Dominic sighed quietly as he looked around his surroundings, there room he sat in was rather small, a light orange coat of paint gave it an all too friendly and sunny appearance, a coffee table was filled with old magazines, and a painting hung on the wall. It depicted a farm, simple enough, but Dominic noticed that the farmer seemed to look very tired, almost sad… Of course, he suspecting it was some sort of mind game, after all, that’s all therapists were about. There was a tiny book case with numerous books on varying subjects, from parenting and friendship to marriage and hostile work environments. Perhaps most annoying of all was the white noise machine set up right next to the comfy leather couch, as if Dominic didn’t have enough of a headache as it was…

Outside the heavy door to the hall were two Lunar Legionaries, unfortunately Luna had gotten to them before Dominic could. She had given them explicit orders not to let him leave the waiting room until his session was over, and Dominic knew that they were very willing to use their tasers if need be. He looked to the other door in the room, the one that lead to the therapist’s office. The man stood up and began pacing back and forth, adjusting his leather jacket and patting down his jeans. Even in the winter he tried to keep things casual, and a rather fashionable black turtleneck hugged his throat just right. There were other things he could’ve been spending his time on, the Crystal Empire for one thing. Queen Cadence, who had finally taken her proper title, had disavowed the entire project, but that was little comfort to Dominic.

As he was about to start biting his nails he heard the door to the therapist’s office open, the man turned to get a good look at his new ‘Shrink’. A changeling mare with her mane done up in a bun and thick rimmed glasses perched on her muzzle. The two of them sized one another up for a brief second.

“Hello!” The changeling said in a chipper tone. “You’re Dominic, right?” She asked, Dominic nodded quietly and rubbed his chin, it was still stubbly. He was considering growing a beard, but that wasn’t important. What struck him as odd was that this mare didn’t seem to recognize him, or maybe she just didn’t want to make him uncomfortable with pomp and circumstance. If that was the case, maybe she wasn’t so bad after all. “I’m Empath, but you can call me Em if you like! Nice to meet you!” Dominic offered his hand, and the mare shook it vigorously. “Please, come in! I’m sorry to have kept you waiting!”

“It’s alright.” Dominic replied simply as he entered the room, unlike the waiting room the office was a nice forest green, with obvious changeling decor, as well as some artifacts from Earth, and even a statue from the Griffon Kingdom placed against a large window that looked out over Canterlot. The midday sun was shining through the glass, there was a desk piled high with papers and folders off in the far corner, a big grey couch against the back wall, and a single pony sized pillow seat on the floor in front of that. “So, do I…?” The man gestured to the couch, Em nodded. Dominic walked to the couch and sat down, relaxing on the oddly comfortable chair while Em grabbed a notepad and pen before sitting on the cushion in front of the couch.

“Do you have any questions before we start?” Em asked, Dominic paused and looked around the room again. There were a couple certificates and diplomas set up over the desk, including a PhD from West Applewood University. Dominic knew that to have the best psychiatric professors in the country, he’d given a speech there four years prior for their graduation. Dominic looked back at Em and cleared his throat, there were some things he was concerned about.

“Are you connected to the hivemind?” Dominic asked cautiously, Em shook her head. “So… Whatever I say here, it stays here?”

“I wouldn’t have been able to get a license if I had stayed connected to the hivemind, everything you say here is between you, me, and the four walls.” Em chirped, Dominic nodded and looked around again, then shrugged and adjusted his coat. “I’m sorry, am I making you nervous, you seem a bit tense.”

“Well… Yes, I mean, no…” Dominic said awkwardly, rubbing the back of his neck and looking to the side. “You yourself don’t make me nervous, but the fact that I’m sitting in a psychologist’s office is making me nervous.” Em nodded with a look of understanding in her eyes before her horn glowed and her pen clicked, she wrote down a couple notes on her pad of paper. “If you didn’t know already, not the most trusting of ‘psycho analysis’...”

“Your wife mentioned you were worried it would give you a victim complex.” Em said bluntly, Dominic nodded quietly and looked to a table beside the couch. There were a couple desk toys, tissues and a clock… It had only been a minute and he wanted to get out of there, he didn’t want to spend another hour and a half in that room. “Now…” Em picked up a folder and looked through the contents, then stopped and pulled out a piece of paper with writing Dominic couldn’t read from his distance. “I see you took the test I sent, don’t worry, I won’t hold you back a grade!” She joked. “I just wanted to see what sort of personality you have…”

“Lemme guess… Power hungry axe murderer?” Dominic replied sarcastically, Em chuckled faintly as she looked over the paper once again.

“No, no, nothing like that.” She answered, the changeling lowered the page and focused her attention solely on Dominic now. “Your what some people would call a Logician. Obviously, you try to be as logical as you can... Not the best at expressing your feelings, but very passionate despite that.” The mare leaned back in her chair, she adjusted her glasses and sighed. “I won’t lie, you’ve got some serious work cut out for you. If half of what I’ve heard about you is true, you and I are going to be seeing a lot of each other. However, don’t think that makes you some sort of nut or ‘Victim’. It’s just… Logical, considering the sort of mental trauma that comes from this much… Well… Trauma.”

“Right…” Dominic said cautiously, rubbing the back of his neck again and looking towards the window. In the distance he could see the castle, practically even the balcony outside his bedroom, if only he could’ve blinked and transported away. “Where do you want to begin, doc?”

“The beginning, I suppose…” Em said with a shrug, her pen levitating over the pad. “Why don’t you tell me about your earliest memory, was it a good one? A bad one? Somewhere between?” Dominic paused for a moment, thinking back over his life, rubbing his chin in deep thought before finally answering.

“When I first met my wife… Well, before she was my wife.” Dominic said quietly. “We were… At least, in second grade? My mom and her mom were in a yoga class together, they’d drop us off at the playground outside the gym before heading inside for their class.” Em nodded and began writing things down on her paper again, her horn moving the pen while she kept her attention on Dominic. “Man… I hadn’t thought about it, but.. Back then I almost hated her! She always put bugs down my shirt, or stole my seat on the swings…”

“Well, opposites attract.” Em chimed in, Dominic shrugged but Em could sense that there was a bit more of a calmness in his mind. In all honesty, the questions were half to see what sort of foundation he had and half to try and ease him into the idea of having a therapist. “Let’s move a little further into the future, tell me when you first started feeling depressed.” Dominic looked at her with a blank expression. “Maria told me you’ve been depressed since before the outbreak, Dominic… She implied some pretty dark things…”

“Second or third grade…” Dominic said with a bit less confidence than before, his eyes shooting back to the clock. “I don’t know why, just, one day I woke up and felt like shit…” Em’s pen almost lost its magical grip, Em had clients that had been depressed since they were very young, but she had never imagined that… The mare stopped those thoughts, she had to be as objective as possible. “I think it might’ve had something to do with my parents? I don’t want to sound like I’m blaming my parents for anything, but… A happy marriage it was not, at least, not all the time. And my sister and I damn well knew it.”

“Your sister?” Em asked, Dominic nodded. “I didn’t know you had a sister.”

“Well, we weren’t exactly close growing up. She tended to side with mom when there were arguments, I sided with dad.” Dominic admitted, looking at the floor with a bit of guilt in his eyes. “I should’ve been nicer to her, or gotten to know her better, half the time it felt like we were just strangers.” Again, his eyes went to the clock, only ten minutes had passed, it felt as if someone had just made the clock go slower. “Getting back on topic though, yeah… Second or third grade, around the second time they reconciled… That’s when I started feeling ‘Depressed’, or whatever…”

“You disagree?” Em asked, Dominic nodded quickly.

“Everyone gets sad. So I get sad a little more often than others, what’s the big deal?” Dominic said callously, trying to pretend that the question didn’t run pretty deep with him. “I’m literally the leader of the entire world, I have two smoking hot wives, a son that’s smart as a tack, all the money I could ever want, and did I mention I’m the leader of a superpower?” A picture was starting to form for Em, and as she wrote more and more down Dominic found himself launching into a sort of rant. “There are plenty of people who have it worse off than me, why should I be the one sitting here spilling my heart out, huh? I should be paying for them to come see people like you, they’re the ones that need help, not me.”

“When you were fifteen you were going to hang yourself in your closet with a belt.” Em said flatly, Dominic froze and stared at the changeling silently. “Your wife did a little more than imply, actually.” She noticed his body language change, his fingers drumming against the arm of the couch, his eyes darting back and forth, his emotions were sporadic and raw. Uncertainty, panic, and a tiny bit of betrayal… “Now, you say there are plenty of people who need help more than you, but does that mean you’re completely fine?” Dominic kept his eyes glued to the floor. “You said it yourself, you’re in charge of a global superpower. You can’t afford to let your emotions cloud your judgement, especially now that we’re in such trying times.”

“This is going to be a fun hour and a half, isn’t it…?” Dominic said flatly as he leaned back in his seat, Em just shrugged and looked back at her notepad.

“Let’s talk about middle school, did you like your teachers?” Em asked, Dominic sighed and rubbed his temples, knowing fully well that this was going to feel like the longest hour and a half of his life.

[♠]

Rainbow Dash quietly sighed as she sat in her black unmarked police cruiser, it was promotion time and she had been promoted from her position as a K9 officer to a detective. She hadn’t been assigned a partner yet, but she was hoping whoever it was had a bit more experience than she did. Being a detective had always seemed very glamorous, and the pay was far better than a normal beat cop, but she knew the workload would also increase. The mare looked over to her passenger seat and smiled briefly, they had at least let her adopt Hans. The German Shepherd had been re-domesticated, but he still had the glint of a police dog in his eye.

It was a time of many changes for the grizzled veteran officer, for one thing her daughter had been given her commission as an officer after her actions in the New Axis War. What was more, Rainbow Dash and Quibble had moved out of her cloud house. One night Quibble had forgotten to drink his cloud walking potion and nearly fell through the floor, it had been the deciding factor for Rainbow Dash to concede the point that it was time for a new house. As it happened, Detective Dash was driving through town to drop Hans off at the kennel where he was finishing up his domestication training. After that she would go to the station and begin her shift, and then after she had done all that she’d get to go home and see Quibble. Hopefully they’d get to spend some romantic time together.

There was a storm front moving in from the everfree forest, giving the normally sunny day a dreary overcast feeling. Rain fell lazily from the clouds, and a sad jazz song played on the radio of the cruiser. Hans wanted to put his head out the window, but Dash was already getting the car dirty with his shedding fur, she didn’t want to add rain water to the list. The detective hit the blinker, then made a left down one of the city streets. By now Ponyville was the size of Old Denver on Earth, with highrises and skyscrapers that could contend with those in Manehattan.

A good portion of the original residents had moved away, but all of Dash’s friends had remained. Rarity had turned Ponyville into the fashion capital of the world, Applejack and the farmers had made it clear that they didn’t want any expansion towards them. Unfortunately, that meant that expanding into the Whitetail Woods. Fluttershy had been brought in numerous times on public nuisance charges for protests where she obstructed workers clearing trees, something that Rainbow Dash had come to regret. Pinkie Pie had become the manager of the Cakes second bakery, and Twilight… Well… Twilight had become a bit of a local hero with her impassioned speeches as a member of the Onorussian Congress.

Rainbow Dash sighed again, Hans looked over from his seat and gave her a nuzzle. The mare didn’t mind the companionship, it helped to take the edge off. It felt like a long time since Ponyville had been an innocent small hamlet, and yet over the course of nearly a decade the little town had become a bustling urban center. The world had been different all those years ago, the world seemed so much bigger, so full of mystery and wonder. Mainstreet didn’t feel like mainstreet anymore, and the bright neon lights shined a lot brighter than the quaint little lanterns that had once hung in the streets. Rainbow couldn’t help but wonder if maybe she had made a horrible decision all those years ago, when she had defected and told of Celestia’s plans.

The mare slowed to a stop at a stop light, watching as more cars drove past in the other lanes. If she hadn’t defected, if she had just kept her mouth shut, Ponyville might have stayed a quiet little village, Scootaloo’s parents wouldn’t have been arrested, and maybe the wars wouldn’t have been so bloody. At the same time, if she hadn’t gone over to the other side, she would never have met her husband, she never would’ve had all the joyous memories she had shared with Scootaloo, and there might have been just as much bloodshed on Earth because they had never been contacted.

It was an odd moral tightrope that Rainbow Dash found herself constantly walking back and forth, as she pulled into the parking lot of the kennels the mare did her best to shove those thoughts into the back of her mind. Dash parked the car and got out, grabbing Hans’ leash from the glove compartment before walking around to his side of the car and letting the dog out. She hooked his leash to the leather collar around his neck and walked with him to the front door. The building was unassuming, but it did have the emblem of the Ponyville Police Department on the front door. Rainbow Dash pushed the door open and walked in with Hans, the dog began sniffing around the area as he was walked to the front desk.

“Detective! Good to see you again!” The young man behind the desk said in a cheerful voice, he wore a police cadet’s uniform. Most of the time the kennel was run by cadets, supervised by senior officers, to help familiarize them with the workings of a police station. “Is Hans ready for his training session today?”

“Sure is.” Rainbow Dash replied before looking down at Hans, the dog was sitting beside her and looking up with his head tilted to one side. “You be good, okay?” Hans barked quietly and hopped up, licking Dash’s face. The mare giggled for a second before pushing him back down. “I’ll see you soon!” Dash looked to the desk clerk and nodded, the clerk came around the desk and took hold of Hans’ collar. “See you soon!” With that she moved outside and made her way to the cruiser, she climbed in and secured her belt before reaching over and turning on the police radio. The mare began driving back through town, towards her precinct. She had been assigned to the homicide desk, a part of the precinct that had a reputation for having a low caseload.

It didn’t take Rainbow Dash long to get to the precinct, she parked on the side of the brick building beside numerous other squad cars. After a couple seconds she turned off the car and stepped out, locking the doors before making her way to the front door. She didn’t dilly dally out in the cold air of the city, pushing her way in and signing in with the desk clerk. The mare adjusted her coat, the black wool jacket had helped to shield her from the wind. She ascended the steps, passing numerous posters about safety and protocol, as well as a couple wanted posters that had become the targets of numerous darts. Finally Rainbow Dash reached the third floor of the precinct, the large single room space had six desks set out in various locations, with an office to the side for the captain and a door that lead to the interrogation rooms and holding cells.

Rainbow Dash hung her coat on the coat rack near the door before trotting towards her desk, immediately she noticed that there was an empty box on the desk next to hers. Seeing as she was a detective her natural instinct to snoop got the better of her, she looked at the desk a bit more closer and noted that it now also had pens, pencils, a mailbox and even a name tag. Rainbow was about to stand and get a better look, but stopped as an odd sound echoed through the normally quiet office. A haunting harmonica, which was soon accompanied by the sound of hooves against the floor. Rainbow Dash looked up and spotted an Earth Pony leaning against the door into the office area, wearing an old leather duster and a stetson pulled down over his eyes. He looked oddly familiar, though there were scars where ever Rainbow could see exposed fur.

The stallion continued playing the haunting sounding harmonica as he slowly made his way over to the desk, until finally he set the instrument down next to the empty box. Then to Rainbow Dash’s surprise, the stallion removed his hat. The mare gasped in slight surprise as a stallion with a scar on his cheek turned to look at her, he was grizzled and looked like he belonged in some sort of Spaghetti Western, he also looked familiar. The stallion continued to remove his jacket, hanging it on the back of his chair. That was when the identity of the stallion clicked.

“B-Braeburn?” Rainbow Dash asked with a bit of surprise, the stallion maintained a flinty look in his eyes. Rainbow noted that he had a gunbelt that was far different from her ‘modern’ style, it too was leather with a winding sort of pattern. A revolver was holstered there, a far cry from Rainbow Dash’s Glock. “Wh-... You’re alive?”

“Seems that way…” Braeburn said in his gravelly voice as he sat down in the chair at the desk and looked over his space, he moved the empty box to the floor. “Miss Dash, seems you're alive as well.” Rainbow Dash nodded, recomposing herself in the presence of the grizzled law pony that seemed to have been transferred to her office. There were a couple other ponies in the room, some were getting coffee or working at their desks, but all had stopped to look at the two ponies that had just come in. It didn’t take long for the office of the captain to open.

“Alright, back to work.” The captain ordered, he was a tall Diamond Dog by the name of Rosco, and he had been on the force of law since the Diamond Dog confederacy had joined the New American’s a decade ago. “Dash, I see you’ve met your new partner. He’s been transferred here out of Appleloosa, so play nice.”

“I’ve met him before, Captain.” Rainbow Dash replied, Rosco hummed for a second before he nodded. “Nice to see you again, Braeburn.”

“Likewise.” The stallion replied simply as he leaned back in his seat, Rosco seemed to take that to mean that everything was going alright. The Diamond Dog, who happened to look a bit like a bloodhound, returned to his office and closed the door. “So, how’ve you been, Dash? With the war on and all, could’a swore you’d’ve reenlisted.”

“Oh, I’ve been fine… My daughter’s in the army already though, didn’t want to leave my husband alone.” Rainbow Dash replied promptly as she looked to her own desk. Unlike Braeburns hers had a couple photos on the edges as well as a glass case that held her good conduct medal with a clasp, something that only an enlisted mare could get. It also had a couple sealed envelopes in the ‘Out Box’, she was hoping that nothing would come ‘In’. Her day was normally quiet, even with the town getting so large. “She was the one that found the Imperatrix.”

“Ah…” Braeburn nodded simply, the two lapsed into a sort of quiet uncertainty, at least for Rainbow Dash it was uncertainty. Braeburn on the other hand had a poker face that could give the Imperator and his stony exterior a run for his money. Just as she was about to say something, the phone beside her began to ring. The mare sighed and picked it up, pressing the receiver against her ear.

“Dash. Homicide.” She said in a professional tone, Braeburn watched as she took notes down on a piece of paper. “Eighty eight… West… Plaza… How many bodies?” There was another pause and Rainbow Dash wrote a number down on the paper. “Alright… We’ll be right over.” Dash hung up the phone and looked over the paper, then got up out of her chair and walked to the door to Rosco’s office. Braeburn watched her lean her head in, there were a few words exchanged before Dash returned and began walking towards the coat rack. “Picked a helluva day to start, Braeburn. Double homicide down on West Plaza.” Braeburn stood up and donned his coat, then his hat, before following Rainbow Dash to the door. Truly it was going to be an interesting day for both of them, Dash just hoped Braeburn was up to the task.

[♠]

Altair sighed quietly as he sat in the classroom, looking out the window as storm clouds were starting to roll in. The clock on the wall indicated that it was two o’clock, he had another hour to go before he could go home. It was study period though, which was nice for him since he had finished his homework during class. The other students were doing their work in silence, but Altair was staring up at the sky as a pair of fighter jets zoomed past bound for the west coast. The boy opened his notebook and began sketching, at first he wasn’t really paying attention to what he was doodling, but soon enough he found himself drawing his mom.

He couldn’t wrap his head around why she had done what she’d done, despite what his parents had told him he still couldn’t believe that his mom had done something so dangerous because she thought that it would protect him. The boy stared at his sketch for a second, he felt awful thinking that something could’ve happened to his mom because of him. They kept telling him it wasn’t his fault, but the boy didn’t believe them, he knew they told him stories to try and protect him. Altair felt his heart racing as he remembered the feeling of the soldiers holding him back while the truck was driving away, the helplessness that had permeated his heart when he knew there was nothing he could do to help his mommy…

Altair turned to a different page in his notebook, once again he began sketching, his emotions switching to ones of anger. His lines were darker, more intense than before, the eight year old imagined himself as some sort of soldier. Like his father, or his heroes on the television and in the movies. Even for someone of his age he was adept at drawing, and it didn’t take him long to draw a simple looking soldier. Altair began to add a bit more detail, but soon felt a presence looming next to him. He looked over and noted that it was a familiar minotaur, the students were allowed to visit different teacher’s rooms for homework help and it seemed that Lars had slipped in under that pretense.

Mrs. Ramsey was busy with other students in the back of the room, and hadn’t noticed Lar’s presence. Altair noticed though, and he felt his grip on his pencil loosen as he and Lars sized one another up. Altair narrowed his eyes and clenched his fists, his expression souring even more than it already was. Lars’ expression shifted to one of surprise, it seemed that he hadn’t expected the angry look in his normal victim’s eyes. Lars was about to say something, but he recalled the painful blows he had taken during the last altercation with Altair. What was more, he was on his own. They would be one on one, and it was likely whoever landed the first hit would be the winner as the teacher would intervene.

“What did you get for number fifteen on the vocabulary?” Lars finally asked in a surprisingly nervous tone, Altair stared at him for a couple seconds before he reached down to his bag and removed his finished homework. The boy flipped a couple pages before setting the paper down on the desk without a word, pointing his finger simply at Number Fifteen. Lars looked at the answer for a couple seconds before Altair closed the packet and set it aside. “Hey! I didn’t-” Lars began to protest, but froze as he saw Altair roll his neck which elicited several popping noise. “I… I didn’t get to thank you for the help.”

Altair quietly nodded, then gave a dismissive wave of his hand. The minotaur began walking away, tugging at the collar of his shirt nervously. Meanwhile the son of the Imperator leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers watching Lars walk away, Sofia looked over from her seat with a bit of surprise.

“Holy crow, Alley Cat… H-He just….” She said, Altair nodded quietly as he closed his notebook, the boy reached to his homework packet again and opened it again, looking over number fifteen for a couple seconds. “What was the answer?”

“Imperator.” Altair said plainly as he went back to steepling his fingers, the sound of thunder in the distance echoed as it began to rain. The boy never took his eyes off of Lars until the minotaur had exited the classroom, Sofia didn’t seem to notice as she wrote in the answer. Altair couldn’t understand what he was feeling at the moment, for the first time Lars had backed down from an opportunity to pick on him. For the first time it seemed that Lars had learned not to test the son of the Imperator, and it felt so very good to know that his mortal enemy had capitulated at the thought of another altercation. On an unrelated note, Altair was glad that they had been focussing so heavily on vocabulary, as he enjoyed being able to expand his vernacular.

Altair went back to his sketch, adding something else to the sketch of the soldier that he had drawn. It was something that he saw his father wear on his uniform, a gold elongated hexagon with a red gem in the center, pinned to his collar. It was something that Altair had been told was meant for the leader of the Onorussian Republic. The boy finished adding the hexagon to the collar of the soldier’s uniform. The time passed quickly until there was only half an hour left until the end of school.

By that point Altair had packed all of his belongings and was waiting patiently for the time to run out, Sofia had finished her homework as well and was messing with her pencils and pens. Altair’s attention turned to Ozzy, the griffon was staring out the window as the rain continued to fall. The boy assumed that his mom was probably waiting for him outside by now, he hoped so, he couldn’t wait to get out of the dingy classroom and back to seeing his mom again. The teacher was getting ready for class to be other, sending her group of students back to their seats while she made her way to the front of the class.

“Alright, Class. Tomorrow we’re going to be having a test on history. Don’t worry, it’s nothing big, just something to let me see where you all are.” Mrs. Ramsey said, Altair watched her as she wrote a couple things down on the whiteboard. “Now, we’re going to finish up class today with a little movie, but first I have a special person I want you to meet!” Altair raised an eyebrow as the teacher looked to the door to the classroom. “We’re ready for you, Mister Conelrad.” The class watched as a man entered, he wore a long coat with an armband that read ‘CD’ in a blue elongated hexagon. He had a warm smile on his face, and his brown hair was cut with a flat top and flecks of grey were biting at the edges. He had fierce blue eyes, and he looked just about as old as Uncle Putin.

“Howdy, kids!” He said as he reached the center of the room while Mrs. Ramsey went back to her seat. “I’m Mister Conelrad, your friendly neighborhood safety officer! It’s my job to make sure you all know what to do in the case of a big emergency.” Altair and the others looked at him with a bit of surprise, but nonetheless they were all paying attention now. “Now, how many of you know what a Thermo-Arcane weapon is?” Altair lifted his hand, as well as a couple of the kids through the room. “Very good, go ahead and lower your hands. Well, for those of you that don’t know, a Thermo-Arcane weapon is a big bomb. It can make a big explosion and can hurt a lot of people, and so we’ve all got to be ready, just in case it’s ever used against us.”

The man began walking through the aisles of desks, his boots softly tapping against the floor while he examined the students.

“I’m an agent of the Onorussian Office of Civil Defense, and it’s my job to get you ready. Can any of you tell me what to do if you see a bright flash in the distance? I don’t mean like a teleportation flash or a firework, something much brighter than those.” The man continued as he moved back towards the front of the room, Altair’s hand was the first and only to go into the air. “Yes, young man?”

“Get under your desk and cover as much exposed skin as possible.” Altair replied, the man nodded and seemed genuinely impressed.

“Very good, very good indeed.” Mister Conelrad stated before he turned to address the rest of the class. “Thermo-Arcane weapons make a lot of heat, and they can give you a very bad burn if you aren’t covered up. That’s why it’s important to learn how to do something we call ‘Duck and Cover!’.” The other kids all seemed a bit nervous now that they knew they could get hurt, but Mister Conelrad’s cheery demeanor put them mostly at ease. Altair didn’t understand why he had to sit through the presentation though, he knew all about how to protect himself. “We’re going to watch a little film now, it’s an old one but a good one, I hope you’ll bear with us. This will teach you more about Duck and Cover, and it will give you other helpful tips on how to be prepared for if the bomb drops.”

Altair leaned back in his seat as a couple AV students pushed a TV into the room before turning off the lights, they turned on the screen and put a VHS tape into the VCR hooked up beneath the television. Sure enough Altair was greeted by a familiar looking turtle as a happy song played in the background, he wondered if the other children had already seen it though. Judging by their reactions he guessed not. At least it would be a fun way to pass the remaining time in school.

Author's Notes:

Well, here's the last chapter I'm writing in New Jersey, in a couple hours I will be on my way across the country back to the great state of Colorado. Forgive me if there's a slight delay because of this move, but I should be back up and running soon.

As usual, here's your clip of the day. This is kinda what inspired me to do Braeburn's comeback. He seemed like he was left for dead, but he still managed to pull through, kinda how the character in this movie gets along. The film is 'Once Upon a Time in The West', one of my favorite Spaghetti Westerns, next to 'The Man with No Name Trilogy' which stars Clint Eastwood.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XkHsinz7oU

And here's another bit of art I did for the story. No character in particular is here, just a random AA Gun commander rolling past an enemy town that refused to surrender.