The woods all around them weren’t that tall, and yet they seemed far darker than anywhere the team had ever been. And they were quiet – all but the smallest animals had left the place. Yet in the distance, the slowly marching group of humans and ponies could hear the constant percussion of artillery, and the bizarre reverberating thrum of spells in the air. Hundreds, maybe thousands of guns and spells going off in a myriad of pointless battles.

A flash lit up the night sky nearby, and they all jumped.

“... Out of range,” Yon-Soo said, trying to console everyone, not least himself.

“What the hell was that?!” Hyong-Jin hissed.

One Mongolian woman, her name Altan, spoke up. “HLF airplane, I think.”

“The HLF have air support?!” Porter hissed back to her.

“We’ve seen them before,” Altan stammered. “They don’t attack the railway though… most of them are probably repurposed crop dusters th–”

She stopped before the tree.

A man was strung up upon the branches, a knife wound to his throat, dried blood oozing onto his lightly shredded armor. And nailed into his arms crossed across his chest, there was a sign painted on some boards. Through the dried bloodstains, they could distinguish the lettering, the same words written over and over in Mongolian, Chinese, Russian, and English.

Altan’s voice was soft. “We should get him down,” she said, as the other civilians prayed for the man hanging before them. Khan moved to inspect the corpse.

“Huh,” he said, “Looks like they tried taking the armor for themselves. Shit, this ‘ere is PHL enchanted armor.”

“How can you tell?” asked Sergei, only to palm his face when Khan pointed out the blue-on-white PHL logo stitched onto the hapless man’s shoulder.

“Still, if these HLF tried to take off his armor, they failed spectacularly at that, so they just left him here as a warning for any other PHL members coming this way.”

Porter waved away several nervous civilians. “Everyone, stay sharp. We may not be alone in these woods.”

“Over here!” someone called out from their left. It was Aquamarine.

“Hyong-Jin,” Porter told his fatigued-looking comrade, “You and Firebrand stay back here with Sergei and the little one. The rest of you men, follow me.”

Yon-Soo, barely sparing a glance for the look of relief on his friend’s face, could only frown as he went after Porter, Blizzard and the two Russians to the sound of her voice. And then he gasped.

“Well…” Melnik blinked in shock, as they stared at the large clearing covered scattered with body parts. “The poor devils took a lot of them with them.”

These corpses were different. They were a mixed lot. One HLF man, wearing armor marked with the sigil of a red tiger, and studded with trophies – pulled-out teeth, a necklace of horns, a belt with a couple of torn-off wings – lay slumped against a tree, the top of his head missing. Which might have been a good thing, considering that he’d been halfway through ponification, clumps of fur bursting from under his skin in almost tumor-like bumps. The means of his escape had been a battered Kalashnikov, which still lay pressed to the stump of his jaw.

Melnik shook his head at the sight. “Must’ve been one unlucky bastard.”

“What do you mean?” Yon-Soo asked.

“HLF are desperate, lad. This man was either part of a battle the HLF had to run away from, so they couldn’t scavenge his body, or he got fucked over on a scouting mission.”

“And obviously,” Sergei added, “It’s from potion, likely PER. They’re right slippery fucks.”

“Great. Another thing to watch out for,” Aquamarine grumbled, rubbing her horn with her hoof. She’d recovered a great deal since the battle on the train, but the medic, a stallion named Stable Condition, had advised against her using magic for a while so as to not risk an aneurysm.

Besides, seeing this was enough to bring enough the warning signs of a splitting headache. Thank Luna and Lyra that Comet had stayed at the back of the group in Sergei’s care...

“Come on,” Porter called out in a hushed tone to the others. “Let’s get away from this area. Scavengers of every walk of life won’t be far from here. I don’t feel like getting in a fight when the enemy has home turf advantage.”

“Eh, might as well take what we can get,” said Melnik. He walked to the hanging PHL soldier, cutting the rope that held him up. “After all, no need to leave our friend here strung up like a fucking piece of meat.”

The others grimaced as he searched the body, taking out several unfired magazines and a new knife for his collection, but they silently agreed and spread out across the bloody glade. The civilians watched as the group swept the dead for weapons. Some of them gagged at the blood and the stench, yet they held their tongues. It wouldn’t do to complain. The dead had no use for weapons or ammunition.

“If only,” Blizzard Flurry sighed as she removed an assault saddle from a dead PHL pony. Involuntarily, she wrinkled her nose. As far as she could tell, this was the only other PHL member out of all the bodies here.

“What do you mean?” Aitmatov asked her.

“You guys get enchanted gear, but these guys....”

“Supply lines must have been too hard to maintain,” Aitmatov realized, “They just got killed by HLF out here. Barely any Imperial forces, just a bunch of scared petuchaks with guns…” For once, Aitmatov’s age began to show in his eyes. “What a goddamn loss.”

“Sorry, my brother-in-arms,” Melnik whispered as he covered the two dead PHL with surrounding foliage, “This is the best I can do. But it is a hell of lot better than to leave you with these other pricks in the open. Your soul will be at peace.” He paused to remember the words. “Год оур Фатхер, Ёур повер брингс ус то биртх, Ёур провиденце гуидес оур ливес, анд бы Ёур цомманд ве ретурн то дуст…”

The tension was thick in the cool night air.

Standing guard, Yon-Soo admittedly felt tired, exhausted even, but he couldn’t sleep. The slightest noise, be it a gust of wind or a cricket chirp, would set him on edge.

It was much the same for everyone. Melnik was shifting his mechanical arm from drill, to shotgun, to hand again, gripping a shotgun like a lifeline, shouldering it and unshouldering in the space of a second. Aitmatov stared through the night vision scope on his VSS Vintorez, softly whispering to Blizzard to keep her head down, lest the wrong people find them. Blizzard, however, looked jittery, obviously wishing she could stretch her wings. Hyong-Jin and Firebrand were vigilant, even holding back yawns on a few occasions.

He looked to see Porter take a seat next to him, giving him a nod.

“We’re clear right now,” said Porter. “Still, we gotta stay alert. So much could be out there…”

“Don’t remind me,” Yon-Soo groaned, rubbing at his eyes.

The visualization of a soft bed full of fluffy linen pillows and a down comforter with the feel of marshmallows came to his mind. He kicked the sight out of his head, trying to stay focused on the here and now. Besides, everyone else was probably thinking about a nice warm bed, too.

He almost wished that Newfoals, HLF, anyone would attack. Just for something to happen. But nothing did. The short, dry forest was, as far as anyone could tell, empty all around them. The HLF and PER had moved, shifting ever so gradually in a battle that would likely last until the day the Barrier came this way.

Careful not to yawn, Hyong-Jin moved to lean against a tree next to them, methodically reloading his Kalashnikov with a magazine of HEIAP rounds he’d taken off a dead HLF man. Good stuff, but also further cause for concern. These rounds’ rarity suggested they were dealing with elite HLF in the vein of North America’s ‘Thenardier Guards’.

There was silence for a few seconds as Hyong-Jin, Porter, and Yon-Soo – the original three of this little team of misfits – sat together by the same tree. At Aitmatov’s suggestion, they didn’t have a fire, instead keeping themselves warm with a passive charm from Aquamarine that infused the ground in the immediate area with heat.

It was a spell, the unicorn had explained, which was created by Twilight Sparkle herself during the Crystal War when they began to push to the Frigid North, and it was fortunate that the insane pony left the spell open for the public to use after its creation.Still, it felt weird to use something created by a mare who wanted them either dead or braindead.

At last, Porter broke the silence.

“If we don’t make it out from this alive… there’s something I want you two to know.”

Yon-Soo raised an eyebrow at that. The cryptic tone in Porter’s voice both worried him and piqued his interest. “What is it?”

“Well...” Porter said, “I really owe you two a lot for what you’ve done for me.”

“What do you mean?” Yon-Soo asked him. “If anything, we owe you for everything you’ve done for us. You saved my life at the DMZ, helped train me and Hyong-Jin, and always watched our backs through all this.”

“Yeah,” Hyong-Jin added. “You had every right to just kill me, or even abandon me in the DMZ after I tried to kill you two. But you let me come along, taught me how to really fight and gave me a chance to prove myself. You gave me the opportunity to help people and do good. And I’ve got to meet some of the best friends I’ve ever had.”

Porter sighed and began to smile, replying, “I guess that’s true. But… well, you guys actually helped keep me sane through all of this too. You see… Eun-Hee’s ponification at the press conference… it was my fault.”

Yon-Soo’s eyes widened, and he began to shake like a ragdoll. He opened his dried-out mouth to try speaking, but closed it, unable to figure out what to say. Or how to process this.

Hyong-Jin did manage to get a word out. “What do you mean, her conversion was your fault?” He too looked shocked and scared.

Porter, rapidly blinking to hide his moist eyes, answered. “I… I encouraged her to go to Switzerland. The top heads at KBS News were considering sending her to Berne to cover the press conference, and maybe even get an interview with Celestia. She was actually… kind of uneasy about it, but I told her that she was probably just being paranoid, this could even be the ‘big story’ of her career right there. Eventually, Eun-Hee agreed and packed her bags.”

Despite his best efforts, Porter couldn’t hold back the tears that spilled from his eyes.

“If I’d known then what would happen,” he choked out, “believe me, I would’ve told her not to go. It’s my fault she got turned. For all I know, she’s probably already been killed… or she might still be alive in the Empire. Regardless, it’s all my fault, and I have to live with this.”

For a moment, Yon-Soo remained quiet, thinking. He finally found his voice.

“Look, Porter, there was no way you could’ve ever known it would end like this. I don’t hold anything against you… and honestly, I don’t blame you for anything.”

Porter looked at him, a sad half-smile tugging at his lips. He shook his head and sighed.

“You really are one of the nicest people I’ve met, Yon-Soo. Anyway, continuing on... when Eun-Hee was ponified, I was so angry with myself, but that was nothing compared to how much I hated Celestia. I just wanted to make her, all of the Solar Empire, pay for what they did. I really could’ve become like your run-of-the-mill HLF member, or hell, just join them altogether. And knowing how they are… it’s lucky I didn’t go that far.”

Both Yon-Soo and Hyong-Jin shivered, the latter evidently from a mixture of understanding and slight embarrassment.

“I know what you mean,” said Hyong-Jun. “It’s lucky I never went crazy, and I owe a lot of that to you guys, and especially Firebrand and even Commander Renee and Ambassador Heartstrings. What kept you from taking the fall, though, Porter?”

Porter shrugged. “Three things, actually. The first was plain military discipline. I knew it just wouldn’t end well for me, going off the handle and just fighting for revenge like a whackjob. The Marines would bury me in the deepest, darkest hole they could find if ever they saw me do what the HLF does.”

His friends each grimaced at the memory of the day’s find.

“The second was my family. I called them about an hour after the conference and told them everything. Dad told me not to let myself get carried away, but it was actually my little brother who told me – no, more like begged me, to promise them I wouldn’t do anything stupid. I can’t stand them worrying about me, so I promised I wouldn’t do anything that would get me potioned… or make them turn away in shame.”

“And let me guess,” said Yon-Soo, “Hyong-Jin and I are the third reason?”

“Yeah,” Porter answered. “You guys really helped to keep me sane in tough times. When I promised that I’d help train you, I realized I had a responsibility to you both. So I just focused on that. I would lead by example, and teach you everything it takes to stay alive. And watch your backs too. I don’t want any more deaths on my hands. It’s selfish, I know, but… it’s really helped.”

“That’s really not so selfish,” Yon-Soo reassured him. “You did help us both, Porter. And we’re glad you did.

Hyong-Jin nodded. “Yes, we are.”

“And if we really did help you, well then, I’m glad at least I repaid you.”

“So am I,” said Hyong-Jin.

“Hey guys,” Firebrand piped up, walking over to the three of them. “Anyone seen Comet? Aquamarine is looking for her, and me and Melnik haven’t seen her for the past ten minutes.”

“No, haven’t seen the squirt at all,” Porter said after a moment’s thought. The Koreans also shook their heads.

“Damn it, maybe Ivan found her,” Firebrand began, only to stop at the sight of Melnik stalking in their direction, looking distinctly worried. “That’s not good.”

“Firebrand,” Melnik pleaded, “please tell me you found her. Aqua’s busy going nuts looking for her daughter without screaming and giving away our position.”

“What the hell?!” yelled Yon-Soo, “She’s not with you?” The sudden burst of dread and fear drained away all lethargy from his body.

They all met eyes.

“Oh,” Porter said in English, “Shit,”

Nobody needed a translator.

Initially, Comet had to go to the bathroom.

But then, she’d heard something strange off in the distance, like ragged breathing. And then, after inching through the trees she’d found… it. The first one since fleeing Equestria with her mother.

This pony could not be mistaken for anything other than a Newfoal. No cutie mark, eyes glassy and unblinking, still smiling despite his horrible injuries. His fur was burnt off in several places, the left ear looked sliced away, and both his hindlegs were a pair of burnt stumps. There was a huge splinter as well, shrapnel taken off the trees, thick as Aitmatov’s thumb, buried in his flank.

He was crawling through the forest, a feat she’d have found admirable if not for how sad and unsettling it was. What happened to him, and how did he managed to survive this long? Those were not questions Comet really wanted to know the answer to. Did the potion remove the ability to feel pain along with your free will?

An urge came over her. A sudden and irresistible urge to go up to him.

As Comet approached the Newfoal, his eyes lit up when he saw her. “Little one, help me,” he croaked. “We must get back to Equestria… we must report to our Queen… the apes have corrupted our brethren. They have weapons with magic crystals…”

She frowned at this, wishing to know more on what the Newfoal was speaking about. Uncle Khan and Uncle Ivan liked to say that information was power, and that kind of power could help them if she got the right info.

“What do you mean, mister?” Comet asked innocently, careful to keep a few meters between her and the mutilated Newfoal. “Why do you look all hurt like that?”

“It’s not… safe here. Tried to… help the humans… like the ponies helped me. We must leave… Information is vital… to the lovely Queen.” He coughed, but Comet only smiled.

“It’s okay! You can trust me~!” she sang out, giving him a bright smile. This seemed to invigorate the stallion as he smiled back, unmindful of the fact that his injuries should have, frankly, killed him. Sergei always did say she could rule the world with a cute face, smile, and winning personality. “I can pass it along~!”

“Four humans and a Betrayer arrived… they found our base. We tried to uplift the humans and capture the Betrayer, but they were too strong. They had weapons that could get past our shields… my poor friend Jiang was dragged by his feet before he could take the potion… those savages murdered him! I’ve lost too many friends… Oh, poor Nutmeg especially.”

“Focus,” Comet told him. She’d heard about that incident from two years ago, when two vicious HLF members had stabbed a PER ‘squire’ called Nutmeg Morely to death with a ceramic rat and hung her upside down from a lamppost, but that was besides the point. “What were the weapons like?”

“Their guns… our corrupted ponies helped them… Made it impossible to take the weapons away, destroy their protective armor...” He coughed, blood splattering the ground.

‘Sounds like PHL soldiers. HLF don’t have anything like that...’ Comet thought, a curious look on her face. “What happened next?”

“They were slaughtering our humans, waiting to be converted by the light of Celestia… Destroyed our potions that were made to help them… Then more humans came...” he groaned as he looked up at her, the smile still in place. “They started to shoot them in the back, wearing our dead like trophies… But they were easily made to change their mind through the light.”

‘Okay, those would definitely be HLF then.’

“We managed to turn the tide, but they set explosives… destroyed our base,” he said quietly, looking to the south. “I still live though, I can still be of use. I know where those lost from our guiding light are headed.”

“Where?”

“Near the wall, the so-called ‘Great Wall of China’,” he spat, sneering somewhat. “But they are simple brutes, those Human Liberation Front. Not a concern for the PER… No, the ones we were searching for are those Ponies for Human Life. They’re somewhere in the area… They assaulted our base, led the HLF to us so they could kill us both in one fell swoop…. But there’s another base for the PER, several minutes from here. Once we get there… we can finally purge the forest.”

“Why?”

His smile grew cold and chilling. “Cos’ I know where they are staying. An abandoned town called Huade. No pony stays there due to the conflict, but they do apparently.”

Comet rubbed her chin, memorizing the name. “Huade, huh?”

“Yes, they live underground like roaches. Funneling people and Betrayers alike. I’d hoped to make it to the other base of operations, but my wounds are too severe. Fortunately, I wasn’t the only one to survive, there are others making their way there now!”

He smiled serenely at this. “Once we get to the base, we will bring the town and its inhabitants to the light, take the Betrayers to be purged of the apes’ taint, and bathe in the glory of our deeds.”

“Huh? I didn’t know that! Thanks, mister! But there is one problem.” Comet’s eyes narrowed as her smile was replaced with a scowl. “They’re my friends, and if you or anypony else calls them ‘apes’ again, I’ll rip your tongue right out of your mouth!”

“You were corrupted too?” the Newfoal cried, plastic smile unwavering. “Don’t you worry, little one, I’m going to make you see the light!”

Comet just shrugged, blissfully. “I’d like to see you try!”

And then another thought came to mind. It was both a horrible and awesome idea at the same time. Plus, she had been admittedly wanting to say it for a while. Without her mother around, she could let the words fly out and not risk getting any of her uncles into trouble.

So she took a deep breath and fired off. “Queen Celestia’s a slut! She’s so fat, Obi-Wan Kenobi called her a space station! Twilight Sparkle sucks dick in Tartarus! Rainbow Dash licks donkey piss!”

The Newfoal tried to jump, clearly wanting to dig his hooves into her skin. Even though she stood only a couple meters away, Comet wasn’t scared. He couldn’t do anything to her. It actually felt good to let out her anger towards the Tyrant, the ‘Bearers of Harmony’ and the Newfoals and everything bad that happened to her and her family onto this mockery of a pony! Plus, it was kinda funny seeing him pathetically hobble in her direction.

“You… you little dunderhead!” he screeched. “I’ll drag you to Equestria myself… and give you to the LIGHT!”

Comet began to sing-song. “Nope, never in your wildest dreams!”

“You’ll be happy! Humans bring NOTHING but suffering!”

“Oh, come on, try it!” Comet taunted him. “Oh, you’re so… big, and, and strong, getting sent into towns to turn families into zombies!”

As the Newfoal kept trying to crawl at her, she got another idea. Newfoals scorned virtually anything associated with human culture. It was virtually like nails on a chalkboard to them, more than any amount of blood loss. Time to test how deep this ridiculous hatred went.

Her sing-song tone took on a new tune.

“In the middle of the earth, in the land of the Shire, there's a brave little hobbit whom we all admire. With his long wooden pipe, fuzzy woolly toes, lives in a hobbit-hole and everybody knows him! Bilbo, Bilbo, Bilbo Baggins! Only three feet tall! Bilbo, Bilbo, Bilbo Baggins! Bravest little hobbit of them all!”

She sang as best as she could, watching the Newfoal shake as he begged her to stop. He bemoaned how the humans had corrupted the poor little filly into a little monster. Comet stifled a giggle as she kept singing.

“Now hobbits are a peace-lovin' folk you know. They're never in a hurry and they take things slow. They don't like to travel away from home, they just want to eat and be left alone. But one day, Bilbo was asked to go on a big adventure to the caves below, to help some dwarves get back their gold that was stolen by a dragon in the days of old!”

“Make it stop! Please!”

Comet gave him a nasty grin as he covered his ears.

“What are you going to do to stop me? Bleed on me?” she laughed haughtly, bouncing out of reach. “You're pathetic. Nothing more than a nasty zombie!”

“I’ll heal you! I will–”

Comet spotted something small and sharp flick past her field of vision. She blinked as his right eye twitched, before he slumped down, an arrow sticking out of the back of his head.

Gasping, she opened her wings and crouched, trying to remember what Firebrand and Blizzard taught her.

Several figures slinked out of the forest, including a woman with a bow in hand. It was the most advanced-looking bow Comet had ever seen, the words ‘Carbon Knight’ stamped on it. The woman held another two arrows in her free hand, ready to notch and fire at a moment’s notice.

The woman gave the filly a small smile, and lifted her finger to her lips for silence. “Shh! Come with me, értóng,” she said in a hushed voice, setting the bow on her back. “These forests are not safe.”

“No!”

Comet fluttered out of the woman’s reach, landing on a branch overhead. “You could be some sort of cannibal!”

“Quiet!” hissed a voice from behind her. The filly squeaked as a pegasus male landed on the same branch as her. “You’ll give away our position, you loudmouth!”

Feeling more scared than she’d been of the Newfoal, Comet barely managed to fly away from the strange pony, looking down to see more people enter the clearing. Some of them ponies, but mostly humans. A few took the time to kicking his corpse after the woman reclaimed her arrow.

“Come, értóng,” the woman called out again. “We are going to a safe place,” the woman called out again.

“Nope!”

Fluttering wildly, Comet barely avoided the scowling pegasus’ dive to capture her. “My Mommy’s still out here! And my… my…”

The woman blinked. “Your what?”

“My… family!” Comet said after a second’s thought

Yes, that was right. Her family. Mommy, Uncle Porter, Uncle Yon-Soo, Uncle Hyong-Jin, Uncle Ivan, Uncle Khan, Uncle Firebrand, big sis Blizzard, and big brother Sergei! They were family to her!

“They’re here too! And they won’t like it if I’m talking to some strang– AH!” She squealed as, nimbly coming in from below with an upwards dive, the pegasus tackled her.

“Gotcha-ya!” growled the other pony. “Quit squirming already, sheesh!”

“Let me go!” Comet cried out, struggling. “Mommy! Sergei!”

The pegasus just held her tighter. “Shut up, dammit! You want to bring down the entire forest on our heads?”

A clicking sound echoed across the forest floor.

“How about you let the filly go,” growled a male voice, “And I don’t put a bullet in your head?”

Comet felt the pony’s grasp freeze up around her. “Sergei!” she cried out, happy to see her ‘big brother’. “Now you’re in trouble, mister!”

“Let the filly go,” Sergei repeated, slowly emerging from the bushes. “Or I’ll put a nine in your head.” With a flinch, he realized his mistake when everyone in the group pointed their own weapons at him. Grunting, he pulled out the M320 from his waistband. “I wouldn’t if I were you, High Explosive round will ruin anyone’s day.”

The woman looked at him darkly. “You are outnumbered and we are spread out,” she whispered, notching the loosened arrow and pulling the bowstring back, aiming at his head. “You will not survive the conflict.”

“Oh? Well, I may not get all of you,” Sergei said with a big smile. The woman tensed as she noticed Comet’s own eyes and smile grow wider. “But I do have you outgunned and surrounded.”

She turned, and swore as she saw several more people sneak up on them. One of the men, a very familiar man to Comet, even grabbed an AK from one of her people and crushed it in his grip.

“Dangerous toys are fun,” said Melnik. “But you could get hurt.”

He threw the remains of the weapon aside, his arm shifting into a drill and pointing at the woman, revving it up with a smirk. Comet stiffened when Aquamarine stormed into the area, glaring daggers at the male pegasus.

“Sir, you are touching my daughter,” she growled, horn flaring a dangerous red. “Let her. Go. Now.”

The terrified pegasus released her with a squeak. “You got it, ma’am!” He grunted as he was shoved away by Comet taking flight to jump into her mother’s embrace.

“Mommy!”

“Don’t you do that again, ever!” Aquamarine scolded, taking several deep breaths mixed in with tears of relief. “Have you got any idea how worried we all were?!”

“I’m sorry, Mommy, it won’t happen again.”

The woman, not once lowering her eyes, gingerly placed her bow on the ground. “Who are you people?”

Porter could tell that, even cornered, she was sizing them up with her gaze. It was obvious that she saw their weapons were very well maintained. Plus, as he himself knew, their group’s armor was far superior to anyone else had in the region.

“We’re PHL,” he replied, reluctant to lower his Kalashnikov yet. “And who are you?”

The woman straightened herself up and nodded curtly. “I’m Mei Ling Yeung. This pegasus, my partner, is named Silver Steps. Hen Gao Xing Ren Shi Ni.”

“What?” Comet tilted her head in confusion.

“She said it was nice to meet us,” Yon-Soo clarified. Everyone looked at him in surprise. “What?” he shrugged. “I’m an entertainer. You pick up a lot of languages backstage.”

Privately, he thought that Mei Ling was definitely Chinese, probably in her mid-forties. Though the look in her eyes – rich brown, Yon-Soo noted with interest – told a different story. She’d grown old before her time. Other features such as the strict, short cut of her hair only attested to how experience had shaped her, made her a different person than whoever she was before the war.

Silver Steps had a blue coat with a silvery white mane and tail. His cutie mark was that of a white lightning bolt.

Yon-Soo picked up on those details because they were the only real splashes of color in this crew. Everyone else was wearing ski masks and dark camo that hadn’t been adequately maintained in a while. It was probably by a mixture of gritty determination and plain luck that they’d survived this long out here.

Mei Ling, nodding at him gratefully, continued to speak. “I am the leader of the Underground.”

“Underground?” asked Porter.

“We stayed behind to funnel refugees – ponies, humans, anyone else, out of here.” Mei Ling closed her eyes. “China’s no longer a safe place. We are sorry for any misunderstanding, we heard the filly’s voice in the forest while traveling to our camp. We decided to help her, only to find her mocking a heavily injured Newfoal.”

“Oh, I see. That’s much better,” Aquamarine deadpanned, glaring at her daughter.

Comet flinched and tried to hide behind Sergei.

“Um… well,” she added sheepishly, “I also got something important off him too!” Now this earned the filly some curious glances

“You interrogated a Newfoal?” Hyong-Jin asked, impressed.

“Well, not really,” said Comet. “I just pretended to be nice to him and he spilled the beans to me. He told me about the PHL busting his and his buddies’ PER base, and then, then the HLF came in and just blew everything up!”

Sergei nodded approvingly. “Good riddance to bad rubbish.”

“We had a PHL team come through our base recently,” said Silver, nervously glancing in Aquamarine’s direction. “Said they were going to try and figure out where all the little camps were. They used the Underground to get into the area quietly, to not draw attention.”

“They never came back,” Mei Ling added bitterly. “Now we know why.”

Porter pointed back to their camp. “We found them. About a few miles north of here. Took a lot of the bastards with them.”

“Still!” Comet butted in. “He said he and the others were going to their other base to find the PHL base! He heard one of the PHL say something important! I wouldn’t be surprised if he told the other freaks what he knew before they left him behind! They know where to go now!”

“Where?” Mei Ling demanded, worry filling her tone. “Where did they say they were going to go?”

“Umm,” Comet tapped her chin, trying to remember. “Huade! That’s it!”

Mei Ling blanched. “Oh, no...” She turned to the others in her crew. “Wǒmen yīdìng yào qù! Huí dào jīdì!”

“Can’t speak Chinese for the life of me, but I take it that means bad news,” Aitmatov remarked, watching Mei Ling’s group grab their weapons.

“You must come!” Mei Ling herself begged, latching her bow to her back. “Those monsters have several days head start! We must leave immediately!”

“Well, that’s a yes,” Blizzard said with concern. The others nodded in agreement, before taking up position behind the smuggler crew.

“Hey, Sergei?”

The young man turned to look down at Aquamarine trotting alongside him, Comet on her back. “Yes?”

“Thanks for saving my daughter.”

It had been over a day since they’d met, and the walk had been treacherous, though Mei Ling assured them the path was safe, avoiding the obvious routes and farmlands scattered around the area. The Underground had spent the past months ensuring each of their pathways was clear of any traps left by the HLF or PER.

The hike was almost refreshingly quiet. The sounds of distant conflict were, naturally, ever-present if anyone listened hard enough, but nobody, either civilian, smuggler or soldier, felt like looking for them.

“How much further? I don’t think I can handle another ‘small’ hill,” Sergei asked as he wiped the sweat from his forehead. A cool mist fell over him and the group, causing everyone to sigh in relief as Blizzard smiled down at them from her little lowered raincloud. “Thanks, Blizzard.”

“No problemo,” she said, sticking her head out above the trees to gauge the area. “Still clear by the way.”

“Won’t be much further,” said Mei Ling. “We have about a kilometer to go.”

“Thank God!” Melnik grumbled as he took a swing from his vodka flask. “I am an old man! I need rest.”

“You’re only old by military standards,” Aitmatov said, fixing him with a not-entirely-serious glare. “You don’t even remember the Berlin Wall falling, do you?”

Hyong-Jing stared at them. “... Wait, no offense, but how old are you, anyway?”

“Forty-three,” Aitmatov said airily. “I’d been planning on retiring back in 2019, but...” he looked over at Blizzard. “Well, I had more important things to do. Besides, Lyuda took my pregnant samoyed wolfdog to America, so there wasn’t much else left for me.”

Melnik laughed drunkenly. “I couldn’t care even if I did remember, but I do remember that I have this grade-A bottle in hand right now! Ha, ha!” This answer caused everyone to roll their eyes as he downed his drink. No-one had yet figured out how he even kept his flask filled.

“Ignore him,” Porter facepalmed as Mei Ling raised an eyebrow. “If I try to take the bottle from him, he’ll just have another one ready. Besides, he is a good soldier, drunk or sober.”

“Sometimes I think he’s a better one when he’s shit-faced,” muttered Yon-Soo. Comet tittered aloud at that from her perch on her mother’s back, Sergei rubbing Comet’s mane affectionately while holding up a finger to his lips. Aquamarine turned to fix him with a glare, but he only shrugged and smiled at her apologetically.

“We’re here,” Mei Ling whispered as they passed the treeline.

A large energy windmill patched up with scrap metal was the first thing that caught Yon-Soo’s attention. There were several acres of farmland in the distance, and a small deserted-looking town crouched in the waning twilight, looking almost deserted.

“There. Near the windmill are several vehicles that we can take to go down 016 Country road.”

Porter walked up next to her. “Will it be safe?”

“Town’s been written off both by PER and HLF as a lost cause,” Mei Ling said quietly as she trekked downhill, the group following close behind. “It was abandoned in the early days of the war due to low population and the lack of response from China’s military. The fools think the town is trapped and dangerous to venture through, believing it will become a death cloud of ponification, or that maybe a FOAB is hidden inside one of the buildings.”

“FOAB?” Comet and Hyong-Jin asked in unison.

“Father of All Bombs,” Porter answered as he looked through his scope to the town. “Russia’s answer to the United State’s MOAB, Mother of All Bombs.”

“It like the RPG or grenades we use,” Sergei piped up, a smile on his face while his eyes seemed to get lost. “Only like… a million times more powerful.”

“Sounds wonderful,” Aquamarine said drily. “You humans have such an interesting taste in toys.”

“Now don’t say that Aqua, I mean, if someone can try to make me a FatMan, then I would be happy!” Sergei said with a small smile, bumping his hip against her barrel, which got him a small smile in return.

The mood however took a turn as they began to walk down the hill, the group slowly shifting position at the uncalled shift of formation.

The walk across the field made the large group nervous. Aitmatov was constantly looking off into the distance, Blizzard’s and Firebrand’s sharp gaze aiding him in the search for anyone who might like to take a free shot at them before they reached town.

“Huade is not the only place that was abandoned,” Mei Ling continued as she walked down the row. “There are many that have been deserted, and we are the only ones smart enough to use this to our advantage,”

A realization struck Porter. “You spread rumors about the towns.”

That earned him a nod. “Yes,” smiled Mei Ling. “The few ponies we have went searching for PER, while some of our own humans went to the HLF. The bèn dàn listened. I doubt they even own a map, as the abandoned towns have several routes in and out of Northern China and Mongolia. We tried to mark their locations, but they constantly move camps. The only ones that don’t are near the Wall, too many killers and sadists to count.”

“Jiān jiào shì kěpà de, nàxiē kělián de rén zài qí kòngzhì xià shòudào yǐngxiǎng,” one man grouched loudly. Yon-Soo turned slightly green at the sound.

“What'd he say?” asked Melnik.

“Screaming,” Yon-Soo said simply.

The walked up to the spinning windmill. Several van and trucks were parked underneath its blades.

“Quickly,” said Mei Ling. “The HLF may not get that close to the town, but they still watch it carefully whenever they do their patrols.”

“Alright everyone, inside!” Porter called out. In response, many of the civilians rushed into the assorted vehicles.

“Tight fit,” Melnik commented, only to raise an eyebrow as Blizzard dragged Aitmatov to the truck, threw him in and sat on his lap with a bright smile. “For some of us.”

Porter walked past him. “Quiet, old man,” he said gruffly. “Just drink your rot and get in a car.”

Yon-Soo opened the door, turning around to fetch Comet only to see Sergei lift the giggling filly into his arms, taking a seat in the back of one vehicles, Aquamarine taking up the other seat and began to fuss over Comet.

‘Huh, those two been getting really chummy lately.’ Yon-Soo thought to himself, taking a seat inside and securing his weapon to a clip on his vest. He rubbed his head, groaning somewhat and waved off the concern look on the driver. ‘Eh, maybe I’m looking too much into this. Looking at things that aren’t actually there. I really need a break.’
.
The small and packed convoy quickly left the area, heading south to Huade.

It was unnerving to see a road so…

Desolate? Maybe that was the word. Rusting cars lay stalled at random throughout the road, stripped for parts, covered in graffiti, and the road itself was cracking ever so slightly from lack of maintenance. Every now and then, they’d have to swerve to avoid a pothole, or turn off altogether to avoid a long-abandoned pile-up.

Blizzard peered out one of the windows. To her surprise, one of the strange graffiti on the cars was in English. ‘HLF left us to die’, she read.

It was even worse as they passed the first buildings. Yon-Soo summed it up with two words. “Ghost town.”

“There is a joke in here somewhere,” Melnik said over the radio. “A junkyard and government building are built right next to one another. Does it symbolize our current governments?”

“That is not a government building,” Mei Ling corrected. “More like a tourist attraction.”

“Correction,” Melnik answered back, “I meant our prewar governments.”

The convoy continued through the rundown town.

“We’re here,” Mei Ling said at last.

“A hospital?” Porter asked as they pulled up next to a group of buildings, several stories tall, their exterior adorned with darkened windows. “Wouldn’t that be the first place they’ld look?”

Mei Ling pointed to the radiation signs posted every five feet. “On the occasion a brave soul comes to town, they run into that. Besides, most everything worth stealing already got taken out of here in the rush.”

“I’m so excited, I can feel my sperm count dropping already,” Aitmatov sighed.

“It is a ruse, nothing more,” Mei Ling replied, chuckling a bit at the comment.

“And if they ignore it?” Hyong-Jin couldn’t help but question, only to balk as the car continued on past the piles of bodies lining the roads. “Never mind.”

Mei Ling pursued her explanation. “There are weak radiation sources surrounding the buildings, just in case someone tries to prove it wrong with a geiger counter. It’s strong up close, but they weaken significantly once you reach a certain distance. The building’s concrete structure also blocks the radiation, and we had some spare magic from the ponies in our group to help, so there’s little issue of even that. If they get closer, well, that is what the snipers are for.”

She turned and parked the car at the entrance. “Wǒ de rén gēn wǒ lái! PHL!”

Porter and Yon-Soo blinked as a black tarp pulled back from the double doors, and a man in a yellow Hazmat suit walked out, quickly waving them inside. “Gǎnjǐn ba! Wǒmen kěyǐ fāxiàn!”

“Doesn’t sound good,” Porter whispered to Yon-Soo, who nodding in agreement, seeing the man’s worried look. Exiting their vehicles in a mad dash, the large group hurried inside, into a lobby bathed in faint red light for them to see by as they huddled together.

Melnik took note of a second tarp on the far end of the lobby, blocking off the room from the rest of the building.

He tensed. This was such a small space they were being herded into. Once the last person had walked inside, the man in a Hazmat suit secured the tarp to the wall and moved his way through the mass of people.

“Oh,” groaned Melnik, “Got such a bad feeling about this.”

Aitmatov snorted derisively. “Ivan, you watched too much Walking Dead.”

“What? No, they’re not cannibals, it’s just…”

“Something’s going to happen?” Porter suggested.

“Yeah,” nodded Melnik. “Something’s going to happen. We’ve probably attracted some attention already.”

It was far from what the group expected to see when they came in. They expected to see a run-down area, trash everywhere, dirty starving survivors looking forlornly at nothing. The usual fare.

This wasn’t it. Admittedly it wasn’t quite like a pre-war hospital. If anything, it just looked bare. The floor and walls were cracking, and the rugs were gone, but the weird thing, the really weird thing, was that it was mostly clean. Almost sterile, even.

Rather incongruously, a PKM machine gun was mounted on the desk, pointed directly at the entrance.

“We don’t use this part very much,” Mei-Ling explained. “On the off-chance that anyone gets in, this seemed like too much of a risk to use, but it works. Besides, they don’t usually survive coming through the doors anyways.”

She led them all down a hallway, past a set of locked doors, turned a bend, and suddenly...

“Huānyíng lái dào Underground.”

“Whoa!” Comet said to the scene before her. “Cool!”

This was civilization.

Here, the cleanliness, the antiseptic quality of the hospital, was so incongruous with what they knew lay ahead, but there it was. In what had once been a waiting room, children were sitting around a large scrounged-up TV with their parents, watching a movie. The walls had been festooned with various rugs and pictures. Many of the pictures depicted now-vanished cities and towns, which now lived on only in such snapshots of memory.

As they passed that waiting room, and small offices that had been converted into bedrooms with bunk beds, they turned another bend to find a room with an ammo stockpile that could make the average HLF man blush. The walls were lined with mostly Kalashnikovs, though there were a few western weapons nearby, on top of huge crates of ammunition.

In the office next door, a woman who looked to be from some atomized Eastern European country, Lithuania judging by her accent, was fiddling with a huge radio. She wore an old headset and spoke into a microphone. Passing by Sergei caught a snatch of her conversation. “–Burakgazi spotted nearby. Exercise caution.”

‘Least it'll get safer around here,’ Porter thought. ‘Can't imagine the HLF and PER will just let their presence go unnoticed...’

Strangest of all was that it smelled clean, which wasn't a smell you expected around here. Although… “I smell other ponies,” Blizzard said, excited.

“Of course you do,” said Mei Ling. “I think they'll all be happy to see you.”

“Probably don't have much to be happy about,” said Comet. “I think Auntie Blizzard–”

Blizzard scoffed, slightly offended, “Hey, I'm not that old.”

“And I might like that,” Comet said cheekily.

“I'm not letting you out of my sight, though,” Aquamarine added sternly, the others chuckling at her downtrodden expression, even with Sergei adding lethal blows by messing up her mane again.

“Stop!” Comet gave a low whine, trying to fix her mane once more.

“Either way, we can't blame you. But you're right, they don't have much to be happy about,” Mei Ling sighed. “Getting pony refugees out of these areas isn’t easy. I mean, think about it. They could go over the Barrier, but that’s damn unlikely, and they'd have to go through bogs, fields, and miles and miles of nothing. Or they could end up in a colony, and I'm not sure what's worse, starving or hanging or getting sent back. They could swing up to Iceland, or what little of it is left. They could make their way over to Alaska through Russia, but good luck getting through there even on a passenger train.”

“Is something wrong in Alaska?” asked Hyong-Jin.

“Actually, it’s fine. Worst thing that happened around there was that big fight with the Newfoals.”

She motioning to the Lithuanian woman, who pulled up a picture of several humans and ponies standing before a totem-prole on a flatbed pulled by a rusty steam locomotive, like hunters in front of a kill. Two of the people in the photo drew his eye. A mare with a violin case, a pale yellow coat, a blue mane, and a gray Stetson hat, who was standing next to a short, stocky golden-brown-haired man with a squirming black pup with nubby little forelegs in his arms. Neither looked happy about the crystal obelisk behind them.

‘Totem-prole recovered, wolf pup also brought along...’ he read. ‘By True Quill. We have great reason to celebrate, as today a force of PHL irregulars lead by New Hampshire native John Heald and Equestrian expat Fiddlesticks Apple managed to capture a totem-prole from an Imperial science team. Numerous advancements are likely to result from this find...’

“That happened in January,” Mei-Ling said offhandedly, “So it's safer than most places, but good luck getting there. I mean, they could trot, but nobody wants to go through Siberia. It’s dangerous even without all the HLF brandishing Soviet materiel scavenged from the wilderness. But here? This far south of Russia? It’d be madness, but unfortunately, it’s the most direct route and PHL bases in big cities need all the ponypower they can get. And that’s where we come in.”

“You really got your work cut out for you guys, huh?” Hyong-Jin asked.

“Well, someone has to do it,” Mei Ling sighed. “Like I said, the most direct route.”

“Mei Ling!” a new voice, a young woman’s, cried out. “You got back safe! Oh, thank God! I was almost getting worried about you guys, and I was about to head out there to find you myself!”

Mei Ling smiled and gave the other woman a hug. “Well, you don’t have to worry, Tatiana. We’re all capable of taking care of ourselves, and we owe it to your help. And we’ve got some very good news. These people and ponies here are from the PHL.”

Tatiana was slightly younger than Mei Ling, Yon-Soo saw, probably in her mid-twenties. Her blond hair was tied back in a messy bun, and while she was of average height, she was pretty imposing. The tank top she wore exposed her well-muscled arms, and her hands looked rough and calloused. Her blue eyes were icy and hardened, much like Mei Ling’s.

“You’re PHL?” she asked, glancing at Mei Ling with a look of hope on her face. Mei Ling nodded, which got a smile out of her. “Why're you here?”

“We were assigned to help guard a train full of priceless relics on its way to China,” Porter explained. “Unfortunately, Erenhot went a little hot, so… Yeah, we had to evac, all the refugees came with us, and part of the train got cut off. So, yeah, here we are.”

“You're not delivering supplies or weaponry?” asked Tatiana.

Porter shook his head. “Sorry, but no. We've still got a lot of work to do, though.”

“You guys look like you could do with a rest first, though,” Tatiana said frankly. “And no offense, but, well, you all kinda smell.”

“The train wasn't exactly the Orient Express,” Melnik admitted with a nod. “Wasn't about comfort, it was about getting a job done.”

“Kuài shànglái!”

Several people rushed by, along with several ponies, chattering quietly to one another.

“Dàodǐ shì zěnme huí shì?” Mei Ling demanded, Tatiana just as confused as everyone else as they rushed towards the television.

“Erenhot!” one man exclaimed, “Tyrant forces attacked there!”

The armed group looked around nervously as the chatter grew silent and the news broadcast filled the room.

“Erenhot has mysteriously combusted, according to satellite footage. Mongolian, Chinese, and Russian forces are scrambling to the area to repair the railroad lines and vital transportation before HLF or PER arrive…”

They could see shaky footage from a helicopter, panning across half-melted railroad tracks and a bizarre, uneven spray of wreckage dotting the landscape. Down below, soldiers were fanning out, taking cover behind wreckage.

“Several days ago, Mongolian Air Force requested assistance due to strange radar readings in the area of the Gobi Desert, similar readings found around Royal Potioneer ships, just much larger. After China’s Republic Air Force responded to the call, several contingents were dispatched,” said the voiceover. “The entire force was decimated due to a new airship fielded by the invading forces. What few survivors reported was the city being overrun with little in the way of hope, until they claim that a ‘Fire Tornado’ began to rip apart the city. The origin of this tornado is currently unknown, and while it caused immense property damage, disrupting transportation for the foreseeable future, survivors are grateful as it destroyed many of the invaders ship and damaged the large ‘Airliner’, forcing it away for repairs. And while grateful, survivors mourn the loss of some 80,000 city residents, along with several encamped refugees. The death toll is estimated to be to be over a hundred thousand.”

“What?”

The group turned in unison to see a certain crimson pegasus, looking as though he’d seen a ghost. “How many?”

Recognizing the signs, Porter quickly rushed up to Firebrand to face him, kneeling down and grasping his friend’s shuddering head in both hands. “Firebrand, listen to me–”

“No! I killed all those people!” Firebrand howled, his breathing engaged in the telltale rushing onset of a complete nervous breakdown. He struggled to get out of Porter’s grasp, tears starting to shine in his eyes. “I’m a murderer!”

“NO! You are not!” Porter shouted, holding his head tightly. “Firebrand, those people were going to die, whether by fire or by potion. There was nothing we could do to change it. You heard the news, they were grateful for the Fire Tornado. They knew it was a better death than a slow, living death by potion.”

“But… I… I killed them all…” Firebrand whimpered as he slumped to the ground, ignoring everything around him. The humans who’d stuck by him this far just looked at each other, unsure what to do, while Blizzard and Aquamarine looked on in mute horror. Only Comet’s face was expressionless.

“Damn it.” Porter muttered. “Miss Yeung, can we use any spare rooms you have?”

Mei Ling nodded. “Yes, but we cannot stay for very long. Those Newfoals may come here any day now.” She turned to one of the men by her side. “Take them to one of the spare rooms, show them the showers and help clean up their weapons, armor, and clothes. We may have little time left before we’re all forced to leave. The rest of you, join me in the meeting room, we need to be prepared to leave in the next 24 hours.”

The group acknowledged Mei Ling, spreading out to pass the word. Porter pinched the bridge of his nose, before turning back to his group “Hyong-Jin, Sergei, take Firebrand to our room. The rest of us, get some shuteye, we may be up for some time once we get going again. Hopefully, we can get some decent sleep out of this.”

“And be clean,” Aquamarine said as she fussed over Comet. “I miss showers.”

“We all do,” quipped Sergei, undoing some of the buckles and holsters on himself to place his weapons on a nearby table. “Hell, I bet even these guys would like a bath too.”

“Right. Get cleaned up, but be prepared to leave at a moment’s notice.” Porter ordered, giving a small sigh as he turned back to Mei Ling. “Can I borrow your radios? I got a call to make.”

Yon-Soo sighed happily, for the first time in ages, as he quietly tip-toed over to the door of the room he shared with Aquamarine and Comet. Porter had already slipped away to the communications room for a chat with PHL command, possibly Colonel Renee himself. Now he’d washed away the filth from days of hiking through China’s northern woods, he felt a bit lighter, somehow.

His head in his hand, left elbow leant against the doorframe, he peered down the hallway, to see if it was empty. Sure enough, it was. Nodding, he looked back into the room, where mother and daughter were catching up some much-needed sleep. Hard to say, yet he thought this improvised bedroom was one of the nicest in the hospital.

Sparing one last look at Aquamarine and Comet, cuddled together in bed after the day’s excitement, he gave a small smile before closing the door, silently making his way to the communications room. Inside, he was somewhat surprised to find Tatiana at the radios, a look of concern on her features.

“Hello,” he said courteously.

She glanced up at him. “Ah, hello,” she responded with a tired smile. Then she returned to studying her radios. “Couldn’t sleep?”

“Not really,” Yon-Soon replied, “But I’m feeling a lot better after everything that’s gone down. Porter has to get into contact with some PHL forces in the US. I hope the rest of the train got through.”

“If they’re as well trained as you, there is little doubt they made it,” said Tatiana, her eyes sparkling with curiosity. “The others, the civilians that you saved, they saw what your companions did to protect them.”

“It was all over the news, wasn't it? I heard it on the radio while we were downstairs.”

“But they were there. They saw firsthand what you and your friends did.”

Yon-Soo blushed slightly. “We only did what we needed to do.”

“What you and your team did was beyond what anyone expected you to do,” Tatiana said, very quietly. “Few other teams can fend off two potioneer ships like that. No, a regular military team would leave people behind, the mission is more important. But you, the PHL, did not.”

“Yeah, I guess… Firebrand isn’t taking it well, though.” Yon-Soo remembered the look of horror on the pegasus’s face as he saw what he had wrought. As if he was only just understanding what he'd done.

“I'm worried about him,” yawned a grizzled male voice.

Yon-Soo could have jumped. Huddled at a bank of computers in a dim corner of the room, a certain old Russian soldier and his blue pegasus ladyfriend had been listening to their conversation all the while.

Aitmatov yawned again. “But Blizzard and I will have to worry...” And at that point, his yawn slurred whatever he meant to say into incomprehensibility.

“He said ‘…tomorrow’,” Blizzard supplied wryly.

Yon-Soo frowned at the pair. “How long have you been there?”

“Oh, a while,” said Aitmatov.

“He was videochatting his daughter,” explained Tatiana.

“Thankfully, Lyuda's okay. She's taking care of my Samoyed wolfdog.” Aitmatov fished his phone from his pocket to show an image of a smiling woman holding a huge, canine ball of fluff. “And she's doing well over in Alaska. Said she helped capture that prole with some guy and some mare from New Hampshire. She, uh... She didn't get ponified or lose a limb to potion so that's good.”

The old man smiled.

“But I think we'd rather tell you tomorrow,” added Blizzard, ears and wings drooping. “Right now, I need rest.”

“Agreed...” said Aitmatov, staggering off.

It seemed like yawns really were contagious, as seeing them both made Yon-Soo himself feel tired. “Count me in. Well, good night, you two.”

“Good night!” Blizzard saluted him as they left for their room.

Tatiana and Yon-Soo were left alone. She was first to speak. “Doubt we’re going to see any more action tonight. I probably should have got some sleep hours ago, too. My fault, really.”

“Oh? Why?”

“My relief passed out in a binge contest,” she explained. It was odd to see sheepishness on such a hardened-looking woman’s face. “Him, me and your friend Ivan. I’d figured the fact his shift came after mine would help. Too bad I don’t know my own strength…”

Yon-Soo chuckled lightly.

“Come on,” she said. “I’ll walk you to your room. Helps that it’s on the way to, to mine.”

“Well,” said Yon-Soo, feeling himself blush a little again, “Thanks, Tatiana.”

They walked back together in silence. It was a grim place at night, this hospital, Yon-Soo reflected. All grey, spartan walls, and dimly-lit hallways that ended in windows covered by hastily set-up black plastic curtains. Yet he would much rather be in here, than out there in the wild, with whatever predators lurked in the dark.

Reaching the bedroom, Yon-Soo noticed something amiss. Aquamarine and Comet’s bed was empty. He felt a lump rise in his throat at the sight, yet before anything else could happen, Tatiana grasped his arm.

“Yon-Soo,” she whispered, “Over there.”

She was pointing at a little filly standing outside another room, two doors down across the hall. Breathing in, Yon-Soo thought that this filly had a knack for sneaking off when she really shouldn’t. Maybe it was her special talent. The two quietly came up to her.

“Comet, what are you doing?” he asked sternly, “Aren’t you supposed to be sleeping?”

The filly glanced at them. “I know, but… I woke up when I noticed Mommy wasn’t next to me, and I saw her and Sergei talking, so… I followed them,” she admitted, lips pursing into a thin line.

“Oh my,” Tatiana whispered. “I have a weird feeling about this…”

The door was ajar. Peeking around the edge, Yon-Soo spotted the two in the room. Perhaps it was thanks to his background in soap operas, but he immediately guessed just what was going on. Fortunately, Tatiana had the foresight to instantly cover Comet’s mouth so she wouldn’t give them away.

Sergei’s and Aquamarine’s lips were locked in a rather deep kiss. The mare’s forelegs wrapped around his neck while she sat on his lap, the duo barely sparing time to take a breath before they continued. Yon-Soo was sure that Sergei was scratching her ear with one hand while holding her steady with the other on her hips, gently rubbing her cutie mark.

“Wow, they’re really going at it,” Tatiana whispered.

It wasn’t rough, or a heavy make-out session. It was… gentle, perhaps even loving.

But then Aquamarine’s eyes shot open and she broke the kiss, pushing Sergei away. She gasped, looking horrified with herself as she got off of him. Sergei, however, just looked… confused.

It seemed to take a minute for Aquamarine to pull herself together. “Sergei,” the others outside heard her say in a muffled tone, “You’re great. You really are. And I appreciate everything you’ve done for me and Comet… but…”

“It’s Gale, isn’t it?”

She slowly nodded, a tinge of guilt in her voice when she answered, “Yes.”

“Why though?” Sergei demanded. “He’s supporting turning all of us into mindless pony-shaped meatbags, and would’ve probably thrown you and Comet into the nuthouse if you hadn’t high-tailed it out of there!”

“He’s still my husband, and the father of my foal!” Aquamarine hissed, barely holding back a sob. “By Luna, I know my husband! He was a loyal and loving stallion… I know, I’ve no idea how, but I just know that something turned him to make him act like this! And if whatever it is could be reversed…”

Sergei seemed undeterred. “Well, okay. Let’s say all the Royal Guards have been put under mind control. If they were snapped out of it, can you even begin to imagine how they’d react, once they realize what they did? If Gale doesn’t die of a heart attack from the guilt, he’d become suicidal!”

“And he will need someone to be there for him,” Aquamarine said thinly.

“What about you, Aqua? What if he’s too broken to even function? I speak from experience when I say I’ve seen soldiers return so emotionally broken, they can’t even form relationships. And what if he’s already died?”

“He’s not dead,” she said, firm and knowing. “I know Gale, and I know what he’s good at. He can dodge like the best of them. He’ll survive.”

“Damnit!” Sergei held his hair in his hands, panic in his eyes. “Damnit, I love you! I care about you more than anyone else in this group! I’m not even sure when it happened, but I woke up to see you smiling down on me, and I thought ‘I need you in my life.’ I see Comet, and I want to watch her grow up into beautiful mare and lead a happy life! Please… I just… I need you. I never felt so… peaceful, before I met you two. Never so… untensed. Please, give me a chance...”

Aquamarine’s jaw dropped in surprise, tears now flowing freely as this man poured his heart out to her. But she only shook her head and turned away.

“I’m sorry, Sergei. I didn’t mean to lead you on like this. I didn’t mean for this to happen. I just… I just...”

“You were lonely,” Sergei whispered. Aquamarine nodded, turning back to face him. He gave her a painful smile. “Sergei comes in second again.”

“No! That’s not–” Aquamarine held out her hoof, but Sergei walked away, to an open door which adjoined this bedroom with the next. Obviously, they’d used this stratagem in the hopes of going unnoticed, but had forgotten to shut the door to the corridor.

“It’s okay…” he said, giving her a small wave with one hand, the other on the knob as he slowly closed the door. “I’ll be… around. Sorry for taking advantage of you…”

“You didn’t take advantage of me… I’m sorry,” Aquamarine choked out, covering her eyes as she wept softly.

Yon-Soo grimaced, feeling bad for everyone involved in this situation. Sergei always said he had bad luck when it came to dating. If it wasn’t bad timing, it was a poor choice of words, or just fate being cruel. Looked like a combination of all three just occurred to him today.

“Struck out,” Tatiana whispered. “Poor guy. To be honest, I thought the two were already an item.”

Comet just looked shocked, completely in the dark on how to process this. In a way, she was in as bad a position as her mother. She liked Sergei, looked up to him, even. Hung out with him and always had a smile ready for him. But he’d been like a brother. To see her own mother kissing him shocked her to the core.

What scared her more was that she felt okay with it. Like she was betraying her own father, even after all that’d happened to them. She didn’t know how to feel. Was she supposed to be mad at her mother for turning down Sergei? Or be mad that Mommy betrayed Daddy like this? And another part of Comet was scared, not for her, but for her mother, and her chances to be happy.

Comet Tail was young, not dumb. She knew she was all Mommy had left of their old life. Whatever her mother chose, it would have to be for Comet’s safety. It still hurt her mother that her baby had become a soldier. But she, Comet, had wanted to, because even if it was nasty and scary, it was better than letting the bad guys catch you. Wasn’t this kind of the same? Didn’t Mommy have to choose between being happy, or being right?

“Maybe…” said Yon-Soo, “Maybe we should keep this to ourselves.” His voice was shaky.

“Yes, that sounds good to me,” Tatiana nodded. She sounded like she, too, wanted to move as far as possible from an uncomfortable situation. “Come on, kid. It’s best to let your mother figure this one out herself.”

Comet whimpered. “I don’t even know anymore…”

“Oh, this is gonna be really fun in the morning,” Yon-Soo muttered with dread, as he led Tatiana and Comet away from the room with the weeping mare. “I just know it.”

“Lyra would be disappointed.”

Firebrand’s eyes shot open. Groaning, he raised his head off the bunk bed, which had brought little comfort so far. Just when it seemed he was finally falling asleep, his attempts to snatch some respite from his troubled thoughts had again been thwarted by… something.

A soft feminine voice.

The speaker sat just a few feet away from his bed, upon a circular seat against which rested a golden lyre. Covered as she was in a white cloak, all he could see of her were her pales hooves, busily and expertly tracing patterns across a large vertical loom.

He blinked. “Who–”

“My name is unimportant,” she said calmly. “Though I believe your friend, the actor, met an old and dear acquaintance of mine aboard the train. I have tracked down the fragments of his magical signature all around this planet for a while now. Never enough to follow his trail, alas, yet the lingering residue allows me a brief access to your ambient dreams. Get up, please, Firebrand.”

Unwittingly, he obeyed. Her voice could not be denied.

“There, finished,” said the weaver, pushing her seat to step back from the loom, an action which let her cloak unfold across her now-standing equine frame.

He recoiled. There, emblazoned on the back of the cloth, was the sign of Celestia’s resplendent sun.

“Please, take a look. What do you think?”

Firebrand turned to observe her handiwork. The loom depicted a swirling pillar of red flame, surrounded by an assortment of white stone buildings, melting and weeping like candle wax in the heat. Silhouetted against it were tiny, inky black human figure, reaching out desperately as they were sucked into the vortex. And at the very top, the cloud indistinctly began to take on the shape of a mushroom cap…

“I hope you like it,” said the hooded mare. “After all, it was inspired by your work.”

His lip quivered. “You’ve forced us all to behave in ways we’d never have, not in old Equestria, the real Equestria. None of this would’ve happened if… if only we hadn’t betrayed them.” He stared at her. “You did this.”

“No,” she replied quietly. “You did.”

The pillar of fire, appropriately enough, seemed to burn its way to the back of his skull. Shaking his head, tousled blond mane flopping wildly, Firebrand tried to clear the image from his mind. Stars dancing across his eyes, he looked to see the hooded mare, idly polishing the lyre with her cloak’s hem.

“Your actions killed 80,000 people, Firebrand. And for what?”

“I was trying to save them from a fate worse than death.”

She merely tilted her head. “You’re no savior. Your talents lie elsewhere.”

Firebrand’s gaze hardened. “How… dare you! How dare you even say that, when you’re the ones basically murdering these poor people, and then have the gall to call it salvation! If there’s anypony who’s got a talent for senseless destruction around here, it’s the ones like you!”

“That, I fear, is where you are wrong.”

Suddenly, they were in a different place altogether.

Above lay them a sea of stars, and below, a boiling angry orange-red lake of fire, that stretched out to the horizon.

Firebrand saw that they stood on an invisible plane above the sun’s surface, though whether it was Earth’s star or Queen Celestia’s charge, he could not tell.

A glow emanated from beneath her hood and he found himself trapped in the unicorn’s rose-colored aura, as a pair of golden straps materialized from nowhere behind him, to clasp themselves tightly shut around his barrel. Clipping his wings together.

Firebrand wanted to scream, yet his throat had swollen shut. Instead, he was forced to watch helplessly as the hooded mare levitated him away. Her white cloak billowing in the solar winds, she stood upright like a swordsman readying the killing blow.

“You fail to see a key difference in the destruction by Her Majesty’s Sun,” she whispered. “There is a distinction between your wanton acts of mayhem, and our surgical removal of a cancer. However high mankind may rise, in the end, its history is always defined by a downward spiral of hideous, unplanned slaughter. I do not deny that we’ve killed people, condemned both Changeling and reindeer to the abyss. But we planned it out, gave method to our madness. We shall move forward, and any fool who won’t walk with us, will face their FATE!”

And she released the aura, leaving him to fall, straight into the sun.

This time, Firebrand did scream, before the fire even leapt out to claim him. The flames danced across his skin, tearing away pink strips of flesh and tendon, which spooled out into the red-and-orange patchwork of the sun, tender thread by tender thread – burning away the straps, too, not that it mattered now.

The fiery grasp took hold of him completely, and he went under… he was drowning in water’s elemental opposite. It was a world filled with light and heat and blinding white pain. Yet only for an instant. The fog lifted from his mind, and the sensation began to seem pleasurable, soothing.

He had no body. He was freed from burden.

“Stay strong, the fever will soon break…”

And now, he was back in bed.

Firebrand felt something cool and gentle upon his forehead, but his eyes were blurred and he couldn’t see, or even move. Gradually, he realized it was the pale mare’s hoof, delicate and caring as a mother’s touch. Yet as soon as that thought took hold, she pulled away from him. No! How could she deny him that comfort!

Sight began to return, and other senses. It was too hot, he was dizzy and sweating. He saw her gaze wistfully at the lyre as she gave its strings a few tentative tugs, to little avail. Whatever her talents, she was no musician.

His visitor sighed.

“There is no plan, no light at the end of the tunnel for your companions. Should the Barrier be stopped, their temporary truce will collapse back into old grudges and strife, into chaos. Your time with the humans has led you to believe this is all ‘us or them, them or us’, but a common enemy is a fragile rock upon which to build friendship, little pegasus. With Celestia, there is another way. There is Harmony.”

She whom they called ‘Celestia’s Sword’ placed the lyre back within the folds of her cloak.

“We’re not mankind’s enemy, Firebrand. We’re its reflection in a stained-glass window.”

The hooded mare receded into the shadows.

“I want you to sleep on that.”

Porter stared at the group seated before him, picking up on the thick tension in the air almost immediately, even though several members appeared more confused than anything. With his keen officer’s sight, three ponies and one man in particular caught his attention.

Aquamarine’s eyes were completely bloodshot, like she’d spent the entire night crying. Sitting on the complete opposite end of the row, Sergei was simply dead to the world, barely acknowledging his own name when Hyong-Jin tried to ask him a question. And in the middle, riding on Melnik’s shoulder, was Comet, who seemed on the verge of a mental breakdown.

Firebrand was something else entirely. He looked haunted.

“So…” Porter clapped his hand. “Got some good rest?”

“Yup!” Blizzard grinned happily.

Aitmatov only gave him a single nod, not noticing the thumbs-up Melnik game him. His eyes were focused on the doors leading outside. “Sort of. We were up pretty late–”

“Having sex?” Melnik asked, raising an eyebrow as he grinned immaturely.

“Calling my daughter,” Aitmatov explained through gritted teeth.

“Is that what you’re calling it now, Khan?”

“No, we actually really did Skype my daughter.”

“And then we had sex,” added Blizzard.

“Blizzard!” Aitmatov exclaimed, a hand on her foreleg, as both of them laughed. The laughter abruptly stopped when they noticed the state of about half the team.

Aitmatov’s face fell. “...Guys?”

Sergei just kind of shrugged and held onto his weapon tightly. Aquamarine flinched, her ears drooping mournfully. Comet stayed quiet.

Yon-Soo wanted to scream at them to sort out something, because it really hurt to see them like this, and that was no good at all for team morale.

“Alright, what happened last night?” asked Porter. “Were the nightmares bad again?”

Firebrand raised his head, like he wanted to say something, but Yon-Soo got there before him.

“Yes!” the former actor said loudly. “It’s still going on right now.”

“Riiight…” Porter raised an eyebrow at that. (‘Let them tell me in their own time,’ he thought.) “Alright, scouts from the Underground report that a large PER force is gathered to the north. We received confirmation from the PHL this morning. So the entire Underground is closing shop, and we are going south. We have a ship to catch in Hong Kong. It’s part of Captain Kleiner’s fleet.”

“You mean the Stampede Fleet?” asked Firebrand.

Porter nodded. “The very same. Okay, we will be a part of this convoy until we get to location. Firebrand and Hyong-Jin will ride with me in the first car. Aitmatov, Blizzard, and Melnik will ride in the middle. Yon-Soo, Aquamarine, Comet and Sergei will be in the last car.”

‘No, this can’t be happening. There is no way this is happening!’ Yon-Soo screamed internally, while his face twitched somewhat. “Sir, request permission to change the seating arrangements.”

“Denied.” Porter shook his head. “I trust you to have our back, everyone gets a magical backup. Plus you are a better shot than Sergei, who’d probably just blow everything up.”

‘No, God! No, God, please no! No! NOOO!’ Yon-Soo inwardly cried to Heaven above. But he put on a good face and replied, “Understood, sir.”

“Any particular reason why you want the change?”

“Nope. I’m good.” Yon-Soo plastered a smile to his face, feeling all the while like the word ‘fraud’ was stamped right on his forehead. He was pretty sure he deserved an award for that performance.

“Okay then. Let’s move out.”

The group broke into their respective teams, chatting with one another as they began to leave, only to pause as the last team remained sitting.

“Well…” Yon-Soo smiled, his left eyebrow twitching somewhat. “How about that. You guys ready to go?”

“Yes,” Aquamarine said quietly.

Sergei barely nodded his head, while Comet stared up at him with a pleading expression.

“This is going to be fun...” the young Russian started, looking at the twitching Comet, who was full of barely constrained… something. Though since she was a filly, it still looked a bit funny. “I mean, we can sing, we can tell stories about our pasts. Love– ergh! Uh... fart jokes? Right? Everyone loves f–”

Comet couldn’t hold back any longer. “WE SAW YOU TWO LAST NIGHT!” Yon-Soo stared at her in complete horror. Children were either very good at keeping secrets or they weren’t.

‘Why... just… Why?’

“Little filly, say what?!” Blizzard gaped as she stared at the two accused, before elbowing Aitmatov. “I told you! I told you it would happen! And you said it was my imagination!”

“Since when?” Melnik demanded, rubbing his chin to get rid of the alcohol from his spit-take. “Why wasn’t I informed?! I could’ve taken bets!”

“I am more surprised the guy who did soap operas didn’t notice.” Blizzard slyly turned to Yon-Soo, who blinked in confusion at her call. “Yon-Soo probably orchestrated this entire thing.”

“What?! N-no I didn’t! I just found out last night!” Yon-Soo raked his mind, suddenly realizing a lot of small details that he just brushed off.

Small smiles shared with one another, the way Sergei fussed over Comet the most out of all of them, the way they almost seemed to play good-cop/bad-cop with regards to her...

Both Aquamarine and Sergei’s eyes widened bigger than saucers, but Aquamarine quickly tried to cover up before things deteriorated. “What do you mean, sweetie?”

“We saw you kiss him, Mommy,” Comet choked, her whole body shaking. “Me, Uncle Yon-Soo and Miss Tatiana…”

Sergei deflated, sinking back into his chair. Aquamarine walked towards her daughter. “Look, it was an accident,” she said softly. “We didn’t mean anything by it. It was just a silly mistake we made.”

“O-kay! Time to go! Let’s go guys!” Porter said out loud, trying to push the group away, only for them to ignore him, Blizzard even going as far as to shoosh him.

Comet just gave her mother a hard stare, before glancing back at Sergei. He’d looked like a drowned cat after her mother turned him down last night, and now she couldn’t help but feel angry. “He poured his heart out to you, Mommy! He said he loves you! He loves us both! And you threw that away!”

“Comet, sweetie, I’m still married to your father. It’s not right–”

“Where is he then!? Why isn’t he here? Oh yeah, now I remember, we ran away from him!” Comet retorted, letting loose all her pent-up rage. “He wanted us to change! To think like him! Like Celestia! He probably doesn’t even care about us anymore!”

“Comet…” Sergei croaked out. “Please don’t.”

“No! You love my Mommy!” Comet felt the tears begin to flow. “You brought us food! You protected us from all those angry humans! From Newfoals! You always made Mommy laugh! You made her happy! She was so sad all the time, then you saved us! You gave us all your time, even when you barely had any at all! It’s not fair!”

“Comet!” Aquamarine scolded, utterly appalled at this outburst.

Yet Comet was on a roll, as she cut her mother off and said, “You can’t say it meant nothing! I saw you! You love him too! He’s your special somepony now. Not… Not… Gale.”

Aquamarine took a step back. Both her and Yon-Soo’s eyes widened as Comet spat out her father’s name. “If… If Gale cared about us…” Comet sniffed and wiped her snout. “He’d be here with us, he’d still be… still be Daddy.”

For a moment, everyone was completely silent.

Porter noticed the dark cloud figuratively crossing Firebrand’s face, too. He wondered just what was going on in his friend’s mind since yesterday. All this ‘love’ talk reminded him that he suspected Comet of having a schoolgirl crush on the fiery pegasus, though really, the stallion was as much a big brother to her as was Sergei.

But Firebrand just looked vaguely disgusted at everything around him.

“Well. That was fun,” Yon-Soo coughed. “How about we get to the convoy before anymore drama, right?”

“Yes, we have more important things to worry about,” Porter noted. “You two work this out on your own.”

“Right,” said Sergei. He grabbed his cleaned weapon and stalked off, Comet dejectedly following after him. Just a few paces behind them, Yon-Soo and Aquamarine walked side by side, the former’s jaw clenched from stress.

“I really hope you two figure something out,” he told Aquamarine. “I don’t think Comet will let you two go, she has her mind set now.”

“If only it were that easy…” she murmured.

She’d fucked up, Aquamarine knew it.

Her daughter had all but written off her own father as a lost cause, and she’d broken the heart of a man who took care of them both. She wasn’t sure when it started, the flirting and the sly smiles. Only that she began to care for Sergei like she cared about Gale. How she fretted over him more than anyone else sans Comet. How she prayed to Luna to keep him safe before she went to sleep. Sometimes, she’d find him awake and looking to the night sky, and would join him, allowing him to wrap his arms around her in a small hug.

“S-sergei? Could we talk, please?”

“Hm?” Sergei looked away from the road, where they’d been awaiting the rest of the convoy for twenty minutes.

“Maybe, maybe Comet was onto something back there,” said Aquamarine, rubbing her fetlocks. “Maybe it’s better that I not cling to any blind hope. For all I know, Gale could be dead, or… I don’t even want to think…”

“What? If you don’t mind my asking?”

“You know how a Newfoal can’t say ‘no’ to anything a native pony asks of it?”

He dwelled on that, shuddering. Oh, God, the stories he’d heard off the ‘straggler squads’ of the PHL’s evac and rescue units in Eurasia. One soldier named Lutsenko had mentioned the towns taken over by Equestria’s Forward Operations to house Newfoals awaiting the Barrier and colonial support. A dead-end job for the Imperial troops, who’d find ways to pass the time. With brothels full of former humans. Teenagers, children even… all willing…

Lutsenko had burned one such place down using a PHL-made thermite gun, without a tear. At least that’s what he’d said. He’d definitely burnt it to the ground, though.

“What if…” Aquamarine asked herself, “What if he’s already taken one?”

The wording was not lost on Sergei. ‘Taken’. As if Gale had just found a new possession.

“And what if… what if you were right about something making Gale and the other guards act strangely? Like he was under mind control, or brainwashed… If she does it to humans, why not her own ponies? We weren’t all on board with this, how could her guards be?”

Sergei shrugged. “I don’t know, Aquamarine. People are so unpredictable…”

“Yes,” the mare frowned. “But right here, right now, we’re both in control of our actions.” She looked at him. “So where do go from there? None of us has much time, Sergei.”

“Come again?”

“I mean,” she said, inspecting her hoof, “That everyone and everypony keeps acting like the Barrier’s going to be falling one of these days. It seemed a lot more believable when Ambassador Heartstrings was still alive. But now she’s gone, and that thing isn’t. I’ve no idea how long we’ll be here for, either. It scares me so much…”

“Yeah.” He knelt beside her. “Me too, it scares me, Aqua. But you wanna know what I find even scarier?”

She couldn’t look him in the eye. “What?”

“The idea that people are gonna stop caring for each other, long before it gets them.” When she said nothing, he pursued his trail of thought. “I, uh, I’m trying to find the right words… Like, it hurts when you lose someone you care about very much, you know? So you shut them out. Can’t be hurt if you were never happy. But it just ain’t healthy, I’m starting to see it.”

Now, Aquamarine forced herself to speak. “Are you talking about us, or me and Gale?”

“Eh, why not both?” said Sergei. “Aqua, I wouldn’t want you to go all cold and hard. Way too much of that shit around nowadays. I’d want you to move on. To be safe and find happiness. Not stay with, with me cos’ you felt you had to. But if I pulled any real bad shit, I’d do everything to get forgiveness, and keep the hell away from ruining anything good you found. You and Comet.”

Aquamarine sniffled as she looked up at him. “Can you forgive me?”

“Yes, absolutely.” Sergei whispered. “It hurt a lot, but… I understand why you did it.”

“You… you are a good person, Sergei Zaslavski,” said Aquamarine, raising her head so they could stare into each other’s eyes on an even level. “I don’t want Comet to grow up without a father, and you are the closest thing she has to one now. But she needs a father, not a big brother.”

He looked uneasy. “If that Barrier doesn’t stop, it wouldn’t matter. Either way, I’d be gone from her life.”

“I don’t care. She’ll remember you.” Aquamarine closed her eyes. “I do love you, Sergei. I was just… scared. Too scared to think what will happen if you die and I live. Too… stuck in the past.”

Sergei placed both his palms around her face. “And if Gale somehow snapped out of that brainwashing or whatever the hell it is? What would you do then? What if he really is the stallion you loved, and now he’s got to live with having been the bad guy?”

Aquamarine was silent for half a minute. “We’ll cross that bridge if we get there. But, for now… how about we let ourselves just be happy in the moment? We deserve that much, at least, after everything.”

She gave him a quick peck, and, leaving his embrace, moved to join the rest of the group.

Tatiana looked up from the car she was working on, the smile on her face completely wiped away at the realization of whom she was sharing the car with.

“Oh, crap.”

Yon-Soo gave her a strained smile.

“Yup, this is the group you are riding out with.” He leant in close to her. “Don’t worry, things have smoothed out, but… they also know we saw ‘em last night, thanks to the little one having a very big mouth.”

“The stress was too much!” Comet cried.

“Way to go,” muttered Tatiana. “This trip just got a lot harder than it already is.” But at sight of the man and the mare themselves, she outright double-taked.

They looked… brighter. Happier.

“Or maybe not.” Tatiana gave Yon-Soo a confused look, but he was just as lost as Sergei and Aquamarine stood next to one another without any hint of friction.

“Yeah…” Yon-Soo said, smiling a bit more happily. “Well, let’s get going.”

“Alright everyone! Get in!” Tatiana chuckled, watching as they piled into the car. The convoy was getting ready, everyone packing as much as they could. Tatiana reached over for the radio. “Hey Mei, we’re ready here.”

“Got it, we are heading out in five minutes.”

“Alright, so where are we going?” asked Yon-Soo, pulling out a map.

“Right,” Tatiana leaned over. “We are here, in Huade. We’re going south on 208 Provincial Road to Zhangjiakou. It’s got heavy military presence, but the surrounding area is filled with HLF and PER, so we need to move fast.”

“What about all these points around the road?” Sergei asked, earning a grim look from Tatiana.

“Mostly farms, but the Tigers control the area.”

“What?”

“HLF,” she spat. “Could very well give that Galt man and his group in Canada a run for their money. Worse still, Burakgazi’s around...”

“Wait, what?” Yon-Soo asked, eyes widening. This was only getting more and more insane.

“Yeah. He’s been heading into the area. We don’t mind the PER gettin’ gassed, but it’s only a matter of time before they get us.”

“We are ready, let’s go!” Mei Ling called out. Grunting, Tatiana started the car.

Only for it to die a second later.

“Uh… This isn’t funny.” Yon-Soo growled, but he paled when Tatiana began to curse and again tried to start up. They saw the convoy move on without them. “Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me! Hey! Hold up! Our car stalled.”

“We can’t stop. We have to leave now! Don’t worry, Tatiana can fix it, she is a good mechanic.”

“Shit, let’s get started,” Sergei said as he got out. “Open the hood!”

“Comet, stay in the car,” Aquamarine ordered, following Sergei.

Seeing the convoy slow down, Tatiana tightened her grip around the radio. “We’ll catch up. Go!”

“Oh,” Yon-Soo groaned, clutching his head at the growing migraine. “This day… SUCKS!”

Twenty minutes had passed, and Yon-Soo was seriously debating on walking out of town.

“Okay, try it now!” Sergei called out. With a sigh, Yon-Soo turned the key. Imagine his surprise when, gloriously, the engine roared to life.

“Hah! Told you it was the battery!” Tatiana laughed. “The damn connections were too loose!”

Sergei rolled his eyes, but Yon-Soo was in no mood for joviality. “Yeah, yeah. C’mon, let’s go,” he snapped, Comet giggling somewhat at his growing temper.

“Someone’s touchy,” grinned Aquamarine. She chuckled coyly as Yon-Soo glared at her.

“Go get a room with your new boyfriend, why don’t you?” he hissed, wanting to wipe the grin off her face.

Aquamarine gently leaned against Sergei. “Maybe I will.”

“Mommy?” Comet felt utterly confused. She was so sure they would be angry at one another.

“Its okay,” Aquamarine leaned over and gave her a nuzzle. “He’s my special somepo– Oh, excuse me. I meant my special someone.”

Comet beamed, squealing happily as she leapt onto Sergei to give him a big hug.

“Good grief, someone shoot me up with a syringe full of insulin now,” Yon-Soo muttered, while Tatiana only patted him on the shoulder.

“Hey, they made up. We should be happy now, it’s not an awkward trip anymore!” she noted brightly.

“Yeah, yeah...” Yon-Soo groaned. He rolled down the window as they made their way down the main street. “I’m now on a mental rollercoaster, and I need to find a place and forget the worl–”

The sound of a distant explosion caught his attention.

“Huh, sounds like it came from the south,” Yon-Soo began, only for the radio to start blaring with static.

“Yon-Soo, *cough* listen to me!”

“Porter?”

“Yon-Soo, listen to me, do not come down 208! *cough* Damnit.”

“Get out of the vehicles! Now, you pony-fuckers!”

“Porter!?” Yon-Soo yelled. “Who is that?”

“I can’t hear you, my ears are blown out. I don’t have a lot of time! HLF rigged an IED, nearly blew us to kingdom come– *cough* Fuck! My ears. Mei Ling’s down, knocked out but still alive, car’s trashed, HLF is dragging everyone out of the cars– *cough* Take another route, do not come for us, Yon-Soo. That’s an order. You take the others and run! Do you hear me?”

“Hey! These guys are still alive!”

“Yon-Soo, do not come for us! You take them and head somewhere safe! I know I’ve been hard on you, but I know you can do it. You keep that group going until they are safe–”

There was a creaking metal sound on the other end.

“Come here,” said an unfamiliar voice.

“No! Firebrand! Fuck you, you bastard, leave him alone!”

“Son of– Hey! Guys, help me out, there’s a pegasus in here. Still alive, too!”

“Nice gear,” said a third voice. “PHL?”

“Oh, this is a good catch! Warlord Zhou will be impressed!”

“Do not come for us, Yon-Soo!” Porter yelled. “Get yourself, Aqua, Comet, and Sergei out of China! I believe in–”

… The line went dead.

Yon-Soo lost all feeling in his hand, and the radio slipped out, clattering onto the car floor.

“What do we do?!” Comet cried, almost hyperventilating. Aquamarine scrambled to calm down her daughter, while Sergei loaded the M203 that Porter had given him, not willing to take any chances now.

Yon-Soo couldn’t breathe. His mind flashed to Porter’s last order.

‘Do not come for us.’

Porter told him to run, leave him and the others to die. To run so they could live. He knew Porter, nay, all of them would not speak a word about them. They would die before they sold them out. By the time the HLF killed them, they would be far away from the conflict.

Safe. But sure as hell not able to live with themselves.

“No.”

“What was that?” Tatiana cried, clutching the steering wheel.

“No one gets left behind, that is what Porter always said to us. We watch each other’s backs.” Yon-Soo clutched his weapon, fear slowly shrinking away in the face of a growing anger. “We’re getting them out.”

“That’s what I like to hear,” Tatiana smiled as she slammed on the brakes, causing the car to squeal to a stop. She then turned the wheel, making everyone to swerve from the sudden movement.

“What the hell was that?!” demanded Sergei.

“I know where they’re taking them,” Tatiana said as she drove down the road, headed east. “They are taking them to the Wall encampment.”

“Wall encampment?”

“An HLF camp near the Great Wall of China. Their biggest camp in the entire area,” Tatiana explained. She smiled wolfishly, pushing the pedal and speeding the car to a maximum. “And I know a way to get us there.”

Comet stood up from her seat. “You do?”

“Yup. I know every little bit of that camp, scouted it so many times, it’s almost sad how easily I can get in without setting off an alarm. I also know about the secret tunnel.”

Yon-Soo’s eyes widened. “Tunnel?”

“Tunnel, in the Wall. Military must’ve built it some time ago. I found it when I was scouting around, those HLF bastards don’t even know about it,” she explained with a grin. “We need a plan, though.”

Scowling, Yon-Soo looked at the road ahead.

“Got an idea,” he said. “It’s a mad plan, but one that’ll work.”

Tires screeching and metal sparking, their car raced down the abandoned country road – this one, mercifully, largely cleared of any and all debris – as Yon-Soo Park turned to a friend of his, and announced his plan.

“Sergei? How do you feel about blowing up the Great Wall of China?”

Author's Notes:

Hope y'all had tissues on hand, because boy was that a feels trip! And an action cliffhanger! I am truly evil.

We're getting close to the big moment, got a new pairing (which was a bit of a last minute thing, but it worked out in the end), and a new member joining the team. As well as Yon-Soo stepping up. We're nearing the end, so stay tuned!

ETA: Also, stuck in a tribute to Leonard Nimoy in here.

ETA PART 2: Added some new things and rewrote a few scenes. Thank you to Vox Adam for his contribution!