We dropped Duster off at Dusktown and headed further north on our wagon, this time, with Bone Charm pulling it. Goddesses, was that stallion strong … especially for a unicorn. We weren’t even following a road. Bone Charm pulled us uphill through a broken, rugged path. I couldn’t see the usual wagon lines in the snow – but the earth beneath us was heavily trodden with hoof prints.

The skies had darkened significantly since the last I saw it. I slept for most of the way, and so did Gail. The griffoness, however, was still napping.

I yawned, rubbing my eyes with my forehooves. Looking around, I noticed everyone was still armed. I wondered why we were packing so much heat, given the contract we were pursuing.

Sitting in an alcove in the wagon’s frame was a metal tube. Several rocket propelled grenades rested against it.

“What the hell is that for?”

Night Sky sat up from the wagonbed. “It’s just for diplomacy.”

“Diplomacy?” I glanced at the launcher’s carrying case, reading its label.

I snorted, “Sure. Your kevlar-plated barding really screams ‘compromise’.”

She chuckled, letting out a long, drawn out sigh. “I know you’re new to this wasteland shite, but zeds aren’t exactly the kind of blokes to just lift an ear to us ponies.”

“I’d imagine. We fought a war with them.” I sat on my hind legs, eyeing the labels stenciled on the rockets. ‘HE-I’, I read along the crimson munitions.

“Not we. We never fought them. They’re the ones still fighting us,” Night Sky muttered, closing her eyes.

“Could’ve sworn the war ended 200 years ago,” I murmured. A widening mass of snow covered pines crept closer and closer as the wagon made its way through the snow. “What exactly are we doing out here?”

Bone Charm glanced at me over his shoulder.

“They killed Lumberjack and his colts two weeks ago while they were out looking for firewood,” he muttered in his gravelly voice. “Killed ‘em … even the colts.” Bone Charm shook his head and continued, “One of the boys made it back to town, barely alive. Said that the three of them walked in on a bunch of zebra loggers and got attacked on the spot for trespassing.” Bone Charm’s tone chilled me to the bone. “We’re going to pay them a visit and find the pony murderin’ son of a bitch who done did it.”

I wrapped my forelegs around my chest.

“So the five of us are going into zebra territory with the possibility of provoking more of them ourselves?” I cocked an eyebrow. “That’s smart. You know, there’s bound to be more of them than us. And you make it sound like they won’t just hand the zebra over.”

“That’s why diplomacy’s on our side,” Night Sky chuckled grimly.

I wondered what the ‘HE-I’ stenciled onto its case meant.

Sprinkles loaded a magazine into her assault rifle and drew it across the path in front of us. “They come to our land, our Equestria, hallowed by our dead, plant their flag down, and settle it when everypony’s gone. Then, on top of that, they go around killing anypony else that so much as breathes their air.”

My jaw clenched at that. ‘Just what I needed to hear,’ I thought, ‘More pony killing monsters.

I looked out into the distance. ‘Is this what Equestria’s come to?’

I wondered if the zebras in our textbooks were true: striped, red eyed, shark-toothed killing machines. The last part, at least, seemed to match Sprinkles’ description.

“They sound no better than the snow furies,” I sneered bitterly.

Night Sky met my dark eyes. “I’d say it’s about time we taught those grotty little shites a lesson.”

She leaned against the wagon’s frame. “We ponies just want to survive out here without stepping on anyone’s feet. The bloody zeds have raided Dusktown’s shops in the past, and I’m not about to let those striped fucks make our lives harder than they already are.”

A plume of smoke drifted lazily into the sky above the pine trees in the distance. We were near.

I counted the rounds in my magazine.

“Let’s find this bastard.”

The others were silent after that, loading their weapons. I poked Gail with a forehoof and she shook herself into lucidity.

“We there yet?” she yawned, putting on her battle saddle.

Night Sky got to her hooves and peered over Bone Charm’s mane. I frowned, an incredulous look stretching across my face. I expected the same weather-beaten, corrugated masses that made up Dusktown’s buildings.

But before us was a small circle of gnarled, wooden cabins surrounding a smoldering bonfire. There wasn’t a single mote of light in those cabins. I would have thought the zebra village were dead if there weren’t equine shapes milling about outside in their tattered, inadequate clothes.

The ramshackle village was overshadowed by an icy cliff face that stretched its wind-swept boulders over their shacks, like a roof that was halfway there.

The zebras noticed our final approach. I expected a hail of bullets. Instead, they scurried inside their homes, slamming their doors shut. A zebra mare herded her foals inside her cabin, meeting my baffled stare for the briefest of moments before slamming the door closed behind her.

“Arses out,” Night Sky ordered as the wagon came to a stop just outside the village. "Let's get this over with and get paid." The mercs dismounted, Bone Charm shaking off the wagon’s harness before rummaging through the wagon.

I kept my eyes on the village, chills running down my spine at how empty and dilapidated the shoddy buildings looked. Not too far from our wagon and underneath the shadow of the cliff face, were several rows of lonely gravestones.

While everyone else was grabbing their weapons, I just stood there, unsure of what to do with myself. I turned to look at Gail, and saw that her eyes were devoid of … of anything in particular.

Everyone had this grim, glazed over look that sent shivers down my spine.

“Bonehead, I want you up on that cliff with the RPG. Gail, circle the village from the air. Both of you know what to do,” Night Sky said chillingly. She turned to face me. “Red Dawn, you and Sprinkles are with me.”

She glanced over her shoulder as a group of zebra stallions came out of the cabins, regarding us expectantly. “Bonehead, Gail, take your positions. You two –” She nodded at Sprinkles and I. “Follow my lead.”

I gulped as we slogged through the knee-deep snow. I hoped I wasn’t wrong. I hoped those zebras were feral beasts, just waiting to murder us when we turned our backs on them or looked away. They just stood there, shivering with dark looks in their eyes as they watched us approach.

We trotted up to the largest of the cabins, with an entourage of zebras waiting for us on its front porch.

“Wotcher, zeds!” Night Sky grinned, trotting up to the mob.

A middle-aged zebra stepped forward. “Not too close, pony!” he growled. The other zebras brandished underappreciated handguns and warped blades.

“Whoa there lads, we’re just here to find someone we’re looking for.” Night Sky’s foreleg twitched visibly as her hoof almost reached for her assault rifle.

The zebra in charge, I assumed, narrowed his distrustful eyes at the heavily-armed mercs.

“There were five of you when you came.”

Sprinkles gave him a shady grin. “Oh they’re still here, don’t you worry ...”

The zebras shifted uncomfortably on their hooves. A younger stallion who looked about my age shifted his gaze away from me in fear. I wasn’t even visibly armed.

“I think you zebras know why we’re here,” Night Sky began, taking a few steps towards the group. Most of them glared at her menacingly. A few of them took a step back. “One of you zed bastards killed a few ponies from Dusktown. Murdered a stallion and his two boys. I was hoping you’d tell me where I could find him?”

Zebra Leader’s jaw clenched. The others looked at him, but no one said a word.

Night Sky scoffed, “Seeing as how you zebras don’t like to mingle, I can’t think of anywhere else he might be.”

Their leader looked at his hooves, shaking his head, slowly.

“He’s here,” he said, in a quiet voice.

"Oh yeah?" she chuckled. Night Sky looked somewhat relieved, as if she took a difficult job only to have the workload halved. “We’re here to take him into custody.” Her expression blackened. “He’s coming with us.”

The zebras exchanged grim-faced looks as their leader shook his head.

“He did nothing wrong, and he is not going with you ponies.”

My eyes caught a black shape at the top of the cliff, a long tube like weapon hovering in the air beside it. A winged silhouette circled above us like a carrion bird.

“I don’t think you quite understand,” Night Sky began, evenly. “I didn’t ask.”

The aged stallion stomped his hoof in the snow, the stallions behind him jeering at us in their alien tongues. “And I said no! He didn’t attack them.” He narrowed his eyes at us. “He was carrying home firewood when those thieves threatened to steal them!”

I shifted on my hooves.

“That isn’t the story I heard,” I said out loud. The zebras looked at me with distant hope in their eyes. Night Sky and Sprinkles just glared at me.

“Remember that these aren’t your trees, zebra," Sprinkles shot him a baleful look that spelled out murder. “That firewood didn’t belong to him.”

“Fuck you ponies!” a stallion shouted, stabbing his shotgun into the air. “Leave us alone!”

Another jutted a foreleg at us accusingly. “You take, and take - you leave nothing for us!”

“These trees, this land – it belongs to neither of us,” Zebra Leader said, sweeping his foreleg across the trees. “We cannot survive this winter without fire. These trees keep us alive - and you can’t deprive of us of what isn’t yours.”

Night Sky grew impatient. “I don’t give a shite about your trees – I want that zed, and I want him now!” she snarled, baring her teeth.

“No,” he told her, evenly. “He hasn’t done anything wrong. Go back to your Dusktown and be happy that nobody else had to die. Leave us alone, and do not come back.”

“Night Sky …” I murmured, noticing the foals staring at me through the windows.

She shook her head, smirking. “I’m no goody horseshoes, zebra. I’m a mercenary, and I’m getting my caps either way.” Night Sky snorted, craning forward her neck and smiling wickedly. She said, in a low voice, "Don't make us take him from you.”

The zebra stallion did not take that kindly.

“You … you would kill us?” he began, his voice trembling. The zebras crowded around him, baring their teeth. “Don’t be foolish, pony!”

To my shock, my eyes widened as the zebras stood up on their hinds and walked toward us – something I’ve never seen a pony do for more than a few seconds – aiming at us with the weapons curled between their hooves.

I gulped.

“You ponies wouldn’t dare!” a stallion snarled, brandishing a rusty axe as he strode towards us on his two hindlegs.

I took a step back.

“They are outnumbered – we kill them now!”

“Oo – patayin natin sila!” said another agreeably, glaring at us.

Zebra Leader held out his forehooves and held his kin back. “Hindi! No one else needs to die.” He turned to us, pleadingly. “Don’t do this, ponies, it isn’t worth it! Think of our foals!”

“I’m going to ask one more time," Night Sky said, nonchalantly. She hoofed her assault rifle, undaunted by the zebras who each now stood an entire head taller than us. Sprinkles did the same. “Give us the damned zed, and we’ll be on our way.”

My breaths were shallow and far in between as they stared gravely at one another, murmuring in their alien tongues. Just when I thought it was going to end in a bloodbath, a young stallion pushed past the zebras.

“It was me,” a mare’s trembling voice murmured. I narrowed my eyes at her. ‘Her?’

Her zebra kin shouted at her, trying to pull her back.

“Grasya!” the elder stallion yanked her away from us.

The young mare shrugged him off, standing at the edge of the porch.

Goddesses.

She didn’t look older than fifteen or sixteen.

“Just take me with you and don’t hurt anyone else … please. Let’s stop this madness.”

The zebra leader gawked. “No, you are not going anywhere!” he shouted, stepping in front of the zebra. He held her close. “You know what they will do to you!”

Night Sky grew impatient. Her voice trembled with mounting frustration. “Hand her over, now, and we’ll be out of your mane,” she ordered. Sprinkles looked like she was fighting the urge to pull the trigger.

“Look around you, you ponies! See our village – see our poverty! Have you no shame, living in your Dusktown while we freeze to death in the snow?” he snapped. “Too many of us died this winter, and if we lose any more … when the Tempest comes … our village will surely die! We have too many tools and not enough zebras to use them.” He wrenched Grasya away with a forehoof. “You’re taking from beggars, can’t you see?”

Night Sky and Sprinkles looked at each other in exasperation. They didn’t care.

“Leave our village – leave, and don’t come back!” the zebra growled.

The mercs chambered rounds into their rifles.

One of the zebra stallions racked his shotgun’s slider.

“NO!” Zebra Leader shouted to the others as they started forward. “Huwag mo silang patulan!” But his words did nothing to calm them. “This is what they want! Don’t give it to them!”

The zebra shouldered his shotgun.

Zebra leader flung his forehooves in front of him. “NO -”

Night Sky tipped her head to the side.

CRACK!

My heart skipped a beat.

The zebra’s head exploded in a shower of bone and gore.

Warm chunks splattered across my face.

An explosion ripped through the hut behind them, and I watched as the night turned to day. The jarring shockwave blasted apart its walls and tore down its ceiling, hurling zebras off their hooves. Grasya’s eyes widened at me in horror. I watched as she disappeared beneath the collapsing debris.

I opened my mouth to scream – and Night Sky and Sprinkles sunk their triggers back.

The zebra with the shotgun convulsed – screaming, ragged, bloody holes exploding across his entire body. He took a bleeding step forward before his chest blew out in a splash of gore, Gail’s black form sweeping over us.

“Stop!” I shrieked over the gunfire, blood streaming down my face as the zebras collapsed into the melting, crimson snow. “STOP!”

But they didn’t.

Zebras stumbled out of the flames. Their coats sloughed off and their manes burned away with every step they took, collapsing to the snow to smolder and smoke like discarded, overcooked heaps of meat. Those who made it out in time before the fires could engulf them galloped away from the inferno to safety.

But Night Sky swung her rifle wide to meet them. She mowed them down. Every single one of them.

The mercs cut them down with short, controlled, well-placed bursts.

It was target practice.

It was a massacre.

I covered my ears with my hooves and sank into the snow, shrieking my throat raw. But my voice and hooves alone couldn’t drown out their horrifying, agonizing screams as everyone burned and died around me.

Everyone. Burned. Butchered.

All the while, explosions ripped across the village. Some tried to flee, only to be crushed beneath the rubble – or gunned down as they fled. Others simply ceased to exist as Bone Charm sent rocket after rocket shrieking into the village.

And another, and another.

CRACK!

Another zebra to feed the flames.

Something broke apart inside of me. The world around me seemed to quake as a scream fought its way to my throat.

“WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS!?” I wailed, tackling Night Sky to the ground.

“Get the fuck off me, Red Dawn!” she screamed, bucking me off of her.

“You killed them!” I howled, galloping after her with my horn bowed forward. “YOU FUCKING KILLED THEM –”

She sidestepped and held out a foreleg – and I slammed muzzle-first into the snow. I rose to my haunches. And stayed that way. Wicked firelight danced across my blood-drained face.

A cabin exploded to my left, showering my huddled form with gravel and debris. Small shapes scrambled out of it as its roof began to collapse.

The mercs turned to face them.

My heart nearly skipped a beat.

‘No.’

Night Sky lifted a hoof.

And the foals scrambled away, shrieking into the night. One of the fillies stopped outside the porch as her brothers and sisters fled into the darkness.

The gunfire stopped. Heads turned. We watched in suffocating silence as a zebra mare, charred from head to toe, stumbled out of the cabin.

Her eyelids were fused shut. And yet she knew when she heard her daughter’s voice.

She fell to her haunches beside to her, saying not a single word as the filly wrapped her little legs around her mother’s charred trembling body. She wept, burying her muzzle into her mother’s blackened, flaking coat. I watched as the mare with the burned out eyes slowly drew her daughter close and squeezed her tight, her shoulders rocking with agonizing sobs.

The filly threw her head back and let out an anguished wail that shook me to the core. She hugged her mother close. Her mother … butchered and cooked like a piece of meat.

She screamed until she screamed her throat raw. She screamed until her mother’s trembling legs stilled. Until her mother’s limp body slumped into snow.

Dead.

Another zebra to feed the flames.

All around me, the hellish inferno devoured the town, painting my coat white with its cruel glow. I stared into the flames with watery eyes and the flames stared back, the dying shrieks of zebras echoing distantly in my ears.

The flames told me that I was wrong.

Night Sky told me that I had to be willing to do anything I could to survive … but not like that! Goddesses, not like that! Those zebras – they had sons and daughters and husbands and wives – those mercs – those monsters were no better than the snow furies that slaughtered my friends!

How could I have just stood there and watched!? I watched as those monsters slaughtered everyone, and even then, my hooves were drenched with their blood.

I knew then that there was something monstrous about people who did nothing. People who did nothing as evil carried out its work.

I … could have done something. But I didn’t.

I just... watched.

‘… you’ve got to do what you need to do, Red Dawn,’ Night Sky’s voice echoed in my thoughts. ‘Maybe even if that means you live and some poor sod doesn’t …’

‘Whatever it takes…’ I heard myself say.

I clamped down on my pistol’s mouth bit and leveled it at Night Sky, toggling SATS. ‘I won’t be like her!’ I screamed inside of me, ‘I won’t let the wasteland turn me into a monster!’

Night Sky’s weapon flashed sluggishly as glowing teal crosshairs coalesced before my eyes. I watched. The world seemed to slow … and so did the zebra on the other end of Night Sky’s assault rifle. Tracers speared through her body as she tipped forward, threatening to topple into the drifts.

I mashed all my SATS charges and tagged Night Sky’s fucking head until they were spent, my tears glistening in the fiery glow.

My firing solution was true. But my conscience was not. My body tensed, and I hesitated. I simply couldn’t do it.

It was no use. I’d join the zebras if I did.

I let go.

I let go, and watched the zebra tumble end over end into the snow in a heap, leaving a ragged trail of blood behind her. Blood pooled around her, her legs twitching uncontrollably as she perished. Then nothing.

It was over.

We were done.

And so were the zebras.

Only the moaning of crumbling, burning wood remained. I stood there, unable to move, unable to rationalize what those ponies did.

I fell to my haunches, my crooked shadow billowing across the snow. Bathed in the cruel firelight, my conscience cried out in purgatory.

Gail crunched her paws into the snow behind me. The shadow of her winged form engulfed mine.

“Ready for Poneva, Red?” she asked, cheerily.

I crawled across the snow to the zebra mare that Night Sky gunned down. She was still breathing, taking ragged, shallow breaths as she teetered on the edge of life and death. I knelt over her, cradling the mare’s head in my hooves.

“I’m … I’m sorry ...” I whispered, holding her gently as she sputtered and choked. She pawed desperately at my cheek with a hoof, smearing her blood across my face. “I didn’t know. I didn’t know they’d do this … I’m not a monster … I’m not like them … please …”

I felt her hoof grasp my collar, her grip withering away as the seconds beat by with the waning pulse of her dying heart. We locked gazes for the briefest of moments.

Then the mare gurgled through a mouthful of blood. Her fluttering brown eyes met mine before they blinked for the last time. They stared back, lifeless and blank as I held her limp corpse.

Dead.

I hung my head low, trembling uncontrollably.

“What’ve you done … what’ve you done Gail? What’ve you people done …”

She didn’t answer me, her white feathers glowing a fiery orange.

“Was it worth it? Was it worth the fucking caps?”

She looked at her feet.

“You’re right … you’re no victim, Gail,” I said to her, my voice faltering. The griffon came to me, resting her claws on my shoulder. I shook her off, standing to my hooves.

“You’re a monster.”

She turned her head away from me, gazing into the flames. "I … I ..." her voice trailed off into silence.

I left her, trudging away from the funeral pyre.

Goddesses. I believed in them. I believed that they were right, that anything was worth doing to survive ... even if it meant that people died and I lived.

‘Was this what it took?’ I asked myself. ‘Was this going to be my life?’

I didn't know anymore.

But Night Sky was right about one thing: I couldn't escape it. That wasn't going to be the end of it. I realized then that if the wasteland didn’t kill me, it was going to kill my soul.

I followed them that far.

And that was as far as I was going to go.

‘Anywhere but here. Goddesses … anywhere but here.’

Footnote: Level up.
New Perk: Rapid Reload – All of your weapon reloads are 25% faster than normal.