Now that I had my gun out, I was struck with a thought. I sat back on my haunches and scratched my chin. Behind me, a card flashed across the tent, embedding itself in the forehead of a guard charging at Stars. Bravehorse and Boudocka continued to look like deer caught in the headlights.

While I did have my gun out, I hadn't attacked anyone yet. Stars fired the first shot in a panic, so they were after her. House defended her, thus picking a side. But I could still pop them both in the head, dealing with them in about ten seconds, and probably earning praise from Bravehorse for disposing of a threat so close to him and demonstrating my ability and efficiency in combat. A card whizzed past my head at Bravehorse. Boudocka's horn lit up, and a barrier went up in front of them. When the card hit it, it lost its glow and span on to his lap harmlessly. I was actually really tempted by this. I felt like Bravehorse was on the same page as me. I didn't know what a thane was, but it sounded important and prestigious. Meanwhile, sticking with the two assholes behind me zapping guards left and right... I guess fighting my way out of this place could be kinda fun, but that was it really. Then I'd have to go amuse myself when they went home, and I wouldn't be a thane.

I turned around, and saw Snowy swiping at a guard. The guard was slashed from chest to chin, and thrown backwards hard enough to rip a hole in the tent. That made up my mind. I had to follow the fluff.

"Guards!" Bravehorse shouted. Was he related to Tribute? They both had the loud gene. He reached behind his throne and pulled out a saddle-mounted spear. He had it on a snap. With the tent cleared of guards, House turned his attention back to Bravehorse. In the time it took him to arm himself, three cards were on his way. Two of them hit canvas, and Boudocka shot the third out of the air. Funny how characters with names are orders of magnitude more competent and likely to survive, eh?

With the odds turning against us in here, I leapt over Snowy's back and shot the ground by the door. The three soldiers jamming it trying to get in at the same time got thrown on to their backs. I landed and scooped up the dart in my teeth. Siretanta looked at me, then resumed looking out at the camp. Then when it clicked, he looked at me again with alarm. This second look was met with a back hoof to the face. I pumped the gun and took aim at his head, but I was shoved by Snowy barging out with House and Stars in tow.

I fluttered up to jump on Snowy's back and reload. Bravehorse was charging at us, with Boudocka right behind him shielding him. As much of a crazy power-walker as Stars was, Bravehorse was probably going to chase her down anyway. I pulled out my last grenade and chucked it in the mud in front of us. We ran over it. Boudocka scooped out the mud it had landed in and fired it into the sky before it went off.

Snowy ducked, and a spear flew over my head. It sailed off into the bushes, and when he raised his stance again, it threw me off. I threw my wings out before I hit dirt, and swooped up to a hover. It took Snowy a couple of seconds to realise that I was gone, and when he did, he hit the brakes and gouged the mud. House and Stars carried on into his back and fell over. With Snowy stopped, some of the soldiers ahead formed a wall to block our escape. Bravehorse kept charging. House threw some more cards, and they still lost their magic boost on hitting the shield. Stars lowered her head, and created a wall of light in front of them. Only the wall was nearly horizontal, just slightly inclined. Bravehorse ignored it, and... charged up Stars' ramp and over their heads. The look on his face when he reached the end and sailed through the air over Snowy was priceless. He impaled his spear up to his side, and sprawled on his face and forelegs.

An arrow flew past me, and in the interests of safety I dropped to the ground. A couple more arrows sailed overhead, and then the three archers took five minutes to reload. In front of us, the wall of troops advanced. Stars winced, and a burst of light appeared in the air. In less than a second, it hit the ground, pushing two soldiers into the ground, and throwing smoke and mud everywhere. The concussive blast as it hit knocked two more over. (Oh now I get it, Shooting Stars. Duh.) The front line lowered their stances. A second line behind them started chucking javelins. This kept Stars busy knocking them out of the air. She missed one and it hit Snowy in the shoulder. He regarded it more with curiosity than anything else. He picked out and broke it while he was inspecting it.

House threw some more cards at Boudocka, they were still wildly off target, and she still shot them down anyway. I fired three darts - click-pfft, click-pap, click-pffthunk - and she shot them back too. They exploded in mid air and dropped in the mud. (Maybe they have a cooldown so they don't cause ricochet explosions? Sand Dollar died before I could ask him about it.)

"Bitch, those better still work."

"You'll be lucky if you still work when I'm through with you!" She fired a ball of light at us. We both ducked, and House threw a card to intercept it. It didn't neutralise it, but it knocked it off course. Instead of somehow blackening Snowy even further, it went into the sky and dissipated. I growled.

"House, keep her busy." I started searching my pack for Chekhov's gun. Umbrella? No. Radio? Not risking that near her. Volt whip? I was sorely tempted, but I wanted to use that on a less competent opponent. I pulled out one of the sci-fi looking grenades I'd taken from the Enclave. "Hey, what do these do?"

"You said keep her busy..." He did an unnecessarily energetic fling to send two cards at her. She was still shooting every one of them down. "... and it's keeping me busy!"

I shrugged. Behind me, I saw Snowy flip his front legs in the air, and two soldiers went flying. "Just make sure this gets through." I pulled the pin out and chucked it in the air in front of me to bat with my wing. None of this spinning around until the pin comes out nonsense. I missed, and hurriedly tried again. The slice threw it high in the air with a lot of backswing. Boudocka saw it, and fired a missile at it. House saw her seeing it, and sent a card to knock the missile off target.

The grenade burst not in fire and shrapnel, but weird blue light. Boudocka wasn't even knocked over, but she doubled over and yelled, and the missile she was preparing fizzled out. Stars looked over her shoulder at us. "You have silence grenades?"

"I guess?" Before I could ready another one, House had filled her face with cards. Two jacks and three eights. Now Snowy and I just needed to team up to make a nuclear winter wonderland and we'd all be demonstrating our names. I picked up my darts, and House ran over to her and took the skull around her neck. Fuckin' kleptomaniacal Garbagemen.

I reloaded and fired a couple of darts at the front line to drive them back. With no armour, the ones near the blasts dropped like flies, and the ones around them backed away. House cut an ear off with a card, and slashed a face with another. I ran past Stars and Snowy, jumped on Bravehorse's upturned rump to reset his progress in digging himself out of the ground, and went to pick up the darts. Since I was isolated, a couple of soldiers broke rank and charged me. Snowy flanked one of them, picking her up by the neck and shaking her around, and I ducked the charge of another to give House a clear shot. The limp body vaulted me while I reloaded. Snowy tossed his kill at the line, driving it back further.

Behind us, Bravehorse backed out of the mud and shook himself off. Instead of charging for us, he looked around. Since we were busy driving the line back and repelling missiles, we left him. That might have been a mistake, because he soon drew our attention to him with a baleful cry to the heavens. He was standing over Boudocka's body, tears streaking his silly face paint. I don't know why everyone stopped fighting to look at this, because it just gave me a window of opportunity to change from my gun to the whip. While I was circling it in the air, he started barking stuff at us in an accent so thick you could stand up a stick in it. When he was done, he reached to his side and pulled up a sword with his mouth. It cut the saddle away, and he charged at us again. The other soldiers took this cue to jump on us as well. At this point I lowered the circling of the whip to lash the entire front line of the circle. One by one in quick succession, the whip made contact with flesh or sword, causing them to yelp and spasm.

Stars scooped me up and put me on Snowy's neck. A second later, House was next to me, and then she was behind him. She tugged on Snowy's ears. "Go!" He tilted his head. "Snowy, go!" He continued to idle.

"Stars, get me a rock."

"What?"

"Just get me a fucking rock and don't let go." A second later, a pebble dropped in my upturned hoof. I shoved it at House, and he knew what to do.

"Snowy, fetch!" The glowing blue rock fired through the air along the path we'd arrived by, and on into low Earth orbit. With mechanical precision, Snowy locked on to it and gave chase.

He cleared the front line with ease, and in landing, knocked down a good chunk of the line behind them. Stars hung to the side to repel spears and arrows. I trailed the whip alongside to try and catch some strays. All I succeeded in doing was knocking over an old mailbox, which was fun, but not helpful. Bravehorse leapt over the fallen front line with ease, and pursued us through the path Snowy had cleared. He looked like he was going to bite the handle of his sword in two. He kept pace without trouble. At least if Snowy decided to stop for a pee, it would be Stars that ate sword first. We left the camp with spears thudding into the ground either side.

Snowy veered off the path and down the bank. He stopped at a tree and started sniffing around. Bravehorse followed. Stars pulled another 'star' from the sky, and while it didn't hit him, the force threw him down the bank and knocked the sword out of his mouth. He rolled to a stop and growled. Snowy lay down.

"What is he doing?" Stars yelled. House threw a couple of cards down the bank. They delayed Bravehorse's charge at best. I hopped off to see what Snowy had found. He was chewing on the same rock House had thrown. When I went to take it out of his mouth he bit harder on it and growled. Of all the fucking times... After a couple of seconds' tug of war and a hoof covered in slobber, I got it free, and he immediately started sniffing at it. Stars levitated it from my hooves and fired it over the hill. Snowy bowled me over chasing it.

With Snowy departing the valley at speed, I was left as the nearest target of Bravehorse. He didn't look like he wanted to reconsider his offer. I rolled over to dodge a stab, and started running. It was pretty clear that he was going to catch me in a straight sprint, but then I remembered that I'm an idiot, and I had wings. I extended them and rode my momentum into a hover. Safely ten feet below me, he started hopping and swiping at the air beneath me, while I had all the time in the world to stash the whip and get my gun out. Now where has this happened before?

An arrow whistling uncomfortably close to my wing startled me. I abandoned the plan of blowing Bravehorse's head off, and started after the others. It was kind of a limp flop, a dive to the ground, a couple of steps of running and then taking to the air again. I still hadn't altogether gotten the hang of this flying thing, but it was enough to reach Snowy and glide past him. We went by the bottom of the cliff over the bones and bodies. The guards at the top might as well have been dropping the arrows for all the accuracy and force they had. Bravehorse took the high road, and by the time he reached the top, he stopped, dropping his sword and panting. I'd landed on Snowy's back, and we were already making a beeline for the road. He had one last scream at us that we barely heard over Snowy's excited panting. Oh well, who wants to be a thane anyway?

We didn't stop for breath until we hit the road. Or rather, that was when Snowy just ambled to a stop and collapsed, throwing us all off.

I sat up again. "There. That wasn't so bad, was it? Well, apart from the part where I wasn't going to be made a thane because you started shooting at them."

"You weren't seriously considering joining them, were you?"

"I kept my options open until they closed by themselves."

Stars sighed. After a minute she shook her head and got up. We started walking. "Well, I'm going home. You can go do whatever now. I'd offer to introduce you to the Steel Rangers command, but I'm afraid they might make me work with you."

"It's fine. The Sponge Roofies sound like they have too many rules for me." She sighed again. One of these days she's just going to run out of air completely. "Say, you said that Warporridge or wherever it was..."

"Warreington..."

"... was in the same general direction as Liverpole, yeah?" She groaned. "Be a good sport and show us the way, eh? I mean, I don't want to sound like I'm undermining Captain Accent's navigation skills, but he's not from around here. And Snowy's a dog." I jumped up and petted him behind the ear. "A very very good dog!" He was all too happy for the attention. I just liked the way Snowy was eternally happy, especially with these morose fucks around me.

"Fine... safer to travel in groups anyway. We should be able to make Stockport by nightfall if we start moving, and we can stock up on food and water. Just... try not to get us in trouble again, eh?"

While I was getting comfortable on Snowy's back, I thought about this. "So, I saved Lord Ten-Gallon from being the left back for Colton vs. Balkburn, destroyed an Enclave warship by myself on his suggestion, went to Showffield on your suggestion to watch you kill everything, and now I had a job offer blown because you panicked."

"I don't remember suggesting you do anything," House mumbled.

"It sounds less like I get ponies in trouble and more like you find trouble and bring it to me. Which is fine! I can deal with that. Just like, don't have it backwards. Don't blame me for your mischief." Just as I was sitting back, I felt the thump of a magically lifted radio being shoved into my stomach. She clicked it on and cranked it up. She wasn't going to tell me to shut up, but she damn well meant it.

We walked for a bit. "Oh, bollocks. I knew I forgot something." Nobody wanted to respond to me, so I just continued anyway. "We forgot to get a new party member."

"What?"

"Every encounter so far has increased my number of followers by one. I went to the Reebuck and got House. We found you when I was in Manechester. We found Snowy who is the best boy yes he is in Showffield. But then we met with the Scolts and didn't get anyone. I doubt we'd get Septubo or whatever his name was because I feel like my party should have a one-dog limit, but we got nothing. Nada."

"Atom, what the blind fuck are you talking about?" House had to stop and fix his hat, because it was about to fall off from looking at me atop Snowy.

"Hang on. We can still fix this. Snowy, pull that sign out of the ground." I pointed to a small wooden sign at the side of the road. There was an astronomically racist pre-war poster on it, of a zebra face painted up to look like some kind of cartoon villain. Snowy stopped and yanked it up. The post broke, leaving him with the board and half the post. He handed it to me.

"How come Snowy understands complex instructions from you, but when I tell him to 'go' he just sits there?"

"Maybe if you didn't insult his intelligence by using one word instructions he'd be more inclined to listen to you. Isn't that right, Snowy?" He barked. I didn't know he could do that and still talk. I looked over the poster for a name. I didn't find anything. Most of the writing was too faded, and you could barely make out the zebra, her sneaky, sneaky grin and her eyepatch-scar combo. "Okay. Crisis averted. This is Xena. She's a zebra warrior princess."

"Excuse me?"

"Say hi, Xena." I held up the sign. House quirked a brow at me, while Stars looked like a screw in her face had come loose. "She's mute."

Stars sighed. Again. "We can't get to Warreington fast enough."

Level up! Now that I think about it some of these are alarmingly specific New perk: God Save the Queen

You deal +100% damage against queens. Like that.