Chapter 5

Part I

One with None

"Not that many ponies go this way on hoof. 'N not that many ponies go up ta Poneva alone."

Alone. Never in my short life have I ever felt so alone. So cold, so helpless, so … so useless. So far, the only pony I've been able to help was myself.

Everypony I have tried to help or has tried to help me was either dead or a long ways behind me. The night I lost them all, DD's hooves were so close. But I wasn't strong enough to save her. I'd failed to save the mare I loved. The night I was taken by those slavers, the key to the cage was within hoof's reach – and I failed them too.

I was only one pony. I was a glorified earth pony with a horn. How I made it this far escapes me; but the fact of the matter was clear: the only thing worse than being one was having none.

Every waking moment since the day my friends died, there's been a voice in the back of my head telling me that I should have died with them.

Anything is possible when you have your friends with you. I believed her when she said that. I still do. But where was she now? Where were my friends? How can I keep going without somepony to pick me up when I fall down?

Gail was my first friend in the frigid north. I knew that after I saved her from that mess, that she'd do the same for me if and when the time came. And that time did come, and she wasn't there. I'm no good at keeping friends – around or alive. Gail … I left her … the first friend I made … I left her and her crew behind.

Box, Amber, Twirl, Star … DD? I ran from their gruesome murders when I should have stood my ground until the end. I galloped into a blizzard in hopes that I'd never come out of the snow alive. I left them behind too.

I wished Box was still here so that he could build me up if I fell apart. And I've been falling apart a lot lately. I wished Amber was still around so that she could remind me what I was fighting for, so I'd have the courage to keep on going. Because I've seen better days. I wished Star and Twirl were here to protect me. Because I can't protect myself – or other ponies.

I wished DD would be here to wrap her legs around me and comfort me when my tears begin to fall. Because the nightmares never end.

But you can wish and wish and wish, but you'll never get what you want. Because what you want doesn't matter; there is only what can be, and what never can be.

And I'd never see them ever again.

Even at the gates of Poneva city, my journey was far from over … and I was afraid I'd have to walk these ashen wastes alone – cold, helpless, and useless.

---

I trotted quietly behind a dirty wagon, Dew Drops' blood-speckled scarf billowing behind me in the chilling breeze. Across the road – more of an icy path dredged into the frozen earth - a frigid wind blew swirls of pirouetting snowflakes that clung loosely to the gray fabrics of my bullet-ridden barding. Beneath my vest's kevlar plates, my bruised, livid flesh sent sharp, wincing twinges of pain through my icy nerves with every tremblng breath I took. I was exhausted. There was not a single muscle in my body that wasn't sore; every step was a step made with aching exertion.

Ponies trotted past me, kicking up snow behind their legs as they slaved through the ankle deep powder in their final approach to the largest concentration of civilization in all of the frozen wasteland: Poneva city.

Several miles away in the distance, Poneva's atrophied skyscrapers, towers that may have been taller once, hung over the fallen city like tombstones, somber effigies from an era of magnificence and wonder. An era of greatness lost beneath the tides of war. Two hundred years have passed, and this dimly glowing potter's field was the brightest light in the sea of darkness that bathed the northern wastes.

Erected outside the city's perimeter were towering ramparts of salvaged metal and rock that encircled the city's entire circumference. What with the terrors that lurked outside in the wilderness, it wasn't too surprising they'd decided to just build a huge wall to keep out the hellbeasts and marauding snow furies that roamed the darkness beyond the city limits.

I was entirely convinced that behind those walls, life was somewhat safer than a life out here, despite what Duster had told me. Hooligans and gangsters or not, I preferred to be shot at by other ponies, and not to be devoured by mutant abominations from hell. My heart fluttered with distant hope; maybe, just maybe, I'd survive this.

From this rather scenic view, the city looked expansive, but all around me, in the outskirts of Poneva city, were the ruins of buildings too small or too structurally weak to have survived the balefire apocalypse. These glorified headstones were small reminders of a time when Poneva had been much larger and more expansive – once.

Blackened foundations and dilapidated metal skeletons were all that remained of the city's surroundings suburbs and countryside; they stretched off into the distance as far as the eye could see. As remote as Spring Fresh's woodland cottage was, even it was not far enough to escape the infernal hellfire that scoured the earth clean of life; how much more for the buildings on the outskirts of its city limits? Ground zero may not have been close by, but very little remained even this far away from the heart of the city.

Snaking along the road that lead to the city gates were undulating ant trails of ponies. I paused for a moment and glanced over my shoulder. Behind me and around me – at a cautious distance - trotted a shivering procession of ponies from all walks of life. Traders and their wagons full of machinery, medicines, canned foods, and the occasional armaments rattled past me. I shared the road with the infrequent slaver wagon which I met with a burning glare that turned away heads – slaver and slave alike.

I bared my teeth through an amused grin as a slaver with an assault rifle eyed me up and down and trotted to the other side of the wagon bed.

If it wasn't the hatred in my eyes that was leaving them with their tails tucked between their legs, I wasn't sure what was. I sure as hell didn't scare Sugar Rum's crew much when they tried to take me. What made things so different now?

A wagon-full of wayward travelers peered down at me from behind the sideboards of their rickety contraption, and shot me strange, ghastly looks. I narrowed my eyes at them and they looked away or feigned preoccupation in lame attempts to lose my attention.

One mare, as she lead her pack animals through the snow, took one look at me and mouthed 'holy shit', before quickening her pace.

Why the hell was everypony looking at me like that?! These ponies looked like they've just seen a ghost. Did I step in two headed bovine shit or something?

I grumbled irritatingly as I plodded through the snow, their awkward stares tearing at my already frayed nerves. A wagon groaned past me to my right. A colt wearing a hat too big for his head was ogling me with wide eyes.

I gave him the friendliest, most innocent grin I could muster. But my smile capsized when he let out a terrified squeak and ducked underneath the wagon's sideboard.

"You little bitch … " I muttered. I didn't even do anything remotely threatening!

I turned my head and caught somepony staring at me in my peripherals. I whirled upon the stallion and jabbed a hoof at him, my expression contorting with simmering irritation.

"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU LOOKING AT?" I demanded, gratingly, my voice hoarse.

He swatted my foreleg away and pelted me with bottlecaps. "S-shit, just take my damn caps and leave me alone!" He screamed hysterically, galloping away from me in horror.

It was just a damned question!

I exhaled a shuddering, exasperated breath of mist and stopped for a moment to rub my weary eyes, a hooffull of caps now resting in the snow before me.

My hooves came away from my face encrusted with coarse crumbs of dried crimson. I glared at my trembling hooves with grim, dark eyes. Down my chest, I saw that I was painted with it. My blood-bathed barding was a macabre canvas of gruesome red splatters, accented by grisly bits of hardened gore and vicious bullet holes that raked across my chest.

Had they known that beneath my barding were plates of kevlar, they might not have thought I was some kind nightmarish, cadaverous, zombie pony.

Hell, even my mane sported attenuated splotches of contrasting dark reds.

Yay. Highlights.

I wasn't sure what blood was mine, or to whom it belonged to. It made me visibly sick to my stomach; though most of it may have belonged to the bloodletters, the blood of ponies – snow fury or otherwise – left behind stains that I wasn't sure I'd ever be able to wash away. Not on the surface of my barding, but something further beneath my shivering flesh.

I remembered, contritely, the mare I... I murdered. I remembered how easy it was to just enter SATS and sentence her to death. She was no snow fury; whereas I could not understand their motives in doing what they did, hers was more than likely similar to that of Night Skys': to live and continue living.

In my mind I tried to rationalize it. I tried to justify it - I kept telling myself that I never would have survived that ordeal had I not done what I did.

Bait. That was how I used her: she was bait. But she was a slaver, a monstrous excuse for a pony. She was a bad pony, and bad ponies need to get what's coming to them. But... what did that make me? Maybe she too had a family, a family who was wondering where she was and if she'd ever return home to provide for them their livelihood.

I shut my eyes closed and cradled my head with weary forehooves. My doubtful expression became nothing but an evanescent dream as my mind reclined into a chilling tranquility.

She was a slaver. Maybe she deserved to die.

I sighed a trembling, wispy breath and watched it dissipate into the frigid breeze. So as to not make eye contact with those around me, I averted my gaze to my hooves. I stooped over as ponies continued to avoid me, mumbling obscenities as I gathered up the caps in my hoof and spilled them into my bloody satchel bags.

In this weary state, I couldn't risk attracting too much attention; I couldn't risk getting into another scuffle with somepony. I was running dangerously low on ammunition – not that I needed to put a bullet in somepony. My gruesome appearance was keeping most of them away from me, anyways.

I keyed my pipbuck's inventory and scrolled through what little belongings I had logged. Twelve rounds for my pistol and one health potion were all I had left. I'm not sure if I even had a fight left in me.

I still didn't want to fight unless I really had to. My horn still didn't work, and my stomach was empty. I needed to rest. But, most of all, I still had a promise to keep. I couldn't let Dew Drops down – I couldn't let my Stable down.

A mile or two later and several minutes spent trying not to look at anypony in the eye passed, and Poneva's corrugated walls and dilapidated sky scrapers began to tower over me. I was here and at the gates to salvation; I was so close. So close, that I could feel the weight of a water talisman resting upon my hooves. I held up my right forehoof and gazed at it longingly, my leg shaking uncontrollably as it hung in the air.

As I approached Poneva's gates, I walked alongside a lonely wagon. I turned my head and what I saw startled the living shit out of me.

"What the …" I murmured, as one of the black-coated ponies met my stare. I gave him a wide eyed look over and saw that he looked like a pegasus … except instead of feathered wings tucked at his sides, black, leathery bat wings were folded behind him.

He stared through me languidly, his muzzle resting upon his hooves as he leaned out of the wagon to watch the snow drifts and ruins pass by. If the exotic pony was in any way repulsed by my appearance, he gave away not a single hint of it. The callousness of his gaze sent shivers down my spine.

I turned my head low and chanced a glance at the pony's visage in my peripherals. He, like the other ponies inside the wagon had piercing yellow eyes, bat wings, and furry, elongated ears that dwarfed my own.

The … the batponies (for the lack of a better term), looked worn to the bone, like they'd been through the depths of hell and back – but not without hell leaving upon them its marks. Many of them, even the mares, sported vicious scars that stretched down their muzzles to disappear beneath their frayed barding.

I didn't want to imagine what sort of monster could have caused them such harm. Some looked to be deliberately shaped, as if they were tortured, toyed with, or made to suffer at the hooves or talons of some laughing, nefarious creature.

I wanted to attribute their scars to snow furies … but from my experience, they were more of a force of nature than they were calculating torturers.

Inside of their battered, dirty wagon, the weary souls huddled together in silence as it rolled somberly along the road. Seeing ponies like that really made me question if I really understood what suffering meant.

I slowed my trot to a walk and trailed behind them as they approached the gates. Peering over the corner of their sideboards, I spotted ponies standing on the side of the road. The batponies slowed as the bystanders took notice, trotting towards them.

We came closer, and I saw that they were wearing matching barding – how cute. They were garbed with an assortment of scarlet bandannas wrapped around their muzzles. Some tied do-rags around their cropped manes; others simply wore barding that were of a shade relative to the color red. Or at least I thought it was red.

Slung across their backs or held in their mouths were a variety of gunmetal black firearms that looked newer and more maintained than their own barding.

One of the red ponies galloped back to the herd of unruly stallions with a bag of jingling caps. Upon seeing this, they erupted into boisterous cackling, shoving each other around in a kleptomaniacal frenzy, trying to get their teeth on the pony's coin purse.

The purse pony stumbled backwards, spilling caps and miscellanea before getting into a full on brawl with another. He bucked the pony away from him and swept up his bounty, stuffing it into his satchel bag with a hysterical chortle.

Watching all this, I could do nothing but raise a brow. These guards were far from conventional. Though I wasn't even sure if the professional tone the word guard conveyed could even apply to this rabble. I remembered what Duster said to me at the caravan: pay the toll, and you probably won't have any problems. Probably.

One of them, visibly irritated by his empty hooves, turned his gaze to the wagon of batponies, a devious grin stretching across his face. Seeing how impulsively these red-garbed stallions carried themselves, I stepped off the road and slunk back into the darkness. I could not afford to involve myself in another scuffle.

Pulling off Dew Drops' scarf, I slipped it gingerly into my bags. Its white stripes would give me away if somepony shined a light on me – and I couldn't risk that. Not in my current state.

I was low on ammunition, I was starving, and my muscles were locking up from too many consecutive near death encounters. My brown coat and dark gray barding melted into the night as I scuttled beneath the shadows of the outer city's skeletal remains. Once again, I found myself crawling amongst the graves of ponies long dead. Poking out of the snow, among the debris or unearthed foundation was the occasional ribcage.

I stopped for a moment, peaking over junk encrusted snow drifts. Letting out a trembling breath, I watched the crimson ponies approach with a weary gaze. They shouted at the wagon and the batponies slowed to a complete stop.

"Hey!" One of them shouted, raising a hoof to the wagon. "Pay up, or get the fuck out!"

I observed in silence as one of the batponies dismounted the wagon and hoofed a sum of caps the stallion's way. The toll collector eyed the batpony mare up and down, shook the sack of caps, opened it, and gave her a hard stare.

My eyes widened as he threw it to the snow.

"The fuck is this shit?" He demanded, to my shock.

The batpony's jaw dropped. "What!?"

He leaned in, baring his teeth. "You're three caps short, bitch!"

"I - I thought the toll was 20 caps." She nickered. Her winged kin peeked over the sideboard, chirping to each other in hushed tones.

The toll collector eyed at the pony's leathery wings and scoffed, "The toll's whatever the fuck I say it is, you bat-winged freak." He stood on his hinds, folding his arms across his chest. "Now pay the fuck up."

"Those are all the caps we have …" I heard the batpony mare say. The collector threw his head back and laughed in the mare's face.

"We gonna have problems, bat girl?" The stallion asked, jutting a hoof into the pony's chest. She grunted audibly as the wagon shook.

"Please ... all we want is shelter from the blizzard!" She pleaded, cupping her forehooves together. "Keep the caps, just let us go!"

The collector threw his head back and laughed as his cronies approached. "These batpony freaks think they can short change the Blood Brothers!" The gang of red ponies surrounded the wagon, crooked bats, rusty pipes, and firearms in tow.

"These batpony cunts want to fuck with us?!" A Blood Brother shouted, racking the slider on his shotgun. Mares screamed as the reds prodded the ponies with the ends of their rifles as if they were a gaggle of exotic zoo animals. The batponies huddled together inside the wagon bed and batted away their invading limbs.

The guards that mounted the ramparts panned their floodlights to bathe the growing herd of reds that surrounded the batpony wagon in a glare of white light. The line of travelers behind them backed away, keeping a considerable distance between themselves and the brawl that was sure to erupt at any moment.

With the lights and all attention diverted to the stage, I realized that this was an opportunity. I closed my eyes and listened to their shouting voices fade away from my focus. Opportunity, opportunity. I let the word roll off my tongue in silence as my temples pounded like hammering pipes.

I pony-crawled through the rimy, blackened detritus. Every now and then I'd peer out of a crack in the rubble or poke my head over a snow drift to watch the escalating situation.

I imagined myself crawling through the pipes at engineering; I imagined myself crawling beneath the steam clouds the day my life made a turn for the worst. Head down, eyes forward. Head down, eyes forward. I stuck to the darkness like a shadow sticks to a body.

"You leather-winged freaks!" one of the reds growled as somepony punched him in the face, blood running out of one of his now swollen eyeballs. He fell from the wagon and into the snow with an audible crunch, his brothers hauling him away from the bedlam.

A batpony stallion rose from behind the sideboards. Aiming a strange, pointy firearm, he shouted, frantically, "Stay back! Stay back, damn you!"

One of the reds fired off a burst of rifle fire that made the batponies duck for cover. I flinched at the staccato cracks and drew my pistol reflexively.

"Yeah – haha, stay down, fuckers!"

Crawling beneath a charred windowsill, a skeletal remnant of some forgotten age, I felt sharp pains arc like electricity through my nerves as my unarmored sections scraped against a formation of melted glass that jutted out of the snow like icy stalagmites.

I heard hoofsteps above me and curled up as close to the demolished wall as I could, glass digging into my barding. Two of the brothers leaned their bleeding comrade against the rubble outside, my proximity to his obscene swearing too close for my own comfort.

One of the reds guffawed, "That little fuckface gotchu good, didn't he?"

"Fuck off, those ponies got some crazy zebra-jitsu bullshit!" the injured brother grated, spitting into the snow.

"They ain't zebras, dumbass – they're just batponies."

"Well, no fucking shit, asshole. Bu'that prick hoofed my face twice before I could even count one!"

I bit my tongue as the glass raked my flesh. I gazed down the line of ruined suburbs and saw that I was a mere twenty yards away from the gates. A carpet of darkness enticed me onward. I grinded my teeth as the ponies outside continued berating each other; these shitheads were going to get me killed.

"Whoa! Calm the fuck down everypony!" the collector shouted over the profane cacophony. His brothers ignored him, harassing the batponies with insults or the occasional rifle butt to the muzzle. "Everypony shut the fuck up!" He fired a burst of assault rifle fire at the hooves of the red herd.

They got the message and backed off, lowering their weapons and muttering things about the collector's mother. In the relative silence, I narrowed my eyes through a crack that ran down the wall, trying to see past a pair of hooves.

"Ain't got the caps, eh?" A disturbing grin stretched across his face as he ran a hoof down the mare's neck. "Tell ya what: you find something else to pay me and I'll let y'all in." She cringed, craning her neck away from him as he chuckled softly. "I always did wanna know what you batponies tasted like." He reached a hoof into her barding's collar below her chin, and parted it slightly.

She swatted away his foreleg, cursing him with a tirade of high pitched trills. The collector stood on his hinds and simply laughed as the reds hissed and jeered.

"Take it off, batbitch!" I heard one of the reds outside the windowsill shout.

I reached out with a foreleg and pulled myself forward. Prink! I shut my eyes closed as chunks of broken glass dug into my barding and dragged with me.

"The fuck was that?" One of the blood brothers exclaimed, leaning over the windowsill searchingly. My gasp was lost in the breeze; I dug my back as far into the charred concrete as I possibly could like a startled radroach.

"Come on, lil filly, just one kiss!" I heard the collector snarl. The mare threw her forelegs in front of her and shrieked as he slammed her into the sideboards. With shrill cries, the mare's kin shot out of the wagon, beating their wings frantically, and barking at each other in their strange language as the blood brothers cheered the collector onward.

There was going to be blood. And I needed to get out of here – now –

"Ey Rocky, hoof me yer flashlight. Think I heard somethin' back 'ere."

A black pipe levitated over the window and down at me. I was going to die.

My heart nearly skipped a beat. Fight or flight – fuck! I threw my legs out and dragged myself forward.

Prink! Prink! Prink! Shit! I craned my neck over my chest, thinking that I'd shattered more glass.

But somepony outside screamed. I peered out a crack in the wall, between the ponies' hooves, and watched as the toll collector tumbled to the powder in a spray of crimson, long metal spikes jutting out of his chest and throat.

A batpony stallion leaned over the sideboard, one of the strange, pointy weapons clamped down between his teeth. The pistol smoked with fresh cordite that dissipated into the frigid breeze.

All hell broke loose.

"You leather winged fucks!" The flashlight plummeted into the darkness, cracking against my ribcage as the ponies galloped off. I exhaled a jet of air as I bit my tongue and drew blood.

Gunfire erupted into the night. Now was my chance. I peeked my head over the rubble, fresh blood dripping down my side as the reds pumped lead into the wagon's frame.

A horrified look stretched across my face. I wanted to help them somehow. Here I was, watching helplessly as more ponies died. To me, they were ponies; but deep inside, they were nothing but distractions. And I needed to book it the hell out of here while I still could.

Kicking up snow behind me, I bounded across the rubble, ducking under a fallen column and into the skeletal remains of a several-story building. Muzzle flashes painted my silhouette with alternating patterns of yellow and black against its bare walls as I galloped between its collapsed edifices.

The world around me blurred past as every throbbing fiber of my being, every sore muscle, every hypoglycemic blood vessel in my body focused on reaching the gates alive.

I heaved myself over a partially collapsed doorway without a pause.

And I didn't even notice the blood brother loitering outside. My eyes widened as I blundered into him and tackled him into the snow with a jarring crash. We wrestled around in the darkness as he screamed for help.

"Get the fuck off me!" He cried out, trying to draw his pistol. It was in vain as I swatted it out of his hooves, the weapon landing a foot away in the rubble.

"Stop!" I hissed at him as I knocked him across the skull with a forehoof, silencing his hoarse cries. "Be quiet – I don't want to kill you!" I pleaded with him. But be bucked me off his chest, clawing at the snow in desperation, trying to hoof his fallen pistol with a dazed look in his eyes. I growled and threw myself on top of him, pinning him against a pile of charred debris.

If he didn't stop shouting, he was going to alert his brothers. He was going to get me killed!

"You – mother – fu-hucker!" I snarled as I dropped my hooves onto his face again and again, my mind reeling as fresh blood peppered my muzzle.

"H-help!" He wailed, shielding his battered face with trembling hooves.

I tipped my head to the side and saw with awe as the batpony wagon, surrounded by half dozen cooling corpses, rose into the air as its pullers flapped their leathery wings and wrenched the vehicle into the sky. The batponies within rattled their flechette guns, perforating the reds who arced their tracers skyward.

With my attention diverted elsewhere, I loosened up for a split second. Hooves slammed into my gut, summoning bile to my throat. Without a moment to spare, he wrestled me to the powder and trampled me beneath his hooves as he sprung to his fours.

Whipping his mane back, he screamed over the gunfire, "H-help! Runner! We got a -!" I bowed my head and galloped straight at him – and plunged my horn into his chest. I wrenched my head back and ripped out of him in a gory splash; he stumbled backwards, whimpering helplessly as he gawked at me with wide eyes, stunned, and clutching his gored, heaving chest.

He gasped for air and dropped his jaw... I knew what he was going to do next. I didn't even give him a chance to scream. Not again. "Shut the fuck up, damn you!" I growled, tackling him to the snow in a shower of ashen powder.

The stallion writhed beneath me, one of his forelegs knocking his pistol further away as I wrapped my forehooves around his throat. "Shut up … shut up! SHUT. UP." I hissed into his muzzle as he batted at me with faltering forelegs, unable to scream while he gagged and choked.

Low on blood sugar from my exertions, I began seeing stars. My sense of hearing dulled, and all I could hear now was my quaking heartbeat and my frantic breaths. Dark, veiny tunnels closed in around me, my face contorting into an anguished grimace as my lucidity plunged into the darkness like a ship sinking beneath the waves of a frozen sea. I lost myself in his terrified eyes, the eyes of a pony who knew he was going to die. I gazed at my own reflection, my teeth bared, my coat bathed in blood, and my darkened visage sneering an unforgiving look back at me.

I felt nothing. I thought nothing. The stallion moved his mouth but I heard not his words. It only made me squeeze harder.

"I won't … be … a victim …" I heard somepony whisper, distantly.

Muzzle flashes illuminated the darkening windows in his bulging eyes as I strangled the life out of him. My hooves dug into his coat, drawing blood. The stallion popped a blood vessel and he wept dark crimson that streamed down his cheeks as I squeezed … and squeezed … and squeezed.

You can't stop me. Not this close. Nopony can stop me, now.

It was over before my brain even registered it. His bleeding saucers stared back at me as I knelt over his lifeless corpse, gazing at my trembling hooves in horror through the dark tunnels in my eyes. Tears streamed down my cheeks as I heaved myself over him and stumbled to my ungainly legs, taking shuddering gasps for air that only fueled a splitting headache. I bowed my head down and saw in the darkness, beneath my hooves, a pony.

I almost wanted to scream – scream bloody murder. Eviscerated. Strangled. Goddesses … what happened ... who did this?! Who the fuck did this – oh. My. Goddesses. I sobbed hysterically, staring at my bloody hooves as I realized that I'd done that. I did that. A rivulet of blood streamed down my face.

I killed another pony.

I shook my head vigorously, trying to clear my mind as I stumbled blindly through the snow. My heart felt like it was going to just stop as it pounded against my chest. I didn't want to look back, I should've kept going, kept galloping toward the gates while I still could. But I didn't, and all I saw was the stallion lying in the snow. Dead.

I … I did that? I did … I did that to a pony with my bare hooves.

The gunfire and screams were nothing but muffled bass drops in my ears. In my glassy peripherals, I saw the batponies take to the skies.

A flash of light jolted me from my trance-like state, painting my shadow against the fleetingly illuminated drifts as a rocket propelled grenade detonated in midair. I inhaled sharply and snapped my head skywards to see a fiery cloud erupt in the sky. The blood brothers cheered, whooping like wild animals.

Impossible. My teary eyes widened as the wagon – whole and unscathed – spun away from the blast in a spiraling barrel roll. They made it.

But I needed to make it, too.

I snapped out of it, shoving to the back of my mind everything that scraped against my thoughts like hooves on chalkboard, and tore my eyes from the dark clouds. Now was my chance. Nopony could stop me now. Nopony else stood in my way. I galloped out of the darkness and across the final stretch as the blood brothers screamed at the dissipating fireworks display in frustration.

By the time they returned to their posts, I was already gone, melted into the darkness. Now was the time for me to finish what my friends started. I wiped away a single tear as I followed the shadows to salvation.

---

I stood at the center of a snowy intersection. Ponies, clad in tattered, dirty barding trotted past me and around me like a stream parting around a heavy stone. Their eyes, turned low, paid no attention to the filthy, shivering stallion that stood amongst them. For I, to them, was nothing but another impoverished indigent – like everypony else in these dim slums.

I deadpanned my bloodshot eyes, taking in my gloomy surroundings. They glistened dully in the ruddy red and yellow neon lights that flickered weakly in the wintry snowfall.

Sprouting out of the dirty snow were small, smoke-wreathed eateries - stalls that stunk with the bitter, stomach turning smell of burned meat and oversteamed cabbages. Hovels and gnarled concrete ruins that reeked with more than just the stench of vomit and alcohol, sported flickering neon signs that barely clung to life, spelled out 'liquor' or 'mares'.

I turned my head high and reality skewed inward as if the entire world was collapsing upon itself. The colossal edifices of the old city rose amidst the squalid shacks and shanties like starved, dying trunks amongst a field of weeds. Poneva's dense, concrete jungle towered over me. I trembled beneath my blood-caked barding as the dilapidated apartment buildings and skeletal high-rises closed in on me, threatening to squash me underneath.

Distant gunshots, echoing shrieks, and carnal moans coalesced into an uncomfortable ambience that scratched incessantly at my thinning sanity. There were too many ponies. Too many voices. Too many in one place.

I wanted to scream.

Here, it felt like I was going to be buried alive - buried beneath the concrete limbs and metal skeletons of this decripit, concrete jungle. Whereas night outside Poneva's walls was silent, eerie, and haunting, night here in Poneva was a clausterphobic mess of epilleptic lights and mind reeling sounds that made me physically ill.

This place was an alien world; and I was the alien. Any semblence of normality that my thoughts once held dear – warmth, comfort, safety - was snuffed out, suffocated and trampled beneath the cold, grimy hooves of the underworld ponies that trotted past me. This place was the final nail in the coffin, a coffin that I felt powerless to escape.

I took a step forward, and my hoof crunched into the broken glass. The shards broke around the surface of my hoof, scattering dozens of reflective fragments across the black snow. For a haunting, dislocated moment, I caught my reflections - warped and distorted across their lacerated surfaces. My chin trembeled at the sight of the disheveled wreck of my former self, my mane grizzled, my coat darker in some places with filth and dried persperation. And the blood. Oh Goddesses, the blood; it was everywhere, all over me, staining my barding, my flesh, and the soul underneath.

I stared at my reflections, my chin quivering as I tried to suppress my hopeless sobs. That can't be me. That ... that thing ... that ghost can't be me. It just can't.

I'm Red Dawn. Assistant engineer. Shift C. Serial code F03RD82996. Stable 91.

But the murderer kept glaring back at me with its watery, blood shot eyes.

I'm Red Dawn. Assistant engineer. Shift C. Serial code F03RD82996. Stable 91.

His ghostly, weary eyes told me I was lying to myself.

I-I'm Red Dawn. Assistant engineer. Shift ... Shift C. Serial code ... F...0...3...

A thousand phantoms, silhouettes born of my image, warped and distorted into macabre parodies of myself before my very eyes, mocking me, accusing me, damning me.

"No!" I hissed through clenched teeth, stomping the glass shards frantically until the ghosts broke apart and died. "Not me ..." I whispered, running a hoof against Dew Drops' scarf as hot tears streamed down my cheeks. "You're not me ..."

---

My stomach grumbled. I eyed longingly at a flickering neon sign that said 'diner', before flames crept up the wall beneath it. Blinking for the last time, the sign popped and exploded in a dull flash. The smell of cooked meat and acrid smoke filled my nostrils. I cupped a hoof over my mouth as I relived a memory that was branded into my conscience not too long ago.

Zebras or not, it was all the same.

My shadow rippled in the firelight. Before me was a small shop, its windows broken, fires raging inside its crackling interior. Wooden beams snapped and fed the flames as the fire slowly consumed every inch of the shop within. Outside, ponies dragged out corpses and charred crates of miscellanea. At first I thought that the ponies that were pulling the burnt bodies from the burning building were mournful friends or relatives.

Looters. I watched from the shadows of an dreary, littered alleyway as they unceremoniously dropped a pony's sooty remains into the snowy asphalt of the pockmarked street and hoofed through its pockets. One of them yanked out a small sack of caps, clenching it between her teeth.

She glanced over both her shoulders and scurried off to disappear beneath the shadow of a dilapidated office building. Others didn't leave as fast. There was no honor amongst these thieves; they were desperate, and unaffiliated with any other group but themselves. One ashen corpse had its barding torn off in several different places as grimy-looking ponies looted whatever valuables remained in its pockets.

Some fought each other over charred crates that had been recovered before the shop was completely engulfed in flames. The impoverished ponies, clad in grimy, tattered barding, fell upon an opened crate of foodstuffs, tearing into it like wild animals and spilling its tin viscera to the snow.

I kept reminding myself that this was the greatest bastion of ponykind in the Northern Wastes. I looked up around me and found that I was bathed in almost complete darkness. Were it not for the fires that raged not too far away from me, I probably would not have been able to see the brawl that erupted when somepony tried dragging the crate into an alley with him.

Around the corner was a four-lane street that was lined with buildings that might have seen better days. I looked up, and the skeletal, half-destroyed skyscrapers that towered over me looked like severed limbs, their shattered stumps reaching skywards as if they had fallen from the clouds. Two hundred years ago, they did, and this was what was left of them.

This was what was left of ponykind. And this shithole was the biggest concentration of it.

Not far from the smoking pyre, ponies in collared, jet black business-wear that reminded me of the pictures of pre-war ponies in the history books, watched the shop burn as they clanked glass bottles and took long drinks.

One of them took a rag, stuffed it in one of the bottles, lit it aflame, and lobbed it through the shop's gaping window frames. The flammable splash infuriated the fires within, and the inferno exploded outward, spilling out of the shattered windows like a cup running over. The scavenger ponies yelped, scuttling away from the searing bonfire. One of them rolled around in the snow, his barding trailing smoke.

The black-clad ponies donned wide-brimmed bowler caps that hid their eyes, spitting into the pale as the shop burned. I watched them heave a soot-covered metal safe into the back of a wagon before the ponies departed, their job done and their treasures stowed away.

I plodded out of the darkness, my mind numb. My hooves slopped through the half-melted snow; this close to the burning ruin, the surface of the pale drifts had begun to liquefy. Sighing softly, I stopped at one of the crates, staring at its spilled innards. Tin cans, scattered across the snow, leaked their brownish contents into the melting slurry. I dipped a hoof into a puddle of the pasty, brown sludge, brought it to my nose and sniffed it, cautiously.

Beans. Oh, and burning flesh, and smoke. My stomach whined for sustenance, and I was getting desperate. I'd nearly passed out earlier, and a steady, pulsating headache prodded my brain with rail spikes every time a hoof made contact with the ground beneath me. But as Night Sky said, there was never no rest for the weary.

To keep going would kill me; but to sit here and wait for my horn to flicker back or wait for my insides to stop churning meant another ration of my Stable's water would be consumed. I opened my satchel bags and dumped inside the few cans that hadn't trampled over. For a moment, I hesitated as my languid gaze crawled down my vest. My barding was still covered in blood. Glancing over my shoulder, a small crowd of ponies was watching me.

Maybe they thought that I'd been the one who'd done this. Not me. I'd killed a few ponies to get here, but this time, it wasn't me.

With a heavy heart, I clamped my teeth around the brim of a perforated tin can, shaking out as much of its contents as I could, and stumbled towards the flame.

Skirting the fire's edge, my skin prickled from the waves of thermal energy that radiated from the seething fires that licked at the shop's crackling innards. I approached a wooden beam that had fallen into the snow outside, its surface blackened and smouldering with hungry flames.

I knelt beside it, eyeing the slurry of partially melted snow that had begun to puddle around its charred frame. I took the can in one hoof and ran it across the snow, filling it to the brim with a large scoop of cold, dripping slush with a disturbed look on my face. I kept telling myself I wasn't a murder, but the gory canvas I wore over my shivering flesh spoke otherwise. I needed to wash it off. I wanted to believe that the stallion beneath was still unstained, that the blood hadn't seeped through to touch his soul underneath it all.

I killed that Blood Brother. Gored him with my horn and choked him to death with my bare hooves; if this is what Night Sky meant by doing whatever it takes to save the folks back home, then my life wasn't the only thing I feared to lose. I remembered it in fragmented snippits of dreamy memories; my horn dripping red, the stallion's muffled screaming, and my hooves wrapping around his neck.

The rest was lost to blackness and hysteria.

Out here, killing is just another part of living …

My heart flared with ire and I chased away her words as if they were home invaders breaking into my thoughts. I gulped down the lump in my throat, and slammed shut the imaginary door behind me, locked it, heaved a book shelf in front of it, and swallowed the key. But behind that door, something rattled and shook, calling after me, trying to reason with me – trying to justify the things that it had done.

Oh wait. No, that was just my headache.

Shaking my aching head, I retreated back into the darkness of the alleyway with my can of slurry. Climbing atop mounds of frozen detritus and discarded scraps, I found a place where I could be alone. Away from the murder scene, away from everypony, there was a quiet shed sitting upon the roof of an abandoned shack that overlooked Poneva's paltry slums. I inched my rump onto the cold sheet metal beneath me in an attempt to ease the strain on my sore muscles. Trembling jets of wispy air hissed through my lips as I lowered myself to my chest, before shrugging off my satchel bags.

I placed the can of slush between my forelegs and narrowed my eyes at it with all the focus I could muster – to no avail. In fact, my headache only worsened. A riveting flash of searing agony speared through my cranium. I fell forward on my forehooves, heaving into the metal. When the pain subsided, I felt warm tears well out of my eyes.

A foreleg came to my muzzle to wipe away the tears, but instead, it came away with blood.

I grumbled quietly and fetched the can with a hoof, pouring its contents down my vest. The ashen slurry ran lazily down the gray fabrics; with my other hoof, I scrubbed away as much of my bloody shell as I could. When I finished, my barding was lacerated with darker shades of gray where the blood had settled in. I shivered briskly as the wind touched my soaked chest.

It'd have to do.

From up here, I could see that, behind the ruined stumps that hung their shadows over the ramshackle patchworks that wriggled beneath them, there was light.

It did not seem so distant from this elevation. Amidst the jungle of ruined skyscrapers, the orange glow seemed to gleam from a structure about sixty or seventy stories tall – too tall for me to see with all the obstructions in my field of vision. Even still, its origin was hardly discernable behind the hooffull of city blocks, rife with similarly-lit skyscrapers between it and me.

I obviously wasn't going to find a water talisman here – at least not in a filthy ghetto like this. Farther off in the distance, the few skyscrapers that had survived the balefire radiated with a ponymade glow, and I knew that my Stable's water talisman was close. I just needed to find out what that light was. I needed to find Stable-Tec.

Reaching into my bags, I pulled out a bruised can of beans. I brought it to my lips and clamped my teeth down on a tab that stuck out from its lid, and pulled. With a dull plop, the lid came off and the smell of old beans wafted into my nostrils. I tipped the can into my mouth and the frigid, chunky sludge poured onto my tongue.

I chewed and swallowed, too tired to worry about the unwholesome taste of expired beans. Within minutes, I'd downed its entire contents, my stomach's whining abated – for now. I lay down on my chest, yawning as I rested my chin upon my hooves. Maybe I'll rest for a little bit.

Just a few minutes with my eyes closed … no – I needed to keep moving! Every second I spent was another ration consumed. But … I was just so tired. My aching body begged me to sit down and rest, pleading with me to take a break. Fine. Just a few minutes.

I yawned once more. Just a few …

Shuddering with a languished sigh, I watched with heavy eyes as my breath dissipated into the wintry breeze to be carried off into dismal nothingness. I followed its fading mists, and gazed upon a small, yet immense slice of Poneva's paltry slums and all of its destitute glory. I closed my eyes, trying to imagine a field of verdant, green grass undulating like ocean waves in a gentle breeze; I tried to imagine a guardian sun that caressed my cheek with its lovely warm rays. I felt considerably warmer, even as the cold breeze whispered down my neck. The wintry wasteland was slowly fading away … away as I altered Spring Fresh's memory orb in my vision, letting my weary mind escape into a place far, far away.

I remembered the murals painted across B-Block's walls, the awe-inspiring skies and the vibrant landscapes of a world that once was beautiful. Beautiful. It was just beautiful. Lost … I found myself lost in my memories.

The sound of hooves plodding behind me caught my attention. My bright eyes gravitated to the mare I loved.

Dew Drops ran into me at full gallop, and I took her into my forelegs, pirouetting through the grass as she buried her muzzle in my chest. We fell on our hooves and I was taken aback by the beauty of the mare that stood before me. The sun touched her face and her eyes reflected brilliantly like diamond jewels, encapsulating me in her tender gaze. Dew Drops giggled once, brushed her teal mane out of her eyes and gave me a long kiss, wrapping her forelegs around me and hugging me tight as if she hadn't seen me ages. It might as well have been, because I returned the favor tenth-fold, pausing only for a moment to take a shallow breath of air before parting her lips with my tongue once more.

Oh Goddesses. Only they knew the things I'd do to make this day last forever.

I took Dew Drops' hoof as we trotted through a verdant field of grass, the tall stalks parting before us as we giggled, loving each other … and loving the world around us.

We entered a clearing, a picnic basket with its contents set upon a red-checkered blanket waiting for us. She … the mare I loved, gleamed with a heart-melting smile that I found irresistible – I just wanted to gobble her up! We enjoyed our lunch of hay sandwiches and carrot juice and lied out on the soft, cool grass, watching the alabaster clouds float by.

We laughed to each other, pointing out shapes we discerned in the cloudy, ivory heavens as the wind pulled them along the sunny skies. I rolled over beside her, and our lips met as the sun began to set, a line of magnificent, amber light parting down our muzzles as the moon took to the skies and bathed us in pale moonlight.

She rolled me over on my back, whispering that she loved me as she nibbled playfully on my ear while I planted kisses upon her neck.

Thud … thud … thud … the midnight blue skies shuddered as if something were tapping on the glass behind it. Dew Drops' expression flickered briefly, going unnoticed as I reached her jawline. With her panting breaths hot against my muzzle, I stifled her euphoric gasps with a kiss, caressing her tongue with mine.

Thud … thud … thud …

I let the sounds pass unheard through my ears as I lowered myself over her, stroking her flushed cheek with a trembling forehoof. I gazed dreamily into her dilated grays, her gentle voice whispering to me softly … beckoning me onward.

"DD … I …"

Thud.

I winced, my vision swimming for a moment as a sharp twinge erupted in my head.

"Ngh…" I shuddered. I took a deep breath and looked down upon Dew Drops' face, her expression unchanged, waiting for me to take the amorous plunge.

I needed to tell her, or I'd never be able to tell her again!

"DD … I … I …" My vision unfocused, and I grimaced, blinking furiously.

Thud.

"Ah!" I cried out painfully, my eyes clenching shut. They opened, and Dew Drops was still beneath my chest, her startled eyes staring through me, her jaw dropped as she saw something behind me that I could not. Something that I did not want to see.

No. I won't leave you. Don't leave me …

"DD, I –"

THUD.

"GAH!" I screamed, my head threatening to split open. My eyes flew open and snapped downward as the sound of a hoof scraping against a chalkboard screeched into my ears. Dew Drops was lying beneath me, her head tipped slightly to the side, staring into nothingness with wide, inert eyes … blood pooling around a gash along her throat … melting the snow around us … marring the beauty of her tender, blue cheeks.

"DD … ? DD! DD!" I screamed, shaking her frantically with blood-caked hooves. "DD, PLEASE! GODDESES, NO … SAY SOMETHING!"

Thud – thud – thud – THUD – THUD!

I felt somepony ram a spike through my skull. My bloodshot eyes shot open and my paradise shattered like broken glass, falling away from my hooves. I touched a hoof to my forehead, my headache throbbing painfully as reality pervaded my returning senses.

Hoofsteps thudded behind me, and I swung my head back – my satchel bags were gone. An equine shadow was bounding away from me across the rooftops as I stood to my hooves. I eyed over my shoulders frantically, batting at my neck - Dew Drops ... Dew Drops! He took her!

Her scarf – Dew Drops' scarf!

"STOP!" I shouted, galloping after the fleeing pony, my eyes on fire like an animal roused from a hibernating slumber. We raced across the shanty town's rickety, scrap-metal rooftops, forty feet of frozen air between us and the slums below.

My eyes widened as he leaped off the edge of a patchwork shanty. Did he just - I reached the edge and saw him roll to a violent stop as he landed upon a rickety canopy that dented beneath him. He scrambled to his hooves, glancing over his shoulder as I took a hoofstep back and hurled myself over the edge.

"GIVE THEM BACK!" I howled, breathlessly. But by them, I meant not my bags.

"Shit!" The pony swore, beating his hooves loudly against the metal sheets. I chased him into a third-story alleyway, the orange light of the skyscrapers in the distance flickering blindingly like lightshows through the cracks in the indisposed corrugated walls that separated shanties with less than a foot of space between them. Ponies dived out of the way, spilling over carts full of scavenged materials and refuse that clattered behind me in my furious wake.

He dodged a cart sitting in the middle of the alley, and I leaped over it. He ran around a congregation of loiterers, and I blundered through them. He took her from me.

"Dew Drops!" I cried, loud enough only for my own ears.

A mare sifting through a cart of bent cans screamed shrilly as the pony narrowly sidestepped past her. Me? I didn't care. I shoved her aside, spilling her tin treasures across the snowy, weather-beaten deck.

"Hey! Watch it, asshole!" She shrieked to deaf ears.

We reached the end of the narrow alleyway, my hind legs pumping behind me, throwing up showers of dirty snow. In my mind I saw snow furies dragging Dew Drops away from me. My legs only pumped harder.

The pony ducked through a shanty's door and kicked it shut behind him. I flung it open and charged through the doorway, a family of huddled ponies screaming past me as the pony stumbled out the back door with me hot on his tail.

"STOP, NOW!"

"No!" He shouted back. I was close enough to see his tattered barding and his scratchy, brown mane. "I need this!"

We were reaching a dead end. But this pony knew this city more than I did. He vaulted across a gap between two rooftops, landing on the other side with a slight stumble before recovering fast enough to take another leap.

I leaped, bounded, and flailed – swearing under my rasping breath as chunks of snow and ice, disturbed by my scrambling hooves, plummeted four stories beneath me. Ahead of us was a dead end, the next building twelve feet across a ravine that fell into the darkness below. The pony screamed his voice hoarse.

And took the leap.

Holy fucking shit, I mouthed as he throttled across the gap, forelegs outstretched, hinds kicking through the air with my satchel bags trailing behind him. He was going to fall. He was going to splatter across the streets below … and take Dew Drops ... Box Cutter, Lightning Twirl, Amber Fields, Star Glint ... Mom and Dad ... away from me.

His screams cut short when he crashed violently into the rooftop, skidding abrasively across the frozen metal to tumble end over end several feet before landing in a heap.

The whole time I was approaching the precipice I was thinking to myself, how the hell was I going to make that jump? In the seconds I spent nearing the ledge, I saw myself splatter across the pavement in several dozen different ways; I saw the world spinning end over end as I tumbled to my gruesome death – pancaked across the asphalt like a squashed radroach.

How many feet would I have to clear, how high would I have to jump -

My hooves left the sheet metal beneath them.

Flying, I was flying; soaring through the air like a pegasus pony. Trapped in this frozen hell, I, for the briefest of moments, felt free; freed from the shackles of this hell on earth. The weathered metal rooftop at the other end of the gap seemed close enough to touch as time slowed and my entire existence became devoted to reaching it. The world bent inwards towards me, Dew Drops, mom, and everypony calling my name.

Snow furies cackled their maniacal cries, their snarling, psychotic cacophony echoing distantly in my ears. Not this time … you mother fuckers. You can't take them away from me.

I'll save them. I'll save them all.

They were waiting for me on the other side. I held out my forelegs, letting the chilling breeze carry me upon flapping wings. I imagined myself catching the frozen winds beneath my feathers to sail across the gap between my life and the life I lived before. Nothing could stop me –

Except gravity.

My imagination swam, reality violating my senses once more as I looked down, and the world below me stretched on into infinity. A maw of chilling metal parted beneath my thrashing hooves, threatening to swallow me whole.

I was falling.

I careened over the edge, flailing my legs, and screaming at the top of my lungs. The world raced by my peripherals like a fleeting memory beyond my grasp, the ledge at the other end of the gap beyond my reach. I wasn't going to make it. I threw out my forelegs, stretching them out as far as I could, my joints screaming frantically at me that that was as far as my forelegs could go. But they couldn't reach out far enough.

The weather beaten ledge was less than half a hoof's length away. And I missed.

A mortal, ear splitting shriek erupted from my lips. "FUUUUU –"

Then my face became acquainted with the corrugated edifice. My forehooves broke some of my impact as I collided with the shanty's steel façade with the force of a sledgehammer swinging into my skull. Stars exploded in my eyes and my vision swam away from the light of clarity, my ears ringing like a tolling deid bell.

My hooves scrambled for blind purchase, but I skidded down the wall, plummeting back to the earth. Crack! I felt the ligaments in my right fetlock shred like paper as my hoof caught itself between two rimy layers of twisted rebar and I broke my own fall with a violent snap.

"Dear fucking Celestia –" I hissed as white hot agony shot through my veins, my right hoof in burning agony. With a laborious grunt, I compelled my hanging left foreleg to reach up, and I clung to the deformed metal for my life.

The rooftop's edge, past a series of twisted metal beams and sheared steel, was nearly a foreleg's length above me, reflecting blurrily in my teary eyes as I reached out achingly with my right foreleg. My nerves drowned in searing torment as I entrenched my throbbing hoof into a gap within the twisted, steel façade. I kicked my hindlegs inwards, scraping away layers of rime as my left forehoof came to meet my right.

My limbs were on the verge of giving out on me, but then I heard her. Dew Drops' screams echoed distantly in my ears. NOOO!

I threw my right hoof over the rooftop's edge, and my left – and, with my hindlegs and an anguished howl, I heaved myself onto the weather beaten deck, and when I looked up, my pupils contracted. I saw only the thief's silhouette against a glaring fulmination of luminous multicoloured lights.

As I stood to my hooves, the concrete jungle opened up in front of me to a view of a clearing in which radiantly-glowing skyscrapers, rife with lively, ponymade glows bathed the city below in beams of orange illuminations.

With my head hung low, my visage darkened underneath the skyscraper's blinding glow, as I tried to catch my breath. My disheveled, scarlet mane fell in front of my eyes as I collapsed to my knees, gasping hoarsely to fill my burning lungs with air. I snapped my head back up, my mane parting before one of my eyes; a rivulet of blood streamed down my forehead and onto the frozen steel beneath my trembling hooves.

Cruel vehemence, given light by the fiery orange glow of the towers before me, burned in my eyes as I locked gazes with the thieving son-of- a-bitch that stole everything I had left to remember my friends by. He took a step back, his jaw dropped as he stammered with disbelief. He took one back, and I took another. I came towards him, my head bowed forward like a beast cornering its prey, ready to gore him with my horn.

"Holy shit …" the pony murmured at me as he backed away, shivering with despair.

I craned my neck and yanked my pistol from its holster. "No … more … running..." I hissed, out of breath. Behind him was a several story drop into the frozen depths of Poneva's underworld. But he didn't seem to understand that I was right.

The pony shrugged off my satchel bags, my belongings clanking dully against the shanty's roof. "Th-there, j-just …" He took another terrified step back - one step too far. "… just leave me alone – AH!"

My eyes widened. The stallion slipped.

He fell over the edge, screaming as gravity dragged him to his gruesome end. I raced towards the end of the roof, my fetlock aching as I reached the ledge and peered down the patchwork cliff face. There he was, hanging from a single hoof, his tattered barding billowing in the wind.

He looked up at me in desperation, his eyes telling me a tale of an impoverished surface dweller scraping by day to day through whatever he could scavenge or steal. The pony's weak, trembling limbs spoke of days of gone by on an empty stomach. The dips and turns of the stallion's emaciated body protruded out of his barding like broken bones told me that chase had consumed what little energy he had left; his hoof looked like it would give out any second now.

But I just stared down at him, a cold look chilling my features. His mouth moved soundlessly as I imagined his head exploding like a melon as he splattered against the pavement. I came to realize that his life hung not at the edge of this steel rooftop, but upon surface of my hoof.

I blinked once, and a snow fury was gaping back at me. The black veins in his fearful eyes receded as he mouthed 'help me' to my deaf ears. I started forward but I hesitated; the blood of my friends stained his coat and the fabrics wrapped around his trembling flesh. He took them from me. And now, he'd never take them again.

Blinking again, I saw that the skeletal pony was gazing back at me once more.

I watched in slow motion as his hoof slipped, his frantic eyes widening for the last time. The grim reaper pony ran its chilling hooves down my spine and I shivered beneath my coat. No.

Nopony else needs to die.

I dove forward and caught his outstretched foreleg between my hooves, crying out weakly as my sprained fetlock jolted my nerves. He weighed less than I thought he did. With an agonized grunt, I pulled him up and yanked the pony back over, heaving him onto the roof at my hooves. The stallion fell to his gasping chest, his limbs splayed out at his sides as he wheezed for air.

Tucking my pistol into its holster, I regarded the pony with a look of pity as he stood upon rickety legs.

"Oh my Goddesses … y-you saved my life." He murmured, weakly, meeting my empathetic stare. "You saved me." He repeated, looking down at his hooves, tears streaming down his grimy cheek. "Why?" he asked, to which I did not provide an answer.

"I'm… I'm sorry… I saw you walk from that store with those cans … I needed them so bad." He said, weakly. "I needed them..."

I limped to my bags, wrenching them open - and rolled out three cans of pre-war beans, the only food I had. They tapped against one of his hooves and he nearly fell to his chest, startled. His head snapped up at me, his mouth moving, but words did not escape his quivering lips.

"Take them." I said, simply, my voice hoarse.

He looked at the cans at his hooves once more, in disbelief.

A painful smile barely graced my lips. "Go ahead. You need them more than I do."

The pony's head bobbed up and down slightly, repeating my words in his head. Until it registered that I wasn't going to shoot him, he nodded quickly, fetching the cans in his hooves, and tucking them into his barding.

"Thank you. " He whispered, his eyes not leaving me once as he trotted away.

But mine did not follow. His hoofsteps dissipated into the wind, and I was, once again, alone upon these windswept rooftops. I limped to my bags and fell to my knees, exhaling laboriously as my sprained fetlock pulsated with fresh waves of pain.

I parted my satchel bag's flaps and fetched a health potion. It was the last one I had. I popped its cap and downed it in one gulp, sighing softly, my shorn ligaments stitching back together with every beat of my heart. I dipped a hoof into my bags and pulled out Dew Drops' scarf, hanging it from my neck as I withdrew the two frayed photographs within.

I stared at them for what seemed like an eternity, my mind numb and my face blank. But I could not keep my mask on forever. My chin began to tremble as the wind wept a haunting requiem, my friends' cheerful laughter echoing distantly beneath its haunting choruses. I could discern each and every single one of their voices in the chilling winds before their laughter melted away, drowning in the howling darkness. A tear trickled down my cheek as I tried to keep a straight face, tried to suck it back in. But my shoulders rocked with sobs I could contain no longer. I bowed my head, my visage darkening and my tears glistening under the orange light. It was just in my head. All of it was.

As I stared down at my friends, their faces frozen in time, I relished the life I had lived with these ponies, cherishing their memories, the sweet and the bitter, the hilarious and the disappointing, the proud and the despairing. I had their photographs, I had her scarf … and yet I still felt empty inside. Nopony ever gets second chances for failure such as this; I wanted a second shot, I wanted more time! Ever since I got my cutie mark, I'd neglected my friends to develop my skills, putting off the hours we could have spent together alone, tinkering, fixing, learning... and now I had what I fucking wanted; I was alone, truly alone. I took them for granted - most of all, I took her for granted. And I wasted it all. They died without knowing how much I appreciated their friendship; Dew Drops died, with so much love to give. And my selfish, ignorant self, deserved not a single second of it.

Days ago, I thought that I had buried them, even if there had been nothing to bury. But they still haunted my thoughts and my made up reality, their dying screams and their last words still fresh in my mind. They'd been torn from me, leaving wounds that I'd tried stitching shut; I tried compartmentalizing them away, slaving onward to finish our mission, but it was too hard to keep them closed forever. Now, they were open, and I was bleeding out.

I shook my head in hysterical denial, shaking away the tears that welled out of my bloodshot eyes. I looked upon my family picture, saw my mother's face and thought: would she be proud of me if she looked at me now?

Would she be proud of me if she'd known the things I've had to do to get this far? The ponies I've killed? All those snow furies I cut down without even a single thought? All the friends I've lost … what if she knew that I wasn't strong enough to save them? That I wasn't strong enough to save the mare that I loved?

I dropped their pictures into my bags and curled up on the rooftop, burying my muzzle in Dew Drops' scarf.

That dream I had of her… it felt so real. Her coat, her flesh, the taste of her tongue – it felt. So. Real. That awakening, that rude pervasion of reality into my weary imagination was a rude and startling one. It had stolen her away from me, and I'd chased after her, forelegs outstretched. And now that I had her back … now that I had them back … the only things I had left of them all … I was still empty inside.

I could wear a straight face and gun down all the ponies I wanted; I could keep putting my thoughts aside and continue focusing on finishing what they'd started, but nothing could ever hide the anguish in my eyes and in my soul. There was a void in my heart that they left behind.

The mare of my life was dead.

All of this… all of this was too much, too much for me to handle. I was so close, but without my friends, without the ponies I loved, I was nothing.

With nopony to comfort me, nopony to stand me up on my hooves, I was nothing. I was only one. But I had none. I was cold, alone, and tired. Anger – anger at myself for being so weak, for being such a little bitch - welled up inside of me like a geyser as I laid there, the traumas of watching my friends die and my entire journey up to this point spilling out of my eyes in tears that felt like they would never end.

I reviled almost everything that surrounded me. This wasteland, the snow, this city, the ponies that lived in it, the snow, the monsters outside, oh - and the fucking Goddesses damned snow! I sobbed, my eyes heavy and swollen from too many tears.

There comes a point when you run out of tears to shed. I'd reached that point now, and I wasn't sure if I could keep going like this.

I rolled onto my back and stared up into the dark skies, too tired to weep. In silence, with only the wind and the distant Ponevan ambience whispering in my ears, I watched the amorphous masses that hung above the frozen earth, and for a brief moment, I thought I saw a light.

A small dot, a hole, opened up in the sky, and out poured a weak beam of yellow light that encapsulated me in its radiance. Even though I've never seen it before in person until now, I knew exactly what it was. It was unlike the orange artificial glow that washed over me; it was pure unadulterated sunlight.

And just like that, it was gone, as fast as it had come. If I was right, the sun was still there – just behind the cloud layer. It was somewhat comforting, knowing that it was still there; that even when the darkness fell upon this earth, the sun was still there behind the clouds, waiting … waiting. Even in this nightmare, it was still there. It had persisted through the apocalypse as ponies and zebras slaughtered each other; it had watched as the world it had stood guard over smoldered in the ashes ponykind had wrought; it had witnessed the survivors of our ancestors' wars devolved into monsters – and yet it still remained.

It hadn't turned away from us in shame. If it was still there, that meant that it still had hope for the creatures that mewled within this broken cradle of a planet. If the Goddesses were really out there, they still had hope, raising the sun and lowering it even as their children sinned and made war, and not love. They still had hope for us. Hope.

My simple act of kindness, giving what little I had to a pony that had wronged me made me realize that … perhaps that is why the sky had opened for that brief moment. It had opened to remind me that my actions, everything I've done, and everything I will do, will be judged. And I'd done something right.

I thanked the Goddesses for their kindness … thanked them for not losing hope in us … in me. I wanted to think that they knew that I only meant the best, that my means always justified the ends. In no way was I a good pony. I wasn't sure, but maybe I was a bad one. But I was certain that I wasn't perfect.

I hoped they knew that I'd do anything to save the ponies I loved, and that that was enough. But … e-even if it wasn't enough … knowing that they were still up there, raising and setting the sun and the moon, I was comforted by the fact that even though I wasn't a perfect pony worth hoping for, there'd be one out there to set things right.

A Lightbringer. Somepony to bring light into this dark age. I read once in a silly foal's book, that the night was always darkest before dawn. It was clichéd, I know, but the darkness around me meant something, I just knew it – and it was pretty fucking dark. That beam in the sky reminded me that a Lightbringer was still possible. Whoever he or she was, this pony would make it right. For the Goddesses … for our sake.

My head rolled across my shoulder and onto the chilling sheet metal, my darkened visage turning into the light to illuminate my half-closed eyes with a ponymade glow. I rolled onto my chest and gazed up at the skyscrapers that towered over me, casting their beams of multicoloured light onto the necropolis below.

Since I came up here, I'd never taken the time to absorb my surroundings. I was so focused on getting my bags back, that I'd never noticed what had been staring at me in front of my face this entire time. The closest skyscraper, glaring me with its orange radiance, caught my eye. And so did the immense neon letters that hung from its titanic, concrete edifice.

World Tree Company.

I had no idea what the World Tree Company was, but it seemed important. Probably was, given how it was built into one of the few lit skyscrapers along Poneva's broken skyline. But below it I read, in disbelief, blinking my eyes furiously as I believed that they were deceiving me, again. I recognized that name. I'd seen it stenciled onto too many things to count in my Stable. It glowed dimmer than the letters above it; it had that refurbished – I just recently fixed it sort of look to it.

Stable-Tec.

I stood to my hooves, the skyscraper's lights painting my shadow across the rooftops, my mane, my tail, and Dew Drops' scarf billowing behind me. I wiped a hoof across my face, and sniffled.

I never really believed in hope. All my life I simply did things and waited for the consequences or the results. Now, I knew, that all the hope that my friends had held in their hearts had culminated to this.

The chase had led me here, and, I, with my forelegs outstretched, had chased after her, the memory of the mare I'd loved. Dew Drops had led me here personally. All this time, I'd never been alone.

Dew Drops was always right. She was smarter than I, and even in death, she still knew better even when I was convinced she didn't and that she was just being naïve.

Dew Drops was right. We would find a way ... together.

And we found it.

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To be continued in Part II ...