Stone and I stood mute in shock at what we were seeing, the world around us seemed to grind almost to a halt. The pair of ghouls moved slowly, Fleethoof stumbled a bit away from one of the guards as the rest flanked them on either side. Carrion for his part simply glared at the ponies around him. Both had their hooves secured with cuffs and even Fleet’s tattered wings were bound by rope. Around the pair, the jeering angry faces of the ponies seemed frozen in mid shout, insults and threats on the tips of their tongues. Even the guards that stood between the angry crowd looked to their prisoners darkly.

The mayor was still doubled over, a green tint to her face, ill from whatever she’d seen within the store. The large form of Spirit standing beside her, with a hoof raised up patting the sick mare upon her shoulder. Bandaid, the local doctor stood off to one side, speaking with one of the guards not escorting the prisoners.

Despite seeing this all with my own eyes… I still couldn’t bring myself to believe it. One of my friends… a murderer? While a month was hardly a lifetime… I still believed I knew them well enough to judge their character. Carrion was perhaps a bit rough around the edges… and he could even be cold to those he didn’t know or trust… but a murderer? No… I refused to believe the former Equestrian army officer could be a murderer…

I was snapped from my thoughts when I noticed something small and uneven whiz past my face and time appeared to resume its steady pace once again. As first I was at a loss for what it was I’d just seen, that is until I saw it impact the ground between Fleet and Carrion’s hooves. The dark red object burst upon impact with the solid pavement of the sidewalk… a piece of fruit? Another struck my friend’s shoulder, leaving a dark smear upon his tattered fur coat. It seemed the crowd wasn’t satisfied with simply throwing insults… they were throwing rotten fruit and bits of trash from the ground.

Fleethoof whinnied in fear as several bits of refuse struck near her hooves and one struck her on the side of her neck. The frightened ghoul shied away from the crowds, accidently bumping into one of the guards as she did. The guard scowled and pushed her back towards the crowd and the direction they were going. The frightened winged mare was either unsure what was going on or confused entirely as to why she was being struck.

Carrion said something to the guards, his words lost in the noise of the chaos surrounding me… but I was sure he was standing up for Fleet. Most of the guards seemed to ignore his protests, although one shoved him towards Fleet in response and another looked ready to strike my friend with a baton he held in his magical grasp.

I felt the all too familiar anger burning within me as I stood among the crowd and watched the treatment of the two. To either side of me I could see numerous ponies picking up bits of trash and small stones from the sidewalk with either hoof or magic. All of them hurling those little bits of debris towards the ghouls. It seemed the locals had already settled upon the guilt of the two. My right fore hoof ground itself into the cracked pavement as the muscles along my back and hind legs tightened in readiness to stop this insanity… to… do what? Attack civilians?

From slightly behind and to my right, I caught the muffled swearing of Stone. I’d lost sight of my large grey friend while I’d been so focused on Carrion and Fleet. I was just turning around to see what was happening with him when movement to my left caught my attention. A pony had moved a few steps ahead of me into the open space between the crowds and the guards.

They scooped up something from the cracked pavement and with barely taking the time to aim threw it hard towards the ghouls following up with a shout of ‘murdering monsters’. Despite the hurried throw, the rock still managed to strike one of them, Carrion, in his unprotected neck. The ghoul unicorn flinched from the sudden hit and staggered a bit to one side in surprise. Pausing for a moment he lifted a hoof up to where he’d been struck and drew back with it covered in his thick dark red blood… I could see the gash, despite all the ragged scars he had from centuries of living beneath Kanter City’s radiated streets.

The guards, either having missed seeing the rock strike him, or simply not caring, shoved Carrion to start moving again… and with that my anger boiled over into pure rage. I whirled upon the pony who’d thrown the stone, who was bent over to pick up another rock from the ground. Without thinking on what I was doing, I took two steps forwards, shoving another member of the crowd out of my way and reached for the individual responsible. I’m not sure what I intended to do… throw words or hooves at them… given my darkening mood perhaps both.

As I reached the rising pony, I grabbed ahold of their shoulder and harshly turned them towards me. All at once the words died in my throat, my mouth half open to begin shouting into their face while my free hoof rose to strike them Before me stood an elderly light green earth pony mare who bore a slight resemblance to Spearmint. She at first glared up at me for grabbing ahold of her. Her glare turned to one of confusion as I remained frozen in shock at what I’d nearly done… looking from me to her own hoof her confusion seemed to increase. She almost seemed to not realize she held a stone in one hoof and quickly let it drop back down to the pavement with a dull thud. Shaking her head, she broke free from my weakened grip and stumbled back into the crowd.

I’d almost hit a little old mare...

Go ahead… hit her… she deserves it for harming your friend!

My eyes widened as those words seemed to whisper into my ears. I staggered back a bit myself, jerking my head this way and that to see who’d gotten so close to me. However, no one seemed to be paying me much attention at the moment… the crowd was too busy with their shouts and even the guards, Private Ironside and Honeyrose, seemed to no longer be watching.

Oh please… don’t you start getting an ego about being the center of attention like that little fillyfooler, Pipsqueak. Back to the matter at hand, however… aren’t you angry at them, hero? Why don’t you do something about them…

Shaking my head, I took a step or two away from the edge of the crowd, my right hoof coming up to rub at my face… the voice sounded close… yet nopony was speaking to me… was I imagining it? Could it be the stress of everything?

No… I knew that voice… I’d heard it a couple times now…

Come on… a little maiming will do them some good… just ask Cardflank… if she isn’t busy crying or screwing...

Back in Tombstone… in the bank... and again on the road here. But what was it?

Good thing you brought that shotgun of your’s. After all… I hear shotguns do wonders for breaking up crowds when fired into them… oh… are you beginning to figure things out, my boy?

Whether from my own experiences in the wasteland or the comment, I could almost see the effect a shotgun would have upon such a dense crowd of innocent ponies. Despite all the blood shed I’d witnessed recently, I was surprised to find myself growing sick at the very thought...

Innocent? Oh my dear boy… nopony’s completely innocent… these ponies want to hurt your friends. Isn’t that what friendships was all about, hmm? Killing those who try and harm them? I suppose that would explain some of the things Sparkle’s little group of murderers got up to during the war… why, who woulda thought that dear old Flutters would have the highest kill count of them all? It’s always the quiet ones, isn’t it?

My ears folded flat across my mane as the deep voice began crackingly madly within my head. And this was all in my head… as nopony else around me seemed to notice it. I took a couple more steps away from where I’d confronted the old mare, feeling my stomach rolling over what I was forced to listen to. Had I finally gone mad? That had to be it… it was the only explanation...

We’re all a little mad, my boy… some more than others… why just ask the little pink ghost looking for her mommy… hahahahHAHHA!!

As thoughts of insanity filled my head, I looked about for some sign that might say I hadn’t snapped. My gaze passed over Spirit and halted. The buffalo was still standing where last I’d seen her, beside the mayor and the local doctor. However, her focus had shifted from one distressed pony to another… namely me. As our eyes locked onto one another, I saw shock written across her face, one that I imagined mirrored my own. It was at that moment that something she’d said while we’d been in the road here came back to me… it had been while we’d fought off the raiders who’d caught up with us. She’d mentioned hearing voices around me… did she hear him too?

Hmm… why I do believe you’re correct… I think she can… doesn’t that over grown throw rug know it’s rude to eavesdrop on a private conversation?

Spirit’s eyes widened and her shocked expression turned to one of surprise and worry. I was just about to call out to her when a hoof suddenly pressed itself down upon my right shoulder and surprised the hell out of me. A confused voice was also calling out my name… by the sound of it they had been for several minutes now. Tearing my eyes away from Spirit, I turned my head around to see Stone standing beside me once again, a confused and slightly worried look upon his face.

“Shadow?” he began, green eyes scanning the crowd around us slowly before settling back upon me. “Everythin’ alright there?” he asked.

“Stone? I… everything…” I hesitated as whatever I wanted to say wouldn’t come out. My mouth was suddenly very dry and I just couldn’t seem to form the words… or even know what words I wanted. Was everything alright? My ears swiveled to the side as I pawed at the ground beneath me with a forehoof nervously. No… I don’t think anything was alright.

“Shadow?” Stone called out once more, a note of concern in his voice as he noticed my hoof.

After everything we’d been through, I’d mostly managed to keep my cool. I looked back up to my friend, seeing the worry on his face. Around us the crowd continued with their taunts and jeers, though the throwing of trash seemed to have at least stopped for the moment. A part of my mind pointed out it was likely due to a lack of ammunition rather than anything else. Another part of my mind asked if the first one belonged to the voice. I blinked and shook my head slowly… no. I couldn’t start thinking like that… or I would go mad.

Shutting my eyes, I took a deep breath and settled my hooves firmly beneath me. The voice had gone silent for the moment, for whatever reason… though given its history I doubted it would last long. I’d heard it before and I was willing to beat I’d hear it again. At least I knew I wasn’t the only one to hear it… Spirit had… once things calmed down, she and I would have a talk about the voice. But for now, I needed to focus on getting to that point. Opening my eyes, I looked back to Stone and placed my right hoof upon his shoulder.

“Yeah, everything’s fine for the moment, Stone,” I answered him at last. Although judging by the look upon his face it was clear he didn’t completely believe me. “Sorry, I just got a bit distracted by something,” I added quickly. Even I could still hear the uncertainty in my voice. I ran a hoof across my muzzle, then sighed and shook my head. Despite the doubts he had with my response, he knew we both had more pressing issues to deal with.

“What’re ya waitin’ on?! Hang ’em from th’ nearest lamp post!” somepony from within the crowd shouted out. The call for ‘wasteland justice’ (as I’d heard in stories from both Stone and Wild) was taken up by another half dozen throats all around us. More would join them… no doubt. Stone scowled and eyed the ponies around us darkly.

“This is gettin’ well outta hoof… th’ damned guards need ta do somethin’ about this…” my friend said more to himself than to me.

I looked from the crowd and Stone to my captive friends, reinforcing the point my large grey friend made. The local guards wouldn’t be much help if the crowd attempted to enact their plans for justice. Only the small number of Confederate soldiers were attempting to restore some order. I would worry about the strange voices later… for now a friend was in trouble. Shaking off the last bits of unease, I began moving back towards the edge of the crowd… I couldn’t do anything for Carrion or Fleethoof from here after all. I turned back towards Stone and waved him to follow.

“Come on… we’d best go do something before this mob turns any more ugly than it already is,” I called back to my friend while I pushed past a mare whose attention was riveted upon the spectacle ahead of her.

“Ah think it’s a might late fer that, Shadow...” Stone answered as he hurriedly followed me.

Despite the inaction on the part of the local guards to stop the near rioting actions of the crowd, the number of ponies along the leading edge were few. We managed to make our way through them quickly as their focus was upon the pair of ghouls to pay either Stone or myself much mind. Most simply stepped aside as we approached them and we once again found ourselves coming upon the same pair of Confederate soldiers attempting to hold back the crowd.

Of the two, Honeyrose seemed the most distressed by the mood of the foul mood of the crowd. The short earth pony was doing her best to reason with those nearest her, urging them to calm down and return to their homes. When they seemed unwilling to listen and attempted to push their way past her she began using more forceful means. Her baton was held firmly in her mouth and she poked and pushed more than a few ponies larger than herself. The mare stood with her back to the local guards and their prisoner, her focus fully on the ponies in front of her.

Ironside, meanwhile, seemed largely indifferent to the plight of my friends, although he was still doing an admirable job of keeping the crowds back. He seemed to be skipping the gentle approach altogether and was going straight to force. His baton wasn’t nearly as gentle as Honeyrose’s as it whacked anypony trying to get past him, the dull smack of it striking somepony’s side or head was quickly echoed by a painful yelp. I couldn’t fault him for using this method…although for more personal reasons than out of agreeing with the use of force. It was the large earth pony who noticed Stone and I approaching.

“You two again?” Private Ironside grunted out between his baton before he swatted at another stallion’s forelegs who attempted to make use of his apparent distraction. The pony yelped and hobbled back, rubbing his sore leg as Ironside turned to focus upon us. He frowned towards me and jabbed a hoof against my chest as I got closer. “You stay back along with the rest of ’em.”

From just to his left, I noticed a soft glow and movement. A unicorn had slipped past us and was holding a bottle within his magical aura. Beside him was the hobbled stallion Ironsides had just struck… it appeared his friend was out to get some payback on the soldier. Neither had noticed me… nor had Ironsides noticed the danger coming up from his rear. Honeyrose was busy with her own problems to the right. Before me lay two choices that at first seemed simple enough…

On the one hoof I could step up and save the big brute from the surprise attack that, while it’d likely leave him with a headache, wouldn’t harm him. The act might earn me a few points in the Confederate soldier’s favor and thus might allow me to get past him and over to Carrion and Fleet. But I doubted it would be that easy as Ironside seemed to have no love for ghouls.

On the other hoof… I could just let the chips fall where they may. If the attack struck home, Ironside might very well be knocked out cold… thus allowing me to pass the position he’d been guarding and to get to Carrion and Fleet. Even if he wasn’t knocked unconscious by the hit, he’d surely be distracted enough for both Stone and myself to slip past. However, it would also allow others to pass by… and leave Honeyrose in danger herself.

Oh… let him get hit… I’m sure there’s not a pony sitting out there who doesn’t want to see this assclown get whats coming to him… am I right?

The Confederate soldier never saw the blow coming and had a look of stunned surprise written across his earlier smug face as the bottle swung downwards… to shatter across the ground beside his hooves. His surprised look could have also been due to my sudden lunge towards him, and a quick swing of my right foreleg. His head jerked around in time to see a unicorn reeling from the punch to his face I’d just delivered and the magical glow surrounding his horn winking out. The angry citizen dropped back onto the limping stallion, pinning him to the ground with his weight as he went limp.

“Wha…?” was all Ironside could ask before I stepped across the fallen pair and turned to stand beside the soldier's left. The crowd around us backed up a few steps after witnessing me slugging one of them in the jaw.

“You don’t like me… and I can’t say I’m crazy about you,” I began and lifted a hoof up to wave it across the crowd before us. “But these ponies need to be held back, lest they do something foolish they’ll no doubt regret later.” I switched my attention to a pair of young teenager colts caught up with the crowd. “I don’t wear the badge because it looks nice…” I added lightly tapping the star on my chest as the two young stallions turned around and disappeared into the gathered bodies. Once I was sure they were gone I turned back to look at Ironsides. “I wear it to try and help ponies,” I finished.

“Told ya he was a good pony,” Honeyrose said between her baton as she stepped up beside Ironside on his right. Beside her, Stone took up a position and set his hooves into the loose gravel. While he lacked a uniform or badge, I imagined few of the ponies within the crowd would want to try their luck with the large stallion. Ironside merely snorted and shook his head before returning his full attention to the crowd.

“Fine… just try not to get in the way…” was all the large soldier said as he returned his focus fully upon the crowd. Beside him, Honeyrose rolled her eyes and shook her head while Stone snorted and surveyed the ponies milling about.

“Somethin’s gonna have ta be done ‘bout this here mess…” Stone said. A couple ponies started towards our line before thinking better of it when Honeyrose and Ironside focused their attention and their batons upon them. “Even if we had a dozen more of us, eventually somethin’s gotta give. We gotta get their attention off Carrion and Fleet.”

He was right of course. Sooner or later somepony out there would push their luck with one of us, or one of the other Confederate soldiers attempting to hold them back. Somepony would end up getting seriously hurt… or perhaps even killed and the loud, angry herd of ponies would turn into a full blown riotous mob.

Give me enough time and they’ll do just that…

A low throated growl escaped my throat as that damnable voice decided to speak up once again at that moment. Rather than feeling fear over what it was saying or how it was saying it within my own mind, I felt nothing but anger. Anger not for the ponies within the crowd, but at the voice. Shaking my head to clear it I glanced across the crowd, before my ears swiveled back towards the others.

“... went to gather the rest of the soldiers stationed here… at least those that didn’t go with Sergeant Lucky Strikes out to the mine,” I overheard Honeyrose saying to Stone. I realized I’d missed most of what she’d said to my friend, but got the basic jist of it. Help would be coming.... but Stone was right. We had to get the crowd’s attention off the ghouls.

However, it seemed almost impossible for anypony to be heard over the shouting of the ponies around us. At least without a megaphone or something similar. As it turned out however, we wouldn’t need one of those… somepony had something far better. I also learned something… it was possible to physically feel somepony speak.

“THAT!! IS!! ENOUGH!!!!”

It seemed almost surreal that three words felt like I’d been hit by an invisible wall. The voice came from somewhere behind me and all but exploded out over everypony within the area. Those three words sent manes and lose bits of clothing rustling, hats flew from atop their owners heads and the windows of nearby buildings rattled, a couple even shattering.

The resulting silence at first confused me, thinking that whoever had shouted had deafened me and in fact my ears where ringing enough to drown out all other sound, both were pinned tightly to my skull. As were those of everypony near me. However, as the silence stretched on for solid minute, I began to pick up the sounds of hooves scraping against pavement as ponies picked themselves up from the ground or inquired about a friend. I noticed most of the crowd had their attention fixed upon something behind me, likely the source of the shout.

Shaking my head a bit to try and clear it, I turned to see for myself who or what had spoken. I was expecting to see somepony holding something… a megaphone perhaps or even a bass cannon for all I knew. However, what I found wasn’t any of those, it was far more unexpected.

The mayor had moved from where I’d last seen her beside Spirit. She now stood between the majority of the crowd and the ghouls, her horn glowing brightly in her dark blue magic. Carrion, Fleethoof, and the guards all looked as dazed as everypony else and were either staring in surprise at the unicorn mare or in the guards’ case, looking ashamed of themselves. I wasn’t sure what to be more surprised of: the fact the short mare had managed to silence the entire town or that large armored ponies looked more like foals who’d been caught with their hoof in the cookie jar.

“I am ashamed of all of you! This isn’t how we treat guests of our town… even those accused of a possible crime!” Mayor Evening Rain shouted, although nowhere near as loudly as she had a few seconds before. The midnight blue pony glared angrily at the citizens of her town and guards under her command with narrowed turquoise blue eyes. It was funny to see when she barely came up to anypony else’s neck. Funny if it wasn’t for the situation we were in at least.

“We’re not having any wasteland justice in my town, not while I’m the mayor!” It was still a surprise to hear a voice so loud come out of a pony so small. The mayor was far shorter than an average unicorn mare. One could almost mistake her for a older filly than a adult mare. Despite her size though, she was scowling larger ponies into backing away, her horn glowing brightly as whatever spell she was using to amplify her voice continued.

“Everypony! I want you all to return to your homes and let us do our jobs! Please, everything will be fine and we will get to the bottom of this!” As she finished speaking I began to notice the number of Confederate soldiers in the lot increasing. Green armored ponies were moving inward from the edges of the crowd, simply trotting between the gathered ponies and forcing them to spread out. Though I couldn’t see any weapons from where I was, I had no doubt the trained soldiers had them within easy reach. I also noticed that the number of friends I had nearby had also increased… if only by one.

“Well… I guess I didn’t need to hurry,” Wildfire said as her hooves touched the pavement and her feathered wings folded back across her sides. She’d landed beside Stone and I, as Honeyrose and Ironside had fallen back towards the mayor and their newly arrived comrades. A quick glance revealed the Confederates had taken over the task of escorting the ghouls.

“Ah’m thinkin’ yer right, th’ mayor seems ta have managed ta knock th’ fight right outa these ponies with a couple words,” Stone answered his filly friend. He offered her a quick nuzzle in greeting and as thanks for bringing the cavalry.

“Literally it seems,” Wild responded, looking around as ponies began shuffling away, some still dazed from the verbal assault. “I heard it halfway down the street… and I imagine they heard her all the way in Canterlot. So… what do we do now?” she asked, looking from the decreasing crowd to me.

“We follow the soldiers to wherever they’re moving Carrion and Fleet. Try and figure out what happened in the shop and then do what we can to help our friends,” I answered, shifting my gaze from Wild to the aforementioned ghouls as they were escorted further away from the store, passing us as they went. As the two hobbled past in their hoofcuffs, Carrion glanced to me from beside Fleet. He seemed to want to say something, but a nudge from one of the soldiers got him to look away and focus on keeping pace with his escort. I watched as they trotted past and frowned.

“Th’ sooner, th’ better…” Stone said what I’d been thinking. I was about to follow them when a questioning female voice stopped me.

“Marshall Shadow?” Turning my focus towards the owner, I found myself looking at somepony that could almost pass as Wildfire’s sister. She was a shorter pegasus than Wild, with a lighter yellowish orange coat. She was built like a Wastelander, slightly dirty and scruffy. After all, it was hard to keep clean out here. Like Wild’s, her bright orange mane was a mass of wild strands, though she appeared to have attempted to tie one side into a ponytail which showed off a stripe of pink running through it. She looked up at me with almond shaped green eyes, head tilted slightly.

Unlike my winged friend, her armor was not the thick black plates of the Enclave, but a thinner Kevlar armor I’d seen a few of the Confederate scouts wearing back in San Ponsisco. It was painted matte black, and under it she wore a black shirt that had seen better days. Across her back was slung a long rifle similar to Stone’s. The only other visible weapon she carried was a pistol holstered to her left foreleg. A quick glance to her flank revealed the branding of a Dashite. Unlike Wild’s, however, I could still make out her true cutie mark: a tribal looking four pointed star cutout with a red diamond in the center. Odd, but I wasn’t one to talk… after all mine was a flower.

“You... are the Marshall, right?” asked the mare’s companion standing just beside her and looking over at me. He was a unicorn stallion that stood every bit as tall as Stone with a build to match. It was clear he didn’t just rely on his magic to solve all his problems. His fur was a dark midnight blue… almost black. Unlike the mare, his mane looked a bit better maintained (maybe it was something to do with flying… or just pegasi in general) and both it and his tail were tied up in pony tails. Two stripes of light blue ran through his white mane and tail. His turquoise eyes sized me up as I returned the favor.

Also unlike the mare, he appeared unarmed and unarmored save for a basic tan colored basaltic vest across his large chest. He also bore a Pipbuck (a slightly newer looking model than my own) and had likely been a Stable Dweller like me… or had just found one somewhere. His cutie mark was of a single white wing, unfurled fully.

“I am… can I help you?” I asked, turning to face the pair more fully. As I did, I could see the Mayor and Spirit speaking among themselves, the buffalo pointing a hoof towards me and my friends. The Confederate Officer with them also looked my way. It was the pegasus who responded first and returned my attention to the pair.

“No… it’s just we wanted to apologize for what happened,” she said simply waving a hoof back towards the thinning crowd and earning a confused look from me. She hurriedly added, “For the way your friends were treated.”

“Alright…” I began, ears cocked a bit to the side as my confusion remained, “Unless you started it… I don’t think you have to apologize for it…” I added shaking my head.

“No, we didn’t start it… but we also didn’t do anything to stop it from happening either,” the stallion said, shaking his horned head a bit. “We also joined in… although I don’t know why.”

“Wait… so you were yelling at Carrion and Fleet, but didn’t know why?” Wild asked, her voice tinged with anger and her wings unfurling. Stone held a hoof up to her shoulder to calm her temper.

“It was the damnedest thing…” the confused looking mare added, shaking her head slowly. “We were just passing through the square on our way back to our room when… well, we just got sucked into the crowd.”

“Sucked in?” I asked, still confused at what they were saying.

“Look… it’s not something we’d normally do, okay?” the stallion said bluntly, sounding defensive and a bit confused himself. “I don’t know what got into us, so I’m sorry if we caused your friends any more problems than they already have…”

As I stood there listening to the odd pair, I recalled what I’d seen in the crowd… how some ponies seemed confused at what they’d been doing seconds before the Mayor’s shout snapped them out of their bloodthirsty mood. The old mare I’d nearly hit had also seemed confused…

“Storm’s right… we’ve actually worked with ghouls before on a couple jobs so neither of us hold them any ill will… it was like something just overcame us…” the mare looked between her friend and I before flexing her wings a bit. “Anyway… we just wanted to apologize and also say thanks for all the good you’ve been doing across the wasteland. My name’s Solar Burst and my grumpy friend’s name is Storm Flicker.”

“Oh Celestia… more groupies…” Wild muttered to herself just loud enough for us to hear. She at least seemed to forget her anger at the pair. Stone elbowed her lightly in the side earning a soft meep from his filly friend.

“We’re not groupies… well, at least I’m not…” Storm muttered more to himself than anypony else. I think most had heard him, which was evident when he gave out a pained grunt when an orange elbow jabbed him in the chest from Solar.

“Marshall Shadow?” asked another voice, though this one sounded as if they’d swallowed shards of glass. Turning my head towards the owner I blinked as Mayor Evening Rain stepped up beside Solar Burst and Storm Flicker. “Do you have a moment?” she asked in that same rough tone, looking over at the pair. Others stepped up behind and I glanced up from the short mare to them. Spirit, Doctor Bandaid and the Confederate officer in charge of the local garrison in Janesville, Lieutenant Swift, all stood there silently.

“Well, we’ll just be going then, Marshall… if you need any help we’d be happy to lend a hoof, to make up for our poor behavior,” Solar Burst said quickly, looking between the Mayor and me, perhaps sensing this was a private matter. The winged mare nudged her friend off down the road before the pair set off with a final wave to me.

“Um… sure, Mayor,” I answered, turning around to face her fully now that Solar and Storm had left… they didn’t seem like bad ponies. “Are you alright, Mayor?” I asked, having been caught off guard by her sudden change of voice. After all, she’d just shouted down an entire crowd of ponies a moment ago. She must have noticed my surprise and offered a small smile up to me and a quick explanation.

“Sorry about almost deafening you, Marshall, but it was needed to gain control of my citizens. As you can see, the Royal Canterlot Voice spell really takes its toll on a pony’s throat. It’s not a spell meant for normal ponies to use,” she began before shaking her head and hurriedly continuing, “But I didn’t stop by to just apologize, and I’m sure you have many questions about what's happened with your friends.”

“Yes, I do, as well as worried over their safety,” I answered, ears folding back a bit as I couldn’t hide my anger over what had just been allowed to happened. The guards had lost control of the crowds and things could have ended a lot worse. If they’d tried to hang Carrion and Fleet themselves… wait… would that have even worked?

“I’m sorry, Marshall… I’m sure you’re just as surprised as everypony else is at this sudden turn of events. I assure you that your friends will be placed somewhere safe for the time being. Actually, I’d like you to accompany myself and the others to the Confederate base here in town. Both of the ghouls will be held in their brig. Lieutenant Swift has also agreed to allow us to use her office so we can talk in private about what’s happened and what’s to be done,” she hurriedly said, before rubbing her throat with a hoof, wincing as she did. “I’d also like to get something to drink and ease the pain in my throat…” she added lamely.

I looked across my shoulder at Stone and Wild who’d moved up closer to better hear what the now hoarse voiced Mayor was saying before focusing back on the mayor and nodding my head.

“Of course, Mayor, we’d all like to get to the bottom of what’s happened to our friends. We’ll follow you,” I answered and stepped aside to allow her to pass by.

Nodding her head, Mayor Evening Rain trotted past me with the others falling in behind her. Bandaid and Lieutenant Swift quickly followed the mayor’s lead while Stone and Wild fell in behind them. I was about to follow them myself when a large brown hoof gently dropped upon my shoulder to stop me. Turning to look, I saw Spirit had stepped up beside me, a concerned look on her face as she stared into my eyes.

“We also need to speak of what only the two of us heard a few minutes ago, Shadow,” she said gently, ears folded back. “I sensed a presence near you… a very evil and very powerful presence.”

“I didn’t need your supernatural senses to tell me that, Spirit,” I responded, looking away from my friend towards a few ponies still lingering among the crowd. “I got that from what he said.” I also got the sinking feeling the odd voice was somehow linked with things that were happening within town… how… I wasn’t sure, but it was damned strange timing. Plus, it seemed to react to what was going on around me.

Spirit remained silent as I thought all this over, her eyes scanning the square before she slowly nodding her horned head. “Stay on guard, my friend,” she added before stepping past me to follow the others.

I sighed and shook my head.

Great… evil voices… Carrion’s about to get lynched… weird ass dreams... what else could happen?

I started to follow after Spirit when I felt an odd sensation pass over me and I froze. Blinking, I looked back around me at the ponies still in the square, looking for… I don’t know what… at least until I caught sight of a robed figure watching me from across the street. I arched a brow and stood up a bit straighter trying to get a better look, but the hooded figure lowered its head. Before I could see anything else, a couple ponies walked between us blocking my line of sight to the figure. When they passed, the hooded figure was gone.

“Sorry I asked…” I muttered to myself, ears folding back once again as I trotted after Spirit and the others.

As it turned out, the building the Confederate soldiers were operating from wasn’t far from Town Hall or from the saloon we were staying in so it didn’t take us long to get there. I’d actually seen the little walled in complex the previous day while helping escort the ghouls to their new home, though I hadn’t gotten a close look at. It was in fact three buildings combined into one, surrounded on three of its sides by the roads that ran through town. The back wall was in fact the same one surrounding the entire town. Unlike it though, the complex’s walls were barely taller than a pony standing upon their hind legs. It also lacked the walkway along the top of it, not surprising given its short height. Still, it did its job, indicating that the buildings beyond were off limits to civilians.

The buildings themselves were built in a similar manner to the rest of town, a deep red stone and darker brown wood, both showing their age. Although, much of the outer walls were made of a simple, dull red brick. They’d once been offices and work rooms for some small business. Why they’d been built so far away from any major city I couldn’t say, nor was it really important. They’d been modified from their original design of course, and likely looked far different than they had a hundred years ago.

The windows had been boarded up with thick pieces of scrap wood and metal, leaving only a small slit for which a pony could look through… or more precisely fire from. It gave the buildings a more bunker like look than the homes around them and further marked them out as being different. The makeshift window covers would also slow down or deter enemies from breaking in. Those that had them, had their emergency exits blocked or welded shut and the fire escapes cut free. I saw evidence that the metal bars from the fire escapes had been recycled as barriers in some of the lower floor windows, giving them more protection from attackers on hoof.

Sandbags were built up around the front doors to the main building and I saw a spot for a tripod mounted weapon behind them. Clearly they were not taking any chances… which I could appreciate seeing how far from San Ponsisco we were. The parking lot for the three buildings had been repurposed as a landing pad for an armored and armed sky chariot. Unlike the roads around town, it was well maintained and appeared freshly patched. The chariot was missing however, having been used to take the squad up north to the aid of the miners. I’d heard Wild mention it once, talking about how she’d like to upgun our own ride. I wouldn’t be against it although I wasn’t sure how we could afford something like she was suggesting. Four miniguns sounded like overkill to me...along with the anti tank missiles.

All in all, the Confederate base was an impressive sight, and a reminder that the Confederacy took the protection of its towns seriously… at least those close enough to San Ponsisco to warrant a garrison. Still, I hoped that if they had the equine power and equipment to protect all of the towns within their territory, they would do so. Balefire had spoken highly of his mother, and his sister had seemed sincere in her desire to protect ponies.

It was at the gate into the complex where we parted ways with Doctor Bandaid. One of his staff had been hurrying down the road in search of the good doctor. His services were needed back at the hospital as the small staff had been swarmed with dozens of minor injuries from the near riot. Bidding his farewell to us, the stallion quickly followed the white coated mare back up the street. A swift look towards Spirit showed me the buffalo very much wanted to be following after her fellow medical practitioner.

“If you want to go help, Spirit, go ahead,” I said to her as we approached the small gate into the Confederate base. My friend merely shook her horned head and fixed her blue gaze upon me.

“I do wish to help, Doctor Bandaid, Shadow. My father taught me to always help those that need it… even if they had brought their pain upon themselves,” she answered as we slowed to allow the gate to be opened for us. She added before we stepped through, “I believe I am needed here at the moment, however. We have somethings to speak about once Carrion’s situation is settled.”

“Somehow, I doubt we’ll settle it in one conversation… although, I would be quite happy if we could,” I responded, frowning a bit before shaking off my worry to look towards the complex again.

There was a single soldier standing beside the door as we approached. Like the other soldiers, he was wearing the Confederate olive green and had a simple bolt action rifle slung across his shoulder. His helmet appeared a bit too large as it rattled about his small horn. The unicorn saluted sharply as Lieutenant Swift trotted past and gave the rest of us a quick once over. Swift simply nodded her head towards her soldier. Looking around the courtyard I noticed the lack of soldiers… wondering if those I’d seen back in the square had really been all that were left.

“I’m afraid the Lieutenant is a bit understaffed at the moment,” the mayor said in her rough voice just ahead of me. “An entire squad was sent to respond to the distress call from the miners, leaving her with barely a squad and a half.”

“Still enough ta get th’ job done, mayor, make no mistake,” the soldier said with a smile as we trotted past.

The tallest of the three was barely over three stories in height and that was just one corner. It was the largest, however, and covered much of the plot of land it sat upon. A wooden tower had been built upon the roof of the third floor, with a few metal sheets hung over the sides to offer some protection. It was large enough for three ponies to stand upon, and even had a spot light fixed to one side. At the moment only a single pony stood atop it, and was busy scanning the wasteland outside the town’s wall.

This building was the command center for the small garrison as well as housing its armoury, a small brig. It was also home to the officers and their staff… or officer in Swift’s case and the two ponies she had working for her. The remaining buildings were only single stories. These buildings housed the soldiers’ barracks, mess hall, and first aid station. It was in the main building, however, that we followed the mayor and Lieutenant into.

The inside of the building retained the military look and feel that the outside had. The entryway was a small room with no windows and a flight of stairs leading up to the second floor. There were hallways on either side of the stairs with two doors on each. The walls had been painted an olive green color with a yellow stripe running down the middle. The floor was bare, off white concrete. I saw no sign of Carrion or Fleet, but they’d been led her more quickly and assumedly they’d been taken to the brig. The mayor had assured me back in the square that they would be held here.

Without wasting any time, the Lieutenant and mayor headed for the stairs, waving us to follow them. The steps turned ninety degrees half way up and we found ourselves in a single hallway running the length of the building. Along one side was rows of windows looking out into the early morning streets of Janesville. All of them were partially boarded up of course. Along the other wall were rows of wooden doors, likely the offices or personal quarters for officers and their staff. It was the third door that the Lieutenant led us, her hoof coming up to the knob and twisting it quickly. Pushing open the door she stepped inside, switching on the lights as she went. While not every home and building in town had electricity, those deemed vital to running the town did.

Stepping in behind my friends and the mayor, I looked around the room quickly. Judging by the black and white photos sitting on the desk it likely belonged to Lieutenant Swift as the earth pony mare was prominent in a number of them, smiling happily along with a unicorn stallion and four young foals. There were a number of other personal effects scattered around the office, a number of foalish drawings that any mother (or uncle for that matter) would display proudly, and a porcelain figurine of a unicorn and earth pony that looked quite old among them. I also noticed a few awards for distinguished service hanging among the drawings.

The Lieutenant moved away from the mayor and stepped back behind the desk. With a tired sigh, the light blue coated mare promptly removed her helmet, running a hoof through her short cut green and yellow mane. When she set the steel headgear on the desk with a heavy thump, the gold bars sitting upon the front reflected in the light of a lamp. Glancing up to the rest of us, she waved a hoof around the office before slumping down into an old office chair with a grunt before shutting her orange eyes.

“It’s been a long fuckin’ mornin’...” she muttered to herself as the rest of us settled in.

The mayor dropped herself into a chair opposite of Swift and looked as tired as the Lieutenant. Stone and Wild had moved over to a couch sitting up against the left side wall, the pair settling down beside one another. While neither had said much on the walk here, I knew they were as worried about Carrion and Fleet as I was… not to mention upset with what had happened. Wild especially seemed angered… but she’d known Carrion longer than any of us… after all, he’d been the one to help her escape Kanter City the first time. A soft click from behind me indicated that Spirit had shut the door behind us. The large buffalo moved to stand to one side of the door. I simply shuffled off to the right, taking up a spot near a pair of filing cabinets and leaning up against them to take some of the weight off my hooves.

“Well… that coulda gone better Ah reckon,” Swift said to no one before opening her eyes to lock onto those of the mayor. “Yer guards shoulda known better then ta let th’ citizens get so outta hoof, Mrs. Mayor.” While she kept her tone civil, I could hear the hint of anger in her voice and she leaned forward in her seat. “Th’ Garrison’s here to help th’ town’s local guards… not do their job for’em. Ah’ve never seen ’em be so damned foalish.”

I arched a brow and cocked my head slightly as the Lieutenant said that. That was the third time in less than an hour I’d heard somepony say something about acting odd. That uneasy feeling that had been slowly building in my gut began to get a bit painful. Spirit noticed my unease and glanced my way. I ignored her look, focusing on the conversation in front of me. While the mayor looked suitably chastised by Swift for a moment, I could see her back straightening and her ears folding back.

“Don’t you think I know that, Swift? I mean… shit… I hoof picked most of those ponies because I believed they would do their job without letting personal feelings get in the way,” Evening Rain responded, anger clear in her voice but I didn’t think it was directed towards the other mare. “And they have done a remarkable job for the past several years until today…” she finished, ears splaying out to the sides of her head and her turquoise eyes downcast. Her anger died as quickly as it’d appeared. Silence settled over the room after her outburst, each pony thinking upon the past half hour’s events.

“Yer right of course…” Swift finally said, leaning back in her seat and running a hoof across the top of the desk. “Ah’ve not seen th’ townsfolk so riled up since takin’ this post.”

The sound of hoofsteps echoed from beyond the doorway in the hallway outside halted any further conversation. A quick knock came to the door, which was followed by a young looking earth pony stallion pushing it open and stepping into the room. While he lacked the combat armor of the soldiers, his brown mane and tail was cut in a similar fashion as some of the others I’d seen. He wore a simple looking olive green shirt and had a wooden tray balanced upon his back with a number of glasses of what looked like water sitting upon it.

“Lieutenant, you asked for something to drink?” the stallion asked, sounding barely old enough to be in the army.

Swift nodded her head before shutting her eyes once again and letting her hoof slide off the desktop to land upon the armrest of the chair. Without another word, the stallion nodded and moved between Spirit and I, up beside the mayor and retrieved one of the glasses from the tray. Offering the drink to Evening, the mare accepted and thanked him softly. She began to drink, wincing a bit from her still aching throat. With that finished, he offered the rest of us a drink before departing the room. Those of us who had accepted, sipped the slightly cool water before anypony spoke again.

“You’re right of course,” the mayor said, looking into her nearly empty glass. Her voice was a bit better, but still raspy. “About letting things to get as bad as they had… if I’d noticed a bit sooner I could have gotten them to stop it…” she was cut off by a strangled squawk coming from the couch to her left.

Looking over, I saw Wild had dropped her glass onto the floor. Thankfully it survived the fall onto the worn carpet although the water had spilled out and left a dark stain. Stone sat beside her, lightly slapping her back as the mare hacked and coughed. I assumed she must have been taking a drink when what the mayor said surprised her. With a few more coughs she stood up from her seat and pointed a hoof towards the door, green eyes narrowing.

“How… how do you not notice something like that?!” Wild all but yelled as her hoof waved about. “I think the whole damned town heard them!” Stone lifted a large hoof up and pulled his fillyfriend back down onto the couch. He attempted to soothe her figuratively and literally ruffled feathers. The mayor winced and looked away from the pair to stare down at the floor.

I folded my forelegs across my chest and scowled at the unresponsive mayor. Her uncertainty with seemingly everything irked me for some reason.

“My friend’s right, Mayor Rain… that’s not exactly something you can miss,” I said, trying my best to keep any anger out of my voice despite my own feelings… Carrion and Fleet could have been killed right then and there… and she was saying she hadn’t seen or heard what was happening? Again, the mayor remained silent. It was Spirit who spoke next.

“The mayor had just seen the aftermath of one of her citizens ripped to pieces, Shadow,” Spirit said, moving to stand behind the mayor and placing a hoof upon her shoulder gently. “It was a very gruesome sight… one that anypony who had not seen what we all had would find troubling.” A shuffling came from the head of the office and we all turned towards the Lieutenant as she leaned forward once more.

“Ah’ must admit… even with all Ah’ve seen over th’ years in th’ service of my country, Ah’ve never seen anythin’ that… brutal before,” Swift said, looking each of us in the eyes. “And Ah’ve seen feral ghoul attacks before… integratin’ ’em into th’ Confederacy ain’t been easy on anypony.”

“What exactly did happen in there?” Stone asked, leaning forward in his seat and looking between the mayor and the Lieutenant. “Ah don’t rightly see how Carrion can be mixed up with murderin’ this shop keeper. He’d come all th’ way out ta th’ saloon ta let us know trouble was a brewin.”

“Yeah… I think we deserve some answers as to why you're holding one of our friends,” Wild added. Despite what anyone else said about her reasoning, she still looked rather upset with the mayor.

I couldn’t blame her. Even if I understood what Spirit had pointed out, I was still a bit angry with the mayor’s reactions thus far. While nopony should have to see the things my friends and I had during our journey (and just during their normal everyday lives), the wasteland wasn’t subtle. It was in your face nearly twenty four seven. However, upon thinking about it further, I realized why she might be unsettled. In the major Confederate towns and cities it wasn’t something that was shoved into your face all the time. Oh sure, Three Horns reminded you every time you turned on the radio… but hearing about it and seeing it are two very different things. Having lived in San Ponsisco, you could almost forget the horrors on the other side of the walls… almost.

“Mayor?” Swift asked, looking over to the mare sitting between herself and the rest of us. With the eyes of everypony in the room upon her, I was sure the seemingly meek pony would once more go silent. For a moment, I thought she had.

Mayor Evening Rain lowered her gaze back down to the empty glass floating within her magic before her face. With a shake of her head, she levitated the glass over to the Lieutenant’s desk and set it down before reaching back with a hoof to pat Spirit’s own. She offered the kindhearted buffalo a smile and nod of her head. She then lifted her gaze to look around the room before settling her eyes upon me.

“First, let me stress this… neither of your friends have been accused of any crime… yet,” she began, pushing a few locks of her short white mane out of her face before dropping the hoof back to rest upon her seat. “At the moment they are both simply suspects of the crime, which is murder.” Her hoof lowered from her face and she shifted her gaze from me to Wild and Stone. “Also, please understand that what I’m about to tell you is just what we know at the moment… a full investigation has to be run before any charges are brought to bear on either of them, in accordance with Confederate law.”

“I understand you don’t know everything right now, things were pretty damned chaotic there this morning, I get it,” I said. I was at least happy to hear that neither Carrion or Fleet would be simply shoved in front of a firing squad with no trial. “Just tell us what you do know, it’ll be more than any of us know presently.” She glanced back to me as I spoke and nodded her head once I finished speaking.

“Alright. At the moment, all we know for sure is that sometime late last night somepony, or ponies, broke into Lilly’s store and home in the Plaza and… murdered her.” The mayor seemed to have trouble saying the last bit, but she quickly recovered and went on. “The entire store was a mess… it looked like whoever they were ransacked the place pretty hard either before or after Lilly’s death. We’re unsure of a motive, but it looks as if it could have been a robbery… at least that’s what Lieutenant Swift believes,” she said, looking from me to the mare on the other side of the desk.

“It’d be th’ most likely reason ta break into th’ shop as any. And before anypony can ask if anythin’ was stolen we’re not sure at th’ moment… th’ place was a right mess,” she said simply. “And it’ll be a while still till we know fer sure.”

“Lilly was never the most orderly pony,” the mayor said, shaking her head sadly. “And while she wasn’t the most well liked pony in town, she wasn’t a bad pony by any means…”

“Ya don’t seem ta buy th’ robbery excuse,” Stone pointed out. The mayor shifted her focus from myself and Swift to my large grey friend.

“There hasn’t been a robbery in this town in years… not since the last food shortage. Also… I could maybe understand it if it was anypony else’s shop… but not Lilly’s...”

“What did she sell?” Stone asked.

“Honestly? Mostly just junk… passing Wastelanders would sell her the odd parts of larger machinery and old bits of pre war Equestrian life. Being the only Confederate settlement for miles we normally got a number of them seeking to strike it rich from the ruined cities further up north. There were a number of military bases around here also,” she answered. “She also had a knack for getting hard to find items for ponies and those adventurers.” My ears perked up as the mayor said this.

“A black market?” Wild asked, arching an eyebrow.

“No, not that we ever noticed anyway… it was hard to find, but hardly weapons or drugs,” the mayor quickly explained. I had a feeling there was a bit more to it than that.

I’d heard a few tales of a black market in San Ponsisco during my stay within its walls. A pony could buy just about anything so long as they had the caps to pay for it. Honestly, it was to be expected… it would likely be the second oldest profession in the world. Hell, even Stable 45 had it’s ‘Black Market’... if one could consider the sale of extra deserts black marketing. Shaking my mind of better times, I focused back on the conversation.

“How did the guards learn about the murder?” I asked. It was Swift who answered.

“It was Lilly’s neighbor and friend, Crystal Rose, who alerted th’ local guards. She lives in th’ shop next door ta Lilly’s and said she was woken by what sounded like a couple ponies arguing loudly. She told th’ guard officer on duty...a Sergeant Jade, Ah believe, that she’d left her home ta see what all th’ ruckus was about. When she stepped up onta th’ porch, she said th’ shoutin’ turned inta a sudden scream followed by sounds of strugglin.”

“And she didn’t try to help her friend?” Wild asked from beside Stone, head tilted to the side a bit of confusion on her face.

“Crystal’s bout as brave as a crippled rooster in’a radscorpion den,” Swift explained. “And she ain’t much taller than a filly. When she heard th’ scream, she took off runnin’... luckily she ain’t stupid and went ta find th’ nearest guard who happened ta be patroling a bit further up th’ road. He summoned others after hearin’ Crystal’s story.” Swift went on to explain, “They arrived to find Lilly was already… dead… and one of the ghouls you’d brought into town standing nearby.”

“Fleethoof?” Wild asked needlessly as we all already knew the answer. Instead, she asked another question, “And I suppose they assumed she had killed, Lilly?” When the mayor nodded, my friend snorted and flexed her wings in agitation. “That’s ridiculous… Fleet wouldn’t hurt a damned fly…”

“Perhaps… but in my guard’s defense she did have fresh blood on both her muzzle and fore hooves. I believe anypony would have assumed she was the killer just by looking at her current condition,” Swift answered.

Wild frowned, the long primary feathers of her wings spreading apart as her anger rose once more. She looked about ready to retort, but the words died on her tongue. I spoke instead before she could say something we’d all regret... well everypony but her...

“As a former Stable Security pony I would have likely done the same.” My words seemed to defuse the situation and I sat down upon the floor before continuing, “However, what Wild said isn’t untrue… for the short time I’ve known her, Fleet has never appeared overly aggressive. It doesn’t make sense… Fleet looked terrified while she was being lead out of the shop, and yesterday when we first arrived and ponies were yelling about monsters she was far more afraid of them then they were of her.”

“She wasn’t behavin’ like any feral ghoul Ah’ve seen… especially not one who just killed a pony,” Stone added as he attempted to soothe Wild’s ruffled feathers. “Once a ghoul goes feral, Ah’ve never seen ’em come back.”

“I must agree with my friends,” Spirit spoke up for the first time in a while. “It is true we have not known these ghouls for very long, but there is no sign of darkness within them as other feral ghouls I have witnessed. A spark of their former selves remains within them.”

“Ah’ve no idea about this spark yer speakin’ of, healer… but yer right, o’ course,” Swift spoke up. “This Fleethoof seemed a might timid for a killer ghoul. But it’s still a might hard ta explain why she was there in th’ first place. Lilly wouldn’t have willin’ let a ghoul inta her shop… let alone two of’em.”

“Two?” We all looked surprised at that, at least until I understood she’d meant Carrion. “Why was she there?” I asked, turning back towards the mayor. “I thought all the ghouls we brought with us were locked up in the abandoned part of town… with the exception of Carrion.”

“According to the guard I assigned to the gate along the ghoul’s section of town, it was your friend Carrion who let her out,” was her response… which didn’t really help me any. “As you recall, I made it clear I didn’t want them to feel like complete prisoners… they could be let out so long as they were escorted by a member of the local guard, a Confederate soldier, or one of the ones who brought them into town.”

“So… he’s being held because he was the one responsible for Fleethoof?” I asked the mayor, to which she quickly responded.

“Not entirely, no. He also struck several of the guards while they were attempting to take Fleethoof into custody once he arrived.”

“So, he wasn’t there to begin with?”

“No… at least I don’t think so… the rough report I received from the officer in charge on the scene only mentioned him showing up after the guards had… but as I said, things are a bit confused at the moment…” the mayor answered shaking her head.

“Alright… so what now?” Wild asked.

“Well, there’s to be a full investigation… normally this would fall into the hooves of our Sheriff but we haven’t had one in a couple years… nopony has wanted the job.”

“Yah, that’d likely be our fault,” Swift said, earning my attention. “Since th’ Confederacy sent us ta watch over th’ town, most ponies ain’t seen a need for a local law enforcement. What th’ local guards can’t handle, we do… and th’ mayor was right when she said there ain’t been a major crime committed here in sometime.” I’d suppose not, what with heavily armed soldiers patrolling the streets and walls from time to time… however this didn’t bode well for Carrion and Fleethoof.

“It could explain the… strong feelings ponies have for what has occurred,” Spirit offered.

“So, if not the sheriff, who will be seeing to this?” I asked with a frown.

“Ah’d reckon it’d be th’ guard who’d see to somethin’ like this if th’ Sheriff can’t,” said Stone, frowning himself as he did. “It’s what most towns in th’ wasteland do, well, when they ain’t goin’ straight ta wasteland justice.” this got a notable response from the mayor who sat up a bit straighter in her seat, ears folding back.

“There'll be none of that here I assure you, Mr Hoof,” the blue coated mare responded, “I won’t allow any citizens or even a single visitors to this town be hauled off and hung without due process.” Stone simply nodded his head, looking only slightly relieved at the mayor's statement.

“So, if there’s no lawpony in town, then who’s going to run the investigation?” I asked, looking between the mayor and Swift. “After what just happened, I don’t know if the guards can be trusted to be impartial…”

“I can’t fault you for that thought, Marshal…” the mayor said with a sigh, sinking back into her seat a bit. “And I might even be forced to agree with you… I just can’t believe them…”

“And Ah’m afraid we can’t get much more involved than we already are,” Swift added, gaining all of our attention again. “Holdin’ prisoners fer th’ local authority is one thin’, but doin’ an investiaction would send th’ wrong message ta th’ citizens… and not just of this town. Th’ military can’t get involved in a civilian matter unless yer willin’ to declare martial law, Mayor.” It wasn’t really a question by the sound of it and without waiting to see the mayor’s response, the lieutenant went on, “There is one possibility… we get another lawpony ta investigate th’ crime… th’ law’s quite clear that any lawpony will do so long as th’ local government official approves of’em.”

As she said that, I noticed Wild perking up in her seat. Her eyes shifted from Swift to me, before she hurriedly turned towards Stone and began speaking with him quietly. I arched a brow at my friends, but got no response from them. However, I did have a sinking feeling I knew what they were talking about.

“Where is the nearest town with a Sheriff?” Spirit asked, oblivious to my ill feels and the plotting pair upon the couch to her left. “I am not that familiar with this area.”

“If’n Ah remember… it’d be Sutter’s Mill. It’s bout two ta three day’s trot ta th’ west dependin’ on th’ roads and th’ local wildlife. Half a day if ya can fly,” Stone said, having stopped his hushed conversation with Wild to answer Spirit’s question. However, whatever they’d been discussing seemed over and both their eyes were fixed on me. That sinking feeling had dropped another couple miles as I noticed Wild’s smirk.

“It’d take a bit ta get ’em here, but th’ sheriff there’s a goodpony. He’d come if’n we asked ’em to and explained th’ situation,” Swift said, looking to Spirit and Stone before noticing the odd looks my friends were giving me. “Ah’ve worked with ’em before…”

“It’d take time we might not have if th’ locals get it inta their heads ta do somethin’ rash… ya said they weren’t actin’ right. Might be better ta get it taken care of sooner,” Stone spoke up as Swift trailed off. The mare looked between us as she figured out that my friends were thinking something stupid… at least I thought it was.

“You may be right… but I can’t think of anypony else we could call for,” the mayor said to Stone, looking up and noticing their focus on me.

“We’ve got a lawpony a bit closer,” Wild added, giving voice to what I’d suspected they’d planned.

I frowned and looked between Stone and Wild both of whom were looking to me expectedly. It wasn’t that I was afraid of running an investigation… truth be told I’d had to do a number of them back in Forty Five. After all, as the head of Stable Security it was my duty to run them... for the few times we required them. But I had help… Brightblade, Wendy… Cinnamon Twist. However, there were two really good reasons I couldn’t do this. Shaking my head, I looked around the office before speaking.

“As I’m sure, you’re all aware I’m a Marshal in spirit only,” I said, lightly tapping the silver badge upon my chest. “I didn’t earn this badge from any special training nor was I appointed by anypony in power. My authority as a real security pony ended with my Stable. Besides that… it’d be a very blatant conflict of interest seeing how one of the ponies involved is a friend and the other I myself brought here.” While I wanted to do everything I could to help Carrion, I wasn’t sure this would help… in fact, I believed it would make matters worse. I could tell just by looking at Wild she didn’t agree.

“I’m afraid he’s right, Wildfire.... even if I was one hundred percent sure my ponies weren’t so distressed over this, I don’t believe they’d allow it… I wouldn’t allow it,” Evening said.

“So… you’re saying we have to wait?” Wild asked. I could tell this was upsetting her more than Stone or I… and we were both worried for our friend.

It wasn’t often that I’d seen Wildfire get upset over something… well, let me start over. It wasn’t often that I’d seen Wild get anything other than angry over something… this was one of those rare times and my ears wilted a bit as I saw the winged mare struggle to keep her emotions in check.

“I’m afraid so… it will simply take a bit longer…” Whatever else she was about to say was halted as Wild rose quickly from her seat. The pegasus seemed unwilling to sit still any longer, her wings rustling. She looked over at me, and I could have swore I saw fear in her eyes and something else… it then clicked why she was so upset. Out of all of us, she’d known Carrion the longest. It was Carrion who’d helped her escape from Kanter City and a short life of slavery and abuse at the hooves of the raiders who called that blighted city home.

“Shadow… we can’t just sit by and do nothing…” Wild began, wings fidgeting as she fought to keep them at her sides, her tail lashed about behind her as she stalked the small room.

I rose quickly from where I’d been sitting and covered the short distance between us in a few steps, as I reached her I lifted my forelegs up and gently took hold of her shoulders, halting her pacing. My friend froze and locked eyes with me, I could see the tears threatening to escape them as she stood still, mouth half open to say something.

“We’re not doing nothing, Wildfire… we’re doing what we can to help our friends. Rushing into anything without thinking things through would likely cause more problems than it’d solve. If we broke Carrion out he’d be hunted down by the Confederacy, along with the rest of us.” she looked away as I continued speaking, “We’re all just as worried about Carrion as you… but you heard the Lieutenant, she won’t allow any harm to come to him while he’s under her protection… and you know I won’t allow anyone to harm him or any of you.”

“I’m sorry…” she began, but I shooshed her gently and offered her a kind, confident smile.

“I know, Wild… we’ll figure this out. I promise.” giving her shoulders a gentle squeeze I lowered my hooves back to the ground and she nodded once before turning back towards Stone. I glanced back towards the Evening and Swift who had remained silent while I’d calmed Wild. “What can we do to help things go smoothly?” I asked.

It took us the remaining morning to figure everything out. Mostly in part to the fact the mayor had to call the other members of the town’s council in on the discussions. In the end, as the mayor had pointed out, it was for the best as to do anything less would have sent the wrong message to the local population. Before we began, Spirit had excused herself to go check in on Carrion and Fleethoof before going back to helping Doctor Bandaid but not before instructing me to see her later.

Once the mayor had finished explaining everything she currently knew to the councilmembers (and once everypony had calmed down again after Wild had hurled a few… colorful insults towards a mare who demanded the ghouls be tossed out) they began to figure out what needed to be done.

Beside the need for a lawpony to investigate the murder along with any ponies he or she felt was needed, it was decided that a Judge and jury would need to be brought in from out of town as well. While it might be seen as lack of trust, everypony (with the exception of the mare Wild was attempting to murder with looks alone) agreed that it was necessary for a fair trial and would be openly explained to the towns ponies as such later today.

A trial… for murder no less. This was not something I had ever expected to be involved with when we’d set out to answer Old Oaks’ distress call… funny how things work out. However it did mean that for the foreseeable future we’d not be going anywhere… for how long, nopony could really say. It could be less than a couple days to more than a couple months (although the later seemed unlikely). This fact troubled my friends.

Before she’d left, Spirit pulled me aside into the hallway and expressed her desire for me to return to San Ponsisco at once and see to my eye. Her fears of the injury growing worse had not been lessened in the few hours since her prognoses and waiting for an unknown amount of time did not set well with her. In truth I was worried about my eyesight, as it hadn’t improved all morning… and nearly seemed to have gotten worse. But I was bothered to leave Carrion in a cell… even if all I could do for my friend was to be there for him. Leaving for San Ponsisco before I knew his fate didn’t settle well with me.

After my short conversation with her, Stone had managed to get Wild to sit back down beside him and keep her calm enough to sit through the ensuring meeting with only a few interruptions and outbursts from the fiery mare. Every so often I found myself glancing towards the couple, worried about how things might turn out if this all went south. Wild owed Carrion everything… honestly we all did. However it was too soon to start worrying about what a court would decide when we still had to gather everything together.

By late in the afternoon the impromptu council meeting had drawn to a close and everypony had gone their separate ways. In the five or so hours we had been at it everything had been decided on how to begin.

The Sheriff of Sutter’s Mill would be contacted via radio and asked to come to Janesville for the investigation. To lessen the time Carrion and Fleethoof would be in their cells somewhat, Wild and Stone had volunteered to fly out to the neighboring town to bring the lawpony and anypony he needed back. This all depended on if he agreed of course, but Swift had stated admittedly that he would. The Confederate officer was confident this Sheriff would answer the request with haste.

As for the trial itself, it would be held in Janesville’s town hall which had a small but serviceable courtroom on it’s first floor. The day after the Sheriff’s arrival, a request would go out to the Confederacy for a judge and jury to be sent in to hear the case. They would of course not be sent out until after the investigation was finished, and that was where I was now… standing in the second floor hallway of the Confederate Compound staring out into the courtyard below and waiting.

Waiting for word from Wild about when and if they were leaving for Sutter’s Mill. Waiting on word about a judge. Waiting to see if the locals remained calm or lost their shit again. Waiting for the fate of my friend to be decided and the company of ghouls I’d thought I was bringing to a better life. Waiting. Wildfire wasn’t the only pony who wasn’t very good at standing around waiting.

With a disgruntled snort, I stepped away from the window and shook my head. Perhaps there wasn’t much I could do myself… but there was one thing I could do. Turning towards the stairs I began trotting down them my destination clear. I could visit a friend who had nothing else he could do but wait. A pair of green armored ponies passed me on my way to the first floor, giving me only a curious look before continuing, an odd thing seeing how I was an armed civilian inside their base. This was in thanks to Lieutenant Swift.

The mare had given me written permission to come and go as I pleased within the Confederate compound (within reason) and had also informed those currently on duty about my privileges before returning to her other duties. It was a good thing she had, for despite their staffing problem the main building of their little base was well guarded. At the bottom of the steps, I noticed the single guard out front had been replaced by two others and the once empty rooms on either side of the stairs had another three ponies in them. All wore their combat armor and carried some form of weapon. This had gone a long way to ease some of Wild’s worries about a mob assaulting the place and dragging Carrion out into the street. It had also eased mine.

Turning away from the front door I made my way further into the building, past the stairs to the second floor. The brig for the base had been built within the basement of this building, taking up much of the space available down there according to the Lieutenant. The other portion of the basement had been assigned to the small garrison’s armoury and was one of the few places I was restricted from entering.

Finding the stairs directly beneath the others, It was a short trot down them before I set hoof in the basement. It looked much like you’d expect a basement to look… no doubt when this place had been an office building it had been used largely for storage. Now walls had been erected on around a small room at the stairs base. Within this space an old but very heavy looking wooden desk had been sat, behind which a pair of armed and armored stallions sat. Both looked up as I trotted further down the steps.

“Marshal Shadow?” the one on the right asked, a young looking earth pony with a dusty brown coat and jet black mane and tail. His guard armor looked a tad large on his small frame, with his helmet set upon the desk. Both looked new, with nary a sign of damage from encounters out in the wasteland. Looking closer at the pony inside it, I got a feeling he was new too. A pair of goggles rested upon his forehead, keeping his unruly tufts of mane out of his amber colored eyes.

“That’d be me,” I answered, trotting the last couple of steps to stand before the pair on the other side of their desk. I gave the old heavy looking piece of furniture a curious glance and I got the feeling from it’s size and position it was meant for more than just office work. It looked likely to be able to stop all but a direct hit from a rocket or large explosive.

“The Lieutenant said you’d likely be down to visit the prisoners,” the young stallion responded, drawing my attention back up to him. “We’re to allow you assess to them both during the day, but I’m afraid you’ll have to leave at seven o'clock.” When I nodded my head in understanding he scooped up a ring of large keys from beside his helmet. The other stallion simply sat watching us as the younger stepped from behind the desk and moved up towards the door on my left. It was yet another modification to the old office building, as I doubted they’d had need of a heavy metal door with a sliding view slit for whatever work had been done here.

“Thanks,” I said simply as he inserted the key into the lock and pulled the door open. He stood to the side and allowed me to step past him into the compounds simple looking brig. I was reminded of the brig we had back in Stable 45, although this was a bit rougher in design having been converted from a storage room.

The room was similar in size to my apartment back in San Ponsisco, minus all the walls dividing the separate rooms. Right beside the door into the brig stood a smaller, lighter desk and chair with a few papers and folders stacked neatly atop it. An old desk lamp sat to one side along with a number of empty bottles and a cracked faded coffee mug. Beyond the desk stood the cells of the brig, three on each side with a larger one along the back wall. Each of the smaller cells had a simple cot and chamber pots (which likely made a comeback with the loss of running water in most communities). A narrow window lined with bars gave each cell a bit of light and fresh air. The only other light came from the walkway between cells and the two bulbs hanging from the ceiling on cords that lightly swayed in the breeze.

Of the seven cells only two were currently occupied, those closest to the exit. The remaining five had their doors left open should they be needed in a hurry. Though beyond the two none seemed to have been used in sometime. From where I stood, I could easily see the slumped form of Fleethoof on her cot in the closest cell, her back was to the room and she appeared to be resting. I was quite thankful to see her there, as I’d privately been worried this might cause her to snap and go completely feral. After all, the ghoul mare had had a long troubling morning… if anything was to cause a pony to break completely it might have been that.

The next cell over from her’s, I could see another pony leaning up against the metal bars while sitting upon his own cot. The somewhat dim lighting within the brig made any real detail about him hard to see, but I knew it was Carrion. I could see enough of his tattered hide to know it was him, however my ghoul friend looked less bulky without all his armor and weapons strapped across his frame. He appeared to be looking at something within his hoof… I don’t know why, but he looked… lost. I must have stood there silently for a bit as I seemed to have forgotten there was another pony there with me.

“I’ll wait outside with Tumble, Marshal. Just knock three times when you're ready to come out and one of us will open the door for you,” the pony behind me said, gaining my attention and surprising me with his words.

“I figured you’d be staying inside to watch me,” I responded turning my back on the cells to face him. After all, if our roles had been reversed I’d have not allowed anypony to be alone with the prisoners... to insure nothing funny was attempted. Not that I’d thought about it mind you… of course not… planning out a jail break for a friend was the last thing on my mind… okay, maybe for a second.

“The Lieutenant said you were a good pony, one who’d follow the law no matter what... and I trust what she says,” he said with a shake of his head before adding, “I also trust what Three Horns said about you, Marshal.” With that said, he offered me a nod before withdrawing back through the doorway and pulling the steel door shut behind him. As the lock slid into place with a soft click, I turned back towards the others in the room with me.

“He’s right ya know…” Carrion called out from his cell, the old soldier not having moved from his seat. He still held the picture in his hoof though I could see his glowing orange eyes fixed upon me. I trotted slowly up to the cell, giving a quick glance into Fleet’s cell.

“So I’ve been told,” I answered as I settled myself down beside the door to his cell, “Many… many times,” I added a second later with a slight grin while the pony within merely snorted and shook what remained of his ratty blue mane relieving something metallic attached to his cracked horn. I arched a brow and looked closer in the light, seeing the odd magical rune carved into the smooth metal and recognized what it was. A magic suppressor used by lawponies on unicorns who have been taken into custody. Ignoring my attention on his horn, my friend lowered his gaze back to a piece of paper in his hoof.

“Celestia’s tits ain’t that the truth... honestly, I’m getting tired of hearing it,” he said with a perfectly straight face although I noticed the slight twitch to the corners of his mouth and after a snort from me, the twitch turned into a open smile. As we chuckled over the joke, I got a closer look at my friend.

Without the armor and his old uniform to cover it up, I could see a number of open wounds across his body that matched those upon his face. Although I couldn't tell how old any of them were, I imagined most had been suffered from his years wandering the dead streets and sewers of Kanter City. Most showed signs of the slow decay all ghouls suffered from. Just along his side facing me, I could clearly see his ribs showing up against his tattered coat, which I still wasn't sure what color it had been originally. Just below where the collar of his armor would be, I noticed a hole had been burned through his body, perhaps from a laser weapon or magical attack. As he shifted on his cot, I spotted the only thing he still wore, a pair of dog tags around his neck, which seemed to be the only thing on him that looked in fair shape. I glanced towards his flank, but couldn’t make out his cutie mark, as that part of his coat had either burned or been pulled off completely leaving only the muscle showing. The old ghoul had seen a lot over the past couple centuries, none of it easy.

Whatever he held seemed to have regained his full attention as our short bout of laughter ended. While I couldn’t tell exactly what it was of, I believe I could make a guess. It was most likely a photo, if I was to judge it solely by the type and thickness of the paper and it’s overall size. After all I carried one of my sister and niece in my saddlebags and it was about that size. Perhaps it was a family member… friends? Whoever it was of, they were likely long dead.

“Well, I promise not to bring it up around you if I can help it,” I responded, returning to the matter at hoof. I sat down and placed my fore hooves against the cell door, looking at his face. “A stupid question, but… how are you doing?”

“It is a stupid question,” was his first response, and for a moment I thought it would be his only response until the photo he held lowered a bit. “Still… this is better than what I’m use to living in, after several years being crammed into barracks or shuffling about the sewers of Kanter City I suppose this is alright.” The photo slowly and gently began being rolled up, as best one can with hooves. It then slid into a spent shell casing hanging beside his tags, with that done, he stood and slowly approached the bars of his cell. “I’m doing better than her,” he added, jerking his chin towards Fleet’s cell. “Spirit dropped by to check up on us… she managed to calm her down, said if she’d still had blood running through her veins she would’a had a heart attack due to stress.”

“It’s a miracle she didn’t go feral…,” I said while glancing over once more to the resting pegasus. She’d looked beyond afraid. “I guess I really shouldn’t be so surprised by what happened out there this morning. After the way ponies reacted to you all upon our arrival… but they didn’t try to outright attack you at first.”

“Fear makes a pony do strange things…” my ears twitched, unsure if I’d heard that or imagined it. Turning back I found my friend staring off into one of the other cells and I arched a brow. Sensing my attention he quickly shook his head before looking back to me. “I’ve heard of more violent welcomes for ghouls while back in San Ponsisco.”

“Perhaps… but it shouldn’t have gotten so out of hoof… if the crowd had surged forwards they would have easily overtaken the guards to get at you both,” I grunted lightly, rapping my hoof against the bars to his cell.

“I wouldn’t have been a bit surprised if they had… we’re not ponies Shadow, no matter how much some of us wish we still were,” he said while his glowing orange eyes bored into mine, catching me off guard with what he was saying. “Or some of you wish we were. We’re just rotting corpses of ponies masquerading as the living, most of us just haven’t figured out we’re dead yet.”

“That’s not true, Carrion,” I shot back once I recovered from my surprise. “You’re more than that. Fleet’s more than that. Bronzestar was more than that.” As I went on, my hoof dropped away from the cell bars to land with a loud clop upon the hard floor. I was just opening my mouth to continue telling my friend what I thought of his views when he cut me off.

“Save the speeches for how we’re all the same for somepony who still gives a damn, Shadow.” I glared through the bars at my friend, jaw shutting as he went on. “Now… I’m sure you didn’t just drop by to give me a recap on the day’s events or your world views.”

I grunted deeply and swiveled my ears back against my mane. I wanted to keep arguing with him, argue with anypony who thought that. None of the ghouls I’d met were just walking corpses… corpses didn’t have feelings… they didn’t feel pain or sorrow. However, I had a feeling it’d be a long… loud argument and time wasn’t something either of us had in great supply at the moment. Not if I was going to see to it they both got a fair trial. I also did not want to risk undoing all of Spirit’s work with Fleet and upset the ghoul again. With a tired grunt, I slumped my shoulders and lifted my ears up.

“You’re an asshole sometimes, ya know that?” It wasn’t a question… more of a statement. Carrion had never been what you’d call a… people pony. I suppose I could understand given his past. I didn’t wait for him to respond before I launched into a short recap of what had been happening while he and Fleet was locked away. After a few minutes, Carrion grunted and shook his head before speaking.

“Wild and Stone shouldn’t be going to so much trouble…”

“Trouble? Carrion, they’re willing to help a friend in need… like any of us would. Like you would… and did.” The last bit was more of a guess, but it would explain how Carrion how ended up at a murder scene. I’d hoped to get him to talk about what exactly had happened in that shop last night, however he didn’t take the bait and instead asked a question.

“So, the mayor’s going to get outside help for this mess? I’m sure the locals are going to love that when she tries to sell it to ’em…”

“Doesn’t matter whether they love it or not… it’s within the rights of all Confederate officials to call in outside help if they feel the local authorities would be biased towards the rights of the accused.” It was Carrion’s turn to arch a brow towards me and act surprised. I lightly tapped the marshal badge sitting upon my chest. “While the badge might mean jack shit, I was still a security pony and much of the Confederacy’s laws and regulations are copied from books given to Stables about Equestrian law. Laws they expected those within the Stables to put into practice once we emerged.” granted of course things were a lot more completed with so many different species interacting with one another, but the core of the laws were the same.

“And the mayor’s lackies agreed to this?” he asked, leaning onto his cot, placing his back against the stone wall of his cell, “They’d all but fought to get the ghouls expelled from the town when we first arrived… I recalled you complaining rather loudly about that fact at dinner in the saloon.”

“True… however most of them agreed with the mayor and were appalled by what had happened this morning,” I answered, ears folding back as I recalled a couple unkind comments somepony had used to describe the ghouls we’d brought into town, and about Carrion. “They’ll also be sending a judge and a couple ponies to act as a jury when the time comes for the trial.” His ears perked up at that.

“A trial?” he asked, sitting back up.

“Yes, a criminal trial… and while charges have yet to be filed against either of you, I imagine the most obvious one to be used is murder.” Carrion didn’t say anything and simply settled back down upon his bench causing me to frown. I wasn’t getting anywhere by dancing around it… I had to know.

“What happened this morning?” This was the one question I’d come to ask him, and one I wanted an answer for. “Stone said you’d come back to our hotel to warn us something was going on… but the guards say you were at the crime scene.” His eyes shifted quickly away from me to glance over at Fleethoof before hurriedly looking away. I arched a brow and leaned closer to the bars. “Carrion?” When he didn’t respond, I pressed, “Carrion… I can’t help you unless you tell me what happened.” Again, silence. Either from lack of sleep or stress, I felt my anger spark. “Damnit Carrion! I’m trying to help you…”

“I’m getting soft,” was his response, which… really didn’t help any and only confused the hell out of me..

“Excuse me?” After a few more seconds of silent, he looked back towards me.

“Do you know how many times I’ve seen somepony die in Kanter City?” he asked suddenly. The subject change was enough to cause me to pause before I could answer.

“No. I’d imagine quite a few however.” That got a snort from the old stallion, however it lacked any trace of amusement.

“Too many,” he answered. “Even before the raiders, ponies were always coming into that damned radioactive hellhole looking for anything of value… either to sell or to help keep themselves alive a bit longer. Either the radiation would get to them slowly, sapping their strength or the feral ghouls would… sometimes both… the sewers had a way of carrying the screams and crying all through them.”

I shifted a bit at the calm way he spoke about listening to ponies dying, but remained silent.

“I tried helping some of them… believe it or not at one time I was a good pony too… but that was before the war… before this.” He waved a hoof at his rotted body. “I’d always arrive too late to do much more then put the poor devils out of their misery.” He rubbed a hoof along his muzzle. “Always too late,” he muttered, going silent again.

“After a while, I just stopped trying,” he began again, eyes fixed upon the floor of his cell. “Didn’t do anyone any good… not me, not the poor bitch crying out for her foals or the two stallions begging for their lives. After all, in a few weeks or months somepony else would be stupid enough to try again.”

I started to say something when he paused again, but honestly… what could I say to that?

“Not much changed when the raiders first showed up… except they brought the ponies with them instead of treasure hunters coming in. The sounds were the same of course… ponies and others crying out in fear and pain. But, it wasn’t my problem… you don’t survive in a place like Kanter City by taking on more problems than you can deal with yourself. And I couldn’t deal with an entire army of raiders.”

“But you helped Wild escape,” I pointed out, interrupting his troubling history lesson of Kanter City. He glanced up to me for a moment, nodding his head slowly.

“I did… I’m sure she’d have you believe I was some damned hero coming to her rescue that night, or you’d paint it as some good deed all ponies are capable of. Honestly? When she escaped from her captors I was attempting to return to my base and avoid the running fight they were having through the sewers. If it wasn’t for the tunnel I normally took back having collapsed I would never have crossed paths with her.” His shoulders slumped a bit as he went on.

“After it happened, I didn’t feel like I’d done anything good… after I watched her disappear down the subway tunnel I had pointed out, all I thought about our encounter was that I’d made a mistake. Within hours the sewers were crawling with raiders, all looking for her but all they found was me. It caused me no end of problems… finding and then destroying my first base… killing ghouls I was trying to find and put to rest.” His eyes fixed upon mine and despite the damage to his face I could tell by his expression that what he said next was something he truly believed. “If I had to do it all over again, I don’t think I would have helped her… at least, I wouldn’t have until you showed up.”

“Me?” I asked in surprise, head cocked to the side.

“Yes, you,” he answered at once, rising from his seat and walking towards the cell's door, looking angry. His sudden change in attitude caught me off guard and I backed up a step from him. “You, and that damned mission to save your sister, even knowing full well there wasn’t a chance in hell you could do it. Despite everything that stood in your way, you didn’t give up on her, you didn’t walk away and leave her to her fate… leave her to die alone in that hell hole like I had.”

Oh…

“And even though you failed to save her,” I winced at that, shifting a bit uneasily however he pressed on, either ignoring my discomfort or simply not caring at the moment. “You still went out of your way to save those you could… just like you did on the train when any other sane pony would have walked away.” His glowing orbs glared at me from behind the bars. “And dammit if I didn’t admire that… because it reminded me of who I had been once.” He turned away from me then, sitting down upon the concrete floor. “I haven’t been able to sleep since I ‘died’... but I should have just stayed in that damned room instead of going out for a walk around the town. Should have just walked away when I heard somepony yelling and the sounds of a struggle coming from the shop. Wasn’t my problem… the local guards could deal with it.”

“But, you didn’t walk away.” His head dipped down and he leaned back against the bars. “You did what you would have done a long time ago, as a soldier and pony… you tried to help somepony in trouble.”

“No. I didn’t walk away… just like I didn’t walk away when you asked for help saving Stone and those prisoners on that train,” he answered, still looking away to the back of his cell, his fore hooves rubbing against one another as he went on. “The shop door was unlocked and I went inside. I could smell the blood on the floor, after so many battles against the stripes and my time in Kanter City… I knew that smell well. When I focused on my surroundings, I found Fleethoof slumped over the body of a mare… both of them were covered in blood and the mare was very dead. The place was a mess, it looked like there’d been a hell of a fight. The guards were coming… one of them had yelled out to me as I’d entered.”

Well, that was something… the argument could be made that since the guards had seen him enter just seconds before them he couldn’t be a suspect… of course it could be argued he had been a look out. And of course neither did Fleet much good… leaving the mare to possibly face the charges all on her own. But there was something else bothering me about his story... something the mayor had said... but after everything that had happened my head was beginning to hurt. Maybe it wasn't important at the moment.

“How’d you make it back to the saloon if the guards showed up?” I asked instead, he’d either ran from them or gotten into a struggle and escaped… neither would look good for him.

“When they arrived, they thought I was just one of the town’s folk I guess and shoved me back outside.” I arched a brow to that, that hadn't been a very smart move on the guards’ part. After all, if Carrion had just murdered somepony they’d just let loose a murderer… but then the town’s guard was all largely volunteers. “They looked shocked by the mess in the room, I think one or two might have lost their dinners in a corner of the shop. Figured they’d be no good and decided to come and get you guys, since I had a feeling you’d want to get involved given who was inside.”

“The guards said you assaulted them.”

“I caught Stone and Wild at a bad time… and wanted to get back to the shop before the guards grew a pair and decided to start doing their jobs… most likely poorly. I didn’t wait around for Stone to extract himself from Wild and headed back to the square. When I returned, there was already a crowd forming around the shop and a few of the guards had formed a loose circle around it trying to keep them back. It didn’t take a genius to figure out something bad had happened, the guards’ grim looks was enough of a tip off. When I heard ponies inside the shop shouting I forced my way back up to the shops doorway, I guess I scared somepony because someone shouted out ‘There’s another one’ and things got a bit chaotic after that.”

“Another one?”

“I don’t know… I guess one of the guards told some of the ponies what had happened and they just saw another ghoul among them and freaked out…” he answered before going silent.

“Maybe…” was all I could really say before turning away from him and slumping into the floor, my back resting against the cool metal bars. “Do you think Fleet could have killed that mare?” I asked.

“I don’t know… maybe, if she was feral enough… but she didn’t act like any feral when we were locked up… she acted more like a lost foal,” was his answer, as unhelpful as it could be thought I didn’t expect anything else. There wasn’t a clear answer… since the only ponies involved were either dead or unable to communicate. “My soldiers would have called this a right cluster fuck.”

“I think that describes daily life out here.” Glancing back towards him over my shoulder, I said honestly, “Nothing you said really helps either of your cases.”

“I doubt much more than a royal pardon would help either of us… these ponies have made up their minds about this, Shadow. We’re both guilty as fuck…,” he grunted, pressing the back of his head against the bars with a light thud. “They’ll have us strung up sooner or later.”

The image of ten stallions swaying in the breeze of a storm flashed within my mind, ten stallions whose only real crime had been to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Ten innocent lives who had been told a cart full of lies by the real criminals, but who ended up paying the same price.

And now, it seemed likely to happen again.

“You shouldn’t stay…” my ears rose up at his words and I sat up a bit, turning myself back towards him.

“What?”

“I said you shouldn’t stay here…” he explained, glancing back over his shoulder to me, before he nodded his head towards the door. “You should get back to San Ponsisco. This trail’s going to take days if not weeks to get put together… more so since it’s likely going to be a circus.”

“I’m not going to abandon a friend at a time like this, Carrion,” I began, lightly rapping my hoof against his cell bars, eyes fixed upon his face. “Besides, there’s no reason for me to head back to the city just yet… Sugar knows I’ll be gone for a while and besides, Spearmint’s likely pissed I didn’t tell her where I was going… not to mention my boss at the greenhouse...”

“Spirit told me about your eye, Shadow.” His response silenced my bit of rambling I forced back on him as he pressed on. “While she doesn’t show many emotions, I could tell something was bothering her… she wouldn’t say much, not at first. But when I pressed she mentioned your head injury and your loss of sight. The fact I noticed she’s worried about you tells me this is serious.”

“There’s been some issue with my right eye, just a bit of blurring.”

“A bit?” he asked, frowning. “I’m dead… not dumb. I saw you miss a couple sure shots back on the highway here. You were struggling… you said so yourself.”

“She’s not even sure if anypony can help, or if there’s a time issue,” I answered with a shake of my head. “You let me worry about that, Carrion… a couple days won’t make any difference.” Rising slowly to my hooves I lightly tapped the bar. “When I do return to San Ponsisco, it’ll be with all the ponies I left with, nopony gets left behind.” He snorted lightly at that and he gave me a sad smile, which on him was a bit unsettling with that hole in his cheek.

“It’s a nice sentiment, Shadow… but it doesn’t always work out that way. Sooner or latter one of us is going to run out of luck…,” he called out as I trotted back towards the door, my hoof steps faltering a bit before I frowned.

“Not if I can help it…” I whispered to myself, before taking the last couple steps up to the door and tapping heavily upon it to be allowed out.

It was late afternoon by the time I finally left the army compound. The cloud covered sky was growing dark, although it wasn’t just due to the unseen setting sun. The rumble of thunder could easily be heard in the near empty streets of the town. Glancing skyward, I catch glimpses of green and blue flashes of lighting among the gathering clouds. As the wind began to pick up, my oddly silent Pipbuck began to remind me of it’s existence and began to click slowly as radioactive dust and ash was blown up over the walls.

“Not the best weather to be flying in,” called out a voice to my left. Turning towards Wildfire, I watched as the winged mare trotted up to me. She was dressed in the remnants of her Enclave power armor with her battle saddle across her back and the saddlebags behind it.

“I take it the neighboring sheriff agreed to come?” I asked, nodding to her attire.

“Yeah, he was more than happy to help once the Lieutenant got on the short range radio with him, seems they go way back,” she answered, nodding her head towards the street before slowly trotting down the sidewalk past me.

“And you're leaving tonight, with that storm coming in?” I shifted the weight upon my hooves and turned to follow along beside her, glancing up as another bright flash lit up the world around us.

“Eh… flown through worse…” her ears folded back as a thunder answered the flash. The windows in the house we passed actually rattled in response and I swear I felt the rumble pass through my legs. “Course not while hauling a large metal box behind me…”

“Well… you brought it up. Maybe you should wait till tomorrow, Wild… you're not going to help anypony if you get yourself fried trying to reach Sutter’s Mill,” I pressed. While I didn’t doubt my friends skill in the air… I also didn’t see the need to rush out into what sounded like one hell of a storm. Which, admittedly sounded odd coming from me… Wild agreed.

“You urging caution?” she asked with a raised brow and a slight smirk upon her lips. “I’d make some witty comment about the pot calling the kettle black but well… you are black,” she added that last bit with a gesture to my body.

“No… really? And all this time I thought I was white.” This earned a slight snort of laughter from my friend, which I was happy to hear and earned her a smile.

Ever since our meeting with the mayor, Wild had been unusually serious. I chuckled lightly as she slowly got her giggling fit under control and took a closer look around us. I’d noticed as we’d left the Confederate base, the streets and sidewalks were largely deserted. I thought it was odd for being just a little late afternoon. The town had been so busy the day before. Before I could ponder it further, Wild had gotten ahold of herself and spoke up.

“As for the weather, don’t worry about it that much,” she said simply, wings rustling a bit as a rather loud rumble of thunder rolled across the town. “Despite what I said, it’s not any more of a risk then it might seem. We’ll be airborne before the bulk of the storm hits, and once we’re above the cloud cover, it’ll be smooth flying all the way to Sutter’s Mill.”

Hmm, that was likely why the town seemed so dead… the locals were getting ready for the foul weather. Looking a bit closer at the buildings we passed, I noticed the majority of them had their windows covered in boards that appeared to fit snuggly over the glass and looked like they were attached to metal posts on the windows frames. I guess storms like this were common enough for ponies to keep something like this close or be forced to replace the glass… which I heard wasn’t easy to do. However I was snapped out of my thoughts on the price of windows and shipment, by something she had just said and the fiery mare earned my attention and renewed my concerns.

“Wait? Above the clouds? Isn’t that a might dangerous for you?” I asked glancing sideways at my friend. “After all, the pegasi Enclave claims everything above the clouds as their domain… or so I hear.”

I’d heard a couple Dashites back in San Ponsisco talking about those foolish or unlucky enough to fly up into the open sky. How patrols of power armored Enclave soldiers would shoot at anything that flew into their airspace and didn’t answer to their hails. I couldn’t imagine how much worse it’d be for a pony they’d cast down to the wasteland beneath their hooves. Wild’s first response was to snort and ruffle her wings even more before she answered.

“The damned Enclave claims everything in the sky… from the Celestia damned sun to that glowing chunk of rock Luna hurled about,” she growled, ears pinned back and her tail lashing about as she went on. “Those feather brains would likely shoot an earth pony just for daring to look at their clouds.” She glanced heavenward, green eyes narrowed on the dark undersides of the storm clouds above us. After a few moments of silence she shook her head and she looked back over to me. “But… I’m not worried… there’s no major settlement or base this far north… at least not that I remember.”

“Well… that’s reassuring… I think,” I said with a frown and glance to my friend before I noticed we’d trotted back into town square, where this whole mess had begun. Just on the other side of the former park and it’s statue I saw the top half of our skychariot parked. I also spotted Stonehoof sitting beside it and focusing on his rifle. Around him, I noticed barely a dozen other ponies, most going about some errand or another and largely ignoring us. Behind the chariot stood the Lilly’s shop, it’s windows still exposed and reflecting the glow of the lightning overhead.

“Stop being such an old nag, Shadow… we’ll be fine,” she said after thunder responded to the flash of green lightning. “Besides, you have other things to worry about.”

“Such as?” I asked, as we moved quickly across the open town square, the scent of rain was heavy on the wind as it blew across the walls.

“Such as Spirit gettin’ her hooves on ya,” Stone answered as reached him and the chariot. Wild stopped to nuzzle her coltfriend before moving past him and up towards the front of the armored transport.

“Spirit?” I watched as Wild began picking up the flight harness from the ground and started sliding it over her armor.

“Th’ gal’s worried bout yer eye… we all are,” he said, and I returned my attention to my friend before me for a moment.

“My eye?” I snorted, ears folding back and I looked away from my friends to the shop behind them. “My eye’s not going anywhere… Carrion and Fleet just might… to the gallows or a firing squad if hanging doesn't work on ghouls.” My response came out angry and sounded a bit… snippy. Okay… it sounded a lot snippy, but I was starting to get tired of the constant concern for my eyesight (especially from Carrion), my head was still hurting a bit and for some reason I kept thinking I'd forgotten something important. I was worried about ponies losing their lives more than my eye. Sighing, I immediately felt guilt for taking my anger out of them. I was about to apologize when a hoof gently pressed against my shoulder. Looking up, I saw Stone standing before me with an understanding look on his face and kindness in his eyes.

“No need ta say yer sorry, Shadow… Ah reckon outta everypony yer th’ one due a bit of slack for gettin’ angry. It’s a rare thing for ya to be,” he said gently. “Worryin’ about everypony but yerself is one of yer greatest strengths, Shadow… it’s allowed ya ta do great things for ponies who should, by all rights, be dead and forgotten.” His hoof patted my shoulder before he moved it to tap lightly at my chest. “But it’s also one of yer greatest weakness’ when ya don’t stop ta tend ta yerself. Yer duties been done for th’ moment… so why don’t ya go see what Spirit wants ta talk with ya about?”

“Just listen to the big lug’s folksy country wisdom,” Wild called out from the chariot, the flight harness mostly strapped into place.

“Folksy country wisdom?” I asked, glancing from her to Stone who chuckled and shrugged his shoulders.

“It’s what I call it when he nags me about something I don’t wanna do…,” Wild answered my question while testing the tightness of the harness around her and to the chariot. Her ears folded back and she added just loud enough for us to barely catch, “He’s just lucky he’s a damn sexy stallion.” Beside me, Stone rolled his eyes but I could see a smile on his face.

“Alright… alright…” I held my fore hooves up in mock surrender, relenting to my friends’ words. “I promise after I see you two off I’ll go speak with Spirit again. Not that I’m expecting it to amount to much...” Shaking my head, I smiled up at Stone and asked, “When did you get so wise?” He looked thoughtful for a moment before answering my question.

“Ah’ve my pa ta think fer th’ folksy country wisdom.” Standing up and moving towards the chariot, I sat and watched them preparing to depart. Thunder rumbled overhead and the rain I’d been smelling began to fall lightly upon us. My Pipbuck’s radiation counter was slowly climbing as well.

“Goodluck you two,” I called out as Stone climbed into the back of the chariot and Wild flared her wings.

“You too,” the mare called out before kicking off the ground with all four hooves and flapping her wings hard. The chariot followed, joustling Stone for a moment in the doorway before he steadied himself.

Again, I found myself standing on the ground, watching as my friends flew off to parts unknown and I frowned. This was getting to become a habit it seemed, and a bad one as far as I was concerned. Shaking my head, I stood up and turned back towards main street. I’d promised to go see Spirit and would keep it. Besides, I had a feeling the buffalo would track me down if I didn’t show up.

The storm had well and truly broke by the time I reached the clinic. The full fury of the wasteland seemed focused upon the little town on the edge of the Dead Forest. Rain pounded the streets and roofs in sheets you could almost see… if the bright flashes of lightning didn’t nearly blind you. Thunder rattled the windows of the clinic, hidden behind their shutters and hastily hung boards as I stood on the porch, water dripping from my mane and tail. My worn Stable jumpsuit clung tightly to my body, and my black fur coat was soaked completely.

“They will be fine, Shadow.” An off white towel appearing in the corner of my vision… the left corner.

“It’s a pretty bad storm, Spirit,” I responded, taking the offered towel from my large friend’s hoof and bringing it to my head, rubbing it through my mane. “I don’t doubt Wild’s good… but this is the worst storm I’ve seen.”

“Hmm… it is quite fierce, but it is hardly the worst storm the wasteland is capable of producing.” Peering out at her from beneath the towel, I arched a brow as she went on to explain. “There are no hail stones the size of a pony’s head for one.” I blinked and glanced back out to the streets. “Nor is the rain eating your flesh or the roofs of the homes.”

“Uh…” was all I could manage as I pulled the towel from my mostly dry mane and slowly rubbed it along my neck.

“As you have commented often, the wasteland is not a kind place to anyone.” Stepping up beside me, she lifted her horned head towards the sky, watching the impressive light show going on between the clouds. Her ears twitched as the roar of thunder followed. “I suppose Wildfire told you I wanted to speak with you again?” she asked.

“More or less… more like guilt tripped into coming,” I answered while ideally rubbing along my hunches and soaked tail. In response to her questioning look I went on, “It was implied I don’t take care of myself.” This earned a snort and nod of agreement from her. I rolled my eyes and wrung the towel off as best I could. “I’m not sure what else you wanted to talk about… you admitted there wasn’t much you could do.”

“True… with our limited resources here, the best course of action if you wish to save your eyesight is to return to San Ponsisco,” was her predicted response. She turned away from the storm and lifted a hoof up to lightly poke me in the shoulder. “And it is still something I highly advise you to do.”

“I’m not leaving Carrion behind.” My eyes narrowed as my grip on the towel tightened a bit. Beside me, Spirit merely stood silently, watching my movements. With a grunt and shake of my head, I loosened it and returned to drying myself off as best I could.

“I figured that would be your response… but that is not why I wished to speak with you. I believe you know of what I speak.” I glanced over to her, having a pretty good idea what she was going to say next, “There is something surrounding your spirit, Shadow… something dark… and evil. I’d first sensed it back in Tombstone, but assumed it was caused by the events in that town and in Kanter City.”

“The voice,” I said simply, glancing back out into the storm. “I’d first heard it in Tombstone, while we were in the bank. I heard it again back on the road here… and this morning during the stand off.”

“I believe somewhere along your travels you have picked up an unwelcome passenger. It is not that surprising, the wasteland is full of spirits.” She frowned. “There has been centuries of horrific and innumerable events all across this land. So many lost their lives suddenly or to violence that their spirits wander the ruins forever trapped in between this and the next world.”

“So… you're saying the wasteland’s… haunted?” I asked. That was… an unsettling idea. Bad enough we had to deal with the living, but the dead as well? Or… more dead than a ghoul I suppose...

“In a manner of speaking… the land has been soaked for thousands of years in the magic of powerful beings… and now it is soaked in their blood. But enough of that for the moment, come inside and finish drying off before you manage to catch a cold.” With that, she rose to her hooves and stepped back from the railing. Turning, she approached the door and pushed it open, warm light spilling out into the dark porch and sidewalk.

“Knowing the wasteland, it’d be a cold that makes me sneeze radioactive mucus…” I muttered, standing up and dropping the now wet towel across my back. Turning away from the streets, I trotted past Spirit and stepped into the building.

“No… but one has explosive radioactive diarrhea.”

At that, my ears shot upright even as my tail hurriedly tucked itself closer to my hindquarters… I could of swore I heard her chuckle as she followed me inside and I glanced back unhappily at her. Turning back around, I glanced around the clinic’s near silent waiting room and found myself surprised. Despite the raging storm just outside it’s walls, the building seemed remarkably peaceful. The nurse I’d seen on duty earlier was missing from her post, although I could see one of the side room’s light was on and I could smell fresh brewed coffee in the air.

“Wait here and I will go fetch us both something warm to drink while we speak of our unwelcome visitor,” Spirit called out from behind me as she gently shut the door on the storm outside. The large buffalo stepped past me and moved towards the open door spilling light into the waiting room. As I waited, I took a few steps of my own towards the opposite side of the room, and the doorway into the patient’s ward.

Pushing the doors open carefully, I poked my front half into the room and looked around. There were a number of new patents this evening, most likely victims and instigators of the morning’s hectic events. Only a few appeared still awake, either tossing and turning in their beds or laying upon their pillows with a book in their hooves. My attention wandered to the end of the room and to the sole reason I had peered into the ward. Jackhammer was still laying where I’d last seen him. Only the ever so slightly rise and fall of his chest was the only sign he was still alive. My eyes wandered to the two forms slumped into a chair beside the wall. Balefire and Tinkerbelle sat side by side, both asleep and both holding the other up.

Pulling myself back from the door, I held up a hoof and guided the door back into place as quietly as I could. The smell of coffee had grown suddenly stronger and I turned my head around to find Spirit moving back over towards me with a tray held firmly in her mouth. The source of the smell came from the two mugs she was balancing upon the tray, steam still rising from them both. Another pony was following her, but only as far as the counter with a mug of her own. The mare hardly gave either of us a second look as she settled herself down and began looking over a couple folders that had been seen sitting on the desk out of sight from the front door. Looking back to Spirit, she nodded her head as carefully as she could towards the stairs and proceeded to climb them back up to the exam rooms as I quickly followed. Neither of us said a word until we’d entered the second to last room at the end of the hall. She sat the tray down upon the counter top beside the examination bed.

“How much longer does Jackhammer have?” I asked, shutting the door behind us. I took the last couple steps over to stand beside her and took one of the mugs of coffee.

“Not long. A day, perhaps more,” she answered, sitting down beside the counter and picking up the other mug. “He is fading slower than what either Doctor Bandaid or myself expected.”

“He’s a tough old stallion,”I responded, gingerly taking a sip of the hot coffee. It almost tasted as bad as the coffee did from that old battered coffee maker in the security office. “Does Tinkerbelle or Balefire know?”

“After I returned from our meeting with the mayor, Balefire caught me in between patients and asked me how Jackhammer was doing, and to be truthful with him,” She lightly sipped her own coffee before sitting it back atop the counter top. “Normally I would not tell a non family member such information, but there seemed little harm in doing so. After I told him, he asked me not to tell Tinkerbelle, that he would do so himself.”

“Did he?” I asked, glancing back to the closed door as somepony walked past it, another nurse I suspected.

“I am unsure, as I became busy with other patients soon afterwards. Although I believe she already knows her time with him is short. She refuses to leave his side, save to go to the bathroom. Balefire has been bringing her food and water otherwise she would be in a bed beside her grandfather.”

Sighing, I rubbed my face, ignoring the flash of lighting coming from the back window of the room. I was just too tired to be jumpy at the moment. The past forty eight hours had seen so much pain and suffering… even after reaching the safety of this town, it hadn’t fully stopped. Tilting the coffee mug back, I took a larger drink, ignoring the pain of the burning liquid as it ran over my tongue and down my throat.

After another few moments of silence, I heard Spirit rise and move towards the back of the room and to a pair of cabinets sitting along the wall with the window. Focusing back upon her, I watched as she opened the lower set of doors and pulled out her saddlebags from inside. The packs looked freshly cleaned and patched from our recent journey. Without a second thought, she opened up one side and withdrew a small package of what appeared to be leaves.

Arching a brow at my curious friend, I continued to watch as she sat the small bag down upon the examination table and withdrew a few other oddities. One was about 12 inches in length with a small sphere atop it. It made a soft rattling noise whenever she moved it and was covered in odd markings all along it’s haft. The sphere was painted in reds, oranges, and yellows in jagged lines. I also noticed a black feather hanging from a cord just under the sphere. Next I noticed a smaller bag, made of a dark brown cloth with a number of green and blue beads dangling from the bottom. The top was sealed with draw strings and more of that odd writing covered the front and back in black thread. Finally she withdrew an old battered camping stove, the only recognisable item among the three. All joined the bag of leaves upon the bed.

“So… you don’t take your coffee black?” I asked, to which she actually chuckled as she began sorting the items out.

“Normally no, I prefer tea over coffee at anyrate. However this is not tea,” she answered lightly, patting the bag before reaching for the camp stove. As I watched, she sat it down upon the floor well away from the table and counter. Next, the rattle and bag joined it, one on either side before she finally picked up the bag of leaves. “These are a special herb mix that will assist us in learning the identity of your unwelcome passenger,” she explained. “Luckily they were easy to locate and obtain within town, as most have either a medicinal or culinary use.”

“Huh…” was all I could say before sitting my half empty mug down and walking around to the other side of the stove from her. “We’re going to eat them?”

“If you wish to end up dreamwalking for a number of days, then yes,” was her answer and I took a couple steps back from the stove and the herbs she held now above it. “However neither of us have that time to waste, so no we will not eat them. Our intent here is to burn a measured amount upon the fire and to inhale the smoke that is released. It will assist us in reaching a meditative state in which we can attempt to peer into the world between this and the next… where lost spirits and demons reside.”

“We’re getting high?” The question was rewarded with the knowledge that one of the other items she had placed out had a second use. The rattle clonking me upon my right knee, “Son of a bi…”

“Anymore questions?” she asked calmly, the rattle sitting back upon the floor as if it had never been used as a deadly weapon. Shaking my sore leg a few times, I quickly shook my head. She waved a hoof back to where I’d been sitting. “Good boy. Now sit down and attempt to be silent.”

With a slight snort, I sat back down across from her, careful to keep the rattle in sight as I did so. With a slight nod of her head, she then focused upon her work and began carefully measuring out the contents of the herbs. It looked a bit random to me as she pulled out small amounts and lay them within one hoof… but then I wasn’t very knowledgeable with something like this. Once she was satisfied with the pile, she then turned the knob of the stove on and a small flickering flame appeared. As the light in the room increased, I noticed a wire mesh had been attached to the stove. It was into this she tossed the herbs.

Almost immediately smoke began to rise from the flickering flame. It was an odd yellowish color, however, and looked far thicker than what it should for the small amount of material she’d burned. Cocking my head, I watched the smoke rise between us as Spirit began to chant softly in another language, my ears twitching slowly. After only a few seconds, I began to detect an odd smell coming from the smoldering herbs… it wasn’t altogether an unpleasant scent, but I couldn’t honestly say what it smelled like.

As I focused upon the odd smoke and the smell, movement from the corner of my left eye caught my attention and I looked over to see what it was. I expected to see one of the nurses working here to have entered the room, looking for the source of the smoke. What I saw, however, confused me to no end. I leaned forwards to take a closer look thinking perhaps I was just seeing things. The small flame and the rising smoke had seemed to make some very odd shadows along the wall… a jumble of shapes and sizes. The longer I watched them, the more detail they began to take on until they slowly began to resolve into recognizable images.

I blinked and shifted my eyes from one to the other, unsure if what I was seeing was real or if the herb smoke had some side effects. There appeared to be ponies standing within the room… casting their shadows upon the walls and furniture. But it was only the two of us in the room… not dozens. There were other figures as well… griffons, diamond dogs, even buffalo… some shapes I wasn’t sure of. One appeared to be of a pony but had small openings where light shone through it’s limbs, wings, and was that a horn?

“Dude… that’s creepy…” I muttered, ears laying back in alarm as the shadowy heads all turned towards the sound of my voice. Hurriedly I looked back towards Spirit to see if she’d noticed the… I guess I’d have to call them spirits, only to see she hadn’t moved at all. Worryingly, she didn’t appear to be breathing either. “What the hell?”

She was just still sitting there the rattle held in one raised hoof, eyes closed and her other fore hoof reaching for the bead covered bag that lay beside her on the floor. But her hoof wasn’t making any progress towards the bag… nor was the rattle she appeared to have been in the process of shaking, the black feather hanging suspended in midair. As I sat attempting to figure out what was going on, I became aware of something else unusual… the constant presence of my Pipbuck’s EFS was gone… as was the steady click of its radiation detector due to the storm.

Shaking my head, I hurriedly rose to my hooves and attempted to touch Spirit’s foreleg holding the rattle, only for my limb to pass right through hers as if it was made of smoke. In shock, I dropped my hoof back down to the floor making a loud clopping sound as it struck the tiling. So… I wasn’t deaf, I could still hear sounds… but only ones I made. And, I could touch the floor and myself, but not Spirit. What about… rising my hoof again, I reached out towards the bed beside me and lightly touched the metal frame, I could feel the cool metal as I slid it across it… not through it.

“This isn’t making any sense…” I whispered to no one looking slowly from one shadow to the next, all of their heads turned towards me… as best as I could tell. I was just about to turn back to Spirit to try and figure out how to get out of… wherever here was when something answered me.

“Oh… but what's the fun… in making sense…”

I froze, ears standing fully erect along with the hackles on the back of my neck. I shivered as a sudden chill overcame me, despite the rather warm temperature of this strange place. That voice... it had become unsettlingly familiar by now, but it hadn’t come from within my own head this time. It had come from directly behind me. My heart was racing as I turned slowly around to see who… or dare I say it... what was the source of the voice. I wasn’t sure what I was expecting, however, and what I found only made me more confused… nothing. Just one of the walls of the small exam room, with more of those shadowy figures standing upon it… a rather odd mix. A pony and a griffon… was that a dragon and goat? Wait… it was just parts of creatures, legs, hooves, wings… what the hell?

As I attempted to figure out just what I was seeing, the shadowy limbs began moving towards one another like oil or water across the wall. They were accompanied with the sounds of something rubbery being squeezed. The shapes swirled into one another, and as more joined into the mass, a single large figure began to appear from the mix of parts. From the wall, a frightening shape rose up, lead by a pair of mismatched horns which crowned a rather pony looking face.

As the head slid up from the wall, I saw it sat atop a long slender neck. Further up the strange figure moved, allowing me to see more of it. Upon the figure’s back was a leathery wing and a feathered wing, both flexing as the figure pulled itself from the wall by an equally mismatched pair of front legs… arms? A lion's paw gripped the wall tightly, as it pulled itself upright, while the griffon taloned hand supported it… no himself. The rest of the figure seemed an extension of its neck, long and slender, like a snake or dragon and indeed his tail resembled that of a dragon’s. His hind legs made no sense either, being a dragon and pony’s leg each. Like his mismatched body parts, he was a riot of dark colors from red, the color of dried blood, to deep dark greens and blues. It took me a moment to figure out that the strange creature was somehow in defiance of everything standing upon the wall as I was the floor.

As I attempted to comprehend the blatant disregard for gravity, I realized he was looking straight at me… sweet Celestia and Luna… those eyes. His iris were a pair of red glowing coals that seemed to radiate hate and madness while what surrounded them was even more frightening. Where his pupils should have been was an inky blankness… no, that wasn’t right… it was… a nothingness. It wasn’t that his pupils were black… they just weren’t there and no light seemed able to penetrate it, not even from his own burning irises. He slowly began to grin as if sensing my fear, sharp yellowed teeth flashing in the flickering light of Spirit’s camp stove.

It was at this moment, looking into those burning empty eyes, that I realized I was looking into the face of pure evil… nothing I’d ever seen in the wasteland could come close to what I was facing now.

“Hmm… I do seem to have this effect upon everypony I meet…” A chilling laugh escaped the strange being’s mouth as he walked slowly down the wall and onto the floor. He held his arms behind his back and his tail lightly bobbed back and forth as he went. “Oh, I do so love meeting new ponies, and you my boy, I have looked forward to meeting you for a very, very long time,” he chuckled again as his grin grew, despite the fact it seemed physically impossible.

“Well then… lets get a good look at you, Shadow my brave colt! Let’s see just who ol’ Loony Woona picked.” In the blink of an eye, he had managed to cover the half dozen steps between us and was now standing before me. One clawed hand grabbed ahold of my foreleg and held it up. “Hmmm… really? Black? Oh, loony loony, Woona… you have no originality do you? And yellow eyes, how droll… your only saving grace is your mane’s white instead of red, otherwise you’d be classified as unoriginal.”

“What?” I hurriedly pulled my limb away from the creature and found myself more confused with every passing second. However, it seemed the strange being wasn’t finished handling me and patted my sides and ruffled my mane.

“Oh, earth pony, well, it’s somewhat original I suppose and I’ll give her points for that. Still, it’s a shame you don’t have a pair of wings as the name Dark Knight sounds so much better than Marshal… plus I just look good in purple wouldn’t you agree?” With a snap of his claws, a bright flash of light blinded me. The spots quickly faded and when I looked again I discovered he had added a suit to his odd appearance.

“I don’t understand…” was all I could manage as he ran his clawed fingers over the purple suit that covered him from neck to hooves. Both the tip of his tail and his mane was bright green in color and his face was covered in white paint while his grin was all the more creepy thanks to the red lipstick he had smeared across his mouth. Chuckling, he adjusted his purple bow tie before answering me.

“Of course you don’t my poor simple boy… why if Tiny Pip Toastermare was here I’d imagine she’d have figured things out by now… or more likely, be making out with the buffalo...speaking of! I’ll have to thank the walking throw rug for setting this little meeting up, it’s so nice to talk to somepony outside of their heads.” As he spoke he moved over towards Spirit, who was still frozen where I’d left her. As he reached her, he casually waved a clawed hand in front of her face before knocking upon her forehead. “She looks sorta busy at the moment.” As his knuckles raked across her head, I swore it sounded like he was knocking on wood.

“What… who are you?” I managed to ask, overcoming my fear long enough to take a couple steps back towards Spirit. She was now somehow wearing a full feathered headdress and holding a box of cigars in one hoof. I wasn’t going to question it… that way lay madness.

“Who am I?” he asked, looking back over towards me and leaning over upon Spirit. One of his elbows rested atop her head between her horns while his other hand drummed his claws idly. “Who am I, he asks…” For some reason the question seemed to amuse him all the more and he brought his other arm up so he could rub his chin with the clawed griffon limb. “Who am I? Hmmm… such an interesting question, my boy, one that doesn’t have a straight answer I’m afraid… at this point very little of anything is cannon.”

“What..?” I blinked and found my vision suddenly filled with the stranger's still white painted face.

“Lets just say I’m a shadow of my former self and leave it at that, but you’ll need something to call me I suppose. Terror? Diablo? Hmm… Jack the Handsome? One of the letters from the alphabet?” he asked the room at large while walking up the wall once more and onto the ceiling. I was getting a headache just watching him, let alone trying to keep up with his insane one sided conversation. “Oh… I’ve always liked Captain Clown… no… I’ll save that for a special occasion. Let’s just go with Disharmony shall we? It fits, I think. And please don’t just repeat me again… that is getting old.”

“Uh… sure…” was all I could really think to say as he stood upon the ceiling above me. Too late I realized what was about to happen and had no chance of escaping. I grunted as… Disharmony’s clawed hands grabbed ahold of me and hosted me up into the air, my hind legs dangling several feet above the floor.

“Now that we have that out of the way let's talk about us, Shadow my boy. It’s one of my favorite subjects after all.” With that, he dropped me back upon the floor.

I landed with a thud upon my flanks. Hurriedly standing, I stumbled back a couple steps from whoever this mad creature was, legs a bit wobbly from the sudden impact despite the short drop. I looked back up to see he’d once again managed to move quickly from one spot to the other and had even changed his wardrobe. Now he was wearing an odd red and black jump suit with four gold pins upon the collar and some odd emblem upon his chest, further more he was sitting in one of three chairs along the far wall that hadn’t been there moments ago.

“You see, Mo Maréchal, you and I find ourselves in the middle of a delightful little drama filled with moments of uplifting heroics and soul shattering defeats. Why the death toll alone will be talked about for years to come… well, by anyone lucky enough to survive till the end. A real classic tale of good vs evil, and you, my color challenged friend, are to be the main hero.” Disharmony waved a clawed hand towards me before continuing on, his smile suddenly showing a lot more fangs. “And I… well, while I’d love to say I’m the main villain of this little adventure time, I wouldn’t want to over shadow my little puppet. She’s worked so hard to make all this possible for her dear old daddy. Besides, I’m more the end boss type really… my powers well over nine th...”

“What are you talking about?” I asked, interrupting his inane chatter. Despite everything telling me not to piss off the very powerful and very insane creature before me… I couldn’t help a bit of anger slipping into my next question. If he was upset from me cutting him off or noticed my rising anger he didn’t seem to care. “What game?”

“Why… all of this!” he exclaimed, sitting forward upon his seat before snapping his clawed fingers. With a bright flash of light, I found myself gone from the shadowy room and standing within a featureless plain with only the crazed Disharmony floating several inches above the floor. He gestured towards the ground between us and I looked down. As I did, I discovered I was standing upon what looked like a map of Equestria.

Cocking my head, I looked a bit closer and noticed that while the details such as mountains and valleys were simply drawn upon the surface of the flooring, other details such as towns and cities were represented in miniature and in opposing colors. Kanter City, Hoofington, Appleloosa, and a large number of other cities were dark red, while San Ponsisco, Crossroads, Tombstone and very few others were blue… the red definitely seemed to outnumber the blue.

There were also figures of ponies and other creatures scattered loosely upon the board, themselves colored in red, blue and yellow… again the red seemed to outnumber the blue but the yellow made up a fair bit of the figures. Scanning the figures nearest me, I noticed a small group near my front right hoof. A pair of unicorns and a buffalo.

“A game’s not a game without something to represent our players and their forces. Blue’s the good guys and red the bad… classic… as for the yellow, they’re mostly uninterested in either side and are out just for themselves.” As I stood watching, Disharmony moved one set of red colored figures further south of where I stood, across the wasteland and into a nearby town. The figures were clearly meant to represent raiders as they all had spiked manes, armor and weapons. The town, which was named Hillside was blue, and held a small number of figures of its own, while most were armed they looked more like normal ponies.

Suddenly my Pipbuck’s radio spring to life which startled me since beside Disharmony’s voice the room had been unsettlingly quiet. At first, all it emitted was static until it seemed to shift channels on its own, something it had never done before. As it worked its way through the different frequencies it stopped upon a frantic voice emitted from the speaker.

“... we’re under attack by raiders… they seemed to come out of nowhere just a couple hours ago… send help… just a small farming settlement…” As suddenly as it came, the radio transmission ended. The town upon the map flashed once, before going dark and crumbling into pieces which themselves turned to ash. The small blue ponies vanished, leaving only the red raiders standing upon the mound of ash, which in the next moment seemed to blow away in a nonexistent wind. I stood mutely, unsure of what I had just seen and heard… but… it seemed to have been the death of an entire town of ponies...

“Oh yes, a wonderful bloody little game, one that was begun a very long time ago by two immortal players who foresaw the future of this blighted mud ball of a planet,” Disharmony said, breaking the sudden silence between us and drawing my attention back upon the insane being across from me. His clawed griffon fingers idly played across the former town marker before moving across the board leaving rents in its surface. His trail ended upon the ruined towers and walls of Canterlot. “I’m sure you’ve heard all about it from that lovely striped gypsy, Second Sight.” A single claw traced its way along one of the towers of the miniature castle. “What was it she said… ‘two beings this mare did foresee, and so entwined your destiny. One being wishes her to be destroyed, lest she make the darkness void. The other wishes the other way, so that the light again holds sway.’ Why those blasted zebras can’t speak normally is beyond even me…”

Back in San Ponsisco, Second Sight had mentioned that. Two beings had set something in motion. She’d also mentioned them being a goddess and… god. I stared across the map at Disharmony and his unnatural abilities and appearance… two immortal players…

“Ah… starting to put the pieces together, Sunny Jim?” he chuckled and brushed his claws off. “But Stripes said you had a choice in the matter, didn’t she? You could either make a choice to get involved in this duel of fates or step aside and allow the chips to fall where they may.” As he said that, a number of poker chips seemed to rain down from the darkness above like drops of rain. Looking across them I noticed pictures of ponies on nearly every single one. I didn’t recognize any of them and my attention was pulled back up to Disharmony. “Good ol’ Loony never did like forcing her precious little ponies into doing anything against their will… takes after card flank I suppose.”

“I made my choice already…” was my response, carefully stepping across the chips and figures spread out across the board. “I chose to answer Old Oak’s distress call.”

“Did you? Did you really think a single act of heroics was enough to take your place in this game of ours?” While his grin became far less feral in appearance, the smirk he still sported was unsettling in its own way. “It was merely the latest in a series of steps you have been walking since the moment you set hoof out of that Stable.”

“If that is true, then I’ve made ‘my choice’ long before I knew it was one to make… what’s the point in this discussion?”

“The point, is that you do not fully understand what is going on here, which you won’t, at least not until the end,” was his irritatingly cryptic answer. He idly stroked his chin with his taloned hand while slowly floating in a circle above me. Finally he grunted and waved a hand dismissively towards me. “Very well, you’ve made your choice, a number of them actually, foolishly rushing off with nary an idea of what is at stake. Be that as it may, you’ve not yet crossed the point of no return. Nothing you’ve done thus far has truly interfered with the plans myself and my puppet have set into motion. So… why don’t you take some friendly advice from your dear uncle Disharmony.” With a dull thud, he dropped from where he’d been floating and gripped my shoulder with one taloned hand, pulling me towards him as he whispered. “Walk away. Take ol’ throw rug’s advice and return to your new home away from home and get your eye looked at, take care of that little brat of your sister’s. Maybe date a couple mares, have a couple kids. After all, none of this has to really involve you.”

“And… if I don’t?” I asked defiantly after a moment to gather my courage and think about what I’d seen thus far. Second Sight had seemed to indicate the results of this… game was the future of Equestria. Or rather… somepony who would be instrumental in it’s reconstruction. His smirk slowly faded and the taloned hand holding onto my shoulder tightened… painfully so. There was no trace of humor in what he said next, not in his tone or on his face. With an expression that was almost more frightening than his feral smile, he simply said.

“If you don’t my little heroic pest… this is what awaits you.”

With those words, his eyes blazed brightly and I was forced to shut my own from the intensity of the light. The pressure upon my shoulder faded and I suddenly felt a hot wind running across my face and mane. Quickly opening my eyes, I blinked and attempted to make sense of the sudden change in scenery around me.

I was no longer in the strange dark room with Disharmony and his map… nor was I in the shadowy examination room with Spirit. The lack of a roof and the all too familiar overcast sky above me indicated I was outside… somewhere. Looking more closely at the clouds, I noticed something was off about them… the oppressive thick grey clouds had a sickly green tint to them which affected the colors… making it all the more unsettling when I noticed what was around me. Fog. Thick, unsettlingly warm fog blanketed where I was standing, tinted green like the sky… but the wind was slowly pushing it away, uncovering more of my surroundings.

I appeared to be standing atop a building, high above a city… like the sky, it too looked familiar. Blasted skyscrapers and ruined streets and factories dotted the landscape I could see from my vantage point. Off in the distant I made out the ruins of the old Golden Gate Bridge… and out in the bay, the dark stone walls of the prison. This… this was San Ponsisco then? But… something was wrong… the city appeared to be burning… massive clouds of black smoke rose into the green tinted sky, lit from beneath by fires raging out of control.

“What the…” I began to take a few steps towards the edge of the building to get a better look when I tripped over something lying on the ground. With a muffled grunt, I struck the loose gravel that lay across the roof of the skyscraper and rubbed my chin. Glancing back to what I had fallen over I found myself looking into the shocked face of Balefire… or what was left of his face. I hurriedly pushed myself away from the sight of my young dead friend and felt my heart racing at the sight.

“No…” my word was lost on the wind, as more of the fog that had covered the roof was blown away revealing more bodies… all of my friends… all of them dead. Horribly dead. Tears slowly ran down my cheeks as I looked at each…

Stone lay beside Wild, his rifle broken and much of his lower body blown away by an explosion that not even power armor would have stopped. A trail of blood and gore lay across the rooftop, where he’d dragged himself to lay beside his lover. His hat lay smoking beside his head before flying off the side of the roof, uncovering his unseeing milky eyes.

Wild’s wings were turned at an unnatural angle, feathers matted with blood. Her neck had been broken, I could easily see the bones poking through her flesh, her forelegs were a mangled mess of blood, bone and flesh… behind her lay the smoking ruin of our sky chariot, a dozen holes punched through its armor. She’d crashed into the rooftop… dying almost instantly.

The door to the chariot was pulled back, allowing me to see inside, dim light filtered through the holes casting the passenger compartment in green tinted light. The still form of Spirit lay slumped over lumps of managed flesh… which I realized was all that remained of Carrion… whatever had punched through the chariot had turned my ghoul friend into his name sake. Spirit looked as if she’d been riddled with small arms fire....

This, is your fate if you choose to fight against me… the fate of ALL heroes…

A grunt of pain broke the horrible silence after the monster spoke again, and I turned towards it, my mind seizing up for a moment at what I saw… me. It was me… kneeling upon the ground wearing a suit of power armor that no longer appeared to function… blood running from my mouth and nose. I saw the marshal badge upon the chest armor, dented and blacked… and I saw the dark figure looming over myself, a revolver held in it’s mouth.

This… is to be your reward…

As I sat watching myself… the figure behind me lifted the pistol to the back of my head and without hesitation pulled the trigger. The weapon went off, sounding like a cannon. I watched as the bullet tore through my skull and out behind my eye, taking the orb with it. Blood flew in a fountain from the wound and my very dead body slumped forward to land heavily upon the gravel.

This is your one and only chance at avoiding this fate… a fate, I might add that awaits you whether you lose… or win… that’s right, hero. Whatever the outcome… save the world or let it be destroyed… you die.

I sat staring at the dead around me, the sounds of distant gunfire and screaming coming from the streets below and I glanced back towards the shadowy figure who slowly emerged from the swirling fog. It was Disharmony… even shocked as I was, I didn’t expect it to be anypony else. As he approached, the sounds of dying slowly faded along with what remained of the fog. I found myself back in the room, Spirit alive, although still frozen.

“So… what’s it gonna be, hero? Fight the good fight and die regardless of the outcome… or walk away and live?” Disharmony asked as he twirled the pistol in his clawed hands before pointing it towards Spirit.

I began to rise up but he already pulled the trigger… click. It was empty. And so was I, everything I had seen and heard had drained me, physically and emotionally. With no energy left, I simply slumped back to the floor.

“Decisions, decisions… but then, that’s why you wear the badge isn’t it?” chuckling, he tossed the weapon aside and walked past me causally. “Don’t take to long making up your mind, this is a limited time offer and you expire soon.” As the pistol struck the ground, it went off, firing off a single round which struck the cooking stove sitting in front of Spirit.

My eyes widened as I realized what was about to happen, Disharmony’s chuckling turning into full blown insane laughter. The stove exploded in a burst of flames, throwing me up against the bed. Darkness consumed me once again.

Welcome to Level 21!

Perk Added: Dark/Light Destiny: The Fates have a plan in mind for you, aren’t you just the lucky one? For good or bad, you have a role to play in the future of your world, choices you make from this point onwards will have long lasting effects. Choose, wisely.

Author's Notes:

Well... that only took like... forever. Ugh... sorry everyone for the long wait, but if you've been keeping up with my blog posts, ya know its been an interesting past couple of months. Still an't over, dunno when things will get back to 'normal' for me. Hopefully the next chapter won't take half a year to get done, as I have a pretty good idea what I want to do for this arc of the story. Expect it to be wrapped up in one to two more chapters.

Also, a special shout out to two of my readers who have been following me since the beginning I believe. As a thank you for their many kind words and the super awesome statue they sent me of Shadow (check a couple blog posts back for the picture), I decided to put their OC's in Fall of Hope. Solar Burst and Storm Flicker will be taking part in the remaining chapters of this story arch, and perhaps further on. Thanks you two!

Editor and Chief: TheGamefilmGuruman

Pre- Reader: BronyKen who has also been doing a reading of my story and can be found on his U Tube channel here.

Original Cover Art: TimeForSP

Current Cover Art: MisterMech Go. Worship his work.