So, maybe things hadn't turned out like I’d wanted them to after all. Maybe having everything I’d wanted wasn’t what I really needed. While I could sit here and be mad at Caltrop for what he’d done, the thing was, it had all been my fault he was like this. Sitting here on my bed next to him as he slept the rest of the alcohol off just gave time to think about things. Thinking was something I hadn’t done too much of recently, and for that, we’ve all suffered.

A knock at the door made Sandy give off a low growl.

“PC,” Synchro’s muffled voice came through. “Are you in there?”

“Go the hell away, Synchro.” I snapped. Forced to marry him or not, no force in the universe could ever make me ever do anything with him.

“Look, can’t we just talk about this?” He sighed.

“You had plenty of time to talk about it before you went and made your challenge.” I shoved myself off the bed and hastily stomped over to the door. “And you wasted that time eyeing my flank.” He’d either willingly leave me alone, or I was very tempted to let Sandy give him no mercy.

Are you really thinking of using Sandy to murder him?

No, I suppose that even my conscience wouldn’t have stood for that. Still, my cyberlegs were more than enough to get him to leave me alone, even if I’d have to take them off to beat him with them.

With my magic, I grabbed the door handle and threw the door open. Before me, stood Synchro, cowering on the floor as I stood over him. On his hoof, he still wore the pipbuck he’d had on in the fight.

“Look, I know…” He started with a whimper.

“You have exactly ten seconds to explain why you’re standing outside my door.” I leaned down and stared right into his eyes. “Past that, I don’t care what Flint’s rules are. You will be screaming for any mercy, and I won’t give it.” He started shaking in fear, all the confidence he’d had in the last month, gone. “Speak.”

“I… I didn’t even want to win.” He whined and stared up with wide scared eyes. “I... “ He whimpered and hid his face in his hooves.

Then the waterworks started.

I wasn’t quite sure what to think. Caltrop had been this way before, and I’d wanted to smack him for it. Synchro crying like a foal on the floor just made me feel sorry for him. After our talk in the workshop the other day before I left with Spectre, I could see why he’d never left on any job. Like he said, he’d be dead in ten minutes outside of this place.

“Is,” Sandy spoke up from behind me, “is he alright?”

“Yes, Sandy.” I sighed and hung my head. “Synchro, if you really didn’t want this, why did you even set up the fight in the first place?”

“It’d just be easier to show you.” He sniffled and wiped his nose with his forehoof. He looked up at me with pleading eyes, and I felt like I was staring down at just a colt at my hooves. “Please, just give me a chance to explain.”

“Fine.” I didn’t fancy going anywhere with him, but if it helped to sort out this mess at all, it was worth agreeing to for now. “But if you try anything, remember what I said.” He’d simply nodded and pulled himself up off the hallway floor. I turned around and met Sandy’s frown with one of my own. “Sandy, can you stay here and watch Caltrop for me?”

“Okay!” She barked and hopped up onto her hind legs. Then, she stopped and stared up at me curiously. “What does marriage mean?”

“I’ll tell you later, alright?” I forced a small smile as I backed out through the door. At the very least, the smile that Sandy returned to me was genuine. With a soft click, I pulled the door shut, and turned down the hall. Standing at the door, Synchro waited for me. I wasn’t sure what sort of explanation he’d have for me, but I hoped for his sake, that it was a goddess damned good one.

He lead me across the compound towards his workshop, but passed it up in favor of trotting down the road. A few hundred feet down the path, he turned and trotted up the side of the valley. The path here would have been obscured to anyone simply trotting by, but once I traced his steps up, I could see the faint path under my own hooves. Higher and higher we climbed, doubling back quite a few times as the Valleyside rose up steeper and steeper.

“Alright, we’re here.” He spoke reverently as we reached the top of the hill. No more than ten feet across, the other side of the hill from the compound rapidly turned in the sharp, jagged rocks. At the peak, we’d stopped at a small outcropping with a withered and sickly looking tree.

I looked back down at the compound. From atop this hill, I could see just how big this place really was, as well as how snuggly it fit into the valley. Flint’s villa took up just over a third of the space in the valley, with almost another half being filled with the fields where his numerous slaves worked. The workshop, guard’s personal quarters, and my building taking up just a small amount of space in the grand layout before me. From here, it really made me feel like all us hunters were just a statistic to Flint, an insignificant part of his system.

“PC?” Synchro spoke up as he took a seat in the dirt next to the tree. He wore a soft, and sad smile that seemed all the sadder with his quivering muzzle and watering eyes. “I’d like you to meet my mother, Arc Lamp.” He pointed at the tree, and immediately I knew that this was a mistake.

“Synchro,” I facehooved with a sigh. “Don’t get me wrong…”

“Just hear me out, okay?” He cut me off, but it wasn’t forcefully like everyone else who did normally went about it. “I’m not trying to win you over with this. I just want to explain why I did this.”

I shut my eyes and sat up straight. “Alright.”

“I never wanted anything more, than to make my mother proud.” He started as he looked down at the dirt under his hooves. “She worked in the fields down there for me, each and every day while she raised me. She went hungry every other night, just to make sure I got extra food so I could grow up strong and healthy. She sacrificed her own sleep, just to sing me to bed.” His tears dribbled down his muzzle and onto the dirt.

“She’d tell me stories every night, saying that I wouldn’t be a slave all my life. That we’d once lived in a glorious stable on the west coast. Some nights, she’d talk about what life in our stable was like before it was raided. How she and dad dreamed that one day I'd grow up to marry a nice mare and give her plenty of grandfoals. But then dad died when the stable opened, and we were sold off because stable dwellers didn't know how to defend themselves against the wasteland. Eventually, we found ourselves bought by a pair of slavers on the east coast by the names of Flint and Steel.”

“Every day of my young life, she was there for me. She was there when I fucked up, and she took the punishment for me. When the guards wanted to take the gadgets I’d made from scrap away, she fought to let me keep them.” He shook his head and sighed. “This was when Flint first noticed me. He saw my potential, and brought me up to the barn. He encouraged me to build new things for him, to be more creative.” With a slumping sigh, he leaned against the tree. “But as I grew up, mom grew weaker. For a time, that was okay, because now I could comfort her when she was crippled with sadness, I could use the favors I was earning to help get her more rest days, or more food.”

“Then Red Eye showed up. He’d made deals with all of the slavers across the region. Flint and his brother, Steel, were the last to be recruited. He offered them caps beyond their already bountiful hordes for their services.” He grimaced and tensed. “Flint took the offer, and used his wealth to expand. He offered me the chance to become one of his hunters, dangling the ability to learn from Red Eye’s cybernetic expert on how to use and build archano-tech. I’d thought it was too good of an offer to refuse, so I took it without thinking.”

He glared up at me now, raising his hoof at me in judgement. “I should have been like you. I should have bargained for more than what I got.” He sniffled again and pulled his hooves up to his face. “Red Eye took her as part of his deal with Flint. He took my mother and half of Flint’s slaves to work in the pits of Filly.” He snapped at me. “I didn’t even get to tell her that I loved her!” He cried out and collapsed down on the dirt against the tree.

This was all way more than I’d been prepared for. I mean, this was nothing like how I’d seen him act around the compound. He’d always been so rude and abrasive, I’d never even considered he could have been this way.

“She died in that pit, three days later. All because I couldn’t be there for her.” He whined. “Nopony cared when she died. Not Flint, not any of the other hunters. She loved me, and I’m the only one who even remembers her name.” He whimpered again and looked over to the tree. “The day she died, I came up here, to this very tree. I wanted to throw myself down to the rocks on the other side, but I couldn’t because of this stupid, frail, and weak tree.”

“Because it reminded you of your mother?” I asked, getting a weak nod from him. “Why do you keep working for Flint then if you hate it so much?” I spoke without thinking. My hooves snapped up over my muzzle as my brain took an extra second to try to stop myself.

“Why?” He growled. “Don’t you get it? He owns me.” He jabbed at his own chest in anger. “I’m too fucking weak to last out in the wastes. This is all I’ve ever fucking known.” He scoffed and stiffly picked himself up. “Every day, I get up and work for the stupid fuck that owns me, because if I don’t, I’m dead. And if I’m dead, then no pony will know that a mare named Arc Lamp even fucking existed.”

“Then why did you set up the fight? Why marry me if you didn’t even want to?” He’d already shattered the illusion that he’d set up here. “Hell, why even tell me all this?”

“Because you’re different!” He wicked away his tears and dusted himself off. “Everyone else here feels like they belong with Flint, except you.” He sat down hard, looking down over at the compound. “I have to be annoying, to make the others hate me down there. That way, I know I’m not like them, and I see that you don’t want to be like them either.”

“Even if you are different, and you don’t want to be like them, I’m not yours.” Even though I got where he was coming from, I wanted to make this clear. “Caltrop is the only pony I’ve ever loved, and even I don’t understand why. You might not be the stallion I thought you were, but you aren’t somepony I love. Forcing me to marry you doesn’t change that.”

“I know, I know.” He sighed and got up. “But without it, you would have never even given me a chance to explain things. I thought maybe this way, you’d at least give us a chance.” With heavy hoofsteps, he started his way back down the hill. “Thank you for at least hearing me out. Now, I’ll leave you alone.”

I sighed, hating what I felt I had to do next. “Wait.” Like so many times recently, I wanted to stop myself, but I spoke without being able to stop. I shut my eyes hard and listened as his hoofsteps stopped. “Maybe I’m not your wife, but if you aren’t really the douchebag that you’ve pretended to be, then I don’t see why we couldn’t at least get to be friends.”

“Thank you.” Was all he said before he continued off down the trail.

I sat there, alone on the ridge as the wind picked up along the outer edge of the valley. It whistled up past me, making the tree groan and creak as Synchro’s hoofsteps grew distant enough that I didn’t hear them over it anymore. Again, I was left alone to my thoughts.

Even though I’d lived a life free of ownership until now, I don’t know if it’s been any better than what he’s been through. Everypony has seen their share of tragedy, it’s just the way of the wasteland. Synchro said that I had strength, but it’s a lack of it that landed me in this place to begin with. I wasn’t strong enough to beat Brightshine, nor was I strong enough to escape Null, or beat that stupid mechanical beast that took my legs.

What could be said about the strength of a pony, would probably never come from my lips. Storm is the strongest pony I’ve ever known, and even so, I’ve done the exact opposite of everything she’s spoken. Maybe if I’d listened, I’d be a different pony, a better pony.

I stretched out one of my cyberhooves and it filled me with doubt. Doubt that I could change this path I’ve set myself on. This is the life I’ve wanted to live for so long, and it is grand, but as I’ve realized here, I am not the pony I used to be.

“You know,” I spoke to the lonely, sickly tree sitting there on the hill. “Maybe it isn’t me who’s strong.” I felt stupid talking to a tree, but I needed to get the words out of my muzzle in some half baked attempt to believe them “Rather, it’s ponies like Caltrop, Synchro, and even Sandy who have real strength. They have to,” With a glance down the hill, I watched as Synchro trotted back into the large workshop. “they need it to carry on like they do every day.”

“Things need to change, and I’m going to need them to help me do it.” Getting up to my hooves again, I turned toward the path down the hill. With a quick glance, I took a parting look at the tree. “You know, even if it isn’t with me, I’ll make sure that once he’s out of this place, I’ll find him a mare to settle down with. I promise.”

Much like Synchro, I too have been hiding part of myself away for far too long. In talking with Jamboree, she could see that part of me in an instant. I don’t want to fight it anymore. I’d done my share of traveling places to get into fights, and in a few years, I’ll be thirty. It’s time I followed in my mothers hoofsteps and settled down. I have a future with Caltrop and Sandy, and that was something I intended to hold on to. But first, I’d have to get away from Flint.

With an arcane snap, Spectre appeared up on the hill with me. Before I could say anything or even react, the image of Flint’s study was shoved into my mind and we were whisked away by her arcane magic. With another stomach flipping snap, I had been unceremoniously dumped at Flint’s hooves.

“I’m sorry for imposing such an awkward and sudden meeting, but an urgent matter has just been brought to my attention.” Flint sighed as he swirled the wine in a glass he held in his fetlock. “You see, I have received very troubling information, and it simply has me in such distress.”

I tried my best to hold back from vomiting on either his hooves or his extremely plush carpet. It was a battle I would surely lose if I opened my muzzle to answer. Thankfully, I didn’t have to.

“What is it?” Null spoke up from behind me.

“If the intelligence that I have received is indeed true, then our humble home is to be besieged in the near future.” Flint paused long enough that I regained control of my lunch and could focus on what he was saying. “I suspect that both Red Eye and my brother’s greed will cause them to attempt a coup against me. I cannot confirm this, but what I do know, is that somepony just paid a hefty sum of caps to disrupt key waypoints in my trade routes within the next day or so. It might just be the work of those wretched anti-slavery nuts calling themselves ‘Celestia’s Angels’, but I tend to believe that it is more than just a highly coordinated strike.”

“So, what would you like us to do?” I muttered, quickly pushing myself up. It was odd, I knew I remembered seeing that name before, but I couldn’t quite place it.

“I am sending all of you out in teams.” His words made me shudder at the thought of being paired up with Spectre again. “That includes your companions, Miss Cap. Though, I will be sending them with Dykem.” He eyed me with a smirk. “As you remember, all first time jobs must be supervised.”

“Yes, master.” Well, how bad of a mission could it be if he’s sending her out? From what I understood, she got easy or surveillance jobs.”

“Spectre, you are to take Miss Cap and Null out to waystation fourteen, as it’s the farthest away. Then, please return to pair with Brushfire. You two will cover route eight.” He took a quick sip of his wine. I quietly thanked the goddesses that I’d been paired with Null, but who knew how far out this way station was. It could be a very long, and uncomfortable set of arcane jumps to get out there for all I knew. “I’ll send Dykem, along with your companions to Waystation six. That should cover all of the most likely targets.”

“What about Synchro’s machine?” Spectre asked boredly.

“I have it attending to other matters at the moment.” He emphasized it oddly, and when he gave us a smile, it sent a chill down my spine. “It is none of your concern, I’m afraid.”

“When do we leave?” I asked, hoping I’d at least get a chance to talk with Caltrop before I left. I should have known the response that came from him though.

“I’m sorry, did I stutter when I spoke of it as an urgent matter?” Flint rolled his eyes and waved his hoof in dismissal. “Go now and protect the future of our livelihood. I have many plans to make to protect our home. Return once it is secure and these filthy wastelanders have been dealt with.”

With that, an image on the barren wastes was forced into my head. I didn’t even fight it this time. I could tell already, that it was going to be a very long few days.

Once I’d stopped throwing up a half hour after Spectre dumped us in some stupid ruined mountainside building, I’d realized a fairly large flaw in not having been able to prepare. All my equipment was still back home.

“What the fuck am I supposed to do?” I grumbled to Null, who was too busy peering through a pair of binoculars while perched on the side of the collapsed concrete structure.

“Improvise.” Null snorted as he scanned the horizon.

“Really? Really? That’s your advice?” I sighed and flopped back against an old crummy mattress. The absurd amount of empty vials of dash around here made me think that either someone had been a real junky around here, or that they were manufacturing the shit before this place exploded. “Real great, coming from the pony who can turn invisible.”

“Fine.” He stiffly lowered his optics with an exasperated sigh, and lifted the flap to his saddlebag with his magic. “But I want it back when we are done here.” From it, he lifted something that both brought me joy, and enraged me all the same.

“Why the fuck do you have number six?” He’d floated my break open shotgun to me and dropped it at my hooves.

“Oh, was it yours?” He shrugged my question off so casually, one could have sworn he’d been sleeping with it. “I had wondered where I picked it up from. I’d thought I’d pulled it off some zebra during that prison break a month ago.”

“You’re a real son of a bitch, you know that?” I grunted and picked it up.

“And you have to be more inventive with names.” He brought the old binoculars up to his muzzle again and squinted. “So far, nothing. To get into this place, they’ll have to cross the bridge over the river.”

“What about scaling down the mountain behind us?” I sighed and wiggled number six between the straps for my battery harness.

“So they would hike over the mountain, and drop into a lake of taint to get to us?” He gave a short laugh. “I think not. Why do you think Flint chose this dump to keep slaves? No pony in their right mind would risk attacking from anywhere else but the bridge. We watch from that direction.”

Crawling over the rubble, I wound my way through this ruined building. To me, this place looked like it had once been a hotel, or sleeping quarters of some kind. Just outside of it, lay a road that lead down into what was once probably a bustling wasteland hub. The twisted remains of four towers stood charred and black, bowing away from the large multicolored lake that sat pressed against the mountainside.

In the middle of all four towers, and next to the edge of the taint lake, sat rows and rows of cages. All of them empty, no doubt by the order of Flint. Surrounding the cages, was an impressive amount of chain link fencing with razor wire woven through it. Even more so than that, around the fencing, were dozens of mines. It would be fairly imposing to any slave inside, but from here, it would be easy to get past.

“What are you doing?” Null groaned over at me. “It is hard enough to see through these optics with my kind of vision. It will take the two of us to spot anypony coming.”

“Yeah, and Flint said that they’d attack in the next twenty four hours.” I could tell that Null had never been someone to prepare for alternate ways things could go down. Then again, when you could just hide indefinitely with stealth bucks, why would you need to watch for other things? “We have the time to prepare, what’s the harm in making sure we know where they could attack from and alternate paths for us to fall back to if we get overwhelmed?”

“Because it is not time spent that you’re looking out for them.” Null pushed himself down from his perch and out of sight. “Look, I have seniority on this job, and I am telling you to get up there and look out for them.”

“And what are we going to do?” What did Flint even expect us to do out here? “I’ve got a shotgun with one round, and you’ve got the ability to play hide and seek.” I turned around and made my way back over to him. He was rustling through the rubble, and I had no idea what he was looking for. Peeking back over, I found him sliding a slab of rubble off a fairly new looking metal box. “What’s that?”

“Flint’s guarantee that after they come at us, they will never want to do it again.” He flipped open the box and showed off it’s glowing contents. Mom had refused to sell these in her shop, but I know a pair of balefire eggs and a mint condition launcher when I see them.

“Where the fuck did he get those?” I was in complete disbelief. The whole kit looked brand new, and not even those steel toasters had shit this nice.

“A gift from Red Eye.” Null smiled as he lost himself in the swirling colors of one of the balefire eggs. “The armaments factory was the first thing he got running in Filly. These were a limited run, and in making them the machines seized up. He won’t be making any more anytime soon, that’s for sure, so we’ve got to make them last.”

“So then, why the fuck am I here?” I sighed. With firepower like that, who needed two ponies?

“So you can keep watch over areas I can not, of course.” He shrugged and floated the launcher out, looking it over.

“But… you said…” I could feel my eye twitch with irritation. I turned around and looked back to the other side of the ruins. As I did, something odd caught my eye. A flash from on the mountainside. As I looked at the area it came from, it happened a few more times. “You know what, I don’t care.”

If it was somepony with a rifle, I was pretty sure they’d have fired at us already. The fact that they hadn’t, helped me to remember where I’d heard of this group from. Storm was annoyed that I’d blown up Burst Flare when she was supposed to deliver where Flint’s compound was. On the contract, Celestia’s Angels were listed as the group she’d been affiliated with.

Well, at least I’d been right to watch the other directions. See, Storm said that I was an amature, but at least I wasn’t as dense as Null. I wasn’t going to lie, a smirk drew across my muzzle in thinking that maybe for once, I’d finally proven Storm wrong about something. A sharp twang sounded from above the rubble behind me. I turned around to see a confusing sight.

It was a ghost.

The zebra that Caltrop had killed in Steel Junction was staring at me from the far side of the rubble. Null slumped against the concrete beside me, a small dart protruding from his hide. I scrambled around to the other side of the slab Null was against, and tried to pull number six from my harness. Annoyingly enough, the top lever had caught against the straps, and was making it quite hard to retrieve. The clatter of rocks next to me prompted a glance up there as I fiddled with my gun. I froze again in confusion as another ghost presented itself.

“Hello, PC.” Big Shot grumbled through the makeshift dart gun in his muzzle. The air around me positively vibrated with the twang of his shot. The sharp prick of the dart in my skin was a lot worse without my jacket to stop it, and decidedly more painful than the one Flint had used in his dining room.

The world spun and bled into pallets of colors and frightening sounds, finally culminating with everything going black.

When I came to, the first thing I felt, was cold against my back. Wherever I was, I couldn’t see anything. I blinked a few times, hoping it was just a blindfold, but in reality, there was just no light where I was. I tried to move my forehooves, but found that they were hoofcuffed around some sort of pipe next to me.

“It is no use.” Null snorted from in the darkness. He sounded like he was right next to me, but I couldn’t see him at all in this pitch black. “I have to say, there was merit in your words before. I did not expect to be taken from behind.”

“Where are we?” I asked, trying to use my horn to case my light spell. Oddly enough, I couldn’t use my magic at all. “Why won’t you work, stupid horn?”

“I do not know. In a lead lined box of some sort, so I cannot see out of it. My best estimate for how long we were out, is somewhere within a half days journey of where we were.” He sighed. “As for your magic, there is an anti-magic ring on each of our horns. We are helpless at the moment.”

From above us, there was an odd rhythmic beeping sound. Four specific beeps rang out followed by a loud screech delivering a bright light to us. I had to squint as whatever hatch that sat above us, opened. To my surprise, a blue mare with a wide smirk stared down at us.

“Storm, your granddaughter’s awake.” Bluejay snorted as she stared down at me. “It’s time you two gave us some much needed information.” I could hear Storm’s hoofsteps as she approached. It was just like her to always make an entrance. “We couldn’t believe what Big Shot and Ficha were telling us when they said they’d found you, but I am not disappointed.”