Chapter 11: Sunset City is at War, Part One

This, Porter thought, was probably the worst place to have the faintest sign of affection for ponies.

A dank room, stripped of weaponry and armor, with their enemies waiting right outside. Someone had once said waiting was the worst torture, and Porter could believe it. He had no idea where they were going, or how long it’d been. They all had burlap sacks thrown over their heads, blocking their vision, and if he had to wager a guess, the pegasi probably had their wings tied down too.

‘If they were lucky,’ said an insidious voice from the corner of his mind, and he struggled to convince himself that couldn’t be it. It did not rule the possibility out, Porter thought with a shudder.

He could hear snippets of Mandarin from outside, but Porter’s main attention was on the people in the cage with him.

“You PHL?” someone asked. Whoever they were, they sounded feminine, though there was an affected deepness to their voice.

“What makes you think that?” Porter retorted.

“You’ve got fancier armor than anyone else in here,” they said, and Porter couldn’t help but imagine a shrug. “Plus, you’re human, and you’re in here, and you don’t smell like potion. Who else would you be?”

“Got me there,” Porter said. “You’re right. I’m PHL.”

This… person… was silent for a second. “Well, damn. I’m so sorry. Just your bad luck this was where you got captured.” She sighed. “At least PER would end it quick.”

“Porter? Is that you?" Blizzard asked. Her voice was small, uncharacteristically scared. Not that Porter could blame her...

“Yeah, it’s me,” Porter replied. “Did they hurt you?”

“They just bound my wings,” Blizzard answered. “Something tells me they’re saving me up or something.”

“Don’t think like that,” Porter hissed. This was already a stressful and very terrible situation; he did not want to think about the horrible things these sick fuckers would do to any of his friends...

“How can I not?!” Blizzard hissed back. “You know the stories!”

“For what it’s worth,” the unseen person said, “I’ve broken out of plenty of HLF camps. This one… has me a bit worried. You heard the stories too?”

Porter had, in fact, heard them. Stories of strange, insane Newfoals - but those were everywhere - and HLF so desperate for food thanks to bitter cold that they’d resorted to eating ponies and humans alike.

He wondered where Aitmatov and Melnik were. “Hey,” he said to his jailmate, “you seen or heard a pair of Russians being taken through here?”

“Those two Russian guys?” the person asked. “They’re being kept in a pretty faraway cell. The Russians here didn’t seem to like them.”

“Shit,” Porter sighed. “What about Hyong-Jin and Firebrand? Did you see a red and orange pegasus and a Korean man around here?”

“Yeah,” Blizzard replied. “They’re in another cell.”

“Dammit, where are we?” Porter groaned. “How do they have something so... huge?!”

“Dunno,” the person said in resignation. “Far as I can tell, it was some kind of facility before the HLF took it. I’m not good with human buildings.”

“You’re another pony?” Porter asked.

“Yeah,” she said, and that affected deepness fell out of her voice. “I’m… I’m scared.”

“And you’ve got a good reason to be,” said one human, with a guttural voice. He was speaking Russian. “Get them out. The filly and the horsefucker.”

Rough, callused, uncaring hands grabbed Porter.

“Get your hands off me, you assh-” Porter started, and before he knew it there was a clang. His head was ringing and a stinging pain spread throughout his skull. The bastards had smashed his head against one of the cage’s bars. “You sonova-”

“Don’t struggle,” said one woman with a soft, almost whispery voice. “You’ll give Tatkarov an excuse.”

Another blow caught Porter in the mouth. He tasted blood seeping in.

“Tatkarov, no,” the woman said. “The horsefucker won’t be able to survive in the Gauntlet, or a prisoner exchange if you give him a concussion.”

“And why the fuck won’t it be if I mash his head too much?” Tatkarov asked. “You going horsefucker? My old mate Lovikov, he once said that’d be an improvement.”

“Let him go!” a woman yelled in a Middle-Eastern tinted English. “You’re hurting him!”

“Kind of the point, eh?” Tatkarov asked. “Besides, if I do, I’ll get bored. If I get bored, I might just go after Tazagul again…”

“You wouldn’t,” the heavily-accented woman whispered.

“No. Totally would,” Tatkarov said. “You know I would.”

“It’s the smart thing,” the woman said. “Smart and fun aren’t always the same thing.”

“Sounds boring as shit,” Tatkarov rumbled, pushing down on Porter’s back…

Then rammed a knee up into his ribcage.

“Tatkarov!” the woman yelled.

“You said, ‘no concussion’,” Tatkarov said maliciously. “Never said nothin’ bout ribs.”

“Warlord Zhou said he’s an esteemed guest! Do you want to get on his bad side?!” the woman insisted.

“Let me go, you motherfuckers!” that person yelled, and, as the sack over his head jostled, he could see two HLF manhandling a small black filly, dragging her away, beating her with gnarled sticks if she struggled against the rope. He could see a flash of red, and - was that blood?

‘Why couldn’t I get captured by the Reavers instead?’

Sergei stared down at the camp from a spot high up on the wall.

“Snipers,” he said. “There’s one on top of that silo over there, and one up that peak - it’ll be hard to keep out of their sight. Comet?”

“It definitely looks like they laid a few traps on the ground,” Comet said. “...There’s also a big blind spot in the guard, but…”

“Too easy?” Yon-Soo asked.

“Too easy,” Comet agreed. “They have to know about it. It’s just too obvious.”

“Probably a choke point for PER,” Sergei said. “There’s a lot of people that do that on their bases.”

“...Can we make them think the PER are attacking?” Aquamarine asked.

“And how would we do that?” Yon-Soo asked. Even though he probably didn’t mean it, there was a hint of irritation to his voice.

“Hey, it’s just a thought,” Aquamarine replied. “If only Khan and Ivan were here…”

“Well, we’ll have to pick up their slack,” Yon-Soo said, forcing a confident tone into his voice that he wasn’t sure was all that genuine.

“...You’re scared, aren’t you, Uncle Yon-Soo?” Comet asked.

“No,” Yon-Soo immediately answered. “Not… no. Not at all.”

“You sure?” Comet asked, in that prodding way kids were known to do.

“I… don’t think that’s helping, dear.” Aquamarine noted.

“Oh, right,” Comet realized, scratching the back of her head in an embarrassed fashion. Aquamarine had to suppress a sigh; Comet was a nice filly, but she sometimes had a habit of saying the wrong things - or doing the wrong things - at the worst possible time.

Still, she was only a filly. These things were to be expected.

Not for the first time and certainly not for the last (as the last time would be on her deathbed, but that wasn’t important) Aquamarine wondered if she had done the right thing for her daughter.

“Where’s the tunnel?” she asked Tatiana.

“Not too far,” she said. “Though... “

“Yeah?” Aquamarine asked uneasily.

“We will need a distraction,” Tatiana said. “And…” she looked down. She paused. “Hmmm… What if we stage a prison riot?”

“Huh?” Yon-Soo asked. “How would we even do that?”

“You kidding?” Sergei asked. “Knowing Melnik, it won’t be long.”

“But how would we know?” Comet asked, touching down next to Sergei, looking at his scope. “It’s not like we have a live feed… or a way to send a message…”

“Why don’t we make one?” Tatiana asked.

“Yeah,” Yon-Soo realized. “We could send a message in. Find a prisoner, or a pony on the grounds, jump in, and rescue them during the chaos! Brilliant!”

“Sounds risky,” Tatiana said. “But we don’t have the numbers to attack them if they’re as composed as they are right now.”

“Shame,” Sergei said. “Wait. Do you have a sniper? We could pick off the guards outside during the riot. Could cause even more confusion.”

Yon-Soo groaned. It really felt like Porter made all this stuff look easy...

To put it as subtly as possible, Tatkarov looked as ugly as he’d sounded. His face looked like someone had used it as cover to protect themselves from a shrapnel bombing, an acid bombing, a molotov cocktail, or all of the above. Worst of all, he had a patchy mustache with tiny little bald spots between some of the hairs. Hideous.

Currently, he was manhandling Porter down a hallway, followed by a slender woman with a Kalashnikov.

The building was surprisingly well-decorated for an HLF fortress. Maybe not a palace, but it certainly had its own charms.

“Hey!” Porter said, staring over at one painting on a wall. “That’s been missing for months! We were supposed to be evacuating that on the train!”

“Certain parties,” Tatkarov explained, “thought that it was better out of the hands of horsefuckers. Or hooves. But there’s not much difference with you petukhs, is there?”

Porter just simply glared daggers at him, deciding to save words to the big boss.

“Oh, what’s the matter?” Tatkarov laughed. “No witty comments? No insults? No defending yourself for withholding food from refugees?”

Porter bit his tongue. They were trying to rile him up. Trying to make him give them an excuse to punch his teeth out. Well, he wouldn’t give them the satisfaction.

Though he noticed something odd about this hallway. The tapestries on the wall. The paintings, crammed in by every inch, sometimes eclipsed by stolen statuary that had likely been taken from private galleries with no regard for anyone trying to view them. The hardwood tables and other furniture with various objets d’art crowding every square-inch.

It had been thrown together, cluttered with all the finesse of his little brother when he’d tried to fit all of his stuffed animals on his bed.

But underneath it all, the corridor would have been bare, utilitarian. Though it would have been hard to guess, the hallway surrounding them was bare and clinical. As Porter would expect for a facility like this. It was like this base was trying to be sophisticated through the beauty it was outwardly projecting, but failing because it didn’t understand beauty - it just saw that it had a use.

At the end of the hallway, there was a set of doors - iron-gray, slightly rusted, badly clashing with the works of art lining the hallway. Porter considered this. Why not?

“The boss has been eager to see you,” Tatkarov said. “Seems somebody’s been running raids on his guys. Keeping our meal tickets-”

‘...What?’ Porter thought. ‘The hell? Are they cannibals?!’

He hoped they weren’t, anyway.

“-out of our hands. It’s a thankless job,” Tatkarov finished, singsong, “But somebody’s got to do it.” He held up one hand, and in the high-pitched voice a child might use while holding a stuffed animal they couldn’t use as a puppet, squeaked out through one side of his mouth: “Got to do it!”

‘Who even sings about that sort of thing?’ Porter wondered

Tatkarov held open one of the doors, and threw Porter into the room, almost effortlessly.

It looked like it had been an office of some kind, judging by the windows, the radiator, and the moderately comfortable surroundings. A leather chair - earth leather, not the pony leather HLF were rumored to use - sat behind a large mahogany desk. Various paintings lined the room, and at least one sketch of a man sat behind the armchair.

In the armchair, however, sat a man who did not quite seem to fit in his armor. A Chinese man, maybe in his thirties, with smooth fair skin, brown eyes and short jet-black hair. He was of average height from what Porter could tell, but he definitely gave off an air that he was one to be feared.

He was unmistakable: Feng Gui Zhou. Captives of his would never be released. Rumored to be inescapable. He fashioned himself a warlord, and he had a sadistic streak a mile wide.

“Do you like the sketch?” Zhou asked conversationally. He was so calm and affable, it was rather unsettling. “There was a colt with considerable mouth-drawing talent. I told him I would let him and his family live if he finished the painting. Unfortunately, the guards were too rough with his remaining family, and he died not knowing. These things happen, you understand.”

Porter decided he wasn’t going to humor the warlord, who looked like he wanted to draw a reaction out of him.

“Oh come now, I just want to have a chat,” Zhou said, sounding rather genuinely offended that Porter wasn’t answering him. “I am not rash.”

Porter, even though he hated himself for it, decided to respond. “Fine, I’ll give you a few minutes.”

Zhou amiably smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. He then asked, “Do you ever get that feeling?”

“What feeling?” demanded Porter.

“That this is no longer our world,” Zhou replied. “The human race is obsolete. We are in the middle of being replaced by a bunch of weirdly-colored freaks of nature, who, if anything else, prove that if God exists, He has a lousy sense of humor.”

“If you’re hoping to get under my skin, forget it,” Porter retorted, though privately, he found himself immediately praying the warlord wouldn’t literally take him up on his word. “I’ve faced down scarier motherfuckers than you, Zhou. You’re just small fry compared to the real enemy, and we both know it.”

Nonetheless, the other man’s words had touched upon some hidden, sensitive spot within him. Because in a way, it was true. Firebrand, Blizzard, Aquamarine and Comet, they were his friends, his comrades, almost felt like his family at times. The bond that had grown between them ran deep, deeper than many people came to share in their entire lifetimes. Yet it was this war which had brought them together like that. If there’d been no war, he’d likely have never known them. If mankind had never met the Equestrians, there may have been no war.

“Come now, Mister Stanley,” Zhou said amiably, pouring two glasses of qīng xiāng baiju. “There’s really no need for this macho bullshit. I am not interested in measuring the size of my staff with yours.” He set down on of the glasses on the table in front of Porter. “It isn’t worthy of the true measure of a man. A man is one who doesn’t fear what others think of him.”

It seemed wisest to say nothing in reply to that. Despite the warlord’s calm demeanour, Porter suspected that he might already have said too much. But for the moment, Zhou appeared to make good on his claims, and showed no sign of wishing him harm. Instead, as he sat down with the other glass in hand, beaming, he was looking surprisingly companionable.

“Of course, you do realize I’ve got no intention of letting your geldo friends go,” said Zhou. “Aside from anything else, my people grow easily restless. Perhaps you think our ways are cruel, but it would be crueller still to deny them their fun. However, you are human, and that is a different matter. You understand what’s been taken from my people, what they have lost.”

“Yes,” Porter said quietly, eyes downcast. “But you’ve lost something we haven’t. Not yet.”

Zhou didn’t so much as blink. “Oh, please. As though you’ve never done anything deplorable on your way here. Word travels fast around these parts, you know. That firestorm your little friend unleashed over Erenhot? Yes, I know about that, don’t act so surprised. But I don’t judge you. I know why you did it. Anything’s better than becoming one of them. That doesn’t make it any less horrible.” He took a sip of his baiju. “Here, I suggest you try this drink. Perhaps it’ll help dull the pain.”

Slowly, Porter reached out for the glass. Whatever selection of ghastly demises Zhou may have in store for him, he suspected that poisoning hardly ranked as one. After swilling the contents a little, he brought the glass to his lips. Much to his surprise, the stuff tasted pretty good. Doubtless the warlord kept the best for himself.

“Like it?” asked Zhou. When Porter reluctantly nodded, he smiled approvingly. “Out here, we make do with what we can get our hands on. I’m sorry, it probably isn’t much, compared to what you’re used to from back home. But I’d be a poor host if I had nothing to offer a stranger under my roof. Except for geldos, naturally.”

“I thought you said you didn’t fear what others thought of you.”

The warlord’s smile didn’t falter, but his eye flashed dangerously. “That is most impolite, Mister Stanley,” he said in an oily voice. “Ah, Westerners. The sheer arrogance. Think your white skin makes you so much more special than everyone else, like you’re the chosen people.”

“Look,” Porter replied with an exasperated roll in his eyes, “While I’d love to fool myself into believing there’s some sort of scenario which involves me leaving here without you killing my friends, my pony friends most of all, or you setting me up to kill them myself in order to prove a point, it’s so obviously not going to happen. So can we please cut the bullshit and get to what you really want from me?”

“What I really want from you?” echoed Zhou, with an affectation of surprise. “But isn’t that crystal clear? All I want to do is show you that I’m human, like you are. What, am I supposed to have horns, fangs? I’m not a monster, Porter. Does that thought flood you with disappointment? Break the cozy little narrative of good guys and bad guys I’m sure you’ve built up in your mind?” He paused for another strange smile. “Shows how great the Mint Dyke was at what she did, I guess. Listening to her speak, one almost did think she truly believed in all that bleeding heart talk of hers, about how the true enemy is hatred, how the Solar Tyrant will win unless we stand united. No wonder her madness was so contagious.”

Suddenly, a wave of anger washed over Porter. His fingers tightened around the cup, knuckles growing white. “Don’t you dare insult the Ambassador.”

“The poor, deluded mare,” said Zhou, undaunted. “Can you call it an insult if it’s true?”

“It isn’t true,” growled Porter. “And that’s what people like you will never understand. Ambassador Heartstrings loved the human race.”

“Ah, yes. The human race. But which human race?”

Porter blinked at the odd question. However, before he could comment, the warlord pursued his discourse.

“A gentle, soft-spoken person, your Ambassador Heartstrings. Not made for war, that one, even if she turned out quite good at it. Your Commander Renee’s influence must have played a big part in that. Shame, really. If the world were a different place, I might have even liked her. Remember how I said your machismo bores me, Porter? Ask my men, any of men, and they’ll tell you it’s true – I do have a taste for what’s sweet and delicate.”

As if on cue, Porter heard someone enter through the tent-flap. Reluctant to provoke the warlord anymore than he felt absolutely necessary, he resisted the urge to turn around. Fortunately for his patience, he didn’t need to, as the newcomer marched in and stood themselves to attention at his side. It was a young woman, Chinese by the looks of her, with close-cropped dark hair and a pale constitution.

Then Zhou gave her a nod, and as, after bowing to the warlord, she leant forward to place something on the table, she briefly glanced in his direction, Porter was struck by the look in her eyes. They weren’t pleading, or hateful, or even interested in him at all, none of what he might have expected from a twenty-something woman in this camp. She saw him, and her gaze reflected nothing but utter, cold indifference.

“Thank you, my dear,” Zhou smiled at her. “You may leave.”

After bowing to him once more, the woman obliged. Porter knew better than to watch her depart. Instead, he kept his eyes fixed on what she’d placed at the table. And this was what surprised him most of all. He wasn’t sure what he’d been awaiting. A severed head, perhaps? Or the wings and horns that some HLF liked to keep as trophies? Regardless, this wasn’t it at all. Yet he recognized what lay on the table before him.

‘What the hell is he trying to prove?’ Porter thought to himself. He almost had to wonder if this was some kind of joke.

“You know what this is, don’t you?” asked Zhou, reading his thoughts.

Despite himself, Porter nodded. “Yeah. It’s Venus from Milky Way and the Galaxy Girls.”

Zhou nodded in return. “I thought you would.”

Pink, fuchsia and lavender all over – the demure, ladylike yet energetic figure of Venus, kicking her legs out with cartoonishly oversized feet fitted into a pair of rollerskates, stared back at him through twinkling eyes. Of course he knew what this was. Even without that memorable evening when a drunken Hyong-Jin had started singing the theme tune of the beloved kids’ show, Porter was both young and old enough to remember when it had proven a runaway hit to more than its target audience for people worldwide. One young adult male cousin of his had declared himself as a ‘Stargazer’ shortly before Equestria made contact, he recalled.

“Pretty little thing, isn’t she?” commented Zhou, who was looking thoughtfully at the doll.

Porter glanced at him, taken aback. “Venus? Well, I’d call her cute, I suppose…”

“I wasn’t talking about the doll.”

Now, the warlord’s eyes were fixed on the opening through which the woman had just left. “Her name is Lan. Don’t you think she’s pretty?”

Wherever this was going, Porter was sure that either way, it wouldn’t be good for him. There could be no additional harm in answering honestly.

“Yeah, sure,” he said quietly. “She's very pretty. Rather cold, though, isn’t she? Can I assume you ordered her not to speak with me, or any other prisoners?”

“Surprisingly enough, no,” Zhou said glibly. “She couldn’t care less about you. I don’t need to order her to do anything. Compassion, mercy, it’s already all been hammered out of her. Her mind is set on only one thing, revenge, and her heart is cold, so very cold.”

Porter felt his anger begin to return. “Why, you…” he began in a low, icy voice. “What have you done to her?”

“Now, now, why must you immediately assume I’m the one who did this to her? Shall I tell you Lan’s story?”

There was a new edge to his voice now, one that Porter had known lay under his pleasant demeanour all along. Yet he still found it unsettling to witness the warlord’s façade begin to break.

“Lan started working at fourteen years of age. Working twelve-hour shifts, seven days a week, in a factory where temperatures would rise to over 100° Fahrenheit in the summer. A thankless, sweating job, which earned her less than one American dollar per hour and served her pig food for lunch. At night, Lan and her friends would sleep in filthy, cramped dormitories infested with rats, lice and cockroaches.”

As he spoke, Zhou rose up from his seat, circling around the table which separated him from Porter. The latter remained stock still, his senses on full alert, ready for the blow when it came, as there was no doubt in his mind that it would come very soon. The only question was what shape it would take, and from which direction.

“One day, a fire broke out at her workplace…” the warlord said quietly. “Blame shoddy maintenance for that. Anyway, she and her friends panicked. They didn’t know what to do, the factory managers had never bothered to give them fire drills. Couldn’t waste time and money on their workers’ safety, now, could they? So they tried to escape. Problem was, the emergency exits were locked. Why, I cannot say. Maybe to prevent the girls from sneaking out five minutes for a smoke, perhaps, or just to use the bathroom without having to ask permission. I don’t know. Neither does Lan, to this very day.” Zhou sighed wearily. “So very sad. But do you know what it was all about? For what did those girls have to die?”

Porter Stanley was waiting now. Careful to appear as though he was staring dead ahead, his trained soldier’s eyes took in every little detail inside the tent, keeping a lookout for anything that could help him during the following few minutes. Likely a futile effort, but one should never let one’s training go to waste.

“This.”

Suddenly, a complete change overtook Zhou. With a roar of fury, he upended the table in one swoop, sending it crashing at Porter’s feet. Although his practiced anticipation dulled most of the shock this might have caused him, Porter could only do so much against momentum. The reverberation tipped his chair, knocking him in a rather undignified heap to the floor.

Before he had time to regain his bearings, he felt a rough, iron hand grasp him by the scruff of his uniform. He’d half-expected to hear the sound of a gun being cocked next to his temple, but Zhou seemed confident enough in his current advantage to dispense from threatening him with a weapon. Besides, the warlord was using his other hand to point at something on the ground in front of him.

“That’s the human race I know, Porter,” Zhou hissed, pointing.

The doll had been battered by the table’s fall, yet it was still recognizably Venus. Then Zhou brought down a heavy leather boot onto her face, and the Galaxy Girl was flattened to pieces, no longer identifiable as something meant to appear human-shaped. Porter glimpsed one of her embroidered purple eyes fly out of its socket, the stitching hanging loose from the remains of the head and upper body, which resembled nothing less than a pink-and-red paste beneath the imprint which the boot had left.

“She enters this world, experiences warmth, brightness and color for a few happy years. Then she gets crushed underfoot, sucked dry, is forced to spend her life crawling on her belly. Her body and soul wither... joy and kindness are things she only receives, or gives, in brief, cruelly short snatches of mercy. Yet still I fight for her. What, exactly, are you fighting for? No,” Zhou said sharply, raising his hand in warning as Porter opened his mouth. “You will be quiet. Did you think all this was one of your Hollywood movies? ‘I’ll go to a foreign country, play the hero, and lead them into enlightenment’? Look. For once in your life, just LOOK at what you never really saw before.”

Porter did look. And saw the words written on the sole of Venus’s endearingly large rollerskates.

Made in China.

“This has always been your world, American. You just didn’t know it.”

Porter stared at him for a moment before he began to laugh, catching Zhou off guard with his apparent laughter.

“What’s so funny?” the warlord asked through clenched teeth, clearly not appreciating the American finding some kind of humor in this.

“Oh yeah, it’s ‘my’ world,” Porter said through snorting giggles, though the amusement was far from his eyes. “America controls the world, that old spindle. What’s the word I am looking for? Bullshit.”

“What was that?”

“Well for one thing, and I’ll say straight out, yeah, there’s the whole ‘world police force’ image and all, but really? North Korea and South Korea were at a tense ceasefire until the war was declared, and they would’ve been able to peacefully settle things but then the North got incinerated to a radioactive crisp thanks to you and the Russians. And the Middle East? I mean, man, don’t even get me started on the calamity left there! But at least they were able to put their differences aside, even if they’re also displaced by the Barrier. Funny how the apocalypse can make everyone get their priorities straightened out, and even bring out the best and worst out of people. Their real character even,” Porter finished with a grin.

Porter chuckled as he stared up to Zhou. “No, really. Let me guess… your whole life, you’ve felt like a nobody. And then this war happened and you could finally be a somebody by volunteering in this war and giving into every sick, inhuman thought you’ve ever had and get back at the world for not paying you any attention. Am I right so far?”

A vein twitched in the other man’s neck.

“And you like having an excuse,” Porter continued before he took a look around to study the immaculately decorated tent. “And clearly you're enjoying the whole Bond villain thing going on here. If you were really in the triads like the dossier said, you’d be the messenger boy nobody thought twice about shooting.”

“I was a big man in there!” Zhou snarled.

“If you say so.”

“Don’t you Americans ever shut up?!”

“Our political system is based on who talks best. And you started it.” Porter gave Zhou a small smile, even as the fury on Zhou’s face was mounting. “Don’t tell a military man how this works. Everything not connected to us used to be made in China, before the economy got radically shifted by this little apocalypse.”

“I take back what I just said. One should expect an American to completely miss the point of every… last… thing. Call yourself a good guy, Porter, when your first reaction to what I just told is to smart-ass me? But enough chit-chat,” the look on Zhou’s face was priceless, so far as Porter was concerned. Never before had he seen a man look so purple. “Bring in the horse!”

“What? I’m not into that sort of thing!” Porter joked. “Maybe we should set up a safew–”

Whatever Porter had been talking about there, this wasn't it. His voice trailed off at that incoming sound...

“Hey! Let me go you asswipes!” a brash, yet young voice yelled out. Porter turned to see a small, coal-black unicorn filly with a blue-black mane and a tail with red highlights being dragged from her tail. Her cutie mark was of a yellow ‘flammable’ warning sign.

“What’s wrong, Zhou?” Porter growled as he mocked the self-styled warlord, trying to maintain the deranged man’s attention. “Didn’t like what I had to say?”

“You filthy little shits have been alive long enough!” Zhou proclaimed as he reached down and yanked the filly by her mane. “Especially you, the loudest of the shitstains.”

“Yeah?! Don’t like it when a little filly shows your men-Argh!”

The filly cried out as Zhou shook her roughly. He look down at Porter, a sly smile on his face as he grabbed the filly by the neck and picked her up to head level. He raised his free hand to her face, gently tracing a single finger down from her neck to her belly, slowly tracing circles on her barrel that caused her to freeze up at the touch.

“I wonder how you will taste,” he whispered, gently squeezing her hips and rubbed her mark before moving his hand to her inner thighs, causing the normally brash sounding filly to whimper. “Sending you ponies into the Pit gives the meat of your bodies such... intense flavoring.”

“S-stop,” the filly whispered with growing revulsion and fear, his hands squeezing, working their way lower and lower down her barrel. She gave a small gasp as he pinched her inner thigh, before the man slapped her across the face harshly, causing her to cry out from the pain.

“We learned the longer a pony is alive in the Pits, being tenderized by our hands, the more tasteful the meat becomes.” Zhou chuckled as he gave filly’s ear a long lick, before biting down on it, tears streaming down her cheeks.

“Zhou, you sick fuck, she’s only a kid!” Porter snarled.

“No. She’s a pony,” Zhou said. “Distinctions like that don’t matter for filth like her. Besides, the Pit is where she is going.”

“Pit?”

“An arena for our… guests.” Zhou chuckled darkly, as he tossed the filly to his waiting men, all of them licking their lips as they grabbed her. “She will fight until she dies, then onto the next pony, and the next, and the next. If the guests refuse to fight, then we shoot them both.”

Porter glared daggers at Zhou, the promise of death was clear in his eyes before turning to the filly was crying from her abuse. “What’s your name?”

“Huh?”

“What’s your name?”

“C-coal, Coal Embers.”

“Well Miss Embers, I promise you here and now, they will not lay a hand on you,” Porter promised, only to Zhou tilt his head back and laugh.

“Oh is that so! Tell me. Why is that?”

“Because you are a piece of shit that doesn’t deserve to be called a human. In fact, far as the PER and the Empire are concerned… you’re plenty human. In all the ways they just love cutting out of us,” Porter countered, staring directly into Zhou’s eyes as he said this, causing the entire room to freeze up at the insult he just threw. Porter decided if he was going into the Pit, he would throw all the chips on the table. “Much less a man or a ‘warlord’. Not an inspiring title, I can tell you that. You could go with ‘general, or ‘commissar’, Grand High Wizard, but no, ‘Warlord’. At least try to pretend you want to help.”

“Your PHL called me warlord,” Zhou retorted. “I didn't choose it.”

“Well, I’m sure you’re so offended being called that,” Porter said, rolling his eyes. “What with keeping the title this whole time. I’ve heard the stories of what you’ve done, Zhou. We were told to spend as little time in Mongolia as possible, because of what we heard about you.”

“I protect this land!” Zhou yelled.

“Which is why you’re the only ones left in it,” Porter said. “Clearly. Everyone here’s behind you, very, very far b-”

“ENOUGH!” Zhou roared. “DO YOU TAKE JOY IN PISSING ME OFF?!”

“I know what HLF do to people they call race-traitors,” Porter said coldly, and for a second, Zhou seemed to… stagger. Just the slightest bit. “As long as you’re not enjoying this, then I’m calling that a victory.”

“I’ll at least enjoy what I do to her,” Zhou hissed, something almost reptilian in his voice.

Porter sighed and rolled his eyes. “Fine. I guess I’ll have to channel my inner Katniss and say I volunteer as tribute.”

“Eager to spill your own blood then, I see.”

“First, you would’ve forced my friends out if I didn’t. Second, I think you forgot who I am.” Porter leaned in, smirking. “I am a United States Marine. I am worth more than any and all of your men in any fight. You will be dragging their bodies out of the ring by the minute.”

Zhou snarled as he stormed away huffing, and irritatedly declared, “We will see, won’t we, you mangy dog?!”

“How dare you. For the record, I fancy myself a Maine Coon,” Porter replied in the most deadpan tone possible. Zhou didn’t seem to have heard it. ‘Why is ‘dog’ even an insult, anyway?’ he wondered.

“A rodent?” Zhou asked, pointedly confused. Porter would have found it funny were the circumstances vastly different.

“Maine Coon. That was a good one.”

Zhou did not turn to face the one who’d just spoken. “Miss Cutter,” he said curtly, arms crossed behind his back. “You sound amused.”

“The places humans will go to always amuses me,” said Cutter from behind him. “ You don’t see what a big joke it all is. None of you except a very few. It is pretty funny. Almost cute, yes.”

“Yes, well,” Zhou said through gritted teeth, “you had better start showing results soon. Otherwise I might grow tired of your posturing, and find some way to make you more entertaining…”

“You mean the Pit?” Cutter asked blandly. “Bring it on. Sounds like fun to me.”

“Or I could simply kill you,” Zhou snipped. “That would be less fun, but just as effective.”

He sensed her approaching, though her catlike tread made almost no noise upon the ground. “Okay,” said Cutter, in what, for her, was almost a placating tone. “Perhaps I can amuse you too. Do you want to hear a joke?”

“I am in no mood–”

“Please,” she interrupted. “I think you will like it. Response to the American’s parting shot. Might be good for future use.”

Zhou suppressed a sigh. Cutter’s sense of humor was rather different from most people’s, but she had, all in all, proven herself an unexpectedly valuable asset. If she could make the final delivery on the promise she’d made, listening to her prattle off some punchline in her deadpan, disjointed manner of speech was a small sacrifice to pay.

“Fine, what is it?”

Next to him, the overturned table was picked up by Cutter, seemingly no worse for the wear. “Symbol of the United States. National animal on its seal. What is it?”

“Everyone knows that,” Zhou grumbled, keeping the impatience out of his voice. “It’s a bald eagle.”

The warlord heard a soft ‘thump’ as the table was carefully re-righted, its legs falling gently back to the ground.

“Correct.” Cutter said. Not a turkey. Does look a bit like a turkey, yes. But a turkey is a fat silly bird. Some would say its only real use is food. Not very inspiring as a symbol.” He heard her pause, with the sound of light grains scratchily blowing across woodwork indicating that she was dusting the table. “Only logical choice for America. An eagle. Very proud bird. Very fierce looking.”

Having finished dusting, Cutter marched over to face him. “One person didn’t like it though. Important person, yes.”

“And who might that be?” demanded Zhou.

“Benjamin Franklin,” Cutter said plainly. “He did not like the bald eagle. Called it a bird of bad moral character. Does not get its living honestly. A rank coward. A thief.”

Zhou, glancing down, waited for her to say more, but Cutter remained silent, as though expecting some comment. At last, he spoke up again.

“So… what’s the joke?”

Cutter fixed him with a stare from that piercing ebony gaze of hers, one eye hidden as always behind a straight, olive mane, and he tried not to shudder. Damn these ponies’ uncannily big eyes. They all had them, but Cutter’s felt worse than most, as she never seemed to blink.

“That was the joke.”

‘This mare. This. Fucking. Mare.’

If Zhou had his way, that confidence would’ve been beaten out of her a hundred times over, for the incredible crime of making him feel… like he did before the war. For the crime of being a pony, yes, but most of all, for making them need her. How the horsefuckers like the Marine he’d taken prisoner could bear working with ponies, he had no idea, but he’d come to the conclusion they needed the gluesticks, so they tolerated them.

Surely Porter – and if not him, someone else in the PHL, perhaps another of their prisoners – had to hate the kickstands. It’d just need a push, and the horsefuckers could come swarming into the HLF ranks, come the right… incentives.

“I see…” Zhou said slowly. “Your punchlines need work, Miss Cutter.”

She shrugged modestly. “I know. Never was much of a talker. I try my best.”

“I assume you didn’t come in here just to tell me bad jokes,” said Zhou, an edge to his voice.

The goldenrod mare before him nodded once, sharp, a gesture which, like her shrug, turned out so mechanically, she almost looked just like one of the merry-go-round toys he saw in her and all her accursed kind.

“No,” said Cutter. “I come with a message from Jiangshi.”

Zhou drew in a sharp breath.

“Out,” the HLF man said, holding a large revolver to Khan’s head. His revolver.

“That’s mine,” Khan snarled, looking right into the muzzle.

“That so? I thought this’d be the American’s,” the man said, inspecting it. “Here’s hoping I’m a better owner than you.” Abruptly, he reversed his grip and drove the butt of the pistol into Khan’s jaw.

He fell over, gasping, clutching his face.

“So that thing still works, huh?” the man asked. “Guess I gotta work on my swing.”

“Ack, hey watch it, assface!” Blizzard growled as another man with a bald head roughly grabbed her by her mane. In response to her yelling, the man roughly threw her to the ground and kicked her in the belly.

“Blizzard!” Aitmatov yelled, only to get a boot in the jaw again.

“Ah, look, I think he’s a horsefucker!” another man said in a mockingly sweet voice.

“You hurt Blizzard,” Aitmatov said, from his position on the floor, “And I will paralyze you one limb at a time.”

“Ooohhh, I’m so scared,” the assailant replied mockingly.

“You should be,” Aitmatov snarled, teeth red with blood. “You know how you HLF bastards like to tell the people you have at gunpoint what horrible, gratuitous threat you’re planning on? I’m not going to do that. I’m just going to make it up as I go along. And I am going to do things to you limp-dicked, uncreative little Shluha vokzal'naja that you’ll wish you’d never could have thought up.”

“No,” the assailant said, kicking him in the stomach. “You won’t. And even if you do… right now, I’m the one with the gun.”

Mei Ling, who had also been roughly thrown to the floor, gave Aitmatov a look. ‘Stay calm, we need a plan if we want to get out of this alive,’ she said with that look.

Notably, Firebrand disturbingly wasn’t putting up much of a fight. He looked almost emotionally dead.

“I like ‘em better when they fight,” one HLF woman sighed. “So… boring otherwise. I might as well be cutting up a mannequin otherwise.”

“Otyebis ot menya, yobanaya suka! Yob materi vashi!” Ivan was yelling at the HLF that were dragging him up. It was taking three to restrain him.

“Okay,” the woman said. “That, that’s more like it!”

“Where the hell are you taking us?!” Ivan yelled. “What the hell is this?!”

“Entertainment,” another HLF man answered. “You think you PHL have a monopoly or somethin’? We’re out here, fighting off the PER. We have needs, same as anyone else.”

The hallway opened onto a strip of land not too far from the edge of a huge cliff. Deep below, there was a large assortment of destroyed prefabs, wrecked cars, and twisted metal.

It looked like a short box canyon, more than anything. At the ends of the canyon, there was a fence made of jagged metal and bits of wood, obviously meant to keep people from just running out one end. If the HLF on what looked like bleachers just above the fence didn’t shoot them, anyway. Not counting said bleachers, a wide, magnet-shaped assortment of seats lined the cliffs, providing the HLF of this camp with a view of almost every section of the arena.

The ‘best’ seats, if you could call them that, were awide array of cages hanging by thick, rusty chains over the edge of the cliff. Wretched-looking ponies and humans alike languished inside, trying to shrink back against the bars into what little shade they had.

“Behold the Pit, ladies, gentlemen, and gluesticks,” an HLF woman said proudly.

“FLAWLESS VICTORY FOR SUNTHORN!” an announcer called out from a high tower, her voice amplified through speakers arranged throughout the arena. From what Blizzard could see, she was clad all in leather, studded, arranged with rainbow-colored feathers of random birds, and…

No. They were from pegasi. Despite the heat of the area, Blizzard somehow felt cold. And those spikes… weren’t horns, were they?

“You see ‘em, don’t you?” The HLF woman standing nearby cackled. “Yasemin? We call her the Queen of Obscene, and she won all those. In the Pit, like anyone else. With luck, you’ll be willing to…” she licked her lips.

“COMING UP NEXT,” Yasemin’s voice boomed, “A CHALLENGER FROM THE PHL! LET’S SHOW THIS HORSEFUCKER HOW REAL HUMANS FIGHT, YEAH?!”

And everyone in the stands was all cheering at her proclamation. A heavyset earth pony covered in so much blood it was hard to see the color of his fur, his limbs bent at unnatural angles, was being dragged out of the improvised stadium.

“BUT LET’S HOPE!” Yasemin bellowed, “HE DOES BETTER THAN PLOWSHARE DID AGAINST SRDAN MARTINOVIC! THE MOUNTAIN! OF! MONTENEGRO! SO MUCH FOR EARTH PONY STRENGTH, HUH?!”

A man, not tall so much as large, so wide, so muscled above his wide gut that he looked almost deformed, was posing, roaring, flexing his rippling muscles in the arena. He was looking at one cage that was being steadily winched down into the pit.

The occupant, a wretched-looking creature in tattered fatigues, was shivering.

“Gave the merry-go-round-toy what he deserved!” someone cried out in what sounded for all the world like a Deep South accent from America. ‘A deserter?’ Blizzard wondered. Behind her, Firebird was sluggishly trotting along, eyes and ears drooped downwards.

Overlooking the sides of the cliff were what looked like arena seats. In watchtowers mounted just behind the seats, and on a perch at the top of the hill, were–

“Snipers,” Khan hissed. “In every tower. Just over the ridge. And that’s just the ones I can see.”

“Think I can outfly them?” Blizzard asked.

“One, maybe,” an HLF man said. “The rest? Not so much. Your kind has tried to escape. We never let ‘em.” he licked his lips. “That one…” he pointed to Firebrand. “Probably won’t be doing much of anything.

“Duly noted,” Khan said dryly.

“Um, guys?” Firebrand asked, looking over the edge of the cliff.

“What is i-” Ivan asked, looking over the side. “Khan, Blizzard! It’s Porter!”

“What?” Blizzard asked, fluttering upwards…

Only for an HLF man to point a Kalashnikov at her face. “Don’t,” he said, though clearly he’d enjoy it if she did.

“Oh no,” Mei Ling gasped in dread, voice barely rising above a whisper.

The man in the cage being lowered into the Pit was, indeed, Porter.

“I’VE GOT A MESSAGE FROM THE WARLORD FOR THE MARINE DOWN THERE],” Yasemin’s voice boomed. “HE CAN SAVE HIMSELF AND HIS FRIENDS BY GIVING US THE LOCATION OF THOSE HORSEFUCKERS THAT’VE BEEN PISSING US OFF! OR BRAVE THE PIT?!”

There was a chorus of requests for both. Someone on a balcony jutting out just close enough to Porter’s cage held a microphone to Porter’s face.

“Fuck,” Porter said, in slow, deliberate Mandarin, “You. Those people showed more humanity in an hour than you guys have all year.”

The cage dropped down, a little more unceremoniously than before, and Porter shook, disoriented by the sudden motion, clinging to the bars for dear life.

And then, all of a sudden, it stopped.

“OOH, STIRRING STUFF! BEFORE WE DROP HIM IN!” Yasemin added, “THE OFFER IS NOT NULL AND VOID] JUST BECAUSE YOU SAID NO, PORTER STANLEY! COMING UP HERE IS THE WARLORD, READY TO EXPLAIN IT HIMSELF!”

Porter yelled something rude up at her.

“THE PAIN CAN STOP ANYTIME, PORTER!” Zhou called out from the booth that Yasemin had taken. “YOU JUST HAVE TO SAY WHERE THOSE PHL ARE, AND THE PAIN STOPS! AND YOUR FRIENDS GO FREE!”

Porter flipped him off.

“WHAT’S THE MATTER?!” Zhou yelled. “I THOUGHT YOU PHL WERE ALL ABOUT FRIENDSHIP! YOU’RE SO WILLING TO LET THEM DIE?!”

Porter remained stoic as the cage inched towards the ground. The man-mountain Srdan, muscles so rippling that they seemed wrong somehow, like parasitic growths crawling just beneath his skin, cracked his knuckles.

“Zdravo,” Srdan said. “Zovem se Srdan Martinovic. I break you.”

“Well then,” Porter shot back, “Let’s see you try.”

“So, what’d you see, Comet?” Tatiana asked.

Comet narrowed her eyes to focus, seeming older than a foal her age had any right to look. “There’s… it looks like an arena. Full of cheering crowds. Armed people in what I hope is pre-war leather.” She looked almost sick.

“Dear-god,” Sergei breathed, blending the two words into one syllable.

“Are our friends there?” Aquamarine asked.

“It’s too far away to tell,” Comet answered.

“Can you… can you go back to the hospital? Ask for help?” Yon-Soo asked.

Tatiana shook her head. “We’d die. There’s about four HLF for each one of us. We’ve been pissing them off for the last eleven months or so, so chances are high that they would be expecting us.”

“So it’s up to us,” Sergei said, fingers tap-tapping on his gun. “Doesn’t seem very fair for them, huh?”

He was lying.

Deep down, Sergei was scared out of his mind. And really, so was everyone else. Melnik and Aitmatov claimed to have fought entire armies before, but they’d had backup. They had automatic grenade launchers. They had air support. They had all the advantages of a modern military.

Meanwhile, they were a pegasus filly, a unicorn mare, a woman with a bow and arrow, and then just him and Yon-Soo. Not even close to an army. But… they would do it, anyway. Wouldn’t they.

‘If I left, how often would I look up at the stars and think ‘what would’ve happened if I had just been brave?’ Sergei thought. ‘Someone has to be. For everyone left.’

Everyone was solemnly quiet for a good few minutes, before Comet shrunk back, behind Aquamarine. “I’m scared, Mommy,” she choked out, looking down at the ground in shame.

“That’s nothing to be ashamed of,” Sergei told her.

Aquamarine put a foreleg around Comet reassuringly and replied, “So am I, honey. We all are.”

“If the worst happens, is there… is there an escape route, Tatiana?” Sergei asked.

She bit her lip and replied, “Well… there is this tunnel. It cuts under the wall, it’s kind of cramped, and the wood we use to hold it up… may not be that stable. But it’s what we have. We’ve used it to help get people, ponies and supplies out to the coast. There are people there that will get you over to Indonesia, no questions asked. Best bet you’ve got.”

“But is it safe?”

Tatiana looked to consider this.

Comet looked over at Tatiana, backing away slowly. Aquamarine tapped one foreleg to the ground, impatiently.

“...Yes?” Tatiana asked.

“Tatiana, why did that sound like a question…” Comet said, voice trailing off, not quite asking her new friend.

“Because the HLF have an idea of where we are, now,” Tatiana said. “I’m not sure they won’t have found it. But there’s probably other tunnels and routes if you want to–”

“Look,” Yon-Soo said firmly, looking down at both Aquamarine and Comet. “You two still can go ahead. If this fails, you and Comet can use that escape route to get to the PHL in Indonesia. I’ve heard the president’s been doing great things, you’ll be safe.”

“...Oh. Hell. No,” Aquamarine retorted through gritted teeth. “I’ve lost too much to just chicken out here.”

“And… if we do that, we won’t be with you,” Comet said, looking down at the ground. Her lip quivered as she choked out, “I don’t want to lose you guys too…”

Tatiana took a deep breath, the scowl on her face darkening. “We’ve all lost something dear to us. Me? I’ve lost my home, my parents, my babushka, my old life, my old dreams… and…”

Tears began to spill down her face as she choked out, “Nicholas… And it’s my fault. I should’ve done more.”

They didn’t know what she was talking about, but that story could not have been too different from anyone else’s of losing someone close to the Empire. Many, too many people had been swept up in the madness before the war, and come for new bodies or new lives… only to come out wiped away as a clean slate, their souls and minds gone beyond any recovery.

Doctor Erika Kraber had once postulated that Equestrian agents like Catseye and Jacqueline Reitman’s other lackeys had used suggestion spells and pheromones to convince people to ponify themselves, and in the absence of any other theory, it seemed to make sense. That, and some of the people that had endorsed the potion had once been alternative medicine advocates.

“If you don’t mind me asking, who was Nicholas?” Yon-Soo asked.

“My little brother,” Tatiana answered. “He had a... severe form of cerebral palsy, which made moving around and talking clearly very difficult for him. Worst of all was that it was caused by my mom being exposed to toxins from the local factories in Noril’sk, but working there was the only way she could have supported us. But he never felt sorry for himself over it. Never let it get him down no matter how bad things got. But then that bitch Reitman revealed the potion…” She stopped talking.

It probably went without saying what had happened, Tatiana continued, indicating there was more to this story.

“He saw the ponies, heard all this stuff about how amazing Equestria was, and he was convinced it was some great utopia, free of crime, of prejudice, and sickness. And since his cerebral palsy was caused by Mom’s exposure to pollution, he really believed we could learn something from the ponies. He even became a member of this environmentalist group with a whole bunch of other people and ponies. I should’ve realized it sooner… I should’ve seen something was seriously wrong about it all with the whole Jazmin Carter incident!”

Yon-Soo really wasn’t sure what to say to her. There was no way she really could’ve known, just like Porter couldn’t have known what would happen to Eun-Hee.

She desperately wanted to lash out at something, but only attacked herself.

“You aren’t alone,” Aquamarine said to her reassuringly. “I promise. You couldn’t have known.”

“It still hurts though,” Tatiana said back, sniffling. “But it’s even worse.”

Yon-Soo frowned and raised an eyebrow at that. “What do you mean? What happened to him exactly?”

“Well… it was around the time the Three Weeks of Blood began. I don’t really know exactly what he must have seen or heard, but he just called me out of the blue and he sounded really scared. He said he didn’t have any time to explain, just that something really fucked up was happening and he wanted to get the hell out of the country as soon as possible. To America, the Pacific, anywhere that wasn’t Eastern Europe. I agreed and we planned to meet at the train station…”

“And he never came,” Sergei finished.

Tatiana shook her head and her whole body shook, anger taking over her features. “He was killed by them. He realized the truth, was planning to get out, and they just butchered him like an animal! I found a cop that said he saw his body. The HLF… they saw him halfway ponified, realized he’d been PER, and just...” Tatiana whimpered a little. “You don’t want to know what they did. Halfway between pony and human, anatomy is weird. Nightmarish. They call them… What do they call them in English?”

“Grotesqueries,” Sergei supplied.

“Exactly,” Tatiana said. “Doing an autopsy of one made Bogdan, one of our medics - he’s a former coroner - throw up all over the autopsy table. What the HLF did to Nicholas while he was like that...”

Try as he might, Yon-Soo couldn’t get that image out of his head. He suppressed the urge to vomit from the mental image his overactive imagination was giving him. Yon-Soo shook his head, and concentrated on the here and now. He put his hands on her shoulders reassuringly.

“I’m really sorry for what you’ve lost, Tatiana,” Yon-Soo said to her with utter sincerity. “But you shouldn’t punish yourself for what happened. I know that it hurts a lot. But I don’t think Nicholas would want you to kill yourself over him. He’d want you to keep fighting.”

“I know; it’s what’s kept me staying alive,” Tatiana said, her features hardening as she wiped her face off with her sleeve. “I lost everything to the Empire, and right now, things aren’t really looking too bright. So I figure I’ll go down fighting… and maybe do some decent deeds here and there.”

Aquamarine firmly said to her, “You’ve done more than decent Tatiana. You’ve done good.”

She smiled at that. “Thanks.”

Sergei then groaned and said, “Alright, can we break up the sentimental Oscar moment? We still have friends to save and we’re kind of on borrowed time.”

“Right,” Tatiana and Yon-Soo said in unison, both darting their eyes slightly to the opposite direction when they realized what just happened.

“Alright, I got it,” Yon-Soo said, tone getting back to serious as he took a knee before them all. “So… Tatiana, you said you’ve been able to get around their patrols and sentries for awhile now.”

“Yeah, pretty easy to do since most of them are looking for monsters with bright coats… eh… no offense,” Tatiana awkwardly added, looking at Comet and Aquamarine with a sheepish look.

“None taken. It’s just what they’ve been told,” Aquamarine said.

“How about taking them out?” Yon-Soo asked.

“It can be done quietly, if that is what you mean. I’ve taken out dozens already ever since they set up here.” Tatiana held her bow up proudly.

“How long before they notice they are missing their patrols?” Sergei asked, only to get a snort from Tatiana.

“They didn’t notice they lost four snipers and a patrol team for several days,” Tatiana replied with a satisfied smirk before she chuckled at the shocked expressions on the team's faces.

“What the fu–”

“Sergei!” Aquamarine cut him off with a vicious hiss.

“I mean… yeah I got nothing.” Sergei shrugged at the look Aquamarine was giving him while Comet giggled out loud.

“This is a dangerous area,” Tatiana explained. “As far as they know, there’s PER all over.”

“Moving on,” Yon-Soo pushed on. “Sergei and Aqua, you two are going to go through the tunnels within the Wall, take out whoever is in there and get access to the area. Aqua? You got the sound shield down, right?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Use that to muffle your approach. Hell, put it around Sergei so he can use his pistol and take out people without anyone hearing it.” Yon-Soo turn to Sergei, “I want you to set up an escape, since we will be causing massive havoc once the shooting starts. How much explosives you have?”

“I still have several packs of C4.”

“Good. Use what can to make a hole in the Wall, but use the rest to bring it down ontop of them.” Yon-Soo said, gaining stares from the entire group. “What?”

“You want me to… blow up the Great Wall?” Sergei asked quietly, Yon-Soo blinked and slowly nodded his head.

“Yes, if to cover everyone's escape. I think they would be more happy with being alive than concerned with what happens to the Wall.”

Sergei quickly stood, picked up Yon-Soo and gave him a tight hug. “My friend, I always dreamed of blowing up something of importance, to shock the world and become infamous! You have given me this dream and made it a reality?”

“I worry about you sometimes,” Comet sighed, shaking her head.

“What do you see in him?” Tatiana asked Aquamarine, confused.

“Most of the time he is really sweet,” Aquamarine muttered as she stared as Sergei happily bounded away to his rucksack, Comet trailing after him in flight. “And then there are times like this. I would've been scared of him, but after all I’ve been through, it’s just a quirk I grew to accept. Besides, I'm no better.”

“Why do you say that?”

Yon-Soo explained, “She has to be everyone’s mom here.”

“I do not!” Aquamarine huffed defensively.

Yon-Soo rolled his eyes and replied, “Whatever you say, Team Mom.”

As he stood up, Comet noticed something on the ground. “Hey, what’s that? You dropped something there, Yon-Soo.”

Yon-Soo frowned, realizing it was that piece of paper he’d gotten on the train just days ago. He shrugged and said, “Honestly, I’m not really sure. I just met this really weird man on the train and he left this behind.” As Tatiana picked it up, analyzing it, Yon-Soo asked, “You have any idea what language that is?”

“Beats me,” she shrugged.

Aquamarine stood up on her hindlegs to look at it, her eyes brightening. “I’ve seen this before. In my magic history class. That’s a spell.”

“What kind of spell?” Yon-Soo asked.

“If my memory serves me right… I think it might be for invisibility.”

Sergei quickly said, “Hey, that can work out for us!

“Wait!” Comet interjected. “How did you get this?”

“Well, I have to warn you,” Yon-Soo said, “It will probably just raise further questions.”

“And this is something new how, exactly?” Aquamarine asked.

“Fair enough,” Yon-Soo said with a shrug. “When we were on the train, I took a seat next to this... crazy guy. He looked like a refugee, and his nose was bleeding almost constantly. Talked about some weird stuff too, and… I don’t know. He was speaking…”

He trailed off, struggling to find the right word to describe the experience.

“Cryptically? Mysteriously?” Sergei suggested. “Like he was kinda off his rocker?”

Yon-Soo nodded. “Yeah. Weird thing is, I don’t think he was even human. And then he got up to walk, and he just… vanished into thin air almost. All he left behind was this piece of paper.”

Everyone just looked at Yon-Soo, the expressions on their faces a mixture of shock and disbelief. And yet, at the same time, they couldn’t help but believe him. It was too farfetched to seem like make-believe.

“Sure,” Sergei sighed. “Why not? All this weird, mystical stuff you hear about, oracles, ghosts, other worlds, and it finally happens to us. Of all people.”

“Maybe it’s a sign!” Comet said. “Like a guardian angel or something is watching after us?”

“At this point, I’d have to feel sorry for him,” Yon-Soo groaned with a shake of the head.

“The shit we get up to, huh?” Sergei asked.

“Let’s do this,” Aquamarine said. “We can either… we can sit here talking about it, or…” she shook her head. “The more we think about it, the less likely we are to do it.”

“Alright,” Yon-Soo said with a nod, and a deep breath to steel himself as they headed for the HLF base. “We’re in.”

Author's Notes:

After a little over a year and a whole lot of blood, sweat and tears (well, maybe not blood and sweat, but plenty of tears and hair-pulling), it's finally up!

What to expect next: explosions, action feels, character development and a few "Call Forwards"/foreshadowing to stuff in other stories (particularly Other Side of the Mirror, which the next part should be up... soon-ish).

We're nearing the exciting climax, and a little after that, the epic conclusion where we'll be building up to the main story's final battle!