“Quiet your conscience, gather your will. Find the strength go on and make it up that hill.”

Pushing through the doors in the wide, main hallway of the hospital, most of us were ready to go. Gauge had wanted to go see what she could do to get Grumpy back in the fight, but her overtaxing of his power supply earlier didn’t leave her hopeful. Harmony had promised to help out with it, but I didn’t know how much she could when she still had a lot of work to do on the Marauder.

Predious floated the odd Stealthbuck contraption that Kiwi had made between us, while also levitating the pair of combat pistols he’d ended up equipping himself with. Ficha had opted to stick with his usual crossbow. I knew that somehow he was able to recover from grievous wounds, but if I were him, I’d have wanted something a little more modern to make sure I didn’t have to find out somehow I was not able to come back from a hit I took. Lastly, Shadow trotted along with heavy hoofsteps. His sleek power armor looked out-of-the-box new compared to Pallet’s gauss rifles as they sat on his sides. Harmony had insisted he used them, as they would have the most ability to punch through ranger power armor out of anything smaller than an anti machine rifle.

With a crackle, a voice came through the speaker in my ear.

“Radio check, calling channel 34.” Oil Can’s voice came through clear. “Storm, is this your channel?”

I lifted my hoof to the side of my head and hoofed the headset microphone down to my muzzle before pressing the talk button on the other side of the speaker. “Yes, this is our channel.”

“Good to know.” His voice came back across with a relieved sigh. “All the pegasi are up here and ready to go.” As he spoke, I looked over to Shadow, who, even with his helmet on, I could see was a bit frustrated at that. “If you need any air support, I’m on channel 28 with the others.”

“Got it.” I nodded and replied back. “Good luck out there.”

“You too.” He simply replied before a crackle of static signaled he’d turned off our channel.

“Alright.” Predious nodded as well as he talked to somepony on his own headset. “I’ll tell her for you. Stay safe down there.” As he finished, he looked over to meet my expectant gaze, and he gave a nervous smile. “Cheap and his team are starting their run through the tunnels. Here’s to hoping they can start to get some of the ponies in the arena, out.”

We trailed along a yellow line on the wall that faded lettering announced was the way towards the ICU. The plan was for each of the assault teams to line up at one of the windows in the rooms and wait for the barrage to start. Then, the other two teams and us were to get out into no ponies land, and run for their designated cover. That made it sound easy, but we had to cross effectively three and a half hoofball fields to even make it to our cover, which was the farthest rock of the bunch, but the closest to the enormous stadium door, and the straightest shot from the hospital.

We turned along a branching hallway, and we slowed down to a walk. I wasn’t the shortest of ponies around, but even I couldn’t see over the heads of everypony who was in this hall. The sheer number of ponies waiting in the hall meant that we had to fold our group into a single file line just to press through. Stallions, mares, fillies, and colts. Each ragged looking pony seemed to glow with the fires of hope as we passed them. Hundreds were here just in this hall, waiting for us to get up and clear a path for them. Sure, our run was going to be hard, but our job was going to be a cakewalk compared to what these ponies were going to have to do.

Another crackle came across my headset and into my ear.

“This thing workin’ Y’all?” Harmony’s voice came across with a burst of static before it cleared. “Gosh darn junk. Don’t Y’all ever maintain these things?”

“Yes, we do.” Gauge’s voice came over the radio as well. “And they can hear you.”

Putting my hoof up to the talk switch again, I pressed it and spoke up. “Gauge, are you on your way here?”

“Yeah.” She replied quickly. “Grumpy’s still charging however. Going to be another five minutes at least before he’ll be able to join the fight.”

“Storm?” Harmony’s voice cut in as Gauge finished. “Ah’m doin’ what ah can with gittin’ finished here, but ah’m also gonna need some time.”

Pressing the button again, I met Pred’s worried gaze with one of my own. “How long?”

“Ah… Ah don’t rightly know.” She stammered before she let out a long sigh. “We only have tha one car, so ah gotta make sure it ain’t gonna fail tha first time around.”

“Just do what you can.” I said, looking around as we pressed on past more and more hope filled ponies. “I believe in you, Harmony. You of all ponies can make this work.”

“Ah know, sugarcube.” Her voice seemed to pick up a bit from that. “Stay safe now, Y’all hear me?” She gave a sad chuckle that brought a small smirk to my own muzzle. “If’n y’all need me, ah’m on channel 42.”

“Will do.” I responded before taking my hoof off the talk button. The quick hoofbeats of a pony behind us made me look back. Between the close group of fighters to our side, I could briefly see Gauge’s nervous smile as she looked over at me. Good, we were all here.

From up ahead, the crowd in front of us split, and the door into another room at the backside of the hospital opened. From inside, Gallant poked his head out and trained on us as we moved towards him.

“We must hurry.” He called out. “The time of his ritual draws ever closer.” At that, I looked up at the clock in my pipvision and was dismayed at what it read.

11:51

Turning and pressing into the room, I was met with an odd sight. A ranger in power armor stood at the end of a makeshift ramp. The ramp ended at the window, and hastily welded onto the frame, were a few rings with chains hanging from them. The chains looped down and were mounted on various rings built into the power armor itself, sitting taught against the pony’s pull as he stood there. If it had been any other day in the district, I could have easily confused him as a ranger who was being sold at auction.

“Team three is in position.” The stallion muttered, most likely over his own radio. “Turn on the EFS jammer.” Only a moment passed before the markers in my vision flickered and went blank. Even though I was surrounded by green bars a moment ago, an empty compass was all that met my gaze.

A crackle met my ear once again, before the annoyed voice of Cottage came over it. “This is command. Prepare for the initial artillery barrage to begin.”

Even as he spoke, the rapid thunderous booms picked up across the city. Unlike before, they didn’t fire in bursts, rather in quick succession to each other. A steady pattern picked up between them that I could almost pace with the tapping of my hoof. However, before I could find that pace, the screaming shells started to fall on their marks.

“GO.” The power armored stallion’s voice cut through the air before he lurched forward. The chains connected to him went slack as he ran towards the window. With a crunch, he smashed through the window and threw himself into the open. The chains went taught, and the wall around the window frame gave way under the force the armor had imparted onto it. The wall itself nearly completely came down, filling the room with dust and flakes of snow, as well as giving us and the others an easy exit.

“I love you, Storm.” Shadow said as I kept my eyes locked on the rising dust of our exit. It pained me to know that he’d be up in the air supporting the other pegasi, but they needed him. I had to trust that he knew what he was doing, just like I had when he went out after Iron with Hail.

“Alright,” Predious called out, barely being heard over each and every artillery shell slamming down ahead of us. As he did, the stealth device in his magic gave a loud hum before the air between us shimmered. It was an odd sight to see every one of my friends disappear into thin air. I looked down at myself as well, finding that even I was no longer where I thought I was. It was disorienting to say the least, but I’d just have to trust that we’d all stick together. “Let’s go!” He shouted from the nothing beside me, and I picked myself up straight into a gallop.

We burst over the broken wall and into the hoof deep snow. The dust around me moved around the others hidden in it, revealing the forms of my friends as we pushed out into the open. The rhythmic blasts that dropped down around the arena met our eyes as we pushed through the other side. Bright flashes erupting around the arena were accompanied with sprays of dirt and snow. Splashes of snow erupted around the field with each blast as the shrapnel skipped across it.

From behind us, bursts of fire trailed over our heads. From above, the numerous pegasi fighters we had took wing, zipping past us forward and opening up on the rangers who hadn’t taken cover from the barrage yet.

One of the shrieking artillery shells slammed down against the edge of the arena, blasting steel and concrete outward. With a heavy whump, the debris dropped down behind the defending rangers. I could see the lines they had built, the non power armored ponies keeping themselves shielded from the majority of the blasts sitting just along their makeshift walls.

One hundred meters out from the hospital, the machine guns that the undead rangers had, opened up. Tracers lit up the sky as they tried to keep the Pegasi from strafing their comrades still out in the open. Pained screams filled the air as several pegasi were shot down. One of them screamed in fear, being cut short with a sickening slam into the dirt just ahead of us.

Were it up to me, I would have turned around right there. I had never been more afraid in my life, but the adrenaline had shut off my control. My legs, even though they wanted to give out, pushed me forward. My breath, though racing as much as my heart was, fueled me to move faster. Fighting in the streets of Baltimare had felt like war to me, but I was wrong. The fighting there was different. It was a two way fight then, two sides on even ground pushing for the advantage. That was how life was in the wasteland though, it had just been on a bigger scale is all.

However, this was war.

As we approached the crumpled corpse of the pegasi, I looked to the snow around me. From where predious had been in relation to me, the hoofsteps in the snow trailed around toward the left. Doing my best to keep up, I turned and continued our gallop.

Two hundred meters out, and a few rockets flew overhead. Explosions bloomed around the sides of the various makeshift bunkers of our enemies. The cracks of anti-machine rifles from the hospital took up the silence between the impacts of the artillery. Just past the rock we were headed to, one of the shells impacted and sent half of a power armored ranger sailing through the air. Another however, fell short and impacted a hundred meters to our left. A harsh whimper met my ears, and a line of black started to trail next to me as we ran.

Predious whined as he bled. I didn’t know how bad he’d been hurt, but he didn’t slow down. He knew we couldn’t afford to. I just prayed to the goddesses that no more shells fell short from their mark, or even worse, that any of the rangers ahead noticed the line of blood steadily making its way through the snow.

The rock was less than a hundred meters away now, and the barrage felt to me like it was getting heavier. Blast after blast whipped at us as we pushed on. Another blast fell short of it’s mark, but it wasn’t near us. The bright flash brought more screams to our ears. I looked and found that two of the ponies in the squad across from us were no more than red smears in the snow now, and another was screaming as she bled heavily from where her rear legs used to be. The last two rangers in the team were visible again, and desperately galloping toward the rock.

The rangers ahead put them all down quickly however. Their machine guns turned on them in a display that put what Pred did to Cloud Streaker to shame. What made it worse, was that I knew that Pred was forced to do that, but these rangers didn’t feel anything for it. With one team revealed, we were all but found out now.

“Get towards…” Predious started to say, but was cut off as another artillery round went off on the other side of the rock. I tried to keep my speed up as I watched the line of his blood turn. He was forcing us toward the right side of the rock. We were only a few dozen meters from it when I realized what he was doing.

The bunker that lay just in sight of our rock opened fire. A trail of rounds punched into the snow where we had just been. Quickly, we put the large boulder between us and it. We were so close to the rock, just another few seconds, and we’d make it! The invisibility field around us flickered and died.

Almost immediately, we started taking fire from the rangers behind the walls. Hissing shots filled the air around us. The patter of their rounds hitting the dirt around our hooves sent me into a panic. We’d been lucky to make it this far without a major injury, but with this many shots coming in at us, our luck had run out.

Gauge let out a scream and tumbled into the snow as her blood splattered along the snow. My legs locked up and I came to a stop. I began to turn around before a round slammed into the plate on my side and forced me to keep moving.

With an arcane flash, Gallant teleported next to Gauge. He stepped over her and flashed away again, appearing on the backside of the rock ahead. Keeping myself moving, I found that Ficha and I were the only two to have yet made it to the rock. The small, concave back to the boulder provided some cover to the others in there, but it was going to be quite crowded once we got there. Then the whistling met my ears.

I didn’t even have time to react before Ficha threw himself into me. The round impacted just ahead of the rock to our side, and the blast picked me up off my hooves. My vision darkened for a moment as I tumbled through the snow, and my side erupted into fiery pain as I rolled to a stop. My vision spun wildly, and the feeling of magic wrapping around me made me feel like I was falling.

Unceremoniously, I was set down into the snow again as somepony shoved a glass bottle into my muzzle.

“Storm, you have to stay with us.” Pred’s pained voice came in softly at first. I felt him tap at the side of my muzzle a few times. As the pain in my side was replaced with the odd feeling of the magical potion doing it’s job, I tried to focus on his voice. “Come on, don’t pass out on us now.”

“I…” Choking, I spit out some of the potion as the bottle was taken from me. “I’m fine.” That was definitely not the case at all, but so long as I wasn’t dead, we had to keep moving. I felt Pred’s hoof hook around my neck and pull me up. My vision took a moment to refocus, but when it did, I found myself staring at a red, white, and black smoking lump in the snow just to the side of the rock. Ficha’s body was twisted and contorted, nearly ripped to ribbons as it lay in the snow. Half of his face had been stripped down to the bone, and bits of metal shrapnel glinted from inside the bloody mess. He’d come back from his wounds before, but somehow I’d doubted that he’d be able to come back from something like this.

“How…” I started to say, looking over to Pred. His illusion spell had been dropped, and the gaunt ghoul stared at me with sad eyes. Along his side, an enormous gash bubbled as he breathed. The rotting and cut up entrails that peeked through it sent my mind reeling back to the prison, and I forced myself to shut my eyes before I threw up all over the snow.

“I’m fine.” The whine he emit as he said that didn’t give me any confidence that he was telling the truth. “Gauge as well.” He used his magic to forcefully turn my head away from him. As I opened my eyes again, Gauge sat wide eyed and panicked, pressing herself against the boulder. “We don’t have that many healing potions to use, so try to not get hit by anything again.”

“So long as those assholes are done shooting the artillery at us!” I grumbled, pulling myself up. As I did, I noticed that the artillery had altogether stopped. Only the sounds of regular gunfire met our ears. The radio in my ear crackled as Cottage’s voice intruded on our lives yet again.

“Forward teams, begin your diversions.” He ordered coldly. “Smoke barrage will commence in one minute.”

“I don’t know about you,” Gauge whined. “But I’m all cool with just sitting back here until the smoke arrives.” She looked at me with unfocused eyes, her whole body shaking as she did. The blood that still sat around the freshly healed bullet hole along her neck caught me off guard. She’d come so close to dying, if Gallant hadn’t…

“There is no Valor to be found in cowardice, no matter how justified that cowardice may be.” Gallant spoke up as he drew his golden blade in his magic. “Fight to live, fight and die. Either way, you know inside that you must fight all the same.” With another flash, he teleported away.

With the clinking of glass, Predious pulled out a glowing blue bottle of sparkle cola that made my pipbuck click wildly. Putting it up to his lips, he guzzled the whole bottle down before pulling it out of his muzzle with a gasp. He used his hoof to wipe away the glowing drink dribbling from his lips before giving a shudder across his body. With a quick flash, his illusion spell returned, and the hole in his side knitted itself up.

“Wow, that’s good stuff!” Predious gave an enamored sigh, staring down at the bottle. On it’s side, I read it as Sparkle-Cola RAD, something I’d only heard about from Harmony, but such a rare drink that I had never seen it before. Hell, none of the scientists in my orchard had even had it, and they were always drinking Sparkle-Cola. “I knew that it’d be worth saving for a special occasion.” He twirled the combat pistols in his magic before tossing the bottle aside. His eyes glowed slightly behind their normal black, and a wide smile spread across his muzzle. His magic wrapped around my rifle and pulled it around into my hooves, setting it in them forcefully. “Ready to fuck some shit up, Storm?”

“Well, we aren’t dead yet.” I grumbled, pulling my rifle closer. With how quickly Pred had recovered, remind me never to drink that shit if I ever found a bottle.

“That’s the spirit!” He said, crouching down as he moved toward the edge of the rock. As he poked his head out, he swung the pistols around and started firing.

Pushing myself to move as well, I leaned my way around the other side of Gauge and poked my head out, keeping my rifle line up as I did. Through my optic, I found a combat helmet sitting just along the top of the wall next to the bunker down the way from us. Slowly, I let out my breath, and pulled the trigger.

My rifle fired, and the helmet flipped up into the air. The ranger under it was quick to turn their attention to me, but I tensed up and time slid to a stop. S.A.T.S. informed me that I only had a twenty one percent chance to hit her in the head, but I queued up two shots and let the spell resolve.

My hoof moved the action, cycling the old shell out and loading a new one. My rifle fired as the bolt closed, and the round sailed low and struck the dirt next to the mare. The spell moved my hoof, cycling the bolt again as the mare I was aiming at pulled up her own lever action into her hooves. Funny, as I hadn’t seen anypony else use one in a fight in years other than me. The bolt on my gun locked shut again, and I pulled the trigger. The round let out a puff of powder from the receiver, but it didn’t go off.

As S.A.T.S. slid time back to normal, I threw myself back around the rock as the mare fired. Her shot skimmed across the snow around my hooves, but she might as well have missed by a mile.

“Shit.” I muttered, pulling my rifle up. With a grunt, I shoved the lever forward. The cartridge inside flipped out, sizzling as it landed in the snow. “Of course the rangers would keep their guns in working order, but not their ammo.”

“Hey!” Gauge hissed as she levitated Tasteless’s shotgun out. “I’ll have you know that we keep all our ammo stored in a dry and corrosion free environment.” As she talked, she shoved green shells into the feed port of the shotgun. “Any defective ammunition we have has and will always have been defective from the point of its manufacture!”

“That’s great to hear!” I snorted, ramming the lever shut and reaching into my coat pocket. “However, it still won’t help me do shit out here to have defective ammo!” Hoofing out a few more rounds, I frowned as they were wet to the touch. Being tossed by that artillery shell must have shoved some snow in there.

“Take it up with Ironshod Firearms complaint department.” She glared at me before she scooted to the corner. With a quick peek around, she found a target to line her shot up with. Leaning out with her, I raised my rifle and found the same mare from before.

She’d been waiting for me to pop back out, and fired off a shot. I felt it impact against my shoulder, but the polymer plate absorbed the impact and shrugged it off for me. As I was about to fire, Gauge fired her shot first.

No longer protected by her missing helmet, the mare’s head split in half from the shot.

A few scattered shots forced Gauge and I back behind the rock again. She pumped the hunting shotgun and cycled a new shell in, throwing the smoking green shell through the air to me. I caught it and looked down at it. The blocky black letters that wrote out rifled slug was barely legible from it’s old age. No wonder it did so much damage to that mare.

A heavy crack filled the air, and part of the rock next to us shattered into chunks. The heavy chatter of a machine gun opening up on us, made Gauge and I push ourselves even more toward the center of the rock. As we did, Predious folded himself back around the rock towards us as well. The three of us huddling close together as a spray of rounds sparked off both sides of the rock, keeping us pinned there.

“Well!” He barely shouted over the crunching of rock and whizzing of ricochets. “I’d say our distraction was a success!” A heavy blast tore against the side of the rock as what felt like a rocket hit it. “A bit too much it seems!” Another rocket slammed against the rock, and I know I cursed the artillery already, but I started to wonder if those smoke rounds would ever come.

As if sent by the goddesses themselves, the thundering of the guns on the horizon filled the air, and my heart with hope.

The high pitched whines of a familiar pair of gauss rifles met my ears, and I looked up to find Shadow flare to a stop overhead. A rocket whistled up by him, and I cringed as it only just missed his power armor. He dipped down and fired the gauss rifles again, hovering just a moment before a few shots sparked off of his black armor. One of the rounds sparked near his back, and ricochet up through the edge of his wing.

My heart stopped as it gave out under his weight, and he fell. A small mercy came with the whistling artillery shells finally arriving moments too late. They burst in the air all around us, quickly forming an obscuring line between us and Filius’s rangers.

With a heavy slam, he cried out as he dropped onto the ground. He screamed out as his bloody wing flopped at his side, writhing and pushing himself to get back up to his hooves. A few more rounds sparked off of him, as he got himself reoriented. One of Pallet’s guns sparked and was torn apart as it absorbed a few pot shots that Filius’s rangers got off. With a grunt, he pushed himself forward towards us. He let out another agonizing scream as the heavy machine gun opened up through the expanding cloud, and one of the shots found it’s way into his flank.

“Gauge!” Predious yelled out. Both his and her horns flared in light as they did their best to pull him close. Sparks shot from their horns as Shadow pulled himself behind the rock with us, and into my waiting hooves where he collapsed onto me. With a hiss, his helmet unsealed, and I all but ripped it off of him.

“Hey.” He looked up to me with tear filled eyes, grimacing through the pain just to look at me. “Fancy meeting you...” He was cut off when predious shoved another potion out of his back and into Shadow’s muzzle. Sucking it down greedily, his wounds started to knit themselves up, and I finally felt my heart beating wildly against my chest. Shadow winced as he tried to fold his wings in, and the one that had been injured hung out at the wrong angle.

“You’ll be fine for now, but I wouldn’t try flying until a doctor can reset the healed wing.” Predious said as the smoke wafted around is.

“I know.” Shadow grumbled as he found the strength to sit up on his own again. “This isn’t the first time I’ve broken a wing.”

The radio in my ear crackled again. “Alright, commence the assault.” Cottage commanded. Without so much as a hesitant step, streams of ponies poured through the openings made in the walls earlier. They didn’t come with a rousing yell, or any sort of noise. Only the thunderous sound of hundreds of galloping hooves met our ears as the mass filled the open land from between us and the hospital.

With a sickening gasp, something moved from the snow by us behind the rock. Still coated in blood and open wounds, but no longer torn up as badly, Ficha torqued his head up and gave out a whine.

The son of a bitch was still alive… somehow.

Predious turned to me as another rocket hit the back of the rock. “Storm, I hate to say this, but I think it’s time we open that gate.”

“Right.” I nodded, hoofing at the radio that I had tucked into my coat. Hoofing at the dial, I changed it to channel forty two and pressed the talk button. “Hey, Harmony? How’s that whole battering ram thing coming along.” Looking around at the growing smoke cloud, the sounds of fighting picked up as our fighters reached the deadite rangers emplacements. “Would be nice if it were ready.”

“Ah know, am workin as fast as ah can!” She grumbled back. “Calm yahself. Ah'm just adjusting mah straps before gettin her in position.”

“Straps?” I asked, looking over to Gauge who simply shrugged. “You aren't going to stay inside the marauder, are you?” I knew that she was distressed over her mother, but that was not something I’d let her do. Sitting, I waited for a response. The few seconds that went by felt like they dragged on longer and longer. Then with another crackle, she came back over the radio.

“Y'all remember back when y’all were eight?” She spoke with a chuckle. Again, now really wasn’t the time for jokes or fond memories! “Ah'd found that newspaper of the stripe jetpack that crashed in Panamare while ah was foalsittin’ ya, and remembered how Skyline had that old wrecked one stored in mah father’s shop?”

“Oh, are you kidding me?” I snapped. “You are not pulling a Panamare again! You don’t even have a jetpack this time!”

“And yah doubt ah can’t make it work?” She huffed over the radio. “Trust meh, Storm. Ah got this.” And with a sharp squelch, her radio cut out.

“Harmony?” I said again, waiting for a response. Hoofing down on the talk button even harder, I asked again. “Are you there, Harmony?” Goddesses, this was not what I’d wanted her to do!

“Storm, what the fuck is she talking about?” Gauge spoke as she put her hoof on my shoulder.

“Back when we were young and dumb, she tried to fix up an old zebra jetpack she’d found in the garage. Strapped the damned thing to her back without testing it to see if it’d work.” I facehoofed, slumping down before Shadow pulled me in close. Looking up at him, I at least had a bit of hope. “Shadow… can you catch her?”

He frowned at that. “I don’t think I can.” Shaking his head, he winced as he tried to open his busted wing at all. “Sorry.”

Well, if he couldn’t, it’s not like I was out of options. Looking down at the radio, I hoofed at it quickly again. Changing the channel to twenty eight, I pressed down on the talk button again and crossed my hooves that he was still alive.

“Storm to Oil Can, you still in the skies?” Looking up through the smoke, I couldn’t see shit. That was the problem with this whole plan. Smoke works both ways…

“Yeah, I’m here.” He called back, sounding out of breath. “Hanging out above you and following… something big.” The way he said that didn’t exactly make me feel any better about anything. “And it’s headed toward your rock.”

A scream beat out the fighting ahead of us, and through the smoke, a dark object flew through the air. The top half of a blue coated mare tumbled to a stop through the snow, her body having been ripped straight in half by something. All of us turned towards where the mare had come from, and leveled our guns at it.

“You need something, Storm?” Oil Can’s voice crackled over my headset.

“Yeah, give me a minute.” I said before letting go of the talk button. The swirling smoke shifted as something big approached. A soft blue glow grew as whatever it was came closer, step by step. My mind tried to tell me something, but I was trying not to listen. I should have, I knew what was coming.

The bulky midnight blue power armor that Elder Chili Pepper had worn for the assault on dodge had been reinforced. The brightly glowing blue eye that had been stolen from Iron will pierced the darkness as it stared directly at me. He stopped walking forward, standing imposingly before a pair of steam jets emanated from his face mask like Iron Will used to do. The bastards must have salvaged the rest of his parts and put it into Chili Pepper’s armor.

“What the fuck is that thing?” Gauge gasped. “I've never seen ranger armor like… like that!”

“Remember when I told you that you couldn't 'repurpose' parts of Iron will?” I said, checking my pipvision to make sure I was ready before casting a quick glance at her. When she nodded, I sighed and tightened my grip around my rifle. “Well he didn't listen.” There was a long hiss that came from the Elder’s armor. I hadn’t heard it in quite some time, but I still remember what came next.

“Everypony, move!” Predious shouted.

Chili Pepper leapt forward at an amazing speed. The four of us barely had time to dive out of the way before Chili Pepper galloped and slammed against the boulder. A horrendous snap emanated when he struck it, sounding like the hotel had before it had come down. Rolling over to get to my hooves, I looked up to find that Chili Pepper had infact hit the boulder so hard, that it had cracked it almost right down the middle.

With more speed than I could have thought, he pushed himself back, and spun around. To keep my speed up, I dropped my rifle and pushed my legs to hop back from where I’d been. The sharpened tips of the horns attached to his helmet sliced through the air just in front of me. I didn’t have time to think. Putting my hooves to the ground, I did my best to dodge his swings. Even though Pred had been slow to get up, Chili Pepper didn’t deviate from attacking me. I should have been glad that he wasn’t going to go after my friends, but I couldn’t help but feel like this was a bit of an unfair fight!

“Hold on, Storm!” Shadow called out, lining up his battle saddle. With a high pitched whine, Shadow fired his one working Gauss rifle. A pair of shots struck Chili Pepper’s reinforced armor and simply sparked off. “Shit.” Was all I could hear him say.

“Find something bigger!” I snapped.

Chili Pepper lept off to the right, so I dodged left. What I didn’t see coming was him spin kicking out one of his rear legs and nailing me in the side. It felt like a skycart hit me, and I was tossed a few feet through the air. Slamming into the snow, I did my best to roll with the hit and get back to my hooves.

“Ask, and you shall receive!” A voice few flaps above me made me look up. Oil Can zipped down, holding something in his hooves. “Previous owner isn’t using it anymore.” Letting it go above me, I found an Anti-machine rifle drop straight into my waiting hooves.

“Thanks, now get out of here.” I called out, struggling to pull the heavy rifle up in my hooves. It was extremely unwieldy, with the entire back end of the rifle having to be pinned against my side to even be steady enough to aim it with my hooves. It wasn’t meant to be hoof fired, but at this range, I didn’t care. Ahead, through the smoke, the blue light drew closer. Struggling to keep myself steady, I waited until I could see the bright eye of his mask clearly. As he came close, I smirked and simply pressed the trigger.

The gun flashed as it roared. The muzzle blast was so powerful that it even whisped away some of the smoke in front of me. A bright yellow trail of sparks lit up the night as the large caliber round hit the edge of Chili Pepper’s helmet and whistled away into the night. My smirk died as I found his progress unimpeded, and I tried to drop the gun. Instead, he reached a forehoof up and… grabbed the barrel. Iron Will’s hand’s had been wired up to the end of his forelegs, and the mechanical fingers crushed the barrel with their strength.

Without any effort on his part, he twisted the gun and used it as a lever to throw me through the air. Slamming and tumbling through the snow yet again really wasn’t getting any funner the more times it happened. What was nice however, was that I’d rolled right next to Predious.

“Let me guess,” Predious remarked as he helped me back to my hooves. “You need something bigger.” Again, the blue light from Chili Pepper’s armor appeared through the smoke, and if it weren’t bad enough, the smoke itself was dissipating quickly. “Hate to tell you, but there’s not a bigger gun to hit him with.”

The roar of an archanotech engine from behind us met our ears. Both Predious and I turned around to see a single light growing brighter. With a whine, the two of us galloped out of the way of Harmony’s topless, speeding armored car.

“Yeeeeehaw!” She yelled as she plowed into Chili Pepper, dragging him and his armor off through the smoke towards the door.

Both Pred and I looked at each other before we realized that we needed to move. The two of us ran for the boulder again as I could hear the hissing of rockets coming from up ahead. We dove behind the boulder, joining Gauge and Shadow who were already there, along with a mostly intact, but still unconscious Ficha.

“Oil! You have to catch Harmony!”

Like a missile, he shot across the sky. Turning, he aimed ahead of where she’d be and zipped down under her. With what looked like the softest of grasps, he grabbed onto her, and flew her towards us. The harness that she wore had four burnt out rockets on it, and it smoked almost as much as she did as Oil carefully set her onto the ground.

“Oh goddesses.” He spoke out as she hung limply in his hooves. She was in terrible shape. Half of her looked to have gotten caught in the blast, looking as charred black as Pallet had been back in Dodge. Most alarming, was that her right foreleg and right hind leg both ended in pulpy masses of bloody bone and mutilated muscle. Like with Shadow and I before, Predious shoved a potion into her muzzle and forced it down her throat. With a sputtering cough that brought up more blood than potion, Harmony stirred awake.

“Did… did yah catch meh?” She said, looking up at Oil with a weak smile. When he nodded, she lifted her shredded leg and looked at it before flopping back with a whine. “Mama always said ah took after mah dad more…” She sighed, closing her eyes and going limp again.

“No no no…” Oil Can whimpered. “You… you can’t leave me. I was going to ask you out! I was going to finally tell you how I felt for all these years!” Oil, the same stallion who’d fearlessly lead the charge to the hotel, who’d fought on this whole time, broke down into heavy sobs.

“She’s not dead yet!” Predious snapped. “And she won’t be so long as you get her back to the doctors inside!” Snapping his hoof out, he pointed back toward the hospital. “Go!”

Oil can sniffled and gripped her tightly again. With a firm nod he flapped hard and took off. I prayed to the goddesses that Harmony would make it. Too many have died tonight, and I was already going to spend too long digging the graves for them. I didn’t have any more time in my life for another grave.

“Is that how it worked the first time?” Gauge spoke up. When I looked back to her in confusion, she scrunched her muzzle.

“It didn’t really work the first time. It had just enough thrust to get her into the air and not down from it. Pallet had to catch her, and she almost didn’t.” I grumbled. “I keep telling her, earth ponies can’t fly. She keeps trying to prove me wrong on that.” I sighed. One of these days, she’s going to get herself killed, and it’ll be me telling her brother that his whole family is dead.

“Finally.” Gauge groaned out. “Come on, we’ve got work to do.”

“Yes, Miss Gauge.” Grumpy’s voice came from behind, pulling my attention as it floated on by. “Good evening, Mrs. Storm.” He spoke in his annoyingly cheerfully way as he all but floated by after Gauge.

Looking at the clock in my pipbuck, I realized that this had taken too much time as it was.

11:56

“Come on.” Shadow spoke up from behind me. With a smile, he held out his hoof. I took it and walked with him around the rock. Predious trotted up along my side as we pushed ourselves up to a gallop.

Harmony’s battering ram had worked. The improvised explosive had done one hell of a number on the reinforced stadium entrance. Twisted bits of steel reinforcements jutted out from the crumbling and still glowing concrete. As we entered, more resistance fighters followed with us. The sounds of fighting behind us picked up again, but that wasn’t something we could care about now. Our job had been to get inside the arena and stop Filius. We now trotted through the long, Concrete hall that stretched down to the entrance of the old hoofball arena’s field. We’d caught up to Gauge and Grumpy quite quickly, heading towards a shoddy wooden gate constructed as part of the slave fighting that had gone on here.

With each gallop, my heart raced. Were the thousands of ponies in here still alive? What would we find on the other side? We were so close to finishing this fight for good. The small gemstone that still sat in my pocket pulsed in time with my heart, and the flames of hope from those around me grew even stronger.

“Move aside!” Grumpy called, pushing his way past us. The talisman under him glowed as bright as it had before. With a slam that splintered the gate, Grumpy powered right through it and pulled most of the gate straight off it’s hinges. Then Grumpy disappeared into thin air.

Pushing myself faster, I galloped ahead after the others. That had been a mistake, as when I reached the end of the tunnel, I had to skid to a stop. I’d forgotten that Cheap had said that the arena had been dug out, and a ten foot drop sat almost right at the end here. Inside of it, Grumpy sat with all three of his eyestalks staring up at me.

“Excuse me.” He spoke up at me. “Would you care to point me in the direction of the ponies who are responsible for this?” He extended one of his arms, pointing out into the center of the arena. The excavation had been more than just ten feet. The digging had stepped down, dropping down ten or so feet and running in another twenty before repeating. Five or so steps culminated in the off colored onion shaped bulb of Filius’s tower. At the lowest levels, huddled and chained together, were what was left of the still living ponies of Baltimare.

With a flash, Gallant appeared next to me. He looked more ragged than ever. His previously gold armor was coated in scratches, bullet holes, and covered in gore. However, he himself seemed to be fine.

“We’re cutting this far too close.” He uttered to me. “We have little time left.”

“I know.” I said, looking back as the others finally caught up. “Get us down there.”

He nodded, and like he’d done before in the orchard, he wrapped us all in his magic. With an arcane snap, we appeared down in the lowest pit. The ponies who’d been chained up here let out frantic whines and gasps as we appeared. Calming down when we didn’t immediately move toward them.

“S… Storm?” A meek and raspy voice in the crowd pulled my attention. I looked over, searching for who’s spoken. As I did, the chained crowd parted as much as they could, revealing a pair of familiar looking, highly emaciated ponies.

“Mom!” I gasped, breaking off from the group and galloping over to her. As I pressed against her, the gem in my chest flared with energy. I could feel it inside me, welling up as it had in the chamber with the tree.

“Storm, you’re… on fire!” My dad rasped out as well. The whole crowd gasped as I pulled myself away from my mom’s grasp. “What… what’s happening to you?”

“I know who I am.” I replied, staring at them as they looked at me in fear. “I know how you found me in that facility at Chasm. I know that I wasn’t born your filly, rather made in a lab.” I smiled as their fear died inside them, smothered by their own growing light of hope. “I may not have been your little filly, but you two are the parent’s that I love, and I’m here to save all of you. I know this, because that’s the pony I was always supposed to be.” The fire inside me burst from my hooves, trailing up my legs as it had before, and forming the flickering armor around me. “I’m going to destroy Filius, and bring back hope to everypony in the wasteland.”

“Not if we don’t hurry!” Gallant called out from behind me. I watched as he climbed in through one of the tower windows, disappearing into the darkness inside. The others with me followed, and only Predious stood waiting for me at the window.

“Go.” Mom spoke softly. “Be the mare you were always meant to be.”

“I will. I love you both.” I said, turning and galloping toward the tower. It was finally time to face Filius.