Chapter 8

The Out-and-Out

"I found out the hard way that the closest thing to being cared for was to care for somepony else."

"You couldn't save me."

She glared through me, my muddled reflection glistening in her dilated grays. Her words bled me out more than the bullet holes across my chest. I lay at her hooves, leaking frozen crimson across the snow, the wind howling through my ears as a blizzard threatened to consume us both.

"YOU COULDN'T SAVE ME!" She shrieked over the wailing snowstorm.

I held out a hoof to her but she batted it away. "I'm sorry … DD … I …"

"Failed. You sorry little fuck up … you failed us all. You ran … I saw you run. You let us all die."

"Dew Drops …"

"YOU LET US ALL DIE!"

The blood drained from my face. "DD … wh-why? Why're you saying those things … I tried, please …"

The blue mare craned her neck to the bloodied, shivering form at her hooves.

"Just like how you tried helping those slaves. Or how you just stood there and let those zebras die."

I froze, my heart skipping a beat as her words began to sink in, driving into my soul like a frigid blade forcing its way slowly through my chest. I could do nothing as the agonized screams of zebras, ponies – my friends – coalesced into Dew Drops' gravelly voice.

"Well, you didn't try hard enough." She stared into the dazed, shell shocked windows to my bleeding soul. "Is that how much you care? Is that how much you care about me? To just leave me there, and let those furies take me?" Her voice bit deep like a bed of needles pressing against my flesh.

I shook my head as if my life depended on it. "N-no – please, it's not like that … I … I … I didn't …"

My words cut out with a shallow gasp as I felt her cold breath against my neck. I could smell the stench of spilled innards and rotting death about her.

The dead mare whispered into my ear, "You're a coward. A worthless coward."

"I'm sorry … Dew Drops … I'm so sorry," I sobbed. "If I could do it again … if I could just turn the hands of time I'd … I'd …"

"Fail. Again." She reared on her hinds and dropped her hooves onto my face. I cried out weakly, as they slammed into my muzzle – "Again! AGAIN! AND AGAIN!" Rivulets of fresh scarlet poured out of my nose and from a gash on my forehead, freezing against my shivering flesh and staining my coat black.

Rising to my hooves, I uttered a raspy breath before collapsing pathetically into the bloodied snow beneath me. My half-closed eyes pleaded with the corpse that hung over me. "Dew Drops … why … why are you doing this to me … ? This isn't like you … stop … please … I … I love you …"

She levitated an icy, warped machete, suspending the blade over my shivering form.

No - my eyes widened to weeping saucers, grievous tears freezing along my cheeks as I sobbed, begging her – pleading with her. I lifted a trembling hoof in supplication, sobs escaping my lips in shallow, dying gasps.

She lifted the blade higher.

"Dew Drops – please – don't do this … I-I lov-"

"No. You failed. You couldn't even save the ponies you cared about. You couldn't save me." She held the dull weapon over her head, gazing down at me with her chilling grays. "You can't save anypony. Not even our stable." The grin she wore on her ghastly, corpulent face squeezed the air from my lungs.

Even smiling, her dead eyes showed not even the slightest hint of amusement. Where once there were eyes that regarded me with affection, were now dark, souless sockets that ran with rivulets of black blood. "Heh …" She chuckled. "You can't even save yourself."

And she ran the blade across my shoulders.

"NO!" I flung my hooves in front of me, gasping for my breath, sweat freezing against my forehead. As my mind convulsed in hysteria, I slowly realized that I was still curled up beneath the corrugated shelter that stretched over me.

Three stories above the city below, I watched the snowflakes seethe past me from the crack between the warped wooden boards in front of the shelter's crawl-in entrance.

Still shaking, I gathered my bags to me and hugged them close, nuzzling Dew Drops' scarf.

Tears welled up in my half-closed eyes as I tried to still my trembling body.

Minutes passed, my drawn out exhales barely visible in the lightlessness of my shelter. Every setback was a fuck up in my book. Every pony … every zebra I've been helpless to save so far was a fuck up. I didn't want Candy Cane to be another bullet on the list.

---

My muzzle, a barely perceptible outline behind a veil of darkness, tipped slightly as I saw a pony leave the brothel. A stallion.

If he touched Candy Cane in any sort of way I swore to the Goddesses that I'd remember him and that I'd find him. Not too far from the Sultry Scullion I lied in wait. For nearly four hours I had been here, crunching on an apple or two as I watched ponies leave and enter the brothel.

I hid amongst the remains of a collapsed building, wedged deep between its rubble like just another chunk of debris. I shifted a little bit, stretching my hind legs slightly.

Another hour passed by, and the stream of ponies dwindled until nopony entered or left at all. Only a changing of the guard. For the past five hours, the bowler caps changed every hour, by the hour. I switched on my pipbuck's light, smothering the glow with my left hoof.

Glancing at the screen, the clock told me it was 0100. My eyes darted to the entrance. A thin stallion shooed away Big Dumb and Stupid as he leaned against the front doors, lighting a cigarette. I watched as the large stallion walked back inside.

There were six guards. For the past several hours, I had seen only six different ponies guard that door. This was a good sign.

I wanted to remain here for another hour and see who they'd swap out this time, but Goddesses, my legs were aching. It was as if they were about to atrophy into useless vestigial limbs. But my own pain was the least of my worries.

Candy Cane. Not a minute had passed where she hadn't crossed my mind. I didn't want to imagine the things they were doing to her in there … or the things that she been forced to do within the confines of that filthy place. My jaw clenched as I let my chin rest against the frozen concrete beneath me.

I exhaled softly. Some intangible thing about her bothered me. And the more I thought about it, the more horrifyingly absorbed in it I became. Steel gray. Her eyes were the color of frozen steel. It sent shivers down my spine as I remembered vividly the last I saw I saw those eyes. They weren't the first pair of teary grays that had widened at me in desperation.

When I first met her gaze ... I thought I saw a ghost staring back at me.

I rubbed my face with a hooffull of chilling powder, jolting me from my state of reflection. A subtle stream of mist exhaled out my nostrils. I had enough of sitting around.

My muzzle broke the stagnant pool of darkness that had settled over me. I stuck to the shadows, gliding my side across the cold pockmarked wall as I ran against the edge of a fallen office building. I stalked the perimeter of the brothel, out of sight and as quiet as a radroach.

I couldn't sneak through the front door without getting discovered. Right now, I was biding my time in hopes I'd find another way inside. The flesh on my face prickled as I bounded past a burning trashcan, my shadow dancing against the walls around me in the firelight.

I neared a small, empty lot behind the brothel, fenced off and lit with burning trashcans. As I approached, I glanced at my pipbuck, keeping track of the blips that blinked on my EFS. Seven more inside. Several dozen more outside, somewhere in another building or milling about in the snow. But for now, I was alone as I approached the empty lot.

My EFS blinked as something began trotting my way.

I stopped in my tracks and ducked behind an overturned dumpster as a stallion, one of Grifter's henchponies, trotted by. Curled against his body with one of his hooves was a bag of garbage. He walked past my huddled form, yawning as he stood on his hinds and attempted to dump it into an open dumpster a few feet away from me.

The bag slipped from his hooves and fell to the snow, scattering an assortment of garbage across the powder.

"Blech …" he sneered , hoofing a used condom off his chest as he gathered the trash and used toys into his hooves and tossed them into the dumpster.

The stallion picked up one half of a purple … dildo … rolling it around in his hooves.

"How the fuck do you break one of these things?" He muttered, tossing the shattered toy into the trash. Rolling my eyes, I thought about my chances – maybe I could sneak past him while his back was turned. He stood a few feet away from me, gawking at the plethora of erotic treasures. I eyed the machine pistol slung around his neck.

No, I didn't want to risk getting caught. I thought for a moment. Well, I could just kill him. I blinked. What the hell was that, and why did my brain just suggest that as if it was an okay thing to do? I bit my lower lip as he began to whistle a tune that was lost beneath my pounding temples.

I pressed my back harder against the wall. Closing my eyes, I waited for his hoofsteps to disappear. The sound of a gate closing and a door slamming followed seconds afterwards.

Breaking from my cover, I followed his tracks, my shadow cast against the metal panels that formed a fence outside the brothel's backdoor. I came to the gate and found that there wasn't a knob, a latch, or anything to open it with. Frowning, I pressed my forehooves against it and pushed.

Rattling, the door didn't budge one bit.

"Son of a …" I glanced over my shoulder, squinting through the glares of the burning trashcans; the coast was still clear.

The gate must've been locked from the other side. There had to be another way. Searching the fence's perimeter, I found everything short of a way inside. I tried climbing over the fence, but barbed wire and broken glass blocked my path.

Back again at square one, I tried heaving the gate open again.

"Come on…" I murmured, trying to force it open with my hind legs. Sucking in a breath of air, I heaved. And again. And again. The thing simply wouldn't yield.

Out of breath and frustrated, I slid to my rump and leaned against the door. I checked my pipbuck, bringing my right leg to my face. Another hoof came to toggle the device's brightness, but something else reflected against its glossy screen. Flashing in my eyes, I turned to my left and found that a shaft of light was glimmering through a small crack in the corrugated panels that rose up around me.

I rose to my hooves and squinted at the crack in the wall, about two inches in length and an inch in breadth. My right pupil dilated as I brought an eye to the hole, the darkness beneath my right brow giving way to light. Peering through a layer of rusty chicken wire, I saw, on the other side, the brothel's backdoor, lit by a flickering gas lamp that reflected brightly in the mirrors of my eyes.

I shifted my gaze and saw to my left the latch that opened the gate from the inside. Maybe I could … no, even if I snipped open the chicken wire, I didn't have six foot long legs to reach into it with to pull the latch open. Besides, I was a thin pony, but I wasn't pencil thin.

If only I had my magic, I could grip the latch and open it from the other side. I snapped my eyes to my bags. I lowered myself to the snow and opened my satchel bags. Beneath a hooffull of apples and a few health potions, I found a peculiar bottle of sparkling purple liquid resting at the bottom of my bags.

Sparkling … sparkling … sparkling …

I lifted the vial of Sparkle to my muzzle, narrowing my eyes at the drug as I sloshed it around inside its bottle. If it wasn't for the faint violet glow I might've mistook it for a sample of some lab-borne energy drink from back home, or a bottle of grape juice if I've ever seen one.

It certainly looked … tasty. I peered into the hole above me and watched as the slender stallion poked his head out the door. Diving back into the darkness, he shut me out from the light as the gas lamp went dark. Holding the bottle of sparkle close to my chest, I gulped.

I had no idea what terrible side effects this drug carried with it. But I knew one thing: I needed to get through that damn gate. If I had to spontaneously mutate and grow a fifth leg, then that's what it took.

With an audible pop, I pulled off its cork and emptied its contents into my mouth, swallowing it hesitantly. I sat down and waited, a fruity aftertaste lingering upon my tongue. Seconds passed, and I crossed my eyes up at my horn – rendered nothing but a vestigial growth several days ago. I waited for a shimmer, an arc of electricity – something.

Nothing.

"What the hell!?" I hissed, running my hooves through my mane.

I shook my head vigorously, and looked up dizzily at my horn. Nope.

Growling in frustration, I stamped a hoof in the snow.

Lightning arced through my veins. Something erupted inside of me like a spark battery going haywire. A jolt of electricity surged through me, shocking me from the inside out, every nerve ending in my body engulfed – drowned beneath a sea of burning lava.

I shut my eyes, my body felt like my innards were being squished and condensed into a ball. I hissed through clenched teeth, the lines of my painful grimace glowing in the firelight as I fought an inferno inside of me. My hooves dug trenches into the snow as I dry-heaved into the pale, writhing where I laid.

Then my vision flashed white.

My eyelids flew open and a chunk of snow tore itself out of the drifts, enwreathed within my magical grip. I blinked, and the snowball flung itself away from me and into the darkness. Far away, I heard glass breaking and somepony scream.

"Well … fff …" I trailed off, a wide grin stretching across my face.

I rose to my hooves and peered through the chicken-wired crack in the wall, squinting my eyes into the darkness. I could see the latch. For unicorns, that's all it took.

Sparks of magic arced across my horn as it gave off a crimson glow. Clack.

The gate swung open. Back in the game, I thought, as I drew my pistol without raising a single hoof. With my weapon hovering close to me, I shut the gate and trotted to the backdoor, testing the door knob.

Without further difficulties, the door yielded to my magical grip and parted. Closing it behind me, I slunk inside and into a narrow, dirty corridor. I wrinkled my nose at the scent of cigarette smoke, sweat, and a long, rough night.

The brothel was dimly lit. A hooffull of flickering light bulbs overhead vomited ruddy beams of yellow light onto my chilled flesh. Creeping through the hall, I noticed that the walls were plastered with posters of scantily-clad mares in very compromising positions.

One poster showed a mare inserting a … Goddesses … I didn't know ponies could put things in that hole. The poster said, in huge, bold print, 'PLOT DEVICE; at the bottom, it screamed, 'WATCH FOR THE PLOT!'

I pursed my lips and tried not to look as I began to sense a warm sensation between my legs. This place was filthy, abominable, and terrifyingly uncomfortable. Pornographic material was unheard of at '91.

I followed the corridor further into the brothel and found myself behind a stage, curtains and all. Long metal poles stretched up and into the ceiling. Strobe lights lined the floor and above stage, hanging from the rafters.

I poked my head through the curtains and out into the room beyond, spotting a few dozen tables, benches, and a bar stocked with bottles of colorful drinks at the other end of the room. In the flickering rainbow glow of neon lights, the two ponies that I had never seen before were lounging at the bar, pouring each other drinks and slurring drunkenly.

I counted four ponies so far. The stupid one, the slender one, a stallion, and the two drunk ones. That left the mare uncounted for.

The sound of a scuffle and boisterous giggling caught my attention as I turned in the direction of its origin. I flipped my pistol's safety off.

Down the hall to my left were the private rooms where countless lecherous deeds beyond my virgin imagination may have been committed. Or being committed, rather. I crept down the hall, my coat a jet black in the ruddy light as I hugged the wall as close as I could. Of the twelve rooms, one had its door parted slightly – wide enough for me to see what was happening inside.

The Palomino mare moaned with carnal pleasure, her back arced and her crimson cheeks raised delightfully to the ceiling as the stallion I had seen outside ploughed into her from behind.

The disgusting, squelching smacks of slick, bare flesh on slick, bare flesh made me cringe. "Oh fuck! Ngh – AH! YES – OH FUCK – OHSHITFUCKGODDESSES – YES!" she screamed, her voice wavering with every stroke.

I shut my eyes, throwing my gaze away as suddenly as I had peered inside. I felt dirty, and filthy, and unclean. Now with my cheeks reddening, I cursed my male biology as the mare's lusty squeals echoed through my ears.

I've never known anything like this. I've known love, but never a 'good fuck'.

I needed to leave this Goddesses-forsaken place.

Shaking my head vigorously, and spiting the Palominos under my breath, I left the hall of private rooms. I avoided the light, stalking the darkness at every twist and turn as I tried to tune out the animalistic yelping that echoed behind me.

I came upon room after room, each empty. More private fuck havens, I assumed, as I checked door after door. But at the end of this hall, I found a door that led into a different section of the brothel.

More rooms. I trotted up to each, reading the names that had been stenciled upon each door. Stellar. Buns. Glimmer. Iris.

I pressed an ear up to one, and I heard somepony snoring softly on the other side. This must've been the dormitories where the slaves slept. It surprised me somewhat; in this part of the brothel, it was slightly warmer than outside in the halls or out on the stage.

They had a roof over their heads, and a bed to sleep on, and a warm place to escape the blizzard. I remembered what that one mangy pony had said when I was being hauled to Poneva in chains, not too long ago.

They're going to put us to work and work us to death.

That ain't true. I heard they feed you and put a roof over your head …

I considered for a moment that maybe he was right. Maybe a life in here, sheltered from the unforgiving elements and the destitute slums, was truly a life better than a life outside.

No. I was adamant that no pleasure, no comfort, not even safety was worth the sacrifice of one's freedom. Especially if you were one of the dozen mares who worked in this abominable place. Their life was one taken advantage of by the hedonistic and the lustful.

They had a bed to sleep on, and a warm place to escape the blizzard, and armed ponies guarding them from the outside. But at what cost? Their dignity. Their bodies. Their freedom.

My blood began to boil as I listened to Iris's breaths. I wanted to see this place burn – Its unclean, filthy walls burned to the ground, incinerated, and purged from the face of the planet.

No longer wary of my hoofsteps, I trotted from one end of the hall to the next, searching for Candy Cane's name. Then I found her. Or her room, at least. Eyeing the name, 'Cane', stenciled upon the door, I pressed my ear against it and listened, carefully.

Nothing. She wasn't inside. Where else in the world could she be?

Lying in a ditch with a hole in her head. Or without a head at all, her collar detonated.

No. No, they wouldn't do that. I hoped they didn't do that … I hoped to the Goddesses that I wasn't too late. I gulped down the dreadful taste of another disappointing failure lingering upon my tongue. With sweat beginning to bead on my forehead, I thought for a moment, switching my pistol's safety on and off as the seconds ticked by.

I decided I'd continue exploring the brothel, navigating its halls as I left the dormitories behind me. Pushing the door closed, I broke the veil of chained comfort, the unforgettable wasteland chill returning to caress my flesh. It was colder here.

Trotting down the dim corridor, I saw that there were two doors, one to my right, and another at the other end of the hall. The slit beneath the door to my right glowed with a dim light. A shadow passed over it for a second as somepony milled about inside.

I ducked into the shadows instinctively, holding my breath. But nopony came trotting outside. Exhaling thankfully, I hugged the wall, peering around the corner once more. It was me, my gun, and the darkness.

As always.

I slunk to the right and leaned against the door's frame, listening to whomever was moving around inside.

"- 435, 436, 437." There was a short pause. "Uhh... uhh... Fuck! Lost count," I heard a stallion mumble. I heard Grifter mumble. My expression went from bothered, to infuriated, as I played with my pistol's safety.

Off. On. Off. On. Off. On … I sighed. Off.

Not yet. I glanced over my shoulder and trotted to the door at the end of the hall. Pressing my ear against the door, I listened. Nothing. I wrapped a magical field around the door's knob, and turned it slowly. It clicked, and I pulled it open.

The chamber was pitch-black; I couldn't see an inch in front of me, and the freezing touch of the northern air was rampant in this glacial place. I might as well have been standing outside, because I was shivering even beneath my security barding and my peacoat.

Glancing around, I saw to my right, a barred, yet open window that welcomed in the wintry squalls like esteemed guests, who blew into the room without hindrance. In the darkness, I could faintly make out what looked to be metal bars.

Then I heard somepony sniffle.

My pipbuck's flashlight beamed a shaft of light before me, and a maroon mare held a hoof to her face to shield herself from the glare.

"Candy Cane?" I breathed, trotting up to the bars between us.

She squinted through the light. "Red … Dawn?" The mare's eyes widened and her mouth opened to speak, but her words were lost upon her lips. She ran a hoof through her curly mane, blinking her eyes vigorously as if I were some kind of hallucination conjured up by her helpless, desperate state.

"I … you … you came back," she whispered, barely loud enough for me to hear. "You came back for me … I thought you …"

"Left you behind? No. I promised you I'd bust you out – for good," I told the shivering mare. "What are you doing in this room?"

She smiled weakly. "I was thinking about asking you the same thing," Candy Cane said, through chattering teeth.

I panned my foreleg across the room, and saw only cold, bare tile and steel bars. Glaring at the frozen concrete that surrounded us, I concluded, balefully, that this was her punishment for escaping: to sit in a frozen, bare chamber, exposed to the elements with nothing but the clothes on her back.

"I'm getting you out of here, Candy Cane," I vowed, suddenly, trotting up to her lonely cell.

A moment passed as she sat there freezing to death, her pale, miserable flesh shivering beneath her frost encrusted coat as if she was going to bore a hole into the floor. I really wanted to hug her.

I stared at my hooves, and whispered, somberly, "I'm sorry I couldn't do it earlier … if I had enough bullets … I would've -"

"It's fine. You're here now, that's all that matters. I wouldn't want anypony throwing their life away for me." Candy Cane wrapped her hooves around the cold steel bars between us. "It … it means a lot to me," she said, looking me in the eye as she smiled faintly. The mare pursed her lips, crinkling her brows. "How, exactly are you going to get me out of here?"

I thought for a moment, frowning.

"I didn't think I'd actually get this far …" I confessed, scratching my mane.

Candy Cane's expression turned sour. She tapped her chin, before her eyes darted to mine as she pointed at my bags. "Do you have a screwdriver? Any manepins? Anything thin or pointy I can use?"

I stared at her for a moment, confused as to why she'd ask me that. What could she possibly need a screwdriver for - then it occurred to me. I remembered her picking locks at the factory earlier. My eyes darted to scrutinize the lock on the cell's door.

She wanted to pick it.

Nodding quickly, I levitated out everything I had carried with me since I left '91. The first thing I yanked out was a screwdriver. I'm an engineer, of course I have a screwdriver … as for the other thing ... I rifled through my tools. Screws, bolts, lug-nuts, wires, a soldering iron, several types wrenches and screwdrivers, pliers -

My hooves came away, empty. I fixed an agitated glare at the lock as I sat there with a screwdriver floating before me.

I got nothing.

She caught the consternation in my eyes and bit her lower lip, thinking. Candy Cane's head swung in every direction, searchingly. Then something caught her eye. Lifting a hoof, she jutted at a cabinet at the furthest corner of the chamber. "There ... pry a nail out of it, I have an idea."

Cocking an eyebrow, I did as she asked, hurrying upon my hooves. Studying the poorly built cabinet - an amalgamation of charred wood and scavenged materials - I sighted a rusty nail head and stabbed at it with my screwdriver.

I struggled for a moment, trying to get the tool's head beneath the nail's. Prying for purchase, I forced the nail out of the wood a little less than half an inch. This thing was buried deep. My levitation magic wasn't strong enough to tear it off outright.

I eyed it hesitantly; this was a tetanus shot waiting to happen. I leaned forward and clenched the rusty finishing nail with my teeth. Wrenching my head back, I ripped it out of the cabinet with a plume of splinters and shattered wood.

Spitting out the rusted sliver of metal, I hurried back to Candy Cane's cell and levitated to her both the screwdriver and the nail. And I watched the mare get to work.

Her eyes lit up with renewed hope as Candy Cane bent the nail's tip into a rough, L shape, like some kind of dentist's tool. The mare was certainly in her element.

She poked her muzzle between the bars and floated out the makeshift torque wrench, working it into the lock as she turned it carefully with the screwdriver curled in her hoof.

Clank.

I watched her with amazement as the bars swung open, a thin smirk stretching across her pale lips. Impressive.

Suppressing a triumphant chuckle, she floated to me my screwdriver, tucking the nail inside her mane. She stared at me for a moment, her eyes tearing. "I-I really didn't think you'd come back for me."

I said nothing as I drew my pistol, checking the rounds in its magazine. I turned my gaze and saw her still gazing expectantly at me, sniffling as she shivered on her hooves. Her smile faded away as she rubbed at her bloodshot eyes.

"Now … now what?" Candy Cane asked faintly.

I shrugged off my peacoat and wrapped it around her. Her eyes widened, surprised as I buttoned it across her chest.

"Thank you ..."

"Don't thank me yet." I started towards the door, "We still need to deal with Grifter."

I noticed that she hadn't moved an inch as I approached the door.

"What are you doing?"

"Why … why me?" I heard her ask.

I fixed my gaze upon the doorknob.

"I can't save them all."

She cocked her head at me. "You didn't answer my question."

"We can't waste any time standing around …" I began, pressing my ear against the door to listen for movement outside. Nothing. I sighed, as she remained outside her cell.

There was an uneasy silence between us. I wanted to answer her, but I honestly didn't know why I was here. Why I was risking my life to save this pony.

Maybe it was because I wanted to spite Grifter for what he did. Maybe it was because I wanted to spell out a big 'fuck you' to the Palominos. Maybe it was because it was the right thing to do.

When I came here, I would've traded the entire wasteland for the lives of my friends, the ponies I truly cared about and loved. I still would. But the world doesn't work like that.

Steam Sprocket's voice echoed in my thoughts. The closest thing to being cared for was to care for somepony else.

But why? Why did I care? Why did I care if this pony was free or not? I grinded my teeth, frustrated with myself and at her for standing there.

"I don't know," I replied, finally. "I don't know."

"I'm not the only mare here …" she trailed off.

I sighed restlessly, twirling my pistol in the air.

"Candy Cane, believe me, I'm aware."

"There are others who've suffered here longer than I." Candy Cane sniffled, hanging her head. "I don't deserve this."

I glared at her, irritated.

"You don't have a choice … I don't. Save yourself or nopony at all," I hissed over my shoulder before glancing at my EFS.

The mare nodded, her curly mane falling over one of her eyes. "I wish I could take the others with me," she whispered, somberly.

Visions of Dew Drops cutting me down with a machete flashed before my eyes. I shook them away, vigorously, growling, "What's the point in thinking about saving them if you can't even save yourself?"

Candy Cane bowed her head, injured by my words.

I sighed, softly, turning back.

"They're your friends, aren't they?"

"The only friends I know," She whispered.

"Well you can't save them if you're still in chains." She shook her head, silently, not wanting to accept what I was telling her.

"Candy Cane?"

Silence.

"Candy Cane …" I curled a hoof around her shoulder, squeezing her gently. "Listen, when you and four others are in separate cages, and only you have the tools to pick their locks, who do you free first?"

"The pony next to me," she replied, instantly.

I snorted, chuckling wryly.

"You'll reach through your bars and into theirs and pick their lock?"

The mare shut her eyes and bit her lower lip, shaking her head. Candy Cane thought for a moment, her brows furrowing.

"Fucking damnit … I'd … I'd free my ... myself," she murmured. "I would need to pick my own lock before I could get to the others."

I beamed. "Exactly."

The mare stared at her hooves, murmuring to herself in denial.

"Hey … listen," I began. I was giving her another chance at life – like Night Sky did to me. And there was no way in hell that I'd let her waste it … not even for the others. "We're running out of time, here. Why don't you think about freeing them too when you have the power to actually do that?"

Candy Cane sighed.

"You're right." She lifted her head, parting her mane with a hoof. A spark of determination ignited behind her eyes. "I will," she said, with renewed vigor.

I started towards the door once more. "We need that detonator, or else all of this is just a waste of time."

She followed closely without saying another word as we left the chamber. Checking my EFS, I found that nopony had left their rooms. I checked and rechecked my pistol as we stacked on either side of Grifter's door.

"What's the plan?" she whispered.

"I'll pull my gun on him; make him give me the detonator."

Candy Cane nodded, uneasily. "What happens after that?"

"Then we run," I replied as terse as possible.

She smirked as if I had just made a dumb joke.

"They'll be on us as soon as the first shot's fired."

I rolled my eyes. "Then we run faster?" She looked at me, her eyebrow raised. "Well, you got a better plan?"

Candy Cane nodded, "This building wasn't a brothel before the war," she began. "It was a motel. There's a patio right outside Grifter's office. It's our safest bet."

"Alright, let's do this."

I turned the doorknob. It swung open with a drawling creak.

Grifter was sitting at a desk, counting caps as we stepped inside.

He looked up, frowning.

The stallion saw me first. "What the fuck are you doing here!?" he exclaimed, startled. Then his eyes darted to Candy Cane, and he narrowed them at me. "What're you doing with her?"

I nodded at Candy Cane as she closed the door behind us and locked it. She levitated the door's security bar into place with a clank.

"Give me the detonator, and we'll go quietly," I demanded, my horn glowing with a crimson sheen as I held the gun on him.

"The detonator …" he trailed off, tapping his hooves together as he stared off into space.

I snapped. "Don't play dumb, Grifter, you conniving son of a bitch. I know you have one for her collar."

He sniggered, "Why? Whaddya want with the girl?"

"It doesn't matter to you."

"You're with East Eden aren't you?" He asked, to which I didn't answer. "Hmm … you're not a Blood Brother. Too competent. But you are stupid." Grifter sighed, straightening his back as he sat on his stool. "You must be a Novaran, then, right? You gotta mix of stupid and competent," he added, shimmying his forehooves.

"I'm the pony with the fucking gun," I said, baring my teeth at the bastard.

"Heh, you really are a big balled palooka." He leaned over his desk, staring down the barrel of my pistol. "Do you know who you're fuckin' with?"

"Frankly, I don't give a shit."

"You fuck with me, then you fuck with the Palominos. You fuck with the Palominos, then you fuck with Avilign Crème. You fuck with Avilign Crème …" he chuckled to himself, nodding. "She'll fuck you bad, ya dig?"

I glanced at Candy Cane who was behind me, standing by the door.

"Unlike everypony else in this shithole of a city, I'm not afraid of you." I bared my teeth, my voice steady as I stared gunfire into his eyes. "And I'm not afraid of the Palominos."

Candy Cane was gawking at me with wide eyes.

Grifter laughed as if that was the most hilarious thing ever, banging his hooves on his desk. "You'renot afraid of the Palominos? Even I'm afraid of them – and I'm one of them!" He grinned at me menacingly. "You know you're gonna die, right? You're spellin' out your own death sentence, ya dig?"

"I'll fucking blow your brains out …" I said, my voice trembling. I didn't want to do it.

His eyes could see right through my guise.

"Hmm, this is about earlier, ain't it?" He nodded at Candy Cane. "That bitch wouldn't stop screaming about you after we brought her back. Had to lock her up to quiet her down."

I grinded my teeth together. "You lied to me."

He shrugged. "I never lied – she did mug Daintybelle, ya know? I only told you what you neededto know."

"Give me the fucking detonator!" I screamed.

The stallion folded his legs across his chest, cocking his head at Candy Cane. "No, no, no. How about you tell me what the fuck you want with that whore?"

"I'm breaking that pony out of this fuckhouse."

He tapped his chin, thinking. "If you ain't a Blood Brother, a Novaran, or with the EEC …" he clapped his hooves together. "That's it! You probably got a taste of that fine broad! You wanna break her outta here so you can have her for yourself – ain't that right?"

My magical grip tightened, but I said nothing.

"Nah, you don't want her." Grifter barely suppressed another chuckle, resting his chin on a hoof. "You know they call her 'Candy Cunt'?" I glared at him, my horn's glowing red hue darkening. "You wanna know why?"

"Cus' her cunt's like a candy store – all the boys and girls want t'go inside."

Candy Cane's jaw clenched, shaking all over.

"You know how many stallions – no, mares she's slept with? You really want to help a filthy bitch like that?" He cocked his head at me, grinning. "You lay one hoof on that, and your leg'll practically melt off."

His voice slowly faded away, my temples roaring inside my eardrums as I scratched at my mane. Black paint muddled my thoughts as every sound in the room became nothing but muffled bass drops.

Somepony flipped a switch inside of me.

I lunged at him, dragging him over his desk before cracking my pistol across his skull. "Enough with the bullshit, Grifter, I'm done hearing you talk!" He yelped as I shoved him back into his chair, only for him to tip it over and crash into the hard, concrete floor.

He pulled himself to his hooves, leaning against the desk.

"Alright, alright, I'll hoof it to ya – hold your fuckin' horses! You coulda just asked nicely …"

Grifter reached into his desk, rubbing his head as he opened a drawer and held the small black tube in his hoof.

"Now hand it the fuck over," I snarled, jamming the pistol in his face.

He blinked. Then his horn glowed.

"What the fuck are you –"

Something heavy crashed into the back of my skull. Stars exploded in my eyes as shattered porcelain fell away from my mane. I fell forward, my eyes rolling to the back of my head, slamming my head onto his desk before collapsing to the floor in a heap.

"RED DAWN!" Candy Cane screamed.

Grifter flipped the switch.

Lightning arced across her body as she screamed in agony, thousands of volts of electricity shocking her into submission. The smell of singed flesh and burned hair pulled me back from my daze as I stood to my hooves, floating my gun to me.

But he was on in me in a matter of seconds.

A hoof connected with my horn as Grifter slammed my head back into the floor with a brutal thwak and darkness threatened to take me. My pistol clattered to the floor, a foot away from my writhing body.

He spat curses into deaf, ringing ears as he crashed his hooves onto my face, every strike sapping the clarity from my eyes. I saw through a lens of hellish crimson as blood streamed down my face and over my right eye. Blinded with violence, I threw out my legs in desperation - my right forehoof connecting with his throat. Grifter's eyes widened as he paused to let out a hacking cough.

Without a second to lose, I roared, threw myself over onto my chest and bucked him off me, launching him through a bookcase in an explosion of wooden shrapnel and tumbling books. Scrambling to my hooves, I collapsed once more in my daze, reaching out with a hoof to snatch my pistol off the floor. My horn glowed wearily, but Grifter swatted it away.

Somepony banged on the door.

"Hey boss, what the fuck's going on in there!?" I heard a mare shout over Candy Cane's shrieking.

Grifter stumbled to the door as I rolled around on the floor in pain, groaning.

"Some sorry mother fucker –"

"You son of a bitch – I'll KILL YOU!" I shrieked, and charged. His eyes widened as my horn punched through his flesh, my momentum ramming him into the wall by the door with a sickening crunch. Ripping out in a splash of gore, I hurtled into him before he could cry out in pain, tackling him to the floor in a shrieking frenzy.

His magical field flickered and died away, and the detonator rolled across the concrete.

Snarling, I swirled a magical field around the closest object I could find, and proceeded to pummel his face in with a dusty book. I found that I couldn't stop even as he held out his hooves and screamed for help - his voice drowned out by the ringing in my ears.

"We're coming in there, boss!" A stallion screamed behind the door as it began to rattle and buck.

"I'm not afraid of you – or your Palominos, you phony sack of shit!" I growled as blood streamed down my face.

I wanted to kill him. I wanted to make him pay. He was a slaver - a bad pony, and he needed to die.

Grinning through bloody teeth, I lifted the battered book for a final, skull-cracking slam, its pages soaked and coming apart. I didn't even give a single shit as the door's frame began to crack open.

Until I felt his knee find its way between my legs. I yelped, crying out Celestia's name as he lunged forward, running into me head on. He slammed me into a wall, an assortment of ornaments and debris spilling from his dusty surface to shatter against my skull.

The world was spinning around me as I blinked the blood out of my eyes and watched him, helplessly, as he levitated a knife to my throat. I felt him press its cold steel against my aching flesh.

He screamed into my face, blood spilling through his teeth.

"You're dead, you fucking mook, you're fucking dead!"

"HEY!"

We both turned and saw Candy Cane, her mane hanging in front her darkened visage, and my pistol and its magazine enveloped in a gray magical field.

She swept her mane out of her face, her cold, steel eyes gleaming with icy malice at the monster whose hooves had made her suffer for far too long.

"I'm not afraid of youeither …" I heard her slam its magazine back home with an audible click. "Not anymore."

He spat blood, laughing. "You wouldn't … you're just a fucking whore with a loud mouth." He reached into his pocket with a hoof. His eyes widened.

"Where is it …?"

Candy Cane floated out the detonator with a triumphant smirk. She leveled the pistol as Grifter swore under his breath.

Her eyes fluttered to meet mine, then glared through his.

"No. I'm the pony with the fucking gun."

Crack!

Grifter screamed, falling away from me as I slid down the wall.

"BOSS! WHAT THE FUCK!" Somepony screamed behind the door.

"Red Dawn!" Candy Cane yanked me to my hooves. "We need to run – now!"

As Grifter writhed on the floor in a growing pool of blood, I trampled him underhoof before swiping a sack of caps off his desk. But not before sparing him a passing glance.

"Why don't you finish him off?"

Candy Cane glared at the bleeding pony. "I shot him in the kidney." She stared at me and said no more as blood began to swell around my hooves.

The door exploded inward, the security bolt banging loudly against the floor.

"Shit! They fuckin' shot him!" The Palomino mare screamed as she dashed into the room, an assault rifle floating beside her.

Big Dumb and Stupid screamed through his mouthbit.

"KILL 'EM!"

"Now we run!" I cried out as tracers rained upon us. Candy Cane took my hoof and dragged me to the other side of the room, slamming open the patio door in her wake.

And out into a snowstorm we galloped.

Yellow muzzle flashes lit up the night as we galloped through the powder; the visibility through the streets had decayed to the point where I could see only a few dozen feet in front of me.

Their shouts were barely audible through the storm – but the sounds of bullets shrieking past us, cutting swaths through the air against the wind kept me on my hooves. I could feel them grazing my barding and kicking up snow before me.

"WHERE ARE WE GOING!?" I shouted over the gales that whipped past my face.

"Just follow me!"

"DON'T LET 'EM GET AWAY!" I heard a mare scream as the muffled, staccato bursts of automatic weapons fire echoed dully through the wind-swept streets. I threw my head over my shoulder, and saw that their muzzle flashes were not too far behind. It was impossible to aim through this weather. They were sending out rounds in our general direction in hopes that one would strike either of us.

They were spraying and I was praying.

But praying wasn't enough; my luck had run out.

Something tore into me.

Fire engulfed my insides as a rifle round punched a ragged hole through my flesh. My kevlar plates, barding, and flesh parted in its wake as lava erupted into my chest cavity. I curled up in reflex and crashed into the snow, sending up a plume of bloody powder.

I had never been shot in the chest before.

My screams left my lips and it seemed as if they would never stop coming. Neither would the blood. I cried out Candy Cane's name, but my voice was lost beneath the wind as she disappeared in the blizzard.

"Candy Cane!" I wheezed, faintly, blood streaming down my lip as I tried to rise to my hooves only for a bullet to spear through my leg in a burst of gore and torn fabric. I screamed. She was going to leave me behind. I lifted a hoof, trying to crawl away as bullets shredded the snow around me.

She was going to leave me behind.

I couldn't blame her. She was free. It was all that mattered.

Come on ... get up, I begged myself. I swept a foreleg across the snow as I tried to pull myself to my four hooves, only to paint the snow with an arc of crimson. I clenched my stomach with a gory hoof, hacking up blood onto the frozen earth. Get ... up ...

"Red Dawn - get up!"

I felt somepony yank me to my hooves. A maroon mare curled a hoof around my left foreleg and pulled me. Hard. I slung a leg over her shoulder as she dragged me through the drifts. Holding onto her likemy life depended on it, I trailing scarlet through the snow in our wake. My eyes darted back and forth, blurry, ruined buildings falling away from us as we raced down an abandoned street.

"Come on! Don't stop for anything!" A ghost screamed at me as black tunnels closed in around me. Snow furies cackled inro my ears as Lightning Twirl's screams dying away beneath the sounds of steel blades hacking away at pony flesh. Their haunting echoes drowned out the storm.

The only indication that the world that seethed past me was real were the dull, ruddy tracers that raced past us as the Palominos refused to let us escape with our lives.

"Dew Drops?" I said through a mouthful of blood.

"Almost there!" I heard her shout over the deafening winds.

I squinted through the shadows in my eyes, the echoes fading away, my face pale and my nerves shrieking at me with every throb of my pounding heart. The road fell away into the darkness twenty yards in front of us.

"W-where's the road!?" I wheezed, the leg that I had wrapped around her chest beginning to slip.

She didn't answer.

I felt a bullet clip my shoulder.

"Candy Cane!"

"There is no road! We're going to need to jump!"

Jump?

"I asked you this before – and I'll ask you again," I began weakly, as the end of the road drew near. "But … ARE YOU FUCKING CRAZY!?"

"Trust me – we'll be okay!" I heard her shout back.

"Candy Cane!"

"You have to trust me! I know this city like the back of my hoof!"

I glared through the snow that whipped past my face. Goddesses. No. Countless feet below us, I could see only darkness.

"CANDY CANE!"

"JUMP!" She screamed.

The road disappeared beneath our hooves and we tumbled into the howling darkness, the wind whipping past our faces as we hurtled into the abyss. Within mere seconds I felt my body I plunge deep into the drifts, my momentum driving me through the earth. My screams were smothered beneath the shifting black tides as I dive-bombed into a heap of powdery snow.

The powder that I had displaced filled the hole I had created, and I was lost in utter darkness. I dug with all the energy I had left, fighting to break the surface even as the snow vowed to bury me alive. My muscles were burning out, and every second I spent lucid was another second spent in agony as my warmth and my lifeblood leaked out of my chest.

If I didn't freeze or suffocate to death, I would certainly bleed to death.

My forehoof broke the surface. And another. With a gurgling groan, I pulled myself free and flopped onto the frozen, black dunes. Sighing weakly, I tapped my pipbuck once, and I bathed the snow around me in yellow light.

Candy Cane burst out of the pale next to me, gasping for breath. She scrambled to ungainly hooves and shook herself vigorously, showering me with snow.

"Where the fuck did they go?!" A voice echoed over the streets above us.

"Turn that light off!" Candy Cane hissed, flinging herself onto my right foreleg. I bit my tongue to suppress a painful yelp as she wrestled my leg into the drifts. I got shot in the chest and somepony blew out one of my hind legs – now you gotta break my foreleg?

My breaths came out as wheezing gasps as Candy Cane smothered out my pipbuck's light.

"They fuckin' jumped!" I heard the big stupid one exclaim with disbelief.

A thin smile creased my bloody lips. With my brain starved of oxygenated blood - blood that was pooling around me, I began to see stars as my vision blurred and blackened.

"Seriously? They insane?"

"Doesn't matter … they're dead." Somepony kicked a rock down into the darkness. I numbly felt it kick up a plume of snow next to me. "Ain't nobody coulda' survived that. Fuck 'em, anyways. Slippery bastards."

I'm dying. No really, I'm bleeding out, I wanted to say, as Candy Cane peered upwards.

"Candy … Candy Cane …" I gurgled, through a mouthful of blood.

She turned and her eyes widened.

"Red Dawn – you're bleeding!"

"Yeah … it's kinda what happens … when you get shot."

The mare rolled me over on my back and grimaced at the hole in my chest.

"Why the fuck didn't you say anything?" I felt her heave me onto my side.

"Too busy … trying ... to keep up," I wheezed.

She swore under her breath.

"No exit wound," she murmured gravely, chewing her bottom lip. Her eyes darted worriedly across my pale features. "I'll need to extract the bullet."
I slurred, in my fading consciousness. "Ex…extract? W-what?"

"Your bags –I need pliers, tweezers – scissors - something!" She dragged them out of the snow and began rifling through them. That wasn't my tool bag. Unable to speak through the blood that was filling my mouth, I reached out for my tools, parting its flaps as I levitated out a –

My head exploded from the inside out.

The horn atop my skull flashed with violent, magical sparks before going dark as a million stars went supernova behind the darkness of my eyelids.

I cried out, my eyes rolling to the back of my head and fell limp in the snow, dark crimson streaming out of every facial orifice.

"Red Dawn!" I heard Candy Cane scream, shaking me desperately.

It's called Sparkle. Makes yer magic stronger. Should boost you up good; might even bring your magic back for a bit …

For a bit. Burned out. Again. My body screamed for darkness to take it, because it felt like somepony was slowly driving a railspike into my skull.

"Red … to extract … bullet …" I heard a voice echo faintly in my state of decaying consciousness.

I blinked my eyes in an attempt to return to lucidity. But I felt something cold enter the hole in my chest, fishing around my innards, worming its way into my gut.

The last thing that I remembered was a muffled scream, its fading vibrations thrumming in my chest. Then darkness washed over me.

---

I gasped for breath as my eyes fluttered open to find a pony sitting beside me, her head hung above my chest. She opened her eyes and smiled, languidly, her thick, curly, candy cane mane billowing in the wind.

Her hooves held my right foreleg over my chest so that we both could share in the light of my pipbuck.

I regarded her with dull surprise. She had the detonator. She could've just disabled her collar and left me here.

"You're … you're still here," I sighed, blinking away the grogginess in my eyes to see her.

Her smile widened, wearily. "I thought I'd see you through."

I groaned, a dull pain pervading my hazy senses. My stomach felt … tight, as I tried to expand my lungs for air. I glanced down my gory chest and found that Dew Drops' scarf – bloodied and worn, was wrapped tightly around me.

My red eyes widened to saucers.

"I had to use your scarf to stop the bleeding. There was just so … much … blood. We're lucky you didn't bleed out on me," she told me, touching my chest gingerly.

DD's scarf … I brushed it with a hoof as gently I would with Dew Drops' mane.

"I'm sorry … I might've ruined your scarf."

I shook my head. "It's … it's fine," I lied. Damn, why was I worried more about that scarf than my own life? Because it was the only thing I had left to remember her by …

My head shook once more, with grim finality. It had stopped the bleeding. If Candy Cane saved my life, then Dew Drops certainly had a hoof in saving me as well. We had nothing but the clothes on our backs. She was an extremely resourceful mare … making a tourniquet out of the only article of clothing she could afford to remove without either of us freezing to death.

I hid the sullen look in my eyes as I asked, "What … what did you do to me?" I twitched my hind leg, eyeing the gaping hole that had been punched through my barding.

Candy Cane pointed at my stomach. "Punctured digestive tract. Severe hemoptysis and internal hemorrhaging inside your chest cavity. But you're lucky the bullet didn't strike any vital organs." She rubbed her gore encrusted hooves through the snow. "Had to dig a little bit to pull that thing out of you. I needed to extract it before I could administer any potions," she began, eyeing DD's blood soaked scarf. "I hope you don't mind … but I had to look through your bags for health potions. I didn't have any on me, otherwise. No magic could've healed around that bullet, either way." Candy Cane levitated out a frighteningly large, blood caked 5.56 round. The mare grinned as she held the copper prize in her magical grip. "Wanna keep it as a souvenir?"

I snorted out a jet of mist, vaguely amused as I let my head roll into the powder.

"Nah … I'm good." I guess Steam Sprocket was right about me needing those apples and potions after all. I lifted my head and cocked an eyebrow at her. "Where'd you learn to do all that?"

Candy Cane stared at the ashen snow for a moment. "It's certainly been a while, but I was a nurse before … all this."

My, she was a lock-picking rogue anda nurse?

"Thank you, so much," I breathed, weakly.

"I learned a lot from my father," she said, quietly. I could sense the funereal sentimentalism in her voice. She chuckled, "I guess you should thank him instead."

"I would if I met him."

The grin faded away from her face as she looked at me gravely, and then at the snow.

"Oh … I'm sorry."

"He taught me a thing or two about battlefield surgery." She began, as if I hadn't said anything. "I hope you don't get an infection, though. I had neither the means nor the time to sterilize your pliers before I could use them."

"It's fine … I'm alive … for now. That's all that matters," I intoned. I panned my eyes around me. The rooftops of ancient buildings poked out of the snow beneath us like broken headstones. We had fallen into a massive sinkhole, no doubt caused by the balefre bomb's quaking aftershocks. "How did you know we'd survive that fall?"

Candy Cane giggled, "I didn't."

I gawked at her. "W-what?"

"I didn't," she repeated with another amusingly triumphant smirk. It was like she actually enjoyed being in constant danger. "But I knew that in a storm like this, there'd be enough powder to break our fall." She stuck a hoof through the snow. "If you dig far enough … hmm, say ten-fifteen yards, you'll hit concrete. It's better than falling face first into solid stone, really."

"Uh huh," I muttered.

Regardless of our luck, she knew this wasteland better than I did, that was for sure.

"Glad I was right, though," She nodded to herself, hanging her head as she closed her eyes. Candy Cane looked about ready to collapse. She wasn't the only one. I don't think I've ever been skull-tapped that many times in a single day. Despite the ubiquitous pain boring into my skull, the dull throbbing inside my chest cavity, and the blurriness that dulled my sight whenever I moved too fast, I was somehow able to stand.

I remembered that I had lost a great deal of blood.

With stars in my eyes, I rose to my four hooves, crunching through the now unyielding snow drift. She heard my shuffling and turned her head to see me.

"What are you doing?" she asked as I reached for the detonator.

I squinted at it carefully, glancing at her before tapping a button on its surface. Her collar whined – and went dark, the pulsing red light on its shell fading to black.

She exhaled deeply after noticing she had been holding her breath.

"Thank you …" she began, but stopped as she saw me fishing through my satchel bags. "Now … now what are you doing?" Candy Cane asked.

I retrieved a wire cutter and a screw driver and started towards her.

"Red Dawn, what are you going to do with those?"

"I'm taking that thing off your neck."

She held out her a hoof in between us, shaking her head.

"I-I'm fine with it around my neck … it can't explode anymore."

"Candy Cane –"

"Red Dawn, please, you've done enough … I don't want to risk tripping the explosive." She said quickly, backing away from me.

I looked at her pleadingly.

"Candy Cane … do you really want to keep that thing around your neck? It might not be able to detonate remotely, but that bomb is still hot." I took another step towards her, and she took another back. "Do you really want to be constantly reminded that you were a slave?"

She froze, trembling, her chin quivering as she stared glassy eyed into the snow. Candy Cane's hoof crept up her neck to touch the collar that was wrapped tightly around her throat. It was a mark.

But it wasn't permanent. "I was an engineer at my stable … I still am."

"I-I don't suppose you know anything about bomb disposal?"

I sighed. "No … though I'd imagine it's like cutting a machine's power supply so that it can't work anymore."
She shook her head. "No ... no! It's not the same! If you cut the collar's power supply, it activates its failsafe and pops anyways!" Candy Cane shook me, pleadingly, a disturbed look in her eyes. "I've seen it happen so many times..." she cried. "Red Dawn, I think I can live with it … I've always had one on ... it's like it's not even there!"

"That's because you're used to being a slave," I shot at her, scathingly. "You might be free, but you're still in chains – and until somepony takes that thing off of you, you're still – in everypony else's eyes – just a slave!" I glared at her, and she at me. "Besides, you have an unexploded bomb tied around your neck for fuck's sake … isn't that enough to make you want to have it removed?"

Candy Cane cut canyons into the snow with her hoof, shaking her head incessantly.

"You told me to trust you earlier. And I did, and we survived because youhad a hunch that there was powder down here." I tucked the tools into my chest pocket and gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze. "Now you have to trust me." I thought for a moment. "I can fix this …" I always have. I'm Red Dawn, the Goddesses-damned fixer pony for Celestia's sake.

Candy Cane gazed at me hopelessly with her uncertain, bloodshot eyes.

"You're sure?"

I nodded. "I can do it."

"You're 100% positive?"

I clenched my jaw. "I can do it," I repeated, sternly.

Candy Cane chewed on her lower lip, her eyes darting side to the side as if she were searching for a means to escape her impending doom. I was determined to unchain this poor soul.

"Only if you trust me."

She looked up and stared into my eyes, her entire body trembling.

"Okay …" she breathed. "Okay … but be. Careful."

I nodded, but didn't say another word as I curled a hoof around my screwdriver and slowly loosened the collar's screws. Delicately and deliberately, I used the tool to pull apart the collar's casing.

Parting the shell, I peered into its innards and spotted a black wire inside. I let go just a millisecond before I pulled it taut, my heart pounding inside my chest. I glanced at her and found that she had clenched her eyes shut, whimpering softly. I gulped.

This time, with one hoof, I parted the collar's case with my screwdriver as my wire cutter slowly descended into the wiry crack. I squinted through the shadows, positioning my right forehoof slightly so that my pipbuck's beam could shine through.

Dear Celestia. Why.

There were three other wires. Black wires. And they weren't color coded. And all four of them were tie-wrapped together. What the hell kind of an electrician completes a circuit without indicating which one's positive, negative, or ground? Normally, when you wire a circuit incorrectly and the relay is connected to a light bulb, you get shocked – or in this case, you lose a hoof, or both.

There was no way in hell this was assembled by hoof. Nopony can be dumb enough to wire a circuit in this fashion without mixing up the negative with the positive and walking away with their hooves.

I gulped.

Given what Candy Cane said, I assumed that the device wasn't a direct circuit; it would likely detonate if a connection is lost. Which only frustrated me more, because there was no sure fire way to disable the circuit by severing it – because that's what it was probably designed to do.

And cutting any one of these four was a chance that Cane would walk out of this a head shorter regardless of whether I was aiming to sever the circuit or the tripwire itself.

I clenched my jaw so tightly I nearly popped it as my wire cutter trembled over the crack. My eyes darted back and forth between the four wires.

One of these connected the device to the explosive. The other three, to the mechanism that pulled the tripwire taut. Damn … I lowered the wire cutter , studying the quartet of black wires.

I chose one wire among the cluster of black death sentences – wire Apple, and followed it deep into the collar's shell. A curse hissed between my teeth as I exhaled frustratingly. It and the other three, Butter, Cider, and Dog looped around the circumference of the collar as one amalgamation of black wires. But what mattered to me was where they ended.

The cluster of wires terminated beyond my line of sight. I shuffled on my hooves, trying to get a better look, and found that the cluster separated at the collar's radius. My teeth grinded together as I cursed the manufacturer of this death device once more.

Butter and Dog were split in such a way that they formed a confusing black knot with Apple and Cider, further obscured by the shell's indentions and protrusions within the collar's innards.

"Red … Dawn?" Candy Cane whispered.

I ignored her as I tried to focus, studying the loose knot of wires – trying to figure out which wire was which. In this light, it was neigh impossible to tell which wire went where. Black wires inside of a black shell weren't exactly the easiest to differentiate in almost complete darkness.

I closed the collar and retrieved another screwdriver from my tool bag. This time, holding it open, I used my left hoof to play with the knot, prodding it in an attempt to separate them enough for me to tell which one was which.

After several minutes of checking, rechecking, and poking, I found that Cider was connected to the inside of the collar, while the others separated and looped around the collar's circumference.

My eyes marked Cider for a gelding.

I replaced my left screwdriver with a wire cutter and slowly descended upon Cider, my tongue poking between my lips in concentration. Any wrong movement could bend the casing in two – pull the cluster taut, and cover me in Candy Cane's brains. A wrong snip could paint me red just as easily as the first. I gulped.

"Red Dawn?"

"Shit!" I gasped, jerking the wire cutter away from her neck. I gawked at the collar, my right hoof nearly wrenching the collar's casing apart. My eyes narrowed at her, a thin line of sweat streaming down my forehead, as Candy Cane eyed me with concern.

I checked the collar – I had pulled Cider taut; the wire was bent upwards, half of its length nearly yanked out of the shell itself. Dear Celestia. Had that been the wrong wire … I would've killed her.

"I-it's fine," I stammered, a thin line of sweat streaming down my forehead. "I can do this … just hold still, and let me focus."

I glared at the collar, my pipbuck beaming down the crack. My eyebrow cocked at what I saw. With Cider yanked out of place, I saw the other three with renewed clarity beneath the light of my pipbuck.

"Apple, Butter, Dog …" I whispered, prodding them with my wire cutter . Which one, damnit? Which one!? "Apple, Butter, Dog …"

"Red Dawn …"

"Candy Cane, please – shut up for Celestia's sake!" I snapped, silencing her before she could say more, my hooves trembling.

I shifted my right foreleg. All four terminated in the same general area, curling downwards and into the devices confines. But with Cider out of the way, I could easily see what exactly they were connected to without all four's shadows getting in my way.

Beneath the wires were two shapes – a wide box and a small cube – what I presumed to be the wire separator - that were connected by a single wire. Each individual wire in the cluster was pulled through a single hole on four of the cube's six faces. Ugh. This was making my headache worse. It was like my brain was melting trying to connect the dots.

The circuit was inside the cube. And the cube was there to separate them. Only the pony who designed this knew which face separated what – the positive, the negative, the ground, or the tripwire. A wire – strung through the fifth face connected the separator to the larger shape, which I concluded was the bomb itself.

What the fuck.

I checked and rechecked, tracing the coil from one radius to the next. My eyes scrutinized the collar's entire circumference. There was no fifth wire. There couldn't be one.

That meant that the fifth was either Apple, Butter, Cider, or Dog – strung through the separator and connected to the bomb to serve as the mechanical detonator … the trip wire.

There was only one way to find out.

Replacing my wire cutter with a pair of pliers, I sighted wire Dog. I glanced at Candy Cane, regarding me nervously as she shivered inside her peacoat. A layer of frost had formed over her forehead where sweat had streamed and solidified in the frozen air. Her hooves were shifting beneath her as she fiddled with a chunk of ice in an effort to keep her mind off of being decapitated.

"Alright … let's do this."

I clamped down on Dog.

Streams of sweat traced lines of clean, brown coat upon my grime and blood encrusted face. I glanced at Candy Cane once more, her eyes opened, and staring back at me. She was watching me kill her. I closed my eyes.

And pulled.

"Shit!" Nothing. The wire that connected the separator to the bomb didn't move an inch. I gulped. That left three of them. My pliers fastened themselves around Apple.

I wiped away the sweat from my face with my sleeve so that they wouldn't freeze. The last thing I needed was to shiver from not just apprehension, but from the cold, too.

I closed my eyes and pulled.

Candy Cane squeaked, whimpering as she felt her collar jerk slightly.

Nothing.

Tears were pouring out of her eyes. Two more.

I prodded at Cider. We meet again, you son of a bitch. And I pulled.

My heart nearly stopped.

"Red Dawn!" She cried out suddenly, startling me, tears streaming down her face.

I nearly jerked the collar right off her neck and killed her again. I would have yelled at her if I hadn't realized that Cider belonged to the circuit.

That left Apple. It was the only one left.

I took a deep breath and curled a hoof around my wire cutter , lowering it to Apple. I held my breath, my hoof trembling uncontrollably as the two blades wrapped their edges around the final wire.

I closed my eyes. I didn't want Candy Cane's skull fragments ripping into my sclera. My mouth clapped closed … I didn't want her brains splashing into my mouth, either. I imagined her head exploding, splattering me in gore and gray matter as doubt began to haunt my thoughts.

I took a deep breath.

And I curled the wire cutter closed.

Snip.

Crack!

Candy Cane's scream was lost beneath my shriek.

Nothing. Neither brains nor skull fragments painted my muzzle red. I opened my eyes, and Candy Cane grays were widened to quivering saucers, her jaw dropped as she gasped desperately for breath.

I looked down at her hoof and saw that she had crushed the chunk of ice beneath her.

"Son of a bitch," I muttered.

She slowly turned towards me, her trembling threatening to burrow herself into the snow.

"W-what d-did you do?" She stammered, breathlessly.

I said nothing as I took my screwdriver and undid the collars screws, wrenching it apart, dismantling it, undoing the mark of her slavery.

And it crunched into the snow.

We stood there next to each other for what seemed like hours as Candy Cane fought with her brain to process what had just happened. Her eyes darted back and forth between me and the bomb collar that laid at our hooves.

She exhaled suddenly, rubbing her eyes vigorously with her hooves, clearing away whatever hallucination inducing grogginess she thought was plaguing her. Then a hoof slowly crawled up her chest, reaching for her neck. Her hoof stopped four inches above her throat – as if her collar were still there.

But she persisted. Candy Cane touched with delicate disbelief, the furry indentation that had been trapped beneath her bomb collar. She rubbed at her matted coat, her breathing intensifying as she struggled to grasp that it wasn't there anymore.

That her chains were broken.

"I'm free …" she whispered, curling a hoof around her gnarled hide. "I'm finally free …" Candy Cane turned to me, slowly, tears welling in her eyes. "You did it," she murmured. "You … you really did it."

"YOU DID IT!" She shrieked running into me with the force of a charging stallion. She hugged me, her legs tight around my chest as she wept joyfully into my mane.

"I … I did it …" I murmured as I slowly lifted a leg and wrapped it around her, an ecstatic grin slowly stretching across my face.

Candy Cane pulled away, her face and my neck soaked with her tears as she held my shoulders with both her hooves. "Thank you ... so much … a thousand times over, thank you!" She cried. "You saved my life … freed me from that horrible place and my collar … I'm finally free … I'm finally … FREE!"

She yanked me close and hugged me once more. The tighter she embraced me, the harder it was to suppress the warm, victorious laughter that fought its way through my lips. I stared off into the ashen clouds, praying for a sign. Praying for the Goddesses to tell me that I had finally done good.

"Thank the Goddesses … you're free now."

I wrapped my other leg around her in an embrace, and hugged her tight. We won.

"You saved my life!" Candy Cane cried once more, her voice muffled against my barding.

"You saved mine too … you had the detonator. You could've just used it and walked away."

Candy Cane was smiling from ear to ear, her tears glistening in my pipbuck's light.

"Whether you like it or not, you got us this far …. you got me this far … thank you … so much. I never thought I'd ever be…" She paused, growing fond of the word she hadn't used to describe herself in years. "I never thought I've ever be free … again. Again … it's been five years. Five. Years. I never thought …"

She looked away, shaking her head. The mare brushed her matted coat, trying to flatten it out to no avail.

"The scars … they'll always be there. I'll never forget what happened to me … what they did to me... what I was forced to do." Candy Cane gazed at me with teary eyes. "I'll never forget what you did either … thank you, again." She hung her head somberly and dabbed at the snow with her hoof. "I wish there was some way I could repay you, because my words are not enough to express my thanks."

I shook my head. "Don't even mention it." I smiled, chuckling, "Keep your chin up! You're free now. And that's all that matters." I lifted her head with a hoof, her chin wet with tears.

The mare swept her mane out of her eyes, wiping her face vigorously with her sleeve.

"Is it though?" she murmured, with uncertainty.

I said nothing as I watched her touch her neck gingerly, as if she had never seen her own coat before.

"Now what?" I asked, quietly. "Now what will you do?"

Candy Cane looked at her hooves, thinking.

"I don't know," she replied. "I don't know. All my friends and family are either dead or in slavery." Candy Cane sniffled, strands of her mane falling before one of her eyes. "I don't know … I don't know what I'll do, Red Dawn. I have nopony to come back to."

We stood there, a bleak silence between us as she stared at the ashen drifts with empty eyes. I thought for a moment, tapping my chin.

"Maybe … maybe you can come with me?" I said.

"Come with you?"

I nodded, saying, "I can barely survive out here on my own." I stared off into the sky, watching the gray clouds hang over the frozen earth. "It's a harsh world out here. It's even worse trying to survive out here alone."

I unwrapped Dew Drops' scarf from my chest, flecks of dried blood fluttering to the snow. Pursing my lips, I wrapped it around my neck, solemnly.

"My Stable's water talisman exploded not too long ago. So myself and five other ponies set out to find a replacement … without it my stable will die from dehydration and disease," I began.

Candy Cane listened quietly.

"What happened to them?" she asked, her gaze softening.

"This scarf … it's all I have to remember my friend by. She … she was taken by snow furies. So were the others. We were ambushed, and butchered because we weren't ready for what was outside those doors.

"Ever since then it's just been me, and my gun, and this scarf against the entire wasteland," I uttered a grim chuckle. "It seems like that, at least. I barely hoofed it to Poneva alive."

"I'm sorry about your friends." Candy Cane saw the memento wrapped around my neck. "And your scarf …"

I shook my head. "She would've wanted me to actually stay alive to finish what they started, anyways. I have you to thank for that." I thought for a moment, running my hoof through my mane. "You seem to know a lot about this city – this wasteland. Maybe you can help me?"

"How?"

"I ran into Grifter while looking for the Orphanage. He promised that if I helped him, he'd give me the location of one of their hideouts. He gave me this." I showed her the coordinates I had received.

I opened up my pipbuck's map and pointed to her its location in the fallen city.

The mare snorted. "No … no you don't want to go there." She prodded my pipbuck's screen with a hoof. "That's a metro tunnel overrun with feral ghouls."

"Feral … what?"

She chuckled, grimly, shaking her head. "You would've walked there to your death. They would've ripped you to pieces."

"Son of a bitch …" She really did know her way around the city. That cafone bastard was trying to kill me.

The mare cocked an eyebrow at me.

"What do you want with the Orphanage?"

"Well, when I arrived here, I found a water talisman … well not exactly. I spoke with the manager of the World Tree Company – Steam Sprocket."

Her eyes widened at that.

"A face to face audience with Steam Sprocket? He never lets anypony inside the WTC …"

I nodded, agreeingly. "He's been working with the resistance to take down the other plantations. He wants his hooves on their tech; apparently they can purify water without water talismans."

Candy Cane nodded, adding, "It's always been a mystery how they can yield so many crops without the equipment the WTC has."

I paused for a breath, and continued. "Steam Sprocket says that if he appropriated their technology, he wouldn't have need for Water Talismans anymore – and he'd be able to spare me one or two or thirty." A hopeful fire burned behind my eyes. "Enough to keep my stable going for centuries."

"You're putting a lot of faith in this pony," Candy Cane remarked.

My expression darkened. "It's all I have left to put faith in. Without this talisman, everypony in my stable is going die. For all it's worth, I'd do anything … anything to save them all.

"I figured I'd join the resistance. Steam Sprocket said they're always in need of hooves to keep the movement running." I sighed, wearily. "My stable doesn't have much time to live on their reserves. I've been around the city. Nopony gives a shit about the Plantations," I spat, with frustration. "At this rate, hell will freeze over and my Stable will be rotting a hundred feet below the earth. I can't sit around on my hooves and waste my time – waste my stable's time, waiting for everypony to have some kind of revelation that maybe, just maybe, the plantations should get booted out." I pursed my lips, and gazed at her with grim resolve. "I want to join them. I want to join the Orphanage."

"The Orphanage, huh?" She whispered, intrigued. "And you want me to help you find them, then?"

"I don't want your help … I needyour help," I said, shaking my head. "I can't do this alone." I looked at her pleadingly, the harsh wasteland wind fanned our dirty manes. "If we join the resistance, we'll be able to save all your friends at the Scullion. We'd be able to save them all."

Candy Cane's eyes lit up with distance hope.

"If I join you, you need to promise me … promise me that we'll free them." Something powerful ignited within her as she clenched her jaw and glared into the snow, staring balefire through the drifts.

My eyes widened as a different mare growled, mist jetting out between her bared teeth, "Promise me … that we'll put an end to the Palominos. If we die, I want to die helping ponies. Now that I'm free, I won't stand by and watch them force any more ponies into slavery.

"I want to tear them down, Red Dawn. After everything they've done to me … I-I … I …" she shook her head, tears welling out of her eyes. "No … I won't be like them." Candy Cane stomped her hoof into the snow. "But I want to help ponies. Can we do that?"

Help ponies? Help the scum of this wasteland? The bottom feeders that turned me away when I mentioned the only source of good in this hell?

Most ponies didn't even care about the horrors that the Plantations and their pet gangs wrought. Many couldn't give a damn if the pony next to them was dragged away into a ditch and shot in the head. They were content with this life so long as their own lives were preserved.

But Candy Cane was different; I wanted to admire her. This is the sort of naivety that gets ponies killed; it's what nearly got mekilled. Good things neverhappen to good ponies, if my injuries could attest.

I guess my impudent penchant for liberating complete and total strangers influenced her somewhat. I realize now that I had saved this pony not because I saw it as a test: a test to see that if I could save just one, then there was a chance that someday I could save them all. If I could save Candy Cane, there was a chance that I wasn't a useless, helpless, train-wreck of a pony, abandoned to the terrors of a world of hedonism and debauchery and powerless to save even himself.

The difference between Candy Cane and I was that everything I did was supposed to be a stepping stone to my end goal; but I had deviated from that path in my impudence. I risked the lives of nearly three hundred ponies for just this one mare; for if I had died, all hope for my stable would have been lost. I wondered once more … why?

Why? My heart rationalized that it was simply the right thing to do. But my brain wondered what kind of stupid, unreasonable logic was that? I could've died. Again.

But it didn't matter to her.Candy Cane had no end goal. She was free now, and she wanted only to help as many ponies as she could before the wasteland finally took her.

Ponies that didn't even want her help. She had faith that there was still hope to turn this wasteland around, even if it was one pony at a time. I saw a light, a fervent desire for change in Steam Sprocket, and now I was seeing that same light shining within her.

I held out a hoof.

"We'll try. I promise. Even if it kills me."

Candy Cane took my hoof and shook it, a determined smile stretching across her lips.

"Thanks, Red Dawn." She thought for a moment, before saying. "I … don't know where to find the Orphanage." She confessed, hesitantly.

"But I do know this city. I've escaped from the Scullion so many times; I've had the time to explore almost every nook and cranny in the outer city, and some parts of the inner city. All I need is a point in the right direction and I can take you there." She grinned, hopefully.

"I know somepony who's actually inthe Orphanage," Candy Cane chuckled. My brows furrowed as I cursed Grifter's name under my breath. "She runs an inn in downtown Poneva; she can probably tell us how to find them." The mare noticed the dark circles around my bloodshot eyes. "Maybe she'll even give us a place to stay for a bit."

I really needed a break. Not a nap, not a few hours of shut eye. I needed to rest.

"You know her?" I asked, wobbling on my hooves.

She reached out with a hoof and held me still.

"She's given me shelter during my escapes." Candy Cane nodded to herself, confidently. "She's a good mare."

Finally, I was getting somewhere.

"That sounds like a plan." I sighed, rubbing my eyes. "Much better than asking random ponies on the street, that's for sure," I muttered, bitterly.

I looked around us, panning my light across the shifting white dunes. We were in a massive sink hole.

"Well … first of all how do we get out of here?"

Candy Cane peered up and into the city above us, her eyes darting back and forth, searchingly. She lifted a hoof and pointed at the rooftops that poked out of the snow. Rooftops that were high and close enough to jump in between.

Oh Goddesses.

"I have an idea."

Footnote: Level up.

New Perk: Guerilla Pony - Your sneak attack criticals with revolvers, pistols, and submachine guns (guns and magical energy weapons) all inflict an additional 20% damage.