for her Kilashnikov, which is slung over her shoulder, and stealthily brings it into semi-automatic, pointing it from the hip at the group.

As she's doing this, a small pony tries to slip away from the group of thieves. One of them notices, walks over, and beats her over the head with the butt of his gun.

"Сэр! У нас есть бегун." The leader turns to face his fellow thug, seeing the little mare. "Немного довольно одной, на что."

Walking over, he pulls out a rope. He has his teammate hold her down as he ties her legs together, and throws her over his shoulder. Dash snaps. Throwing stealth away, she brings her rifle up and unloads four rounds rapidly into his head. He drops instantly, dead before he hits the ground. The rest of the group turns around to face the enraged and panting prismatic-maned mare, and level their rifles, switching just barely too slowly to full auto. There are several loud, resounding cracks, followed by four clunky thuds as the metal of the dead thug's armor hits the ground.

---

Thank you very much to the programmers of google translate. I'm trying to learn Russian, but I'm only just learning the most basic of basics so far. Thank you also to the readers and especially the reviewers. And also, if you have any recommendations for learning Russian other than going to Russia and Rosetta Stone, please let me know!

The group stares in shock at Rainbow, panting in her fury, the barrel of her gun still steaming in the relative cool of the tunnel. All of the ponies who had their faces on the ground stood slowly up, also in a bit of shock. And then, cheering. A deafening roar of gratitude from the subjugated ponies goes up, ringing through the rest-stop station.

"Why didn't you do anything?" Dash asks, turning to face Bourbon, "I can understand Pinky and Twi' not doin' anything, but you always seem like the type that would run half way across the metro for a good fight if you had to. But noooo, you can't be bothered with the lives and security of these ponies." Her voice is vicious as she accuses Bourbon.

"I don't kno-"

"And don't even TRY to give me any of the 'but I didn't know' bullshit. I'll bet you even understood what they were SAYING, and you didn't do anything. I went off of actions alone, you had actions AND words, didn't you?"

Bourbon's face softens, giving the closest thing to a sorrowful look his hardened soul was capable of. The smallest traces of hurt suddenly give way to anger, his eyebrows knitting, and his nostrils flaring, revealing his canines menacingly.

"If you know a fraction of vhat I do, if you had been srough HALF of vhat I have, you vould know EXACTLY vhy I didn't move. You have the nerve to sink for a SECOND zat you're sought process and my sought process are ze same? You sink zat you know ze smallest bit of scarring zat has happened to me? You don't know a single fucking sing outside of your secluded, pasitic life locked up in your ego-founded mental defenses! You don't have- you can't even BEGIN to comprehend how ze metro works on ponies, how it tears zheir lives apart and turns brozers and sisters and friends against each ozher!" He is panting, his fists clenched by his side, tears of anger and pain that had been long since locked up and stored in his heart flowing down his cheeks.

The three present elements are even further in shock than they were before, and the station had fallen so quiet that one could hear individual breaths being taken in the hate-filled air.

"I-I'm so so-"

"And don't YOU give ME zat 'I'm sorry' bullshit! You're not. You meant every last fucking word from ze bottom of your still in-tact heart," Bourbon cuts off her apology. The air is tense. Tears are finding their way down Dash's face, now. All she can do is stand there and think about Bourbon's words, and start to imagine what could have possibly happened in the colt's past.

"Muzer Russia doesn't take shit like zat," he says, his usual cool, threatening indifference finding its way back into his voice, pointing approximately north, "And neizer does Uncle Bourbon." He points a thumb at his chest as he finishes, and walks off, emitting an almost visible aura of darkness.

The gathered ponies look on, just now getting over their shock. Dash falls to her knees and buries her face in her hooves.

"Hey, come on now, it's alright," Twilight tries to comfort her friend, walking over and placing a caring hand on Dash's shaking shoulder, kneeling down to her eye level.

"No, it's not. Did you hear how he yelled at me? He hates me…" Dash isn't quite sure why that bugged her so much.

"Weelll," Koldan says after a nervous cough, "Ah, I'll gonna go and, ah see if he's okay."

Several moments go by, filled only with the somber sound of silence. Then, after several noises that sounded like enraged yelling, like what one might do into a pillow, Bourbon comes back into the room looking much calmer than he did a minute or two ago, followed by a very smug looking Koldan.

"Vell, vhat are you vaiting for? Let's go, ve still have a long vay to go to Rathaus," Bourbon's voice calls, its cool and collected edge coming back.

"Hey, ah, Bourbon… I just wanted to appologi-"

"Ve vill never speak of zis again," he cuts Dash off, turning and pointing at her with a stern look. "Now let's away! Next stop: Rathaus, crime capital of ze metro!"

They started to walk again, with boinging sounds coming from Pinky as she hopped along with the rest of the group. Bourbon had started to sing again, but is more off key and out of rhythm than he had been earlier. He eventually gives up with an exasperated sigh, letting his head fall backwards. He turns to Twilight and mouths 'what the hay is up with that boinging?' getting a small giggle from the mare.

"So, Koldan, that's a lot of knives you have there! Why do you need so many?" Pinky asks.

"Well, a knife isn't a knife isn't a knife, they have all different purposes, and all different situations where different blades do better than the others. So some are for throwing, some are for getting through armor, some are for this and for that and for the other thing," he replies, starting off pointing to individual knives, and ending with just waving his hand across his entire collection. Pinky's mouth is a small 'o' and her eyes are half-way lidded, indicating to everypony that she didn't understand a single word of it other than maybe 'throw'.

There is a small whistling sound to the side of the group that makes Bourbon stop for a moment.

"Hey, you guys go on ahead, I'll catch up, I just have a bit of business to attend to," Bourbon says, breaking off and going in the direction of the noise.

"Something doesn't feel right about this," Dash begins, "You guys go, I'll stay back to make sure he's not attacked on the way back."

The group moves on, leaving Rainbow in the small light that her draining flashlight provides. For several moments, all is quiet, the dead silence that symbolizes the metro as a whole. But Dash starts at the sound of skuttering down in the direction Bourbon went, followed by two resounding cracks, and a mechanical click. She hears a voice that could only belong to Bourbon's calling obscenities, and then a shout of pain. She takes off running down the tunnel, gasping as she finds Bourbon lying on the ground, a dead mutant at his feet, a Kilashnikov with an empty clip in it, and a mutant with a knife in its neck, thick blood streaming down its back. But it was Bourbon himself that made her gasp, with a deep bite in his chest and an almost equally deep slash in his neck. He coughs a time or two, a fine red mist coming from his lips.

"Hey zere, Rainbow," he says dryly, anger and physical pain contorting his face. He gestures to the dead mutants, "Some ponies call zese sings demons. I call zem bitches." He coughs again, his back arching forward reflexively. His winces heavily, a single manly tear running down his face. And then he relaxes completely, save for holding himself in a sitting position and breathing, a hand covering his neck wound.

"You said zat you know everypony at Outreach?" Dash nods, "Vell, zere is a charcoal black mare zat lives zere, her name is Timber Oak. Find her, and tell her…" he pauses for a few seconds, his voice having been fading since she found him like this, "Tell her zat Mikhial still remembers."

---

Awww, sorry, Bourbon fans (me included), I'm not even sure what happened while writing this, I didn't plan any of it. When I was looking over it before posting, I found myself wondering what the hay happened. I blame the government. Until a happier chapter. /)*(\

Thank you for all of the everything, readers! And a huge thank you to both the person who wrote 'The Hunt for Red October' and the Red Army Choir, who have both helped a LOT in the creation of stuff. But now, onto a new chapter.

---

Bourbon's head lolls back as he goes limp as he lets out a single, satisfied breath, a peaceful smile spreading across his face. Dash's eyes start to water as the colt dies in her arms. The defenses he had painstakingly put up, destroyed in a single, emotional moment as he lets this private, deep-found request go.

"Bourbon?" she asks in vein, "Bourbon?" her voice is choking as she asks again, knowing full well that he's dead. She breaks down into tears, falling over top of his lifeless body. Setting the body of her traveling companion/ pain-in-the-flank gone friend, she kneels over him and starts collecting useful supplies. It feels wrong to her, looting her friend's body like this, but it's all a matter of survival in the metro. Morals are a luxury that can't always be afforded.

Standing up and turning away, she starts walking down the off-shoot, back into the main tunnel, pausing and looking back for a second or two at the exit. Turning down the tunnel and away from Bourbon for the last time, she runs down the tunnel, catching up to the rest of the group. Twilight quickly notices her friend's tears, and the absence of the rough black colt.

"Dash, what's wrong? And where's Bourb-"

"Bourbon is dead," Dash cuts off her concerned voice, giving the news a little more harshly than she intended.

The whole group stops, turning around in shock. Could he really be dead? The pony that had shown no fear of anything? The pony who had stood up to a horde of mutants and not broken a sweat? Koldan is the first to break the silence that ensues.

"I'm not very surprised, actually. A pony like him can only last so long in a place like the metro." His voice is solemn, his head lowering as he speaks. A short pause falls over everything. A ringing sound falls into everypony's consciousness, their brains trying to substitute for the noise they are so used to hearing.

"So where are we going now? I have a feeling that you weren't planning on going to Rathaus before you met Bourbon, and now that he's dead… where do we go from here?" Koldan breaks the frosty silence. Twilight pulls out her map, looking over about where they are, and what the shortest route to Central is.

"Okay, I think we could go up this tunnel some more, but go down this passage before we actually get to the station. That'll put us out here, which would mean… Why is this straight tunnel here red when all of the other tunnels are grey?" Koldan looks at the map a little closer, his face paling when he sees the tunnel Twilight is pointing to.

"That's what ponies have started to simply call 'the Red Line'. I'm almost sure you've heard of the Soviet Union?" all the ponies nod, "Well, they're back, and that's where they decided to set up shop. They control all the stations in that entire line, and their security is some of the strongest in the entire metro. They've essentially cut the metro in half." When Koldan finishes, Twilight puts her hoof to her chin, deep in thought.

"Well, we have to get to central as fast as we can, and it's on the other side of this 'Red Line', so it looks like we're passing through. So we'll pass through this station, it seems to be the smallest on this side of the metro, and go up through these stations," she traces a line across six stations, parallel to but on the other side of the Red Line, "and get to Central that way. It seems to be the most direct route, encountering the least amount of resistance."

"Okay then, I guess we'll be off!" Dash says, "To Central!" Her stomach growls angrily. "Heh, after a bite to eat?" The group chuckles, but sets about finding wood, cloth, and anything else that's safely burnable, setting it into a pile.

"Alright my little ponies, stand back!" Koldan takes a canteen with a strange marking on it, and pours a good amount of liquid on the to-be fire. He then steps back, lights a match, and throws it onto the pile, making it erupt in flame, showering the passage with light and heat. They cook, eat, joke around and generally enjoy themselves for about an hour.

"And then, we found ourselves at a dead end, mutants pouring in from the opening, and almost out of bullets," Koldan laughs lightly as he re-accounts the story of one of the many adventures he and Bourbon went on, "And I just look at 'im and say, '-"

"I told you we should have made a right!'" Pinkie cuts him off, finishing for him.

"Yeah!" Koldan says, bro-hoofing her as the group explodes in laughter.

"Okay, okay," Dash says, starting to come off of her laughter high, "I think we should probably start to get going if we want to make it to Central soon."

"Agreed, but you never said, why do you need to get to Central so bad?" Koldan asks, collecting his mess-bowl, water, and 'fire sauce'. Dash and Twilight look at each other, silently asking how to answer that.

"We were sent on a bit of a mission by a… an old friend," Dash scrapes together an explanation that is sufficiently true, but also vague enough to keep it the secret that Hunter wanted it to stay. Koldan simply nods in understanding and puts his pack back on.

"Everypony ready? Forward. MARCH!" The dank, dark air of the metro is filled with light conversation as the group makes its way to the fork in the tunnel. With Twilight as their navigator, and Koldan as their guide, they make their way through the tunnels without hitch.

When they get to the fork, though, they see a familiar, but slightly out-of-place sight. A perimeter post, the same type as at every station in the metro, is located about half-way down the passage.

"That doesn't seem right," Twilight says, scrunching her eyebrows together in confusion. She takes out her map, and looks at the tunnel they are going up. Sitting right at the end of that tunnel, lays something she had missed in the low light she had. A lone station, not marked as a part of any allegiance or confederation on the probably out of date map.

"So, do we keep going, or do we do back the way we came and look for a different route?"

"We're already here, let's just keep going this way. I'm sure that the station here won't give us too many problems."

They continue up the tunnel, when a shot kicks up dirt not but a few inches in front of them, the shot ringing out through the pass.

"That's your ONE warning shot! Get the buck back, mutants!" a high, but still commanding voice calls over the gravel path.

"We're not mutants, just travelers that want to pass through!"

A low, murmuring conversation is held behind the sand bag barricades, and a single figure steps out, a rifle raised at the group. When he gets closer, he pulls out a strange looking bar of metal, and starts waving it around them. As he does this, it lets out a gental, staticy hum.

"Hm, you all check out okay, follow me, and welcome to Standout," his voice is still emotionless and in-charge, but his body language says that he is calmer about having the group around.

"We've had to increase security around here since the Reds started mucking about. Word is they're planning war with Reich."

Koldan stiffens. Was he from Reich? Did he have friends in Reich? What even IS Reich?

Dash looks at him questioningly. Koldan shakes his head, motioning 'later'. They pass the posts, 40, 30, 20, 10, each one better defended than the last. Finally, they reach a large steel gate, humming with some sort of force. When Dash reaches out to touch it, she recoils, her entire arm tingling and numb.

"Electrical gate," the Standout guard says, punching something into a key pad, "It's great for keeping the mutants out. They have such a low electric tolerance. Not quite as effective on combat trained and ready ponies, but it does a job."

As the gate swings open, they see that almost the entire station is military business. Instead of the common tent cities, there are metal and wooden box-like buildings. Inside, they see row after row of double-bunks, with weapon racks in between. Instead of several small eateries, there is a long table laid out along opposite sides of the small station. The only thing that isn't entirely military is the market, positioned in an out-of-the-way corner.

"We have the best Stalker teams in the metro here in Standout. They serve us well," the guard boasts.

"Um, what're 'Stalker teams'?" Twilight embarrassedly asks.

"Stalker teams are small groups of ponies, usually no more than four per team, that go to the surface to collect materials for the station. Most of the stuff, we get it to use it, but some things, we get to sell to the highest bidder," the guard explains.

"Oh," Twilight looks around, unable to see a way to the surface, "How do they get to the surface?"

The guard simply points up at what looks like a crack in the ceiling.

"That blast door opens to the surface, and we have a platform that rises to there, allowing the Stalkers to get up to and down from the surface. Are you ponies going to stay, or are you just going straight through?"

"I think we're just going straight on thr-"

"Do you sell white gas in your market?" Koldan cuts Twilight off.

"Yes we do."

"Then I'd like to go to your market, and THEN we'll pass right on through. Sorry Twi'"

They go to the market, which is smaller than they usually are, but has everything that they could need. After Koldan gets his white gas, which he explains is his 'fire sauce', and Dash gets a few more supplies, they leave the station, passing through a security station where they are patted down to make sure they aren't stealing anything.

They are just barely past the final perimeter, when they hear the slow metallic click of the hammer being brought back on a revolver, and a voice.

"Why don't you just put your hands in the air, and turn around. Slowly."

---

Wow, I just realized how quiet I'm making Pinkie, (thank you Akkura for the reminder on spelling) I should probably make more lines for her, the quiet is kind of wierd. Anyway, 'till then: /)*(\

The group complies, raising their arms slowly above their heads and turning. It's a rather short pony, holding a rather large, extremely over-decorated revolver. "Now, just get on your knees and I'll-" She is cut off by a crack that echoes down the way to the Red Line. Her eyes widen, and her gun falls to her side along with her arm. She sinks to her knees, falling over, dead. The group looks up in shock, finding one of the guards from Standout waving at them, smoke drifting away from her weapon.

"Well wasn't that nice of her!" Pinkie Pie exclaims, waving back energetically. They turn around again, ready to take on the tunnel and whatever comes their way in it. So leaving the comforting and incredibly secure light of Standout behind, Pinkie starts to sing an energetic tune. The one line of it she knows, anyway. Over and over and over andoverandoverandove-.

"Pinkie Pie! We get it! We 'spin you right 'round baby like a record'! I got it the first fifty times you sang it! Stop please," Dash loses it. The rest of the group breathes an unspoken 'thank you' to the sky blue mare.

"Okie dokie Loki!"

There is suddenly some extra sound in the tunnel. The sound of the group's hoof-falls and steady jumping is supplemented by more hoof-falls, and strange, foreign voices. The harsh-sounding conversation sounds light, and there is laughter lacing the voices. They can see the light of several head-mounted lights, and the conversation on both sides stops. One of the head lights turns to those on either side of it, and a voice rings clearly through the unusually well-lit air.

"Винтовки вверх!" There are several metallic clinks of bolts being primed, and the gleam of the metal on odd, ugly guns stings their eyes.

"Не стреляйте, не стреляйте!" Koldan's voice rings equally clearly, and the weapons seem to lower a bit. He raises his arms above his head, turning and closing his eyes against the light.

"Удерживайте положение. Почему ты здесь?"

"Мы имеем в виду ничего плохого. Мы, однако путешественников, желающих пройти через большие станции."

A murmur runs through the foreign group. The leader looks back up and motions to follow him. The adventurers do exactly that, following close behind their guides/ capturers. Before long, they reach a small, but still impressive looking station. There is chatter between the patrol that found them and gate keeper. Koldan takes the liberty of translating.

"There's nothing to report… Who are they, by which they mean us… Just a group of travelers who want to pass through, permission, yatta yatta yatta… We have until tomorrow at 10,00 to leave, any crimes against the Grand Union of Socialist Stations will be punished by death."

"Yay! More risk of death!" Pinkie shouts excitedly and a bit too loudly, attracting the attention of most of the guards in the area.

"Pinkie, shut up."

"Oops, sorry," she replies, hardly above a hoarse whisper, a grin still spread over her face.

"Okay, well I don't plan on spending that much time here anyway. This station makes me nervous, and… is that Fluttershy?" Rainbow can hardly believe her eyes. She runs in the direction of her old, shy friend.

"Fluttershy! Hey Fluttershy!" She turns around, her eyes growing with her smile.

"Oh! Rainbow Dash! Это ты?" the yellow pegasus opens her arms, letting her fillyhood friend run into a hug.

"Sorry 'Shy, I don't speak Russian."

"Oh, I'm sorry, old habits die hard after all, I suppose." Fluttershy's voice bears a heavy accent, similar to Bourbon's. And even stranger, it's mostly audible.

"Oh. My. GOSH! It's Fluttershy! We need to have a party! And there'll be-"

"Pinkie Pie, please!" Koldan's voice cuts the excited pink mare's stream of babble off, "Ponies around here aren't exactly used to having ponies yell and scream about parties, especially ones that don't honor the Union."

"Sorry again. But it's FLUTTERSHY! I haven't seen you in so long! What've you been doin' with your life?"

"Vell, I run a small infirmary on ze oser side of ze station, and I'm a part of ze Red Choir. But ozer zan zat, I'm not much different," Fluttershy explains.

"Well, I can tell at least one thing," Dash starts with a smirk, "this station has managed to raise your voice a little. How'd they manage that one?" Fluttershy's face brightens as she hides behind her mane.

"Vell, I guess it's part of ze Union mentality. I suppose it could also be ze Russian language. It'z not exactly a gentle language, if you know vhat I mean." They all share a laugh, Koldan nodding in hearty agreement.

"Ah! But vhere have my manners gone? Let's get out of vis cold and go to my place." They all follow Fluttershy through the small station, crossing almost the entire thing in a matter of seconds. They arrive at a small group of maybe five or six tents with a good fire in the middle of them.

"Does anypony vant some tea?"

"Fluttershy! Рад тебя видеть! Кто ваши друзья?" A masculine voice comes from in front of the tent next to them. Looking over, the group sees a middle aged colt with a shaggy look and a smile as warm as the fire.

"Ах! Господин багрянец, это приятно видеть вас." The colt and Fluttershy have a small conversation which Koldan translates for the others to avoid unnecessary awkwardness.

"Good man, that Mr. Crimson. Anyvay, how about zat tea?"

"Actually, some tea sounds nice, thank you," Koldan replies.

"So vhat brings you guys up here? I-if you don't mind my asking…" Yup, Fluttershy is still Fluttershy.

"Well, Twilight and I were sent on a bit of a mission to Central from Outreach, way down there at the bottom of the map, and we met Koldan here a few stations back. Good thing, too, he sure saved us when that patrol almost blasted little pieces of us all over the tunn-" Dash stops herself too late, remembering mid-thought who she's talking to.

"I-I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to go into detail like that," she tries to save as Fluttershy's eyes widen, and she almost drops the kettle of hot tea she's holding.

"I-i-it's okay. You were almost…" she trails off, leaving a strong implication.

"Yup! But it's okay, Koldan here had us covered the whoollee tiiime," Pinkie blurts out, causing Koldan blushing lightly, scratching the back of his head.

"I'm sorry, maybe a proper introduction is in order. I'm Koldan, when the apocalypse struck, I was sucked into the Uprise station, just a few stations to the west, I'm sure you've heard of it." Fluttershy nods, knowing the station well, the station from which the Union rose.

"After a year or two, I left, going all over the station." Koldan finishes, extending his hoof. Fluttershy takes it, giving it a light shake.

"Well, I'm F-Fluttershy. I used t-to be from Ponyville, but vhen all of zis" she waves her hoof in the general direction of the station center, "happened, I vas stuck here, and I've been here since."

She looks down, slightly dejected, remembering the old times. Sighing, she looks up, plastering a fake smile onto her face.

"So vhat about you sree?"

"Well, when the apocalypse happened, Dash and I were some of the last ones in, and were put in the Outreach station. I am, well WAS, of course, a scientist there, and Dash was…" Twilight lets Rainbow take over the explanation.

"One of the guard ponies. We didn't have enough volunteers, naturally, so they started drafting all former weather pegasi. It was pretty boring, actually, my post was almost never attacked, but we always had to be ready, so it was still super stressful." Dash concludes.

A strong call comes crackling over the unrepaired intercom.

"Внимание! Все пони представить привокзальной площади!"

"Oi! I'm sorry, I've got to go. Here's your tea, Koldan. See you ponies later!" Fluttershy says as she's leaving the tent, "Or, I guess you could join us at the station square, if you want."

All ponies in the tent wordlessly and simultaneously stand, walking out of the tent after the yellow mare. When they get to the square, they see that the station, however small, is home to a good number of ponies. A stallion, probably well into his sixties, stands in front of the group at a minimalistic, almost impromptu, podium. He doesn't look like much to the ponies from out of station, but his authority is made clear when he quiets the quietly conversing group of ponies by the simple act of clearing his throat. He gives a small speech, motioning to the ponies on his sides, sitting in chairs, clad in very formal military uniforms. At the end of the speech, all the ponies applaud. They quickly quiet again though, when the old stallion raises his hoof to the crowd.

"И, пожалуйста, показать нашим уважаемым гостям некоторые из наших Союза гостеприимство." He motions to the group as he says this, causing everypony to turn and look at them, clapping lightly, those around them patting them on the back.

"What did he say that made them all look at us?" Twilight asks Fluttershy as they make their way back to the tent after the speech.

"He said, "And please, show our esteemed guests some of our Union hospitality'. He takes making our guests and passers-by feel welcomed and loved," Fluttershy says, smiling a happy smile.

"Zat's vhy ve all love him as a leader. He's so compassionate and varm-hearted. Not enough of zose ponies are around anymore."

"Well, I think I'm gonna metaphorically hit the metaphorical hay," Koldan says with a yawn when they get back to the tent, "I'll be back here if you need anything." He walks around to the back of the tent and sets up a small sleeping area.

"Oh, you don't need to sleep out zere, I've got plenty of room in here," Fluttershy offers.

"Plenty enough room for five ponies?" Koldan asks questioningly, "It's a very kind offer, but I'll be fine out here. Good night."

"Vell, if you're sure, good night." Fluttershy walks back inside, suddenly hit by a wave of tiredness of her own, her eyelids becoming heavier and heavier.

"Hey, guys, I tink I'm going to go to sleep now, if zat's alright vit you," Fluttershy manages with a yawn. She looks over, and sees that she is talking to sleeping ears. Smiling, she walks to her straw bed, laying down, trying to force her insomniac mind to rest. Somewhere across the now silent station, a small group of musicians is playing an old Cossack lullaby, and the soft notes and reassuring voice of the singer puts her to sleep.

---

Another hearty thanks to the programmers of google translate. On a somewhat related note, I will never be puting any Russian into pheonetics, I keep it in Cyrillic to drive down the element of unfamiliarity that the charecters would feel. Also, when reading through the older bits of the story again, I noticed how much the quality of my writing had lowered, so I will take a bit more time and *hopefully* bring it back up to its former standard. Thank you for reading. /)*(\

I know I said that I was taking a break, but I think that this turned out alright, so I'm posting it. I remembered that somepony wanted to see ghosts, so here ya go. More on that next chapter. We meet another familiar face. It's funny how it can be familiar when it isn't even real, this is a very interesti-
Monty Python: GET ON WITH IT!
Me: Okay, okay, sheesh.

---

"Fluttershy. Fluttershy!" Fluttershy wakes to a hushed whisper in her ear, her eyes drifting slowly and gently open.

"Yeah?"

"We're going, and I just wanted to say thanks for everything," she feels a warm pair of forelegs wrap around her stomach in a thankful embrace. She pats the pony on the head softly in return.

"Ya know you're welcome to come with us, if you want. You'll always be welcome with us, but if you want to stay here, I totally understand." Her ears perk up at this. Leave the station she so well calls home? It would be nice to be with her old friends again, braving the unknown, just like the old days. She sits up slowly, her eyes meeting those of Rainbow Dash, caring and friendly. She smiles.

"Zat sounds great. I've been at zis station for a long time. It's been good, but It'll be a lot better with my friends, years back in Ponyville proved that time and again. Just let me get some things first." She gets up, stretching her arms out, waking the groggy muscles and joints. Reaching over to a lonely corner of the tent, she picks up a surprisingly large vest for the little mare, covered in pockets front and back, filled to the brim with bandages, wipes, ointments, etc. Pulling it on, she reaches back over again and lifts two small pictures. One is a small copy of the very familiar picture taken so many years ago, that same picture of the little group of friends that Twilight sent a copy of to the princess. The other, a more resent picture. Just her and a young adult colt, smiling with his arm across her shoulders. His brown coat patched with dust, his short-trimmed mane pressed against his head with helmet-hair, a bandage stretching across his forehead. Fluttershy smiles at the memory it carries, wiping a single tear from her face.

"Who's that?" Rainbow's voice pierces her reminiscing. Fluttershy draws a shaky breath, again swiping her foreleg across her eyes.

"He's a colt I liked. I met him on ze frontlines vhen I vas a field medic. I bandaged an injury of his, and dragged him back to ze main medical center. We started chatting, and eventually we got together." Dash 'daww's at her explanation.

"About sree monts later, zough," Fluttershy continues, her smile fading to nothing, "I got a letter in ze mail. Ze mailpony gave it to me, saying that he vas sorry. Inside, zere vas a letter he wrote to me, and… and a dea… a death note." Fluttershy's voice is shaky as she finishes, her vision blurred with the tears that now streak down her face.

"Aw," Dash's smile is also long gone, a look of sorrow taking its place, "I'm so sorry Shy."

"He vas too young!" Fluttershy chokes out, "He had so much left! Vhy did it have to be HIM?" She breaks down in a new wave of sadness, pulling her hind legs up to her chest, plopping her head onto her knees, her shoulders shaking. She feels the comforting embrace of her fillyhood friend again. She hears the reassurance of her voice, telling her it's alright.

"Guys, it's 09,20. We've gotta get a move on," Koldan says, poking his head into the tent, "Is everything okay?"

Rainbow looks at him and mouths 'Reminiscing'. He understands, nodding and leaving the tent again.

"Come on Fluttershy, I know how much it hurts. But what's passed has passed," Dash says, standing and reaching a hoof down to help her friend up, "But right now, it's time to go, if you still want to." Fluttershy nods, taking Dash's hoof and standing up again.

"I know, and you're right." She sniffs, letting one final tear fall, "I just wish I could see him again."

The dank, dark air of the tunnels is filled with songs of joy and excitement once more as the group moves past the Red Line, leaving the Union until they pass again to return home. Twilight and Dash entertain and are entertained by Fluttershy, exchanging stories about life and other silliness. Pinkie Pie and Koldan talk with each other, the limitless energy mixing with the take it slow and observe.

There is a strong flash that overtakes the entire tunnel, coming from everywhere, lasting just the smallest fraction of a second. When the light is gone, the tunnel is dotted with half-running figures, colts, mere silhouettes. They move freely around them, never touching them, shouting to one another.

"For the glory of Russia!"

"Urrah! Uraah!"

The voices are strange though, as if with a very heavy, but unidentifiable accent. Through the chaos, the group continues. There is another flash, and the colts are gone.

"Vh-vh-vhat's going on here?" Fluttershy asks, hiding behind her mane, wincing as if anticipating pain.

"I've heard the stories, of course. But those are just that, stories, right?" Koldan is muttering to himself, placing a hoof on his chin thoughtfully.

"Wh-what stories?" Twilight asks.

"Ghosts. Trapped in this world, they tell stories of the past, tell stories of their deaths," he says, shaking his head, "But those are just stories that old drunks tell the children to scare them. This makes no sense!"

"Well, sense or no sense, let's just keep going." Dash walks on, the rest following close behind.

Another flash, and more waves of the silhouettes. They run the opposite direction as last time, though. They look different, sound different, wield different weapons.

"For the Füherer!"

"The Reich of a thousand years!"

Just as last time, a flash, and they're gone. The voices keep strong though, joined again by the cries of the first waves of ghosts, playing out the parts of dying men. The sounds of gunshots echo throughout the tunnel, loud and clear as if the weapons were discharged right next to them in this tunnel, void of life. The shadows of falling men appear as they are hit, twisting and reflexing around the point of impact, disappearing again as they hit the ground. A slow, creeping layer of fog spreads from the ground, eventually coating the floor with its thick presence. It suddenly feels like they are traveling through a shallow pool.

It's just fog, Rainbow thinks, How can it be this thick? It's like a liquid…

"Run!" Koldan shouts above the madness of the tunnel, and takes off as quickly as he can through the horrible scene, the reddening fog splashing under his hooves. They all start running in sheer terror, Pinkie screaming bloody murder the whole way.

The fog is completely red now, and it starts to fade away into nothing. The panicked group doesn't slow at all though. A small fire is burning on the side of the path, an older stallion sitting calmly beside it.

"What frightens you so?" he calls as they approach, eyes wide and full of terror.

"Gh-gh-ghosts! And fog! A huge battle in the tunnel!" Koldan pants out, doubling over into a coughing fit, supporting himself on his knees.

"Ghosts, you say?" the stallion says with a risen eyebrow, "Yes, yes, they do tend to appear in this tunnel from time to time." He stands, dusting off his pants.

"My name is Khan. Who are you ponies?"

"HI Khan! Our names are Twilight Sparkle, Rainbow Dash, Koldan, Fluttershy," Pinkie half-yells, jumping up right in front of the older stallion, pointing to the ponies in turn, "And I'm Pinkie Pie! It's really nice to meet you! Where're ya from?"

Khan chuckles. "Such energy in you. You need a way to vent, is what you need. Also, may I recommend switching to de-caf?"

"Amen," Koldan says in hearty agreement, nodding along with the rest of the group. Pinkie glares daggers at him, then bursts into laughter at the whole situation.

"Come, my little ponies. The next station is only a few hundred meters more." Khan collects his things and starts off at a brisk jog, matched just barely by the winded ponies behind him.

The ponies arrive at the station in just a minute or two, stopped by the common guards. Suddenly, there is another flash that overtakes the tunnel, accompanied by the steady thud of marching men. A large block of ponies, marching in perfect step and time materialize, coming straight at the station holding long poles, sharpened to a lethal point.

"Get behind the perimeter, my new friends. I'll take care of these fellows," Khan says to the mortified ponies and guards behind him, and walks towards the advancing columns and roes of ponies.

---

Wise Guys is almost solely responsible for this being uploaded today and not, ya know, in a week from now. If you are writing something somewhat somber, I recomend listening to 'Wir hatten eine gute Zeit', even if you don't speak any German at all, it helps. have a good morning/day/afternoon/evening/night everypony, I'll write ya later. /)*(\

What the hay is he doing?!, Dash wonders as Khan walks at the group of shadow-ponies.

Khan is in a complete calm as he steps steadily towards the marching formation. Closing his eyes, he takes a deep breath, looking at the mass of shadow soldiers through closed lids. He starts reciting an ancient chant, first under his breath, inaudible, then growing in volume. The silhouettes stop marching as one, looking at the stallion that still walks towards them and parting, forming a path around him. The ponies look on in shocked amazement. Now in the center of the formation, Khan stops moving. He continues his chant for a few more seconds, then falls completely silent.

"Be free," he whispers softly. All of the shadow figures snap to attention, throwing up a solute. Another all-encompassing flash, and they're gone. Khan walks back to the group, smiling as if nothing had happened.

"Come, my friends! It's still a long way to Central." He passes through the shocked collection of ponies, and through to the station's gate.

"Hold on a second," Rainbow says when they come out of their shock and catch up to Khan, "How did you know we're trying to get to Central?" Khan looks back at her with a satisfied, almost peaceful look.

"You start to figure things out as you get older. All you have to do is figure the right things out." The gate slides reluctantly aside, groaning with the effort, and they all walk inside.

"Would anypony mind telling me what the hay just happened?" Koldan asks to nopony in particular as he trails at the back of the group.

"If I figure it out, I'll let ya know."

The station is in desperate need of repair. Smoke leaks from broken electrics, holes in tents are given up on, cracks spread across the floor from every corner of its area.

"This station is rather unlucky," one of the guards states, looking around the beaten-up area that would probably be a nice living space if it were in better condition. "It's basically IS 'the Front'." Fluttershy winces at the mention of the name. "All hope of getting it in living order has been lost. And it'll probably stay that way unless the war ends."

The air is thick with silence again, nopony quite sure what to say or do.

"Well, I'm going to take a bit of a shortcut through a side tunnel. I hope our paths cross again sometime my little ponies." Khan breaks the clean silence, and walks off.

Koldan sighs. "So what now? It's a bit late to be going into another tunnel, but at the same time…" he trails off.

"Well, if you wanted, you could-" the Red soldier's surprisingly accentless voice is cut short be the ping of a bullet hitting a sheet of metal near him.

"REICH!" He sounds an alarm, scampering behind some sandbags. The others do likewise as a fresh group of soldiers rush up to their positions, aiming at the advancing ponies clad in simple, yet elegant grey coats. The small group of friends is put in the middle of the fray, Twilight aiming her weapon, Dash throwing her AK to Koldan and pulling out her gauss rifle.

"You five! Follow me!" a voice calls out. The friends somehow know that they are the five that are being called. Without hesitation, they go to the voice. They reach a brown colt in a full-face helmet with two pistols at his thighs [A/N: think relative positions]. He motions them to follow quietly and closely, and walks quickly down a small tunnel, reaching a small series of ladders leading to a platform. He starts climbing, waiting on the platform for the rest of them.

"Okay, just a little bit further through here, there's supposedly a Reich planning room. If we can get there, we may be able to take some of their officers," the colt explains quickly, drawing one of the pistols and turning to face the door leading off of the platform.

"Ready?" Dash taps him on the shoulder to indicate 'yes', and he kicks the lock and handle down, then bucking the door itself open. There is a surprised shout as he does this, followed by two quick pistol shots. The group enters the small room, and looks at the seemingly insignificant space, then at the door.

"Okay, you two," the momentary colt leader points at Rainbow and Fluttershy, "stay here and guard the entrance. The rest of you, with me." All the ponies nod as they comply with their orders, even though Dash groans a bit at being assigned guard duty.

The colt points his pistol at the lock on the next door, blowing it out and kicking it open, entering the next room, quickly followed again by Twilight and Pinkie. This room is empty, save for some ammunition, which is quickly pocketed by the colt. He breaches the next door. Stepping inside, Twilight sees his pistol kicked out of his hand, and a booted hoof kicking out his rear right leg. He grunts in pain, wincing as he falls to the ground. A pony steps between him, and Twilight and Pinkie, aiming a pistol at each of them. Twilight turns to see the muzzle of another pistol, and another pony between her and Pinkie.

"Jetzt, jetzt, jetzt. Was haben wir hier?" The pony between Twi' and the immobilized colt says.

"Huh?"

The pony sighs. "What do we have here? Just where do you think YOU'RE going?"

Twilight panics.

"Dash! Flut-" her calls die in her mouth as she turns to see both Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash led by gunpoint to the rest of them.

"Yeah, Twi?" Dash asks, defeat in her voice.

"Red Kommandoes," the same captor starts, taking off the helmet that had hid his face, "Six of them! Boys, I want you all to know: We're going to be rich." The colt laughs humorlessly, pulling the crippled leader to a corner, putting his gun's barrel to his temple.

"Sir!" one of the others call, "Shouldn't we call the Gestapo? They're worth more alive."

The leader of the captors thinks for a bit, then sighs, holstering his pistol. He mumbles something under his breath about 'Dummkopfs' and 'Schweinhunden Gestapo'. Pulling out a wireless communicator, he toggles 'call'.

"Anfordern eines Gestapo-Agent in der Nähe der Front zu Bereich 4,93. Dringend." [A/N: This is the last full German sentence that I will write (in this chapter :P), I understand some don't like foreign language-heavy chapters.] He sighs again.

"Those agents are absolute creeps." His face contorts in disgust when he says 'creeps'. He walks over to the crippled colt that had led them all here, looking at him for a moment, then kicking his helmet off. The colt under the helmet's face is contorted in pain. His darker brown, close-cut mane is pressed against his head with helmet-hair. He has a bandage around his forehead with a large blood-stain on it. Come to think of it, he looks a lot like the colt in Fluttershy's…

"Nikola!" Fluttershy cries when she sees his face, tears welling up in her eyes. The group of long-time friends looks at her questioningly, unused to outbursts from the timid mare. He looks up at her, really looking at her for the first time.

"Fluttershy?" His face melts, a soul warming smile spreading over his look of pain.

Fluttershy runs to him, collapsing beside him and falling into his arms, holding him close. The tears fall into his flat mane. Rainbow is the first to understand what's going on, 'daww'ing more than she ever thought possible.

"Care to explain, Dash?" Twilight whispers, so as not to ruin their 'moment'.

"That colt was Fluttershy's coltfriend that she met when she was a field medic," Dash starts, Twilight's eyes widening, and her eyebrows popping up. "She thought that he had died in some battle, because she got a letter with a note from him and a death notice, and she was crushed, of course. I saw the picture she had of him and her together, and asked her about it earlier today… Was that really just today?" she shakes her head, laughing lightly, "Time travels weird, when one is on the road with friends. It feels like so long ago. So much has happened."

Eventually, Fluttershy leaves the embrace, looking into her coltfriend's glistening eyes.

"I sought I vould never see you again! Vhat happened? Vhere have you been? I received a deas notice and-" She is cut off when he leans forward, pressing his lips to hers briefly.

"I didn't die, I vas just re-stationed to Redwall station, zen redirected again to ze front, here. How have you bee-" Their re-union is cut short as the Reich captain clears his throat loudly, reminding them of where they were. They fall silent.

"The agent should be here any moment, and when he, or she, gets here, nothing at all out-of-line will be tolerated!" The sound of approaching hoofsteps makes the captain look up from the group and listen. He smiles devilishly.

"Ah, here she comes now, actually. Agent approaching: Ach-TUNG!" All of the Reich soldiers snap to attention as the door swings freely open again. The agent walks in with an air of importance and dignity. The old friends stare in astonishment at the sight.

"What the hay? Is that Rarity?"

---

I probably won't be able to post at all during the week for the next week or two or three because of an 08,00 to 20,00 marching band camp, but I'll try to post on the weekends. I'm sorry if the whole over-use of foreign language ruined the last chapter for you, I have gotten negative feedback on that, and it will NOT happen again*. Thank's as always for reading! Be sure to keep being awesome! If you didn't see the whole 'Fluttershy reunion with coltfriend' thing coming: neither did I! Bro-hoof! /)*(\

(*in this story, I'm sure it'll happen in other stories, if I ever put them up :D)

Rarity's eyes widen when she looks across the unlikely group. Could they really have gotten back together? How had they found each other in the metro? Nikola is glaring daggers at her.

"You ponies know this witch?" he asks his new teammates and old marefriend.

"Ma'am, you know these Gott verdamt commandoes?" the captain asks Rarity, raising an eyebrow.

"Men, please leave," Rarity orders the Reich troops, "We agents don't like… outside witnesses." She shudders on the word 'outside', forcing an agitated and scornful look from the captain.

"Ja, naturlig." The captain turns to his men, motioning to follow as he leaves the room slowly, intentionally knocking into Twilight with shoulder on the way out.

"*sigh* Sorry about them," Rarity starts, "The common soldiers can be such ruffians."

Yup, Rarity's still Rarity. Dash thinks upon hearing the quintessential 'Rarity' style word. She walks up to her old friend, looking her in the eyes, trying to find the old friend she knows under the styled grey overcoat.

"Rarity… What happened to you?" She breaths. "You're an agent with the Gestapo?! I'm not very well versed with the new Gestapo, but from what I know of the old version…" She trails off, shuddering.

"For ze last time: Ve're NOT commandoes!" Fluttershy shouts in her quiet voice, looking down at the ground beside Nikola.

"For the last time? You were saying that earlier?"

"Yes!" her head snaps up to face Rarity, suddenly yelling in earnest, tears running down her face.

"And how could you?! How could you be a part of someting like ze Reich?! Zey take ponies and hurt zem, KILL ZEM! And for vhat? Because zey're not unicorns? Is zat vorth KILLING for?" She breaks into sobbing, her rant suddenly cut short as she falls into Nikola's arms again, holding her face in her forehooves. Everypony is shocked at Fluttershy's outburst. For a moment they just stare at the crying mare, unable to do anything.

"Fluttershy, I-I… I don't know wha-" Rarity tears up as well, choking on her petty words of shock.

For what? Because they're not unicorns? Fluttershy's words replay in Rarity's mind, making her suddenly question everything she so solidly believed about her government. How COULD I have? Rarity forces the question upon herself, How could I have let myself be so blind and hateful? Is my grand and wonderful Führer wrong in his actions? At the simple question, Rarity's mind gates open, her long-buried conscience surfacing, tearing down the walls so carefully and expertly built around her guilt. She lets the tears fall freely down her face, all of the pent up pressure, the guilt of turning ponies, whose only crime was thinking against the injustice of the new regime, to their deaths.

"You're right." Her voice is hardly a whisper, but everypony hears it clearly through the silence that had fallen, broken by the muffled, sporadic clatter of assault rifle fire in the center of the station visible through the large viewing window. All eyes are on her as she sinks to her knees.

"You're right. How could I have let myself be so blinded? Blinded by this… these empty promises made be my Führer?" she looks at the ground in front of her, her voice once more dropping to a whisper, "How could I?"

Small taps and patters as Rarity's tears hit the ground are now the only noise, the Reich had pulled out of the attack, and the Reds are treating their injured. Fluttershy's eyes are closed, and her breathing is steady, having fallen asleep in Nikola's arms, his hoof running through her mane. Nikola's eyes are halfway closed themselves, and he makes the thoughts of everypony in the small room audible as he lets out a long, silent yawn. It was a long day for all, and the exhaustion is finally catching up to them as they fall, one by one, into a peaceful and fitful sleep. Friends with friends, friends with newly converted enemies. The room, and the ponies sleeping in it, formerly torn between two sides of conflict, now rejoined as a single, neutral faction.

"ON YOUR FEET! JETZT!" A shout rings through the area, waking everypony with a start. They all look to the source of the call, and see the Reich squad that Rarity had ordered outside earlier, guns leveled at the group.

"Well, well, well. An agent, defecting to the Reds?" the captain's cold voice calls, clear as crystal. "Hmpf! Unheard of." He spits on the ground in front of Rarity. "You're no better now than the scum you vowed to wipe from our grand regime." The venom dripping off of his voice stings as it both insults Rarity's pride, and reminds her of her less-than-grand past.

"This 'grand regime' of yours is sinful and wrong, and you're just as blind as I was if you can't see that."

A flash of rage crosses the captain's stony eyes for just the barest fractions of a second. He puts his aim just a bit lower, and pulls the trigger of his .45. Rarity lets out a blood-curdling scream as the bullet rips through her leg, shattering part of her bone, pulling small fragments of bone out of the back of her leg with it.

"So the way I see it," the captain begins, waving his pistol cockily around in the air, "is this: we turn in six commandoes and a defected agent, and we'll be set for life." A smug smile has grown on his mouth.

"And dead or alive, we still get our bullets, so we can send you lot straight to hell, and not have any reprimands. So who wants it first?" His sadistic voice slows at the end of his explanation. He levels his pistol to Nikola's forehead, signaling one of the other soldiers to hold Fluttershy back.

"No," Fluttershy struggles against the muscled grip of the restraining soldier, trying to save her coltfriend. "NO! Why him? What has HE done?" Tears stain her face yet again as the captain grins at her heartache.

"Well for starters, his actions against the Reich have led to the restriction of our…" As he rants on about how evil the Red stations are, and how terrible their commandoes are, Rainbow notices a pair of ponies, a colt and a mare, sneaking stealthily to the open door. The colt puts a hoof to his mouth, indicating to stay quiet, and pulls out a knife. Lunging forwards, he grabs the furthest back soldier around the neck, covering his mouth and plunging his knife into his neck. Once the dying pony stops writhing, he sets him carefully and quietly down. He motions for the mare behind him to come forwards. She pulls out a pistol, aiming carefully at the back of the head of the next soldier. A loud pang rings out as the next unlucky soldier falls to the ground, followed quickly by the rest of the stunned group as the two cut and shoot their way through the squad.

After the last pony falls, the colt looks around, making sure that the group he saved is okay.

"Eh, One good thing about the stereotypical bad-guy: There's plenty of talk before the trigger is pulled."

---

This is the last chapter I will be able to upload for at least five days, but I will upload as soon as possible. I really wanted to put something up before camp as a thank you to everypony that's been reading. At the time of me posting this, 968 people have read this. Honestly, that's about 968 more than I expected while planning this out, thank you SO much for you time. Keep calm, and canter on. /)*(\

"Who are you ponies? I don't think I've ever met you. *GAASSSPP* Oh my gosh! I'm gonna have to have a WELCOM PARTY for you!" Pinkie screeches, a huge smile of anticipation spreading across her face.

"Nonono! That's quite alright, we prefer to keep a lower profile," the colt says quickly, shaking his hands in front of himself quickly in a deterring gesture. Pinkie's face falls, and she mutters something about not having enough fun. "Now then, on to business." He quickly spins in Rarity's direction, pinning her to the wall by her neck, holding his pistol against her forehead and snarling at her.

"Anything you want to say about how great your wonderful Führer is now?" he spits out the word Führer, lacing his words with heavy venom. A single horrified tear runs down Rarity's wide-eyed face as she utters several incoherent whimpers.

"I-I-I hate him," she manages after a moment, "T-true, I swore my s-services to h-h-him, b-but these ponies sh-showed me his wrongs."

"It's true." Nikola says, grunting in pain as he stands up, placing a bit of weight on his injured leg. The two look at him skeptically. "I'm opposed to the Reich just as much as you are, and I vouldn't give a hot damn if you killed an agent." He smiles, "But she isn't an agent. She may have been yesterday, but yesterday is yesterday."

The colt slowly lowers his pistol back to its holster, releasing Rarity, letting her fall to her knees and take in deep, raspy breaths.

"Well then, I suppose I should introduce us properly then," the colt starts, "We're Freedom Fighters. I'm Cloud Burst, and this is…"

"Cherry Busch, a pleasure to meet you," the mare finishes for him.

"Oh, the pleasure's all ours," Rarity says dignantly, giving a small courtesy, lady-like as always.

There are more hoofsteps going through the scarcely populated station, carrying in the silence. Looking out of the observation window, they see more Reich troopers coming into the war-scarred station. Just a single squad at most. Cloud chuckles, a slim smile spreading over his lips. He reaches into his rucksack, pulling out several lines of 1/5 inch metal chord. Walking across the room, he ties them securely to a metal support bar.

"Alright everypony, let's try something here," he says, his smirk deepening, handing each of the ponies a line. "We're gonna grab these and slide down the open window behind them, and see what we can do ."

He opens the large window, lowering his line over the ledge. He grips the chord tightly and vaults over the small wall, starting to slide down as the others lower their lines. He slows himself to a silent stop right behind the troops, who had taken up cover, waiting for the Reds to come back into their trap. The rest of the group lands without a sound, all of them drawing their weapons silently and creeping up behind the squad. With incredible speed, Cloud grabs the squad lead around the jaw, covering his mouth and holding the blade of his knife an inch away from the jugular of his enemy.

"Not a move! Turn around. Slowly." The shocked soldiers turn slowly, as instructed, placing their weapons on the cold ground and raising their arms above their heads.

"Okay, now you're gonna follow me. And you're not gonna try anything stupid, right?" They nod reluctantly as a group. Cloud motions forwards, and starts walking behind them, Cherry taking the lead as the group walks steadily to the Red station. When they are a few yards from the station, a Red soldier rushes out to meet them and take the prisoners to the detention center.

"Спасибо. Это очень- Guh!" The soldier falls to the ground, reaching for his pierced throat as he falls.

"SNIPER! Get DOWN!" A frightened shout calls from the defensive lines, and everypony dives for cover. Turning in the direction of the shot, everypony levels their weapons and looks for any movement, smoke, glare, anything that would indicate the location of the sniper. Another shot rings out, and another pony falls to the ground, slinking over the edge of his watchtower and hitting the ground with a dull thud. Still nothing. Weapons start to fire in the general direction of the sniper, spraying led in blind hope, symbolizing the metro itself, not knowing where, or even specifically what your target is, just firing in fear of the death that you know is coming sooner or later anyway. Just trying to preserve yourself for another few days, blind to the reality that is so visible, so clear, trying to somehow escape the fate your species shares, trying somehow to become immortal when all you're really doing is making yourself a more visible target for the unseen, unknown force of death.

---

Sorry it's so short and so late, but I have a good excuse... Well, okay, an excuse anyway. I've been pretty tired, what with band for twelve straight hours all last week. And writers block. But I felt bad having not updated, so I wanted to put SOMETHING up, no matter how short. Hopefully I'll post again next week, but until then, may the Force be with you.

Bright streaks of golden-white blaze through the air as tracers fly through the dull, beaten station. Small chunks of material puff up from the ground as bullets strike the ground. Another crack rings out, signifying their failure. A short, sharp grunt is heard along with a wet thap as the bullet hits its target. Fluttershy's eyes wander to the source of the noise, reaching for her first aid kit. Her pulse raises and her heart seizes up, her eyes widen as they fall on the kneeling form of Nikola.

His face is dull, showing no emotion at all. There is a small, fine spray of crimson out of his back, and he stiffens for just a half second, falling to the ground. Panic and rage fill her mind, clouding her thoughts as she rushes to his side, pulling him behind a large concrete block.

No. No, no, no. This can't be happening! she desperately thinks as she pulls his shirt back, exposing the wound and pressing bandages to it. His breathing slows, coming shallower with each passing moment. Come on, Nikola, stay with me damn you! Tears form in her eyes, weighing heavier and heavier, threatening to break loose. I just got you back, you can't die on me again, you just CAN'T! His hoof moves just barely, gripping Fluttershy's shaking hoof lightly. His head moves slightly, and he lets out one last breath.

No. The word calls itself once more in Fluttershy's mind, shaking with dread and sadness. She closes her eyes tightly, forcing the tears to leave her. Her breath picks up, and she opens her eyes, filled with hate. Grabbing her fallen coltfriend's rifle, she rushes into the station, yelling in rage. She sprays the entire tunnel, only stopping when the gun did. Her eyes soften, her breath slowing, and her vision coming back into focus. She looks across at her friends' wide, shocked eyes, and looks down at a torn, chewed up body in a red blotched urban camo suit. Nausea rises in her. She doubles over, heaving her last meal next to the body, catching her breath, shaking on her elbows and knees.

"Wow." One word breaks the shock, and everypony snaps out of their trance-like state. Twilight and Dash rush to their friend with Pinkie bouncing behind. Dash places a comforting hoof on Fluttershy's shaking shoulder.

"H-h-he's… gone," she breaths through her sobs. "I had just gotten him back, and now he's dead again." She breaks into renewed tears.

"'Shy your leg!" Twilight calls attention to Fluttershy's leg. A single, jagged cone had torn its way through her calf. Twilight sets to work stopping the bleeding, plugging it with a bandage as Dash tries to calm their friend down.

"Shh, it's not your fault. The metro is a cold, cynical place. Nothing could have stopped this, and you can't go blaming yourself. It's not your war, it's not his war, but war doesn't differentiate between innocent and guilty." She speaks with a calm, even tone as she gently strokes Fluttershy's mane, letting her cry into her lap.

"Yeah! Turn that evil little frown upside-down!" Pinkie half-shouts in her usual excited voice, earning a swift kick from Dash. 'Cool it,' Dash mouths at Pinkie.

"Okie dokie lokie!"

'That poor colt…' Fluttershy mutters under her breath, looking down at the decimated corpse. Had she really done that? Had she really taken the life of another living thing so brutally?

"Akh, excuze me, but ve are holding ceremony soon." A mare in a grey trench coat says in broken English and a heavy accent. Dash nods acknowledgement and thanks, and she turns away.

"Come on 'Shy, let's go say goodbye. It would mean a lot to 'im."

Twilight looks at the strange rifle on the ground. She had seen it before, used by many defense-ponies in the metro. It's unlike any other weapon she's ever seen; it has very interesting engineering, almost completely stripped down, but incredibly effective. There are spaces in the body through which she can see the innards of it, the springs and the clips and the firing pin, it's quite odd.

"Um, excuse me?" she tries to get one of the guard's attention. "If you wouldn't mind telling, what is this?" she shakes the peculiar rifle at the words 'is this'.

The guard chuckles. "Well there are two answers to that, the technical one and the correct one, which would you like?"

"Um… Both?"

"Well the technical name for it is the ISR-'13 type 7.62, or the Infantry Storm Rifle model 2013 variant that fires the 7.62 round. But the right answer, ask any of us, is the Bastard Rifle."

"I-I-I'm sorry, the what?" Twilight stares at him in shock, cocking a confused eyebrow at the response.

"Well, you need to see your question in a different light than you did," the guard starts, sitting on an overturned box that's see the business end of too many rifles, "What is this gun? You can go into the technicalities, like it's single-pony operated, and has safe, semi-, and fully-automatic settings, and it fires the yakkita yakkita yakkita, but what really IS this gun." He smiles, chuckling, and pats the gun affectionately, pulling out a cloth and absentmindedly wiping the surface clean, "Well, this gun is the bastard child of desperation."

---

Leaving another station, bound but for another still, the monotony starts to weigh in on the group as they continue on to Central. Everypony is rather quiet, seemingly content with the silence. A soft song starts to drift out from Koldan, filling the sound-swallowing air of the dank tunnel. It drifts through the tunnel, and the mood seems to brighten, the downed, defeated posture of the ponies slowly rising. Their backs straighten, their chins raise defiantly against the darkness. The tell-tale sound of tunnel mutants rushing through the tunnel thunders, a rushing sound from dozens upon dozens of creatures. The group stops, but doesn't turn, or run, or break, they stand tall against the yet unseen horde. Koldan's voice drifts into a midrange growl, almost wolf-like, and starts a low chant-like series of barking growls.

"Daaa taa na na, daaa taa na na, daaa taa na na…" A small group of blue sparks appears in the air, growing and intensifying to fill the width of the tunnel and shooting off towards the mutants, leaving a path of carnage in its wake. The air fills with the smell of burnt flesh as the light vanishes as suddenly as it appeared. Koldan's chant quiets and fades into the darkness as the group snaps to reality and looks in shock over the fried mutants.

"Did… did you do that, Koldan?" Fluttershy asks after a moment, turning to face the colt. His eyes are closed peacefully, his head still held high in the charred air, his breathing is steady and slow, in through his nose, out through his mouth. He takes one breath that's longer than the others, and slowly lets it out in a satisfied sigh.

"No," he answers after several seconds, "No I didn't. But anyway, I think we were en route to a new station?"

They travel through the tunnels, comforted by the gentle songs ringing through the throats of their companions and selves. Before they know it, the light of a patrol is on them again. Some questions are asked and answered, and the gates are opened. This station is far larger than most, expanding far on either side, cleaved in half by a trench where the tracks lay in the center. On one side are living quarters, and on the other, the market and other stores and restaurants. There is a large sign hanging over the tracks in front of at the entrance that reads 'From the Will of the Ponies, for the Glory of the Kind'.

"Welcome to Kontsaki station."

---

Hello, again. I think it's getting a bit redundant with the 'they go to a new station and then leave it and then go to a new station and then leave it, repeat forever', so I think we'll get to Central pretty soon. But anywho, I'm starting school again pretty soon, about two or three weeks, I'm pretty sure, so updates will become even less frequent, but I'll try to post at least twice or three times a month at absolute minimum.

"Kotsaki station, huh?" Koldan says, looking around the place, his eyes lingering on a full sized train sitting on the tracks, a dim light coming from within the shaded sleeping compartments. "I've heard a lot about this place, but never actually been here. It's always fun to compare the stories to the real thing."

They walk about the station for a while, seeing what there is to see as the lights dim and artificial night takes the station. Most ponies go inside, leaving the alleys more open, sound traveling further and stronger. The sound of music ( ?v=jceuvafBBTM#/73;141) flows over the area, building in a crescendo as the other noises fade away.

"Oh what is that wonderful sound?" Rarity asks to nopony in particular as the group absently follows the song. Rounding a corner they come into a park of sorts, with metal twisted and arranged in sculptures scattered throughout. Dragons hand from the ceiling in flight, deer stop to rest and play, and birds soar effortlessly through the sky. In the middle of the area, there is a small fountain where a small group of musicians sit, playing into the night. A drummer taps away in a gentle rhythm as a violinist and cellist play in harmony and melody.

"Is that Vinyl and Octavia?" Dash wonders aloud. The familiar faces register in their minds. The DJ is on drums, huh? Rainbow thinks to herself, watching them play. Makes sense, I suppose. I mean drums are probably, musically, the loudest things there are aside from a subwoofer. Octavia's still on that cello. But who is that there with them? The song starts to fade away as the minutes blur together, the single repeating part calling over and again. When they start to pack up to leave, the group walks over.

"Octavia! Vinyl! How've ya been, guys?" Dash calls to them. They look up, and wide smiles take over their faces.

"Whoa, hey guys! We've been alright, and you?" Vinyl's ever collected voice replies.

"Pretty good, pretty good. How long have you been here in, what is it again? Kotsaki? Yeah that's it, how long've ya been here?"

"Eh, a few years maybe. Definitely not too long."

"Ahm," an the colt violinist makes a small noise, giving a slightly awkward wave to the group.

"Oh! Sorry, uh, guys this is Kazimierz." She leans against his chest as his face colors a bit. "I met 'im at a music group early in my stay here." Turning her head to him, she presses her lips gently to his cheek.

Well, Dash thinks, didn't see THAT comin'. I thought that, if anypony, he would be with Tavi. The still lightly colored colt reaches down and picks up his case, saying goodbye to the group and placing a soft kiss on Vinyl's lips. She sighs.

"He's great, man. Tavi, you've gotta get one o' him," she says teasingly, nudging her in the side. "But anyway, how'd ya like the song?"

"Oh, it was amazing," Fluttershy answers for the group, who all nod in agreement. "What's it called? I had never heard anything like it."

"It's part of a song called 'Zviomali mnie v povrooz' [a/n: phonetically], it's Polish." Vinyl says.

"Ever since she met Kazimierz, she's been all into Polish. It practically took over her life for a spell," Octavia fills them in with her usual formal accent.

"Heh, yeah Kazi really got me into it. But hey, Polish is fun." Vinyl shrugs, putting on a 'whaddaya do' face. "But hey, enough of this talk, let's go back to my place and get somethin' to eat, eh?"

Everypony agreed heartily, and they follow Vinyl and Octavia back to their home. It's a little shack looking structure with a low tin ceiling. The inside is rather plain, with two posters on the wall, one above each of the two beds. One is shows a somewhat minimalist rendition of an old style town in a single tan shade with a single red building that seems to be on its side. 'R.U.T.A.' is written in bolded red at the top, and 'gore' is written in the same shade at the bottom. The other shows a large cello in the foreground at the very edge, half of the instrument out of the frame, and a swirling, smoky purple fog coming up from the bottom behind it on a black background. The beds are on opposite sides of the room, and there is a very defined line of untidiness that separates Vinyl's side from Octavia's. A simple, yet appealing coffee table sits in the very center of the room with a propane stove under it, along with some vacuum sealed bags of food and tea.

"Well, here we are. Home, sweet home," Vinyl says as the group sets their things down and look around. "Imma make some tea, anypony else want some?"

They all respond with mumbled 'yes's as they sit on some cushions that Octavia had pulled out for them.

She reaches under the table, opening a trap door under it and pulling out the appropriate number of cups, filling each of them with the steaming liquid. They all gratefully accept them, and sip quietly at the minty drink, quiet conversation coming and going. Twilight notices that Koldan looks troubled, absently holding the cut to his muzzle.

"Koldan?" He doesn't react. "Koldan?" Again, nothing. "Koldan!" She half-yells, snapping him back to reality and attracting the stares of everypony else in the room.

"Huh? S-sorry, I guess I kinda spaced out there for a bit. What is it?"

"You looked really troubled, is something wrong?" Twilight asks, concern lacing her voice. The others nod in agreement.

Is it really that obvious?

He sighs. "It's just that… I almost feel like… I know I've…" He sighs again, looking down at the ground for a half a second. "I'm positive I know you from somewhere Vinyl, and your name sounds so familiar, like I grew up around it, or something. Where are you from?"

"Oh, uh, just from Ponyville, y'know. Nothin' too special."

"Oh, really? I'm from Ponyville too. What's yo-"

"No. Way. Ermagerd, I'm from Ponyville TOO!" Pinkie screams, making everypony wince.

"Yes, Pinkie, we all know," Koldan says, "Now as I was saying, wha-"

"Ponyville was AWESOME! I mean, right guys? Wasn't it awesome?"

"Yes, now as. I. Was. Saying. W-"

"It was just the definition of awe- mphhmm mm m phmmph!" Rainbow reaches around her their friend's neck, and covers her muzzle with one hand, turning to Koldan to hear him finish.

"Thank you, Rainbow Dash." He says, pinching the bridge of his nose in frustration, "Now as I was saying, what's your full name? 'Cause I'm almost sure I know you from somewhere-"

"Hey! I know everyone too! I always- ays- *thump*" She trails off as she falls back with a thud, a tranquilizer dart sticking from right under her collar bone.

"So anyway," Koldan says as he re-closes the dart-sized tube-pocket in the front of his vest, "Name?"

"Oh, yeah, uh, Vinyl Scratch." Koldan's eyebrows shoot up under his bangs at the name, and his ears perk straight up, "How 'bout you?"

A wide smile crosses Koldan's face, and he gives a very short chuckle. He stands up and runs over to Vinyl, pulling her into a hug.

"H-holy shit. I thought you were dead," he says.

"Whoa whoa whoa. What're you doing? Who are you?" Vinyl says in shock as she tries to push him off of her.

He pulls back, holding her by her shoulders, smiling at her.

"I'm Koldan. Koldan Scratch."

Her eyes widen, a smile growing across her lips to match his.

"Nice to meet ya again sis'"

---

Hey bronies (and pegasisters), sorry for my inactivity, but I've been too busy being lazy. Who expected the whole siblings thing? Anyone? 'Cause I know I sure didn't. If you have any ideas for stuff to put in, write a review or send me a PM. I hope you like the instrumental, it's what I was listening to literally the entire time I was writing this chapter.

"Hold on a sec, guys. Did you just say 'sis'', as in sister?" Rainbow asks in disbelief, holding her arms out in a halting motion.

"Yeah, and it's been a damn long time, too," Koldan says, his eyes misting over happily in reminiscing. He turns back to Vinyl. "So when did the whole drumming thing start?"

"About the same time DJing stopped. But I had to keep makin' noise, ya know? Couldn't just let an apocalypse stop me making noise, now could I?" she grins. "You know what they say, "Jeśli idziesz przez piekło, nie poddawać się."

He looks at her blankly for a moment, his smile fading; a look of confusion comes across his features. "They actually say that?"

"No, not really. I don't think so anyway." Vinyl replies, chuckling.

"Well, I do hate to interrupt the reunion here, but it's quite late, and I really think we should get some sleep. That and the neighbors are knocking on the door asking why we're being so loud." Octavia says from near the door before crossing to her bed and flopping unceremoniously down on it.

"Heh, yeah I guess we really should be getting some sleep soon, eh?" Rainbow Dash says lightly, her eyes half closed. The others nod in agreement, the long walks and hours weighing down again.

Man, what're the chances of this? Dash wonders absently as she falls asleep, We go on a mission to Central, her head flops to the side in Twilight's direction, and who do we meet along the way but every one of our friends from way back when. Now that's a textbook definition of 'coincidence' for ya.

"ALRIGHT, EVERYPONY UP!" A harsh, and very loud voice shakes the reunited group from sleep. They all sit bolt upright in surprise. Standing, Koldan opens the door, checking what's going on outside carefully. The others soon join him in looking at two large stallions with intimidating, and very large machine guns with ammunition belts hanging over their shoulders.

"This is a hold up, don't resist, and nopony gets hurt." They start slowly moving through the area, helping themselves to whatever they so please.

Rage burns its way onto Dash's face as she clenches her hands into tight fists. "This is just wrong. We have to do something!"

"You're right." The simple words somehow turn into and inconceivable concept as they leave Koldan's mouth. Everypony stares at him in shock at his agreement.

"You can't be serious, right? I mean, look at the situation! They have those giant freakin' guns, and all that armor, and what do we have? And even if, the minute you attack, they'll just blast you to little chewed-up bits. Literally!" Vinyl cries out, backing away from the group a bit and looking her brother in the eyes. He opens the door a little further and walks out, looking slightly towards the ground.

"I know," he says with a sigh, his hand still lingering on the door frame, "but I also know that I can't just sit back and watch this happen. I'll be back in a bit." He turns and continues walking, his hoof slowly going to his side and tracing lazily over a belt of throwing knives.

"Oh, I can't watch!" Rarity exclaims dramatically, putting a hoof to her forehead palm-out.

"Hey assholes!" Koldan calls, approaching the two huge stallions, interrupting their beating of a little filly, "I think it would be smart of you to leave." They look at each other, the filly forgotten and crawling away. They simply laugh uproariously at him, throwing their heads back and gripping their stomachs.

"Haha! And what you do about, little colt?" one of them manages after a moment as the other takes his MG from its resting place on his shoulder.

"Well, I could always just kill you, but that's hardly ideal. I would prefer if you just leave."

They let loose another rattling bought of laughter.

"One." Koldan's voice turns dark, his features curling into a snarl.

"Why little colt say 'one'? What this mean?" the same brut asks, pulling his own MG down.

"Two."

"Two? Two?! Why little colt count?" They both prime their weapons, put keep them down.

"Three." Koldan waits just a moment before jumping at them, drawing a knife. They both swing their weapons to point at him.

Bang! Bang! Two shots ring out through the silenced station. Koldan's eyes widen in surprise along with the thugs as Vinyl's widen in horror.

"Koldan!" she cries, dashing out of the house, past the stunned group. Koldan just stands there though, staring at the two, his knife falling lazily to his side as the two fall to the ground.

"Why hello again, my little ponies! How have you been?" says a smiling Khan, a smoking revolver in his hoof.

"Khan?" everypony wonder aloud, except for Vinyl and Tavi.

"Who's this guy?" Vinyl asks, turning to the group, gesturing at Khan with her hoof over her shoulder. A blank, questioning expression plastered across her face.

"My name is Khan," Khan explains to her, "I met your friends here a while back, but had to leave them for a while when we got to the Red line. It's nice to see that they're all okay still."

The frost of silence starts to spread over the group as the hum of everyday life takes the station again.

"So how did you manage to find yourselves here?" Khan breaks the still-forming quiet.

"Well, we were going and then a battle happened and then we met some ponies and then Fluttershy killed somepony who had killed somepony" Fluttershy's eyes start to water, "and then there were, like, a hundred million thousand mutants and then Koldan did some magic thing" Koldan looks up at this, a confused look spreading over his face, "and this big blue thing appeared and killed all of the-"

"Hold on, hold on, hold on," Koldan waves at Pinkie Pie in a 'slow down' motion, shaking his head, "What are you talking about? I did a magic thing? Earth pony, and all, or haven't you noticed?"

"No, you definitely did something back there," Twilight says, and everypony nods in confirmation. Koldan looks at them all in confusion.

"That's not biologically possible." He tries to remember back to the tunnel, but comes up with no recollection of that event. He doesn't remember anything at all, actually. He starts to feel dizzy, the world spins around him as his vision dissipates to nothing.

"Koldan!" Vinyl's voice is the last thing he hears before his knees buckle and hit the ground with a dull metallic thud.

---

SO SORRY ABOUT THE WAIT! Band has been keeping me plenty busy. Well, that, and I've been watching the series again in German (Freundschaft ist Magie). Also, sorry about forgetting about the URL gestapo, here's the song from the other chapter: ( www DOT infiniteloope DOT com/?v=jceuvafBBTM#/73;141) So, yeah. Maybe the next chapter will come a little sooner, and maybe a little longer. 'Till next time: /)*(\

"Koldan!" Vinyl yells as her brother falls to the ground, landing with a muffled thud. She rushes forwards to him, kneeling by him. Picking up his upper body and taking his limp head in one hand, resting him on her shoulder, she starts shaking him lightly.

"C'mon Koldan. C'mon, wake up!" Desperation starts to set in. She just got her brother back after so long. So many years. She couldn't lose him again so soon.

"KOLDAN!" She hears her voice calling her older brothers name echo on in her head. How long had she been kneeling there? How much time had gone where she could have helped him? What if something is seriously wrong with him? What if somepony's touching her drums? Wha-

"Vinyl!" A strong voice calls her back to reality, and her head snaps up. She's still kneeing on the ground, but Koldan is squatting next to her, a hoof on her shoulder, shaking her lightly. Da fuq? Okay, that was weird…

"'S everything okay? You really spaced out there for a while."

"Yeah, yeah I'm fine. So, whaddaya want to do now?"

A thoughtful look comes over him. He stands up, mumbling something as he walks to the others and talks to them for a few seconds.

"Well, the others say I don't have to go with them if I don't want to, well, all except for Pinkie Pie, but anyway. So if it would be alright, could I stay here with you and… Tavi, was it?"

She nearly exploded. Her brother was back to stay again! It would be just like the old times, and-

"Well, Vinlyl," Rainbow's voice cuts her concentration, "Looks like we're goin' now. See ya after we save ponykind again." She turns to leave with the others, "I'll be sure to kill some mutant for ya, 'kay?"

The group walks down the last tunnel to Central. And this tunnel is something special. Something very special indeed. Sure, it stretches out endlessly, just like all of the others, and sure, it seems to almost suck life out of whatever is passing through it, just like all of the others; but it has lights. Lights! As in 'you can actually see what you're walking into'! Dash lets out a soft whistle of awe, letting her head sway back and forth, her eyes going over the florescent tubes that brighten the entire tunnel.

"Why can't we have this sort of thing up at Outreach?" she asks out loud, but to nopony in particular.

"I could explain in almost painful detail why it's not possible on several levels," Twilight says, "but I have a feeling that was a rhetorical question." Dash murmurs something about buzzkills and looks back down at the path ahead of her.

A large gate comes into view with the single most beautiful word Dash or Twilight had ever seen. CENTRAL. They break into a run, followed by the others, not stopping until they reach the gate. A group of soldiers in loose fitting, long, grey pants and sleeveless white shirts walk out, each one bearing a tattoo of a bullet shape over a leaping flame on their forearm.

The leader of the group steps forward to meet them, holding up one hand, palm out and fingers spread.

"Welcome to Central, what's your business here?"

"We were sent by a colt named 'Hunter'," Twilight answers. The soldier raises an eyebrow skeptically.

"Oh, were you now? I suppose that you and the other two-hundred ponies that've said that must have urgent matters to disc- to discuss… with." His sarcasm dies in his mouth as Dash holds up the chain that Hunter had given her.

"Yes, um, *cough*, well, uh-welcome to Central, I'll alert the council to your arrival."

"Alright, here's what's going to happen," the powerfully built, heavily dressed colt across from Twilight and Rainbow says, "Seeing as how you two are the ones that really know everything, you two 'll be the only ones of your group in the meeting. When you're called in, you're going to explain everything starting with when you first met Hunter to the best of your abilities. After that, do not talk. At. all. 'Kay?"

They nod in agreement.

"Good." He turns to the intercom unit beside him. "Attention all council members, report to the council building, repeat, all council members, report to the council building!" He turns to them, signaling them to follow him, and leaves.

Here's hoping they take this more seriously than I think they will, Dash thinks gloomily as they follow the stalker to the council building, the ponies back home are really depending on it.

Miller kicks the door open breaching style, venting some of his irritation.

"I can't believe this!" he growls, "That the council would reject your pleas, that they wouldn't show a fraction of the courage that you and your group have shown. I'm terribly sorry about this, but I will find a way to help your station."

After the loudness, the quiet that retakes the room seems even heavier as they all think of what could be done. Suddenly, Miller's head snaps up.

"The пушки!"[pronounced: pushki] he exclaims to questioning looks, "Several special weapons, commonly simply called 'пушки', were placed around Equestria a few years before everything went to hell, and I'll bet that at least one of them is still functioning. And trust me," he adds, his eyebrows rising in appreciation and a thin smile spreading over his mouth, "one is enough. It'll be pretty dangerous getting to them though, none were put anywhere too close to the metro." He walks over to his drawers, pulling one open and withdrawing a full map of Equestria, dotted with markings and information. Looking over it, his face starts to pale.

"What is it?" Twilight asks, catching on to his slight fear, "What's wrong?"

"It would appear," he says, "that the closest of the пушки is in an area that's adopted the title of 'the Library'." He shudders on the word 'library'. "It's one of the most deadly areas on the surface, it's not going to be easy." He takes a deep breath, closing his eyes and pursing his lips for a moment. "That's probably your best hope. I'm going to send you off with the best of the best, a stalker that's been through more stuff than anypony in the metro. She'll get you in and out, and be back in time for tea. I'll let you pack, and then meet up with 'er at the main gate in exactly one hour, understood?" Twilight and Rainbow both nod, and go to get their stuff.

An hour later, they walk to the main gate along with the others, minus Khan, who left while they were in the council meeting. As they get closer, they hear light conversation and laughter between a very Russian voice and a southern-style drawl.

"There's something familiar about that voice." Dash says distantly, "It sounds almost like-" They all stop and stare, meeting the shocked look of the stalker with shock of their own.

"Apple Jack?!"

---

I'm not dead yet! But good god, it took me long enough, didn't it? Sorry bronies, but school (and band (and being sick)) has been kicking my ass lately, and if I'm not completely out of time for stuff, I'm not in the mood to write, terribly sorry, but it was either update, and have crappy chapters, or not update, and maybe piece together something that's almost passable. So I did the latter. Hopefully, the next update will come sooner, but no promises. Thanks again to everypony that's reviewed, it's appreciated beyond belief, keep being awesome, and sorry again /)*(\

"What 'n tarnation 're y'all doin' here?" Applejack says with a wide smile as she walks over to her old friends.

"Well," Dash begins solemnly, hanging her head a bit, "unfortunately we're here for some pretty serious business. Has word of the 'Dark Ones' reached here yet?"

Applejack's eyes widen and she nods slowly, her outstretched arm falling slack halfway into shaking Twilight's hoof. "Yeah, why?" she answers, her voice shaking a little bit.

"They're why we're here. The bastards first showed up at our station a while back, and now we're all, y'know," Dash cuts off, putting her hoof out in an explanatory motion, "'cause apparently we have a pretty ridiculous ability to find each other without trying, and we all found our way here, and now you," she taps Applejack in the chest lightly to emphasize, "are our guide."

Applejack stares at Dash in shock for a few moments, struggling a bit with the information. Finally, she looks down and to the side, shaking her head with a low whistle, eyebrows raising.

"Well, Ah guess we'd best be a-goin' now then," she says, head raising to look them in the eyes again, "those nasty critters ain't gonna be killin' themselves. Cartridge!" she calls to a white pony sitting in the corner of the room with a long barreled, wood stocked rifle, who looks up from absently rubbing the black barrel with a rag.

He's wearing a black and grey diagonally striped bandana over his muzzle, and lightly tinted glasses, partially covered by his messy, dark brown mane. His old short sleeved shirt is tattered and the original blue had faded. His black pants had flexible padding over the knees, scuffed from years of abuse.

"Stop futzin' around with your rahfle an' get over here, we've got ourselves a job to do!"

He wordlessly stuffs his rag into one of the many pockets of his pants, standing up and lazily dragging his rifle up and over his shoulder. Walking to the group lazily, but still quickly, as if detached from the situation, eyes completely void of emotion.

"Alright y'all," Applejack says, turning to the guards in front of the giant blast doors, "open them doors on up. We got us a new world t' save!"

The skies are a raw grey as the group steps from the confines of the metros, hockey mask style filtration masks secured over their muzzles. They've come up into the ruins of a small city, broken and crumbled buildings extending forwards on either side of them. Walls extend down from the sides of the wide metro entrance, expanding in a 'v' shape outwards. A courtyard of sorts spreads out in front of them, a pathway down the middle and charred, leafless trees in diagonal rows on both sides.

"Wow…" Dash breathes, voicing the thoughts of the group. Their weapons are down, their arms slack with awe, heads all tilted up to the grey expanse, intermittently marred by lightning. Cartridge sighs, his breath fogging in front of him, looking from the group of gawking ponies, to the ruins of the town they came out into, and back again. Exercising his Scottish voice for the first time since he met the five mares, he mumbles something under his breath, and sighs again.

"If we could please move on to something more important than just-" he cut himself off, his ears perking up to the sky and a look of concentration taking over his look of boredom. A rumbling can be heard over the breeze, growing in volume quickly.

"Shit," Cartridge breathes. "Hide!" He dives behind the crumbled remains of a pillar, pulling his rifle to his shoulder, aiming it into the courtyard in front of them. The others follow suit, diving behind anything big enough to hide behind and looking out into the courtyard. As the rumbling grows ever louder, mutants start swarming through the open space. An entire pack runs straight through the dead, dry forest, dozens upon dozens passing through before the last ones pass.

The looks on the faces of the less seasoned of metro-dwellers are ones of horror, as if shocked that so many mutants even existed, and fearing above all else that they would have to face numbers of the beasts equal or even greater than those that they just saw.

"D-d-does that happen often?" Dash asks, shaken even through her experience in the defense force. She picks up Fluttershy, who had frozen in fear, and was still unresponsive, and walks over to the others.

"Eh, more often than I would like it to," Cartridge answers.

"Hey!" Pinkie shouts, jumping into the air slightly, "Where do you come from? You have a really cool voice! Could you talk more? Do you like PARTIES?!" She continues rambling on and on, hardly pausing for a breath through the entire thing.

"Does she do this often?" Cartridge asks, jabbing a thumb in Pinkie's direction. Everypony merely nods. "Oi, this is gonna be one 'ell of an op."

"Hey y'all!" Applejack's voice calls out to them, "Let's be a-goin'!" Falling in beside her, Cartridge simply shakes his head at the still-rambling Pinkie.

"So Jacks," he asks, tuning Pinkie out, "Where are we goin' anywhy?"

"Oh, so the hi 'n' mahty Cartridge, best in 'e business, doesn't know where 'e's goin'?" Applejack says, raising an eyebrow mockingly.

"Ey! 'T's not my fault if nopony told me anythin' other than 'be at the gate in an hour.'," the Scotspony says, raising his hoofs defensively.

Applejack chuckles. "Ah know, Ah know. Anyways, we goin' down t' the lah-bary."

The rifleman stops, his eyes dilating behind their lenses. The puffs of steam emanating from his bandana become shorter and more frequent as his breath becomes almost panicked.

"Yu mean w're goin' to the Library?" he asks just above a whisper. "We're goin' to the buckin' LIBRARY and yu din't think it would a' been a good idea to tell me before we were already on the bloody surface?!" His tone blasts to a yell as he lets frustration loose, turning and kicking a rock across the field, a dull crump ringing out as it crushes against the wall of a half-way leveled building.

He leans his head back, taking several deep breaths, and ending with a deep sigh. Turning back to the others, his eyes have lost all traces of their rage, and returned to their mostly dis-interested state.

"Well, as long as we're up here…" He lets the sentence hang as he simply walks off. "Oh, and girls," he says over his shoulder, "whatever ya do, do. not. look. at. the glowing. red. tower."

---

I. am so. sorry. I really am sorry I always take so long with updates, but now with band winding down, I think I'll be able to update more often. I'm also sorry this is such a short chapter, but I wanted to post at least something. Also, I'm getting lonely. Please review, so I can be less lonely. Thanks for reading, and thank you especially to Akkura, who has been keeping this fic alive for who knows how long anymore. 'Till next time (four weeks or less, I promise), bro-hoof /)*(\, peace off.

And with that, he sets off again. Applejack is the first to follow him, picking up her pace to catch up with him.

"C'mon y'all! We got work to do!" she calls over her shoulder to the others, snapping them out of their confusion at Cartridges statement.

"What glowing tower?" Rainbow asks, "What is he talking about?"

"Well, ponies usually jus' call it 'the Tower', and… Well, you'll know when you see it, but don' look straight at it f'r more 'n a moment," Applejack answers.

"What sort of shit is thi-!"

"Keep it quiet back there!" Cartridge whisper shouts back, cutting Rainbow off of her outburst, "I'm fine wit' some conversation, just keep it to a low level."

They keep walking, abandoning the conversation, opting to simply walk in silence. Rainbow and the others that haven't been to the surface since D-day get increasingly on-edge as they walk further through the city, approaching a more spread-out, almost sub-urban area. They keep faithfully to the shadows, trusting in the protection they give.

Even through all their gear, coats, and movement, they start to get steadily colder, shivering lightly as they follow the still unfazed and unaffected Cartridge.

"Aren't you cold Mr. Stalker? I mean, you don't even have much of a jacket, and it's, like, negative fifty-brojillion degrees out here!" Pinkie asks from the rear.

"No." His simple answer is sharp and cold. He suddenly stops, holding up a single curled hoof in a 'halt' sign. Everypony stops, and, in the silence that follows, they can hear a slight rustling inside the mostly intact building they are clinging to the shadows of. Very carefully, he approaches the entrance to the structure. Pressing himself against the outside, he pulls his rifle up to his shoulder. He takes a deep breath and bolts in front of the open door, leveling his rifle as he does so.

Instantly, his rifle dips, his arms slacken, and his eyes lose their cold glare, adopting a calm, almost ethereally comforted look. He just stares in shock at what he sees. All of the others go the entrance, some holding their weapons level, some not. They are met with something none of them expect.

A small kid. He wears a hopeless look on his face and hugs his over-sized jacket for warmth and comfort.

"B-Buddy?" Cartridge's voice asks tentatively, as his rifle lowers the rest of the way, almost dragging along the ground as he steps forwards, kneeling before the child.

"Uh, Cartridge?" Applejack says, "Who's this?"

Cartridge doesn't respond, just backs up a little bit to get a better look at the little foal in front of them.

"I don't believe it…" he says, hardly above a whisper. The kid whimpers slightly, seeming to sink back a bit. "Hey, hey, hey. 'T's okay li'l guy. How did you get way out he-"

The kid cuts him off, bursting into a flash of green flame, leaping at him and letting out a chilling sound somewhere between a screech and a roar. The flame clears near instantly, revealing a gnarled, pony-esque figure bearing menacing fangs that drip with transparent green, viscous saliva.

Cartridge looks in startled horror as the beast flies through the air at him. He grabs at his rifle. No... I can't do this. Not to him, he thinks. But that's not him! That's some… something that impersonate-. His thoughts are cut short by five resounding claps. Five impacts rock the creature's small frame, knocking mass out of its back, while leaving little holes that look like they were made into wood on its front.

Looking back, Cartridge sees Rainbow Dash, gun at her hip, barrel steaming from stock to muzzle. Five still-warm bullet casings lie on the ground, little wisps of vapor trailing back to the gun.

"Okay," Rainbow starts, voice nonchalant and steady, "I saved you ass, now you have to tell us who that was."

"I-I would rather not talk about it…" Cartridge replies.

"Bullshit! Tell us who that was!" Rainbow says again, her voice now almost at a shout, ringing out, cold and demanding, through the now-empty house. "Whoever it was, it was obviously important enough to put the mission to save ponykind on hold for a while, and almost get the guide killed. How could you've been such a buckin' IDIOT?! You should know above everypony else that NOTHING up here is safe, but noooo," her voice drips with sarcasm as she holds out the 'o', extending the word into three syllables.

"Rainbow, I think that's enou-" Twilight tries to reason with her.

"You're supposed to be the best, huh? Well, I think the best would've known to not trust anything you find up here, you… you.. you absolute, hell-bound, BUCKFACE!" she yells in his downcast face. The shocked silence is so heavy, even Dash herself wishes she hadn't put it quite that harshly or loudly.

"Alright," Cartridge's voice is cracky and soft, "if it's that important to ye… That was my lit'l brother." Rainbow softens a little at this, "He went missin' an' was assumed dead two weeks before D-day. I would give anythin' to see 'im again…" he finishes as two shiny tears fly to the ground, hitting the knee of his pants and soaking in to the material.

Dash walks over very slowly, kneels down in front of him, and gives him a loose hug, tapping his shoulder with her head once lightly. He just sits there, re-born grief muting the shock that is felt by everypony else. Some moments later, she simply stands back up, offering him a helping-hoof and hauling him back to his hooves.

"I'm sorry," she says simply, "I'm so sorry."

"I answered your question," Cartridge breaks the silence that had long hold over the group, "now yu answer mine: What… in blue hell was tha' thing?"

"That was something called a Changeling," Twilight answers immediately, eager to have a chance to explain something in almost painful detail, "They feed off of the energy of love, using it as a sort of food source. Several months before the End, they tried to take over Canterlot."

"So they would be considered parasitic by nature?"

"Exactly. It isn't just a simple sapping of the magical properties of love, though," Twilight says, getting more and more excited by the second, entering rant mode as her voice raises slightly, "It's also a magical tap into the specific electric pulses of the brain that are produced by feelings of love or pleasure. I did some research into how this works, actually, and I must say: it's very intere-"

"Hold!" Cartridge cuts in, stopping all speech and motion, his ears flicking through the air like radar beacons.

"Hmm, alright, keep moving, but cut the talk," he says as he starts forwards again, "we're entering dangerous territory."

They continue down the desolate path in silence. Suddenly, though, a prismatic streak bolts past them, making a bit of a breeze as it passes.

"Shit!" Cartridge exclaims at a loud whisper, "That pegasus is going to get us.. us all…" His voice trails off in confusion as he turns to find Rainbow Dash looking just as puzzled as he is. "Killed? Alright, does anypony know what the buck just happened?"

The silence that follows is answer enough. He sighs and facehoofs, simply shaking his head, turning, and walks along the path again.

"Well girls," he starts, again hardly above a whisper, "this here today is living breathing proof that A) the world has, in fact, gone straight to hell, and B) that the only thing that will ever be normal, is stuff not being normal."

"Now hold on jus' a sec there, Cart!" Applejack calls, making Cartridge wince at the less-than-wanted nick-name, "There could be a whole bunch o' these lil' things out there, jus' waitin' t' rip whatever comes along to bits. Maybe we should think of a plan first?"

Cartridge just stands in his spot for a bit, as if thinking the question through.

"No," he eventually replies, shaking his head slightly, "I think we'll be fine."

"Whaddaya mean 'I think we'll be fine'!?" Applejack cries, annoyed with the answer.

"Well, 'I' being the first person impersonal pronoun, and 'think' being the first person conjugation of the verb 'think'-"

"Oh, go buck yourself with an apple, ya know what I mean!" she cries again. Sighing in defeat she just shakes her head. "Go ahead, Ah guess, you're th' leader after all."

Smiling triumphantly, Cartridge turns around and starts off at a cautious trot.

"Oh." A voice behind him gets his attention. "My." He turns around to see what it is. "Princesses." Twilight's eyes are wide as she looks ahead in shock. Turning to look, he sees something he never expected to see.

---

It hasn't been four weeks, has it? I don't think so, but I'm bad with keeping track of days and weeks and crap. Anyway, I have introduced the dreaded, the feared, the Changelings. Hope you liked it, that's the only reason I'm here, after all. 'Til the next chapter, where I reveal the shocking (actually, it's probably somewhat predictable) revelation of the cliffhanger, peace off. /)*(\

A pony. A colt with a strikingly white coat, and gleaming teeth. A shield with a spark on it with three stars flying proudly over it adorn his flank.

"Shining!" Twilight yells running to him. She is so excited, she hasn't seen him in so long, and she's so close. So close. Shining is standing with open hooves, smiling gently at her. CTHAP! A deafening sound rings through the area as the smile vanishes from Twi's face. Shining's head snaps backwards, the back of his head blowing out in a fine red mist as blood trails from just above the bridge of his nose.

Twilight is too shocked, too horrified for words as she stares at her brother fall to the ground with a wet thump. Turning, she sees Cartridge lower his rifle, the barrel of which is steaming. All eyes are on him, open wide with shock.

"What the BUCK was that about!?" they all scream at near the same time. Twilight has tears running down her face, and the others stare blankly at him. Hate, fear, and horror are reflected in their eyes as their collective question echoes away.

"And I'm sure that none o' ye thought it a wee bit weird tha' 'e di'n't have a single weapon on 'im, or that 'e wa'n't wearin' a jacket, or even a mask, eh?" he says simply, sarcasm and resent filling his voice. Confusion and realization replace the hate in their stares as they take in his words and look over to the dead pony, now replaced by a wood-like insectoid.

"Sure, Dashie over 'ere fills my li'l brother with bullets, and nopony gives a halfdamn abou' it, but I shoot her brother an' I've jus' damned the whole bucking world straight t' a deeper level o' hell than it's in even now." He turns away as he finishes, taking a step or two before looking over his shoulder.

"Y'know, I used to worship yu. I used to dream about workin' wit' ye just like I am now, but this whole thing changed that. When d-day hit, I was sure that yu would all come t'gether an' make everythin' better. But days turned into weeks into months wit' no change at all, and my faith was taken an' ground to a fine powder right 'n front o' my eyes." He pauses, his breath coming in infuriated pants.

His breath slows again and he continues, "But y'know wha' else? I should proba'ly thank yu. Yu all took away e'erythin' I had. Yu removed my emotions, you helped me get through the sting of my first few hundred kills. D' yu know how old I am?" Blank stares and horrified and ashamed looks are his only responses. "I'm bucking eighteen. There aren't enough ponies in the metro for one hoof to equal one kill I've made, mutant or pony. So thanks for that one li'l convenience. Thanks a buckin' lot."

"C-Cartridge, I-" Twilight tries to apologize, but a stunningly soft voice cuts her off, drifting up from the colt walking away from them.

"Bayu, Bayushki bayu,

Nye lozhisya na krayu,

Pridyot syerenkiy volchok,

I ukhvatit za bachok…"

"Cartridge?"

Tears of shame and sorrow well in the eyes of the mane six, hearing Cartridge's story. The soft, sad melody coming from the damaged colt washes over them, only making things worse as they trot to catch up with him. Large puffs of white spill from his muzzle as he continues singing, walking in time with the tune.

They all walk in relative silence, none really wanting to talk after Cartridges outburst, nor wanting to interrupt the song, which is entering its fifth or sixth cycle. The scenery shifts from sub-urban to rural to urban and everything in between. They all start to tire as the area becomes somehow even darker, signaling the setting of the sun behind the blanketing clouds. Cartridge's tune fades quickly with a bit of a crackling in his voice.

"Hey, girls?" he asks, causing all of their ears to perk from their drooped state, "'Re ye getting' hungry?" A collective grumble from their stomachs is answer enough as a light blush covers their faces (with the exception of the blush-proof Pinkie).

"Yes, perhaps a tad," Rarity replies sheepishly.

Cartridge just chuckles and stops walking, pulling the pack off of his back and opening it. Digging through it, he pulls out several long, thin cans. At the sight, Applejack smiles wide, licking her lips hungrily while the others just look at the packages confusedly.

"Open 'em on up an' they'll heat up in about thirty seconds. Chemical heating, but completely safe," he explains as he hands them out. The others (minus Rarity, who is still utterly disgusted) all shrug and smile, ripping the tops off of the little miracles in can form and wait patiently for them to heat.

Cartridge closes his bag again and slings it back over his shoulder, letting his meal sit on a small concrete pillar until it's ready. He stops mid-turn when he hears a sound, turning back to see what it was. With a bit of motion, he sees the outline of a pony walk towards them.

Shit, not this again, he thinks as he reaches for his rifle. As the pony comes into better light, he sees that it looks an awful lot like…

"Ohhhh, that's a really pretty gun you have there. It's almost as cool as my gun!" the pony exclaims as she pulls a medium sized, muzzle-loading cannon out of god-knows-where.

"Pinkie Pie?" everypony says in unison, attention suddenly on the mare that's standing in front of them… And also sitting next to some of them.

"Wh-what—what in th- But- but physics." Twilight sputters, smoke drifting from the tip of her horn. The new Pinkie suddenly notices the Pinkie that was sitting, a bit of foodstuffs about halfway from the can to her mouth.

"Ohhhh, you're good!" she exclaims half under her breath as she narrows her eyes and moves to get a better look at the doppelganger. The two stare at each other for a while, not saying anything.

"Okay," Fluttershy starts softly, "Which one is the real Pinkie Pie? My head hurts…"

"Well if I remember correctly," Cartridge says resting his head on his hoof thoughtfully, "we should be able to find some stuff out through a very specific and orderly- Oh my gods! A party!" he suddenly shouts, turning around quickly and pointing.

One of the Pinkie's jumps a few meters in the air, gasping loudly.

"A party?! Wherewherewhere? Tell me where it-" K-BOOM. A deafening shot pounds through their eardrums, cutting Pinkie's though off as, for the far-too-many-th time that day, flesh and muscle and bone shards flew out of somepony's back. Pinkie falls to the ground, her can toppling to the ground next to her with a clatter. Pinkie then decides to stop bucking physics in its philosophical ass, falling to the ground and inspecting the lifeless lump that was, not five seconds earlier, her.

"W'll daammmnnn." Applejack drawls after many long moments of silence, during which the shot echoes off into the distance.

"That's 'ow we get shit done in Scoltland," Cartridge says with a smirk, visible even through his facemask as he ejects the spent round.

"Oh so thaaatttsss where your voice comes from," Pinkie says with a suddenly understanding face as she drifts off for a moment.

"Well I'm Pinkie Pie! And Imma be your new best friend!" She says with renewed spontaneity as the signature super-wide smile reappears on her face, "and thanks for killing me, that was really starting to freak me out. I mean REALLY?! I walk in, and see my friends with a me that isn't even me?! I mean what's that about… Does that happen often around you? I really don't hope so, 'cause that was just WEIRD! And-" She continues on and on.

"This explains why she wasn't talking as much as usual…" Dash says as they all look at the rambling pony.

"So I'm guessing she does this whole rantin' thing a lot?" Cartridge says, receiving silent nods of confirmation. "Ughh, looks like I may've shot the wrong pony." They all look at him in surprise and horror.

"Y'know wha'? You ponies can't take any dark humor a' all, can ye?"

---

Sorry it took so long to post, my internet was completely down for a good four or five days. So eh. Anywho, how many of ya saw that coming? I know I certainly didn't :P And if you did... o.0 you're a wizard (or witch). So bis nextes mal, auf Wiedersehen, und Brohoof /)*(\

"'Ey," Dash hears a muted voice through the darkness. "'Ey, Dashie," the same voice calls again an invisible force rocks her body lightly.

A tiny line is cut through the darkness as her eyes slowly open. Groaning, she sits up and stares at the fire for a second or two.

"Dash, 't's your shift f'r guard duty." Cartridge's voice is soft and gentle, almost soothing.

She sighs, stepping out of the small shell that used to be a house that they are using for a base of operations for the moment.

"Alright, get some sleep, I've got this for a while," She says, still only half awake. She rubs her eyes, slowly waking fully. Cartridge hands her the gauze rifle she traded for way back near the beginning of her journey.

"It sure was simpler back then…" she says with another small sigh. Cartridge lets out a low whistle.

"Isn' that the truth," he says with a small shake of his head as he lays down on a low, long crate. Several moments of silence pass. But it's not the eerie silence of the tunnels, it isn't the type of silence that slowly eats away at a pony's resolve until it breaks and they run in panic, without sanity. It's a peaceful silence. It's the kind of silence where it feels as if everything is just slowing down for once, as if the world is settling, and everything will be okay from that point on.

"Y'knnoooww," Rainbow starts, drawing the word out slowly, causing Cartridge to look at her, a thin, almost smug grin spreading across her muzzle, "I used to be the fas-"

"The fastest flier in all of Equestria, yeah. What about it?" Cartridge cuts her off, a smug grin of his own appearing.

"And I haven't been allowed to fly in over seven years. I bet it'll feel reall' nice to spread these babies out again," she spreads her wings at the last part, the feathers pulling out and slowly spreading away from one another, pulling away from the positions they had been locked in for most of the last seven long years ponykind had been locked in the metro.

"I wouldn't do that, but if yu really have too," Cartridge says cautiously, in an almost warning tone. Dash shaking her wings down and turns, giving him a confused look.

"Think about it," he says, responding to the unspoken question, "we're in an area crawling with little bitches that would love nothin' more than ta rip our flesh from our bones. And flying would create quite the attention grabber, wouldn't chya think?" Dash stands for a moment, motionless save for the wind blowing her mane across her face, then sighs in defeat.

"Yeah, I s'ppose that would make sense." She looks to the sky longingly, still her friend despite its grey, menacing new look. "I just wanna be up there so bad." She sits again with a barely audible thud.

"Heh, I understand. You wouldn't believe how eager I was to get back to the surface for my first mission as a stalker." Cartridge's voice is calm and understanding as it flows from him with a slight nod while he sits up again to a sitting position. He lets out a pathetic, regretful chuckle. "I was stupid. So stupid." He leans back against the wall from his hunched over position, sighing deeply as his back touches the cinder-block barrier.

"Why do you say that?" Rainbow asks, her eyes still groggily half-closed, but with a spark of curiosity in them as she raises an eyebrow at the comment.

"Ehhh, y'know, the usual absolute rookie mistakes," Cartridge replies in an airy tone, a large cloud obscuring his covered features from her view. He absently pulls his rifle to his shoulder, checking the sight's alignment. "I got excited, ran about a little too carelessly, and wou-" his voice hitches, "wound up the only one lucky enough to make it back to the metro." Rainbow can hear the pain in his suddenly cracky voice, and her face droops in sorrow for him.

"I'm so sorry to hear that…" she half-whispers. After a moment, she stands up and walks over to him, sitting next to him on the crate. He swallows hard and angles his head back, looking skyward.

"We're all out of the metro in another few years, if the science-y ponies are as smart as they think they are," Cartridge says simply. "'T's too buckin' long if you ask me." Rainbow smiles at the simple thought.

"You can say that again, C."

"Hey, um, Dashie?" Cartridge says, turning to Rainbow, "d'ya want to know a bit of a secret?" She nods. "Your guard shift doesn't start for another hour." Dash almost chokes, sitting bolt upright and looking back at the colt in annoyed shock. "But thanks for humorin' me for a while anyway."

"I- but you- why did?.. Ugh, never mind," she gives up, shaking her head, resting it on her hoof. Cartridge just chuckles to himself, his lips curling into a smile behind his ever-present greyscale bandana.

"You don't have to take it, if you don't want. I'll take care of it, you've been nice."

The two just sit in silence for a while, listening to the low whistle of the wind blowing through the hollow houses. "Nah, I'm fine. You can go on to sleep if you want, I've got this," Rainbow finally replies. Cartridge chuckles a bit.

"Yeah, 'cause I'm gonna actually be able to sleep." He sighs, "Insomniac problems."

He stands up and grabs a chunk of a set of shelves, walking back over and throwing it on the shrinking fire. He sits right next to it, curling his knees into his chest and resting his arms on them. Starting to rock back and forth ever so slightly, he starts to sing softly.

"Pol-no vam, snyezhochki, na ta-loy zyemlye lezha-a-at. Pol-no vam kazaaachenki gorye goryevat…"

"What's that?" Dash asks, breaking the tune.

"It's an old Cossack tune. I don't actually really know what the words mean, but it was a song to get through hard times," he explains, "Something like 'fill yourself with grief, we'll get used to this, Cossacks aren't afraid of anything', bits and pieces, but nothing whole. There's just one line I really remember. It goes like 'with a song, daring we will go to battle to the death'."

"Mmh, wow…" she replies, eyes softened in admiration for those ponies. She sighs for what feels like the millionth time that day. "Yeah, I used to think like that. I used to think I would be able to handle anything in the world. But I guess I was all bark an' no bite, as they say." Several moments of easy silence, filled by the howling wind and crackling fire pass.

"Thanks for talking with me, it's been nice," Dash says, "Don't tell anyone I said this, but I really miss just talking to talk, not talking about how to survive to the next day, or what best thing to do in a crazy situation that I never would have thought was possible is, or something crazy like that." Cartridge smiles shaking his head at how little Dash has really changed, yet still seems so different.

"You, Dashie, haven't changed a bit. You still live such a bluff, with the truth lying inside, just waiting for your wall of facades to falter, and let your inner fears and feelings to shine through your tough-mare, rough and tumble exterior," he says, looking from the fire to her crystal aquamarine eyes as she grunts, raising her eyebrows for just a quick moment. He just gets lost in them, their depth and shine, with the light of the fire reflecting off of them in smooth, dancing arcs.

"You're so pretty," he mutters under his breath, hardly loud enough for him to hear himself. He realizes what he said as Dash looks at him with an arched eyebrow, and he winces, mentally smacking himself.

"I'm what?" she asks, disbelieving.

"I-I-I don't… I didn't mean- I mean you are, just not… not like that. Or maybe? Nonono, I jus-" Cartridge opens and closes his mouth, no sound escaping him. He sighs, slouching over in defeat. Well that was a bloody mess. *sigh* Looks like it's time for the all-purpose plan-b.

"One moment please." He stands up and walks over to a wall, facing it. He takes a deep breath, leaning his head back in an effort to relax.

"DYAAHH!" he shouts, smashing his head into the wall, and staggers backwards to a shocked Rainbow Dash. "Ohhh, bloody-" he slurs before falling over.

---

I really am sorry for not being able to update as frequently as I would like. But, unfortunately, I'm at a point in schooling where I actually have to *gasp* work. So... please don't hate me? I dunno, but thanks for reading, and we'll get back to the action next chapter. Oh, and just a heads up, I;m going to try to bring this to a close in another 3-4 chapters, and then maybe add some extra stuff at the end, just wanted to let you know. Thanks for being awesome, tschüß.

The sun is just barely starting to rise above the horizon again as the group of stalkers continued through the husk of a town. Everypony was quiet, save for the slight crunch and boing-ing sound of Pinkie Pie hopping along.

"Alright," Cartridge says, coming to a stop, "we're nearing the Library, so stay on your guard, and try really, really hard to stay quiet," he finishes, giving a pointed look at Pinkie. "So ready your weapons, librarians are deadly and unpredictable li'l bastards." He switches the safety lever to semi-auto and continues, listening to the chorus of mechanical clicks and chinks of mechanisms and safeties.

"So these, librarians," Twilight's voice is curious, "what are they like?"

"About a head or two taller than the common pony, really long, saggy arms, and a disgusting ape-like face and mouth. Oh, and furry. Really furry."

"Ahh, okay. So, like that thing?" She points to a large, hunched over figure, silhouetted against the rising sun. Cartridge starts, jumping back just a hair. He mumbles a curse, remembering his last encounter with the librarians in horror, lining up his sights in the center of its neck. Breathing in, his finger slides gently over the trigger, and with a barely audible exhale, he slowly squeezes the trigger. CRACK! The shot rings out, and the librarian disappears.

"Do they just… vanish when they die?"

"BUCK!" Cartridge curses, whisper shouting through clenched teeth. "No, that means that it's still around here somewhere. The only question in whe-" He's cut off by a chilling roar from behind them. They all turn to see the creature behind them, glaring at Cartridge angrily. With unbelievable speed, it lunges at the startled and scarred pony. Time seems to slow down, coming to a slow stop. Everything goes gray and a bright light flashes, fading and leaving him in a different area.

A large room filled with shelves, the lights of the stalkers with him casting eerie shadows across the area. Suddenly a pained scream cuts through the room, and everypony turns to see one of the stalkers leaning against a wall, his head lowered, looking at the ground.

"Hey, Lix, what was with the scream? See a spider there?" the leader jokes around. The pony doesn't respond. "Lix?" Then, they all notice the small cracks spreading out around him, and a thin trickling of crimson leaking from his mouth. "Lix!"

A piercing screech fills the room from behind them. Flinching, they all turn to see an ugly, shaggy… thing looking at them with blood dripping from its deformed hand and snout. It jumps at them with blinding speed, striking their leader center-mass, knocking him to the ground, coughing up blood. It reaches a misshapen claw in the air, then brings it down, plunging into his

CLIP! Cartridge is snapped out of the memory by a gunshot, and sees the librarian fall limply to the ground, black blood leaking from the base of its neck.

"You're welcome," Rainbow Dash says smugly, a confident shine in her eyes.

"Th- thanks." The rifle falls from his hooves, jerking his head down as it falls loosely around his neck. He leans against a wall for a moment, breathing heavily, his hoof clutching his chest.

"Something wrong?" Fluttershy asks, absently raising a hoof to her medical supplies vest.

"N-no, no I'm fine. Just brought back… brought back memories I'd rather not have." He takes a single deep breath and lets it out slowly in a low whistle. "okay, if everypony's ready, let's get going. Not much further, but keep your eyes open for more librarians."

The scenery never changes, everything is the same sort of death-scape of shell that used to be houses and crispy, skeleton-like forms that used to be trees. They enter a more urban area; the buildings get taller and closer together, and the dead, grey sky slowly disappears from sight. At a corner of an industrial square, Cartridge stops.

"Alright, so we're about to get to… the library," he shudders at the name, "and you'll have to be on the highest guard you've ever been on, 'kay?" Everypony nods. "Alright, I'll take point with Rainbow Dash, Rarity, you and Twilight cover the sides, Applejack, Pinkie Pie, you two 've got rear, Fluttershy, you stay in the middle and keep your med kit ready. Understood?" Everypony nods silently again.

"Wait, what about the 'glowing red tower' you told us about at the very beginning?" Twilight asks nervously.

"What the hay are you?.. Oh! That, yeah, that's just something we say to see if we can scare the new stalkers, just a bunch of old mythical bullshit. We say it almost in mocking the ponies that made the stories up."

Twilight gives him her 'annoyed' look, then just shakes her head and follows him. Rounding the corner, an absolutely huge building comes into view, dwarfing even those around it. Its sides have long since been overgrown, vines hang down from the very top right down to the bottom, adding to its already ominous appearance, standing at least sixty stories tall. The still-rising sun is behind it, mostly silhouetting it, but not so much that they can't see the outlines of every individual ghostly strand of vine trailing to the very roof.

"This is the library?" Pinkie asks. Cartridge slowly, silently nods in response. "Why do they call it the library?"

"Follow, and you'll see." As they all neared the building, it seems to grow larger and larger, so tall and wide that it feels like it could individually store the planet it's built on. At the grimy glass doors at the entrance, they stop. Cartridge takes a long, deep breath, then steps forwards, positioning himself over the handle. He makes a fist, placing it over the latch. He pulls his arm up, then brings it down forcefully in one quick, practiced motion. A sharp, metallic crack is heard as his hoof snaps the entire mechanism out of its housing and on to the ground.

"And we're in," he says, pushing the door open quietly with one hoof as he swings his rifle around through the crack as a breech sweep to check for hostiles. "And as for why this place is called the library…" he lets the statement hang as they all walk in. Everypony, especially Twilight, gasps at the sight of the contents of the building. Huge shelves full of books line the walls and stand in orderly line and column through the entire space.

"And it's like this on every floor. Now follow me." They start to move through the room in their formation, following Cartridge to a wide sliding door. Entering, they find themselves in an elevator. The buttons on the wall are old and faded, some with cracks running down their surface.

"Somepony hit floor forty-two," Cartridge instructs, his voice just above a whisper. Rarity taps the button lightly, and they all stand around in tense silence as a mechanical hum fills the lift. Lights above the door update with their floor number as they climb steadily skywards. With a ding, the elevator stops, and everypony trains their weapons on the door as it slides slowly, painfully open, filling their hearts with an icy cold.

Nothing is there but more shelves, full of books further than the eye can see.

"What are all of these books?" Twilight asks.

"This building was built to house a project to find and print every story, legend, essay, novel, myth, everything in the known world, and to keep it all on record. It was newly finished when everything went to hell, and it's rumored that the ponies that worked on it were the first to die when it struck."

Continuing out of the lift, they all walk slowly, as one, to the center of the room. They all stop, hearing a sort of scratchy shuffling around them, growing slowly and subtly in volume. Looking around, their eyes all fall near simultaneously on two sets of stairs on one end of room, each curling down from the next level on opposite sides of the wall. Several slow-moving, hunched over forms are moving down slowly, meeting up on the main floor, walking in even double-file almost imperceptibly slowly towards them.

Cartridge swears under his breath as the entire group tense, their breath hitching. "Okay, just don't make any noise whatsoever, they don't like noise. If we don't bother them, maybe they'll just…" he trails off as the librarians start to emit a soft, low howl, like the wind passing through the hollow house last night. "Buck it. Rainbow Dash," he addresses the cyan pegasus, not fully turning around, not wanting to break eye contact with the beasts, "you're going to have to fly up to the next level, beat the living shit out of anything that gets in your way, and find a control panel on one of the walls. When you find it, you'll see on the far right there'll be a lever and a button next to a key. Turn the key, then pull the lever down," he speaks faster and faster as the walking nightmares get closer, "When you do that, you'll hear an electric whine that'll start high, and then get low pitched. When it stops, adjust the dials right there to X= 299.7, Y= 762.5, understood?"

"Yeah, got it," she replies immediately.

"Good, now go, we'll hold these bitches off."

Rainbow Dash bolts into the air, flying well over the creatures as the first rounds start flying at them, filling the room with the loud chaos of gunfire.

Stay safe, everypony, she thinks as she flies up to the next level. Finally getting over the stairwell, she hovers with her gauss rifle primed to scan for targets. The confident grin she had held falters, cracking to a chilled frown as she takes in the scene. Mutants and librarians alike covered the area, slowly coming to look at her, unmoving. Flying a bit higher to evade the imminent surge of the beasts, Rainbow levels her rifle at the nearest creature. But they don't move. They simply stare at her for a moment until a horrid, crackling roar goes up at the back of the pack and spreads through them as they turn their heads skyward.

All of a sudden, two giant holes are gauged out of the walls as large creatures bash their ways through. They are giant winged things with rows of sharp teeth dripping with saliva. Low, hollow swishing noises sound as they beat their wings.

"Shit, demons!" She hears a familiar Scottish voice behind her, turning her head and looking down to see Cartridge with his rifle up on his shoulder. The last echoes of the sickening howl are just fading, and with a collective growl, all the creatures tense, preparing to pounce. Dash and Cartridge line up a target, ready to kill the first advances.

"She is here…" The dry, airy words roll through the room, stopping the creatures, making them look around. They seemed to be spoken by a small group, the words doubling up on one another, meshing together like a loop, one repetition starting just a fraction of a second after the one before.

"The giver… of death. The one… from legends of old…" It pauses, as if waiting for something. "Flee!" The word carries more energy, spoken in a much deeper register, making even the two ponies about ready to turn tail and run as the mutants of all shapes and sizes scatter.

"Do not fear us… Let us have life… We wish only to help…" The voice continues even as Cartridge and Dash speed to the console. "Do not harm us! We mean no harm!" The voice gets more and more frantic as the get closer.

"I see…" the voice turns cold, sending shivers up the pair's spines. "Please…" a loose figure drops from the ceiling, appearing to sit in a kneeling position, though its full-body matte black appearance makes it hard for the ponies to tell. Slowly, it rises to full height, its long arms hanging down to its knees as the ponies' eyes grow wide in complete and all-encompassing fear.

"Forgive me my sins… All we want is peace."

---

Damn, but it's been a while. Thanks for waiting so patiently, and not spamming with demands for more updates, school has actually been taking up a lot of time this year, and I apologize. But I do hope to update again before the new year, and I expect that it'll be done in just another chapter or two (probably just one), but maybe I'll put out a backstory or two, if you guys want. Also, in case you hadn't picked up on this yet: these last few chapters, as well as this one and the next one, are almost completely unorthodox with canon, I just wanted to make part of it mine. So thanks again for waiting and reading, stay awesome and happy holidays. Brohoof /)*(\

The two stare in terror at the creature's dark form as it slowly moves to them. A loud shot snaps through Rainbow Dash's reality as the Dark One crumples. She looks to her side to see Cartridge's rifle smoking at his hip, a single bead of sweat trailing down the side of his face. The small smile that started to form on her face disappears as it stands up again, a gaping hole in its side, which fills with deep blue- almost black smoke fills it, solidifying into a new piece of flesh.

"Wh-what?" Cartridge stutters at the spectacle, his voice cracking with nerves. Rainbow doesn't answer- can't answer. She just stares at the creature. This must be what two-seven thought when he was…

"Please, do not judge our many by the acts of our few," the Dark One's voice echoes, as if reading her mind, and trying to appeal to her.

But what if they do just want to be friends? Doubt starts to creep into Dash's thoughts, making her question her entire mission as the room slowly blurs. As if from a great distance, she hears a sickening wet squishing sound, and a scream is cut off by a high whine that fills her senses.

"That's just it," the mutant voice calls out again in her mind, "All we want…" her mind snaps back to reality, her vision slamming back into focus, and the deadly cracks of gunfire ringing once again in her ears. A freezing sensation licks at her chest as her eyes get through to her brain, relaying the horrible image in front of her. The creatures face is just inches from her own, its eyes boring into hers, dancing with tongues of fire. The full weight of the Dark One registers across her body, pinning her to the ground. She looks to the side, searching for Cartridge. She immediately wishes she hadn't.

Cartridge is slumped against a wall, slowly rising and falling as his breath grows shallower. Blood is trailing down his torso and dripping down from his chin, his rifle lays beside him, the barrel bent to a ninety degree angle, two spent shells next to it. His hooves are pressed against a gaping puncture wound in his chest. The glass of his mask is shattered, as is the glass of the shades that have covered his eyes since they met. His silver eyes are nauseatingly relaxed, as if drugged on the excruciating pain that must have been shooting through him.

"All we want," the mutant repeats, "Is death." On the last word, the creature's voice register drops deeper than Vinyl's bass back in Ponyville. She suddenly notices that the gunfire below has stopped.

No… NO! her thoughts almost radiate audibly like the Dark One's. She realizes that her old friends are dead, her new friend is slowly dying as blood leaks from his body, and his breathing becomes more labored and audible as the toxins that make up the air fill him. She squeezes her eyes shut, not even trying to fight the tears that are running down her face.

The beast raises its arm, making its long fingers with sharp claws into a point. Dash tenses, sure of what will happen. Time slows as the point of the beast's hand plunges down. It inches closer and closer to her, she sees the blood-soaked tip approaching. Almost there, just an inch away, and a bright light flashes.

"Gah!" Rainbow Dash screams, bolting upright. She pants heavily, gulping down air as her shoulders go rise and fall quickly. She looks to the side, and the bright summer sun sends searing pain through her eyes.

"Rainbow, what's wrong?" Twilight's familiar voice calls.

"N-n-nothing," she replies, not completely convinced that's the truth, "J-just a… a dream?"

"You sure? You sound pretty out of breath."

"Yeah… Yeah, I'm fine," Dash says, standing up and flying out of the window of the old tree library.

Library. She shudders, quickly running a hoof through her prismatic mane. Seeing Twilight walk out of the door below her, she descends, landing next to her.

"So Twi', whaddaya plan on doin' today?"

"Well," Twilight seems to think for a bit, "I was thinking that I wou-" she stops short when a high pitched whine fills the air. They stop along with everypony else in the area and stare, dumbfounded, at a telephone pole with megaphone-style speakers on the top pointed in every direction.

… 4… 3… 2… 1… Everypony breaks into hysteria, screaming in panic and turning every which way, bolting to the only building that could help them escape, help them live if only for another day.

Dash grabs Twilight from the waist, making her squeal in surprise, then bolts to the new safest place on the planet. The only safe place on the planet. She just follows the river of moving bodies below.

Dash rocks back, then forth on her small cot for the 13,249th time that day. She counted. Anything to get her mind off of the announcement that had been made .

A loud whine slices through the shocked murmurs of the station, followed by a staticy, metallic voice.

"Attention, everypony in The Equestrian Metro, repeat, attention everypony in the metro: The final numbers are in, and congratulations, you are one of 34,212 live, accounted-for ponies on the planet. That is all, as you were."

That message would haunt her for the rest of her life. 34,212 ponies are alive. Out of a world of 7.5 billion ponies, only 34,212 live to tell the stories of yesterday. Her eyes squeeze shut as if trying to block out the pain, like if she couldn't see the world, and its pain, and its loss, it couldn't see her, and her shame, and her sorrow.

I'm supposed to be the toughest pony in all of Equestria, her still confident side says to her, trying to pick her up out of her feeble state.

Shut up. There is no Equestria anymore. There is no Equestria anymore… But I, of all ponies, should have known. And I, of all ponies, have to deal with the pain of knowing how it all ends. To nothing and nopony in particular, she says the new most commonly used phrase in what's left of the world.

"Noo, dyer'mo," Well, shit.

---

Fin. Sorry, but I just had to end it like that at least once, if I get people wanting an alternate ending (or two or three), I'll do that, if people want any backstories, I'll do that, but you have to let me know. Or, if you want, write your own endings, and send them to me, and if I like if, I'll post it and give you credit. Also, small fact, the whole '34,212' number for the survival count is actually the total word count, minus authors notes. So... yeah. Have a nice *appropriate unit/description of time here*, thanks for reading my first fanfic all the way through, and as always: /)*(\

The calm yellow of twilight over Ponyville pierces through the patterned windows of its tavern, casting long shadows about its interior. The place is next to deserted, with just the bartender cleaning his glasses at the end of a long day, and a charcoal black coated stallion with an unruly mane leaning way back at a table in a shaded and somewhat sketchy corner, a glass of his traditional favorite and namesake drink, bourbon, swishing around in a glass in his hoof.

The stallion is singing under his breath, clearly a little less than sober as he pauses every once in a while to take a small, satisfied sip of the liquid.

"Ikh sota tu-shki, bpata rep , dva, tri, chetyrye! Paz, dva, tri, chyetyrye! IKH sota tu-shki, BRATA rep katu-shki! Paz, dva, tri, chyetyrye! Raz, dva, tri!-"

"Sir!" The bartender's sharp voice calls Bourbon from his tipsy haze. "Please, I enjoy hearing a drunk singing as much as the next pony, but keep it down, will ya?" Bourbon mutters something unintelligible under his breath again as he sits a bit straighter up in the worn, torn-up booth.

Suddenly, the door crashes inwards like somepony bucked it open, and a young mare walks in. She also has a dark coat, but with a much more in-control mane, with emerald green eyes. She simply walks across the space, motioning to the bartender about half-way across, and he instantly starts filling a glass with a strange mix of beverages. By the time she is at the end of the bar, the bartender has finished mixing, and has slid the glass to the end of the smooth wooden bar into her waiting hoof with practiced precision. Drink in hand, she walks over to Bourbon's table, and leans over it.

"You're in my spot," she says flatly, a hint of something that sounded almost like amusement in her voice.

"I'm afraid I must disagree," Bourbon says, his gruff, accented voice visibly surprising the mare, "I've been to half the bars in all of vide regions of Equestria, and in every one of zem, zis. is my. damn. spot."

The mare simply shrugs her shoulders and pushes herself off of the table. "Well, for that kind of commitment, I suppose I can let you sit there. But move over a bit." Bourbon, surprising himself, does exactly that with only a second's hesitation, moving over in the long, curved bench to make room for the mare.

"Fair enough," he says with a grin, "I've gotta respect a mare zat frequents a bar so much she has her own bench." The mare just chuckles and sits down, placing her drink down with a firm 'clap'.

"So what's your name, eh?" she says, leaning back like Bourbon was not a minute ago.

"You can call me Bourbon,"

"Mhm. Now what's you actual name?" Bourbon looks at her with a raised eyebrow for a moment.

"How do you know it's not my 'actual name'?" he comments with his best impression of the mare next to him.

"Well, for one, you said 'you can call me…' rather than just saying your name, and second, ain't nopony's called 'Bourbon', I don't care how drunk you are." Bourbon laughs, his shoulders shaking and causing a grin to form on the mare's lips.

"Clever mare," Bourbon chuckles, "Clever mare indeed… th' name's Mikhial." He stretches out a hoof, "Nice to meet you."

"Timber Oak, likewise," she says with a smile and a bro-hoof. They each pause for a drink of their respective drinks, one finishing, and the other taking the first sip.

"So I assume you're from around here?" Bourbon asks, turning his head to look at Timber.

"Yeah, why?" she replies with another sip of alcohol.

"I'm kind of new to the area, and I was wond-"

"Yet you've managed to find the bar easily enough," Timber cuts in with a warm laugh. Bourbon simply smiles.

"Of course! That's tradition," he says, motioning to her with his empty glass and letting out a laugh or two. "Anyhow, I was vondering if you could show me around a bit later?" Timber shrugs and nods.

"Yeah, I s'pose I could do that. Where d'ya wanna go?"

"I don't really know. What's interesting around here?" Bourbon says, realizing that he really has no plan for what to do or where to go.

"Hmm," Timber hums, looking down and to the side, biting the inside of her cheek as she thinks for a moment. Then, nodding, she pulls out a map of the town. "How's about we go to the town hall, then maybe to the park for a bit… Do you like Sambo?"

At the mention of the martial art, Bourbon's eyes light up and he instantly sits up a bit straighter. "Do I like it? Ad da I like it! Third degree black belt, at that!" Timber's eyes now lighten as her eyebrows and head rise in admiration.

"Hm. Well then after that, we'll have to go to the local training facility and see which of us is better," she says, a wicked grin forming of her features, which is then easily matched by Bourbon. "So when do ya want to go?"

"How about now?" Bourbon's answer is immediate. Giggling a bit at his enthusiasm, Timber throws her head back and drinks the rest of the glass of alcohol. Slamming the now-empty glass on the table, she opens her eyes wide, and shakes her head quickly, blinking a few times at the liquids burning down her throat. She shivers with a small smile, then turns to a widely grinning Bourbon.

"Let's go!"

---

"Tri. Dva. Odin. Spar!" The 'ref' quickly retreats from the center of the ring as the two good-natured adversaries go at each other for the how-many-th time that night with all the friendly ferocity they had at the beginning.

Just as with every other time, the two launch at one another, and quickly go from a by-the-rules sparring match to an impromptu self-defense technique show-off. They had quickly attracted a crowd, their matches bearing a strong resemblance to an unscripted action movie, complete with ponies yelling insults at each other in English and Russian.

Timber manages to lock Bourbon's hoof behind his back and wrap an arm around his neck as a choke.

"Argh, ti SUKA!" Bourbon yells through a grin, "Ti nye dyelayesh', chto kak lyegko!" At the last roared word, he snaps his head back and clips her on the bridge of the nose. She lets go instantly with a yelp, half stumbling a few steps back before falling on her flank, her hooves flying to her muzzle in pain.

"Alright," she says through her hoof, looking at Bourbon, already back in his rather unique fighting stance, "I think I've had enough for now. You win."

The crowd reluctantly walks away with disappointed grumbles as Bourbon abandons his fighting position and walks over to Timber, kneeling beside her.

"You alright?" he asks, laying a hoof on her shoulder comfortingly.

"Heh, never better," she replies with a grin, "You've got some fight in you, y'know that?" She tentatively pulls her hoof away from her muzzle and looks at its blood-covered fur.

"Yeah, figures," she says through a sigh as she brings it back up to her bleeding muzzle.

"Ah, dyer'mo, sorry about zat," Bourbon says, guilt spreading over his face.

"Eh, don't be. Nothing that can't be fixed easily enough." Timber stands up shakily and, followed by Bourbon, walks over to a corner where a first-aid kit hangs on a wall. Opening it, she quickly bandages her little injuries and turns back to Bourbon, motioning to him and walking towards the door of the facility.

"Well, it's pretty late," she comments, smiling amusedly at her now-nasal-y voice, "Where are you staying tonight? Maybe I could show you there."

Bourbon just shrugs. "Eh, on ze ground, as far as I know." Timber stops mid-stride and turns back to him with a somewhat shocked look.

"What?!" she yells the question at him, receiving just a dismissive shrug in response. "Nononono, that's not happening. Come on, you're staying with me then."

"No, no I couldn't do zat." Bourbon says quickly.

"Well, you're not sleeping on the streets, so yes. Yes you could do that."

"I would be fi-"

"Come on, Mikhial, we've got a ways to walk." Timber cuts Bourbon's refusal short and turns to walk home. A satisfied smile spreads over her mouth as she hears Bourbon's hooffalls follow her.

---

Bright spears of sunlight jab into Bourbon's consciousness as his eyes crawl slowly open, forcing them shut again. He sits up, rubbing his head, willing the mild headache he had developed overnight away. Suddenly, he notices something in his peripheral vision. Or, more accurately, somepony.

He scrambles in the opposite direction as he truly notices the charcoal mare sleeping peacefully on a soft straw bed. He looks around quickly, trying for all he's worth to take in his surroundings and answer that age-old question: What the hay happened last night?

Then, it all comes back to him. The walk here, the sparring, the town hall, the bar, the pretty mare, the- wait, what? Pretty mare? Bourbon questions himself, did I really just think that? He looks again at Timber. Am I really still thinking that? Yes Bourbon, yes you are.

"Oh, hey Mikhial," Timber says, rubbing the sleep out of her emerald eyes and sitting up.

"H-hey, Timber."

"Wanna get somethin' to eat?" she suggests, standing up from her bed and stretching a bit.

"Uh, sure, if you want to."

Timber starts to walk to the door and out of her apartment, followed by Bourbon. The morning air is crisp and fresh as they make their way into the commercial part of town, towards Sugar Cube Corner.

"So just how long are you staying anyway?" Timber asks.

"Well, until I figure something else out-" Bourbon is cut off by a high pitched whine that seems to fill the air and stop time.

"Timber? What the hay is that?" Bourbon asks nervously.

"That's… That's the missile alarm."

"I was afraid you'd say that."

Everypony breaks into hysteria. Some are running around, turning around every now and then as if completely lost. Some are taking to the skies and bolting off in every direction. Some are just screaming.

"Bourbon, I'm scared." Timber says, voice shaking and tears streaming down her panicked face.

"So am I."

"If I did something really, really stupid right now, you wouldn't blame me, would you?"

"N-" A soft, warm pressure on Bourbon's lips stops him short as Timber's hooves wrap tightly around Bourbon's neck, pulling him closer to her. Bourbon would give anything in the world, anything in the about-to-end world at all, to have that moment last forever. Just him and her. Then, somewhere between way too long and not nearly long enough after, the magic left and the two were plunged back into horrible, horrible reality.

"Thanks," Timber says quietly, looking down embarrassedly, "Now let's get to the Metro." Bourbon could only grunt in reply and follow her through the crowd.

---

"I'll be fine, Timber," Bourbon reassured his marefriend for what felt like the millionth time. "I've just got to go and help some ponies up near central deal with a bit of a bandit issue their dealing with, that's all."

"But what if you get hurt?" Timber said for what felt like the millionth time. " What if you get paired up with some noob that accidentally shoots you? What if you get locked on the surface and die of radiation poisoning? What if you get hit in the head really hard and forget me?!" She goes on and on, getting more and more frantic as she continues. Bourbon can't help but laugh at that last one, though.

"Timber, I promise, I promise, I will always remember. You. Us. This. All of it." He kisses her lightly. "I'll be back in a month."

---

Bourbon doesn't cry. Bourbon never cries. Ever.

Except now.

The ink on the simple piece of paper he held crumpled in his hoof ran with his silent tears, streaking the heart-crushing information contained within the useless little symbols printed on it. He grips his glass one more time, just barely finding the will to bring it to his mouth again and drink the magical relief of the alcohol within. He looks to his side, looking at his beloved Kalashnikov leaning against the wall of the bar. In the booth in the shady corner. His corner, and more importantly, her corner.

But duty calls. The metro isn't going to liberate itself. He stands shakily up, grabbing his AK and looking one last time at that little piece of paper before throwing it on the ground.

'Metro News', it read.

'Station Outreach Attacked by Mutants'

Recently, northern-most station, Outreach, was attacked by strange mutants. Casualties were high, and it is suspected by many that none survived the attack, as there has been no action from the station since, and the few traders that went there report to have seen "Nopony. Nopony at all, just a few corpses here and there."

Outreach. The place that housed the one single pony that had mattered in his life in the past fifteen years. And now it, and she, is probably dead.

Well buck you too, reality. Buck. You. Too.

---

So I was just sitting, minding my own business, when suddenly a small pack of plot-bunnies attacked me! And this is what they made! I hope you enjoyed it. Bro-hoof.