Chapter 7: Strange Friends, Stranger Places

My mane crawled, and I shivered as a chill worked its way up my spine. “Not nearly enough to make me comfortable about what I imagine you’re about to ask of me.” I nickered and pawed at the floor of the train car with a hoof. “The Enclave seized the resources of all high-altitude stables years ago, long before my time. I’ve never been a part of a recovery operation.”

“Don’t need you fer recovery,” the griffoness said, leaning over her desk to grab the sleeve of my flight jacket and wrench my leg upward so that the patch was within my field of view. “I need you fer this.”

“Wha… recon?” I said, dumbfounded. “You want me to reconnoiter a stable?”

“Somethin’ like that,” the old bird said as she released me and sat back in her chair. As I adjusted my jacket, she rested her forelegs on the desk, tenting her talons and glaring over them at me with a single, unblinking eye. The other was pinched shut, the eyelid marred by a brutal scar that ran down the side of her face and across her beak. “I’ve recently caught word of a stable nearby. It’s one of the high-altitude stables you mentioned a minute ago—built into the depths of a mountain. Now, what I’d like t' do is keep this a secret from certain individuals that I happen t' be affiliated with. I need a neutral party. A person… unconnected with any major organization fer this job.”

“Why?” I asked, narrowing my gaze. “What could you possibly gain from sending me into a stable to scope it out?”

“That ain’t none of your concern, pony,” the old bird growled, clacking her beak angrily. “All I need you t’ do is get in there, check the place out and give me the breakdown when you get back.”

“And suppose I refuse unless you decide to level with me?”

“I don’t have a problem tyin’ you up like a little pig and tossin’ you back up through the cloud cover, you cocky little punk,” the griffoness snarled, slapping both claws down on her desk and rising to her feet. “Seem t’ remember you mentioning bein’ a fugitive? If you really are on the lam, I’m sure yer people would love t’ get their grubby hooves on you again.

“You’re mine, little pony. Understand? You work fer Gawd, so don’t expect t’ go anywhere until you’ve completed this job fer me. Once our contract is complete, you’re free t’ go on your way. You want t’ shoot at some griffons? Fine. Go shoot at griffons that don’t work fer me. Maybe pay Red Eye a visit if you’re feeling lucky.”

I seethed quietly for a moment, grinding my teeth angrily and feeling my ears reflexively twitching out of irritation. She didn’t really have me over a barrel, did she? There had to be a way out of this, something I wasn’t seeing…

I cracked a toothy grin as the solution to my problem came to me.

“All right, fine,” I shrugged, my wry smile still turning up the corner of my mouth. “I’ll do your stupid recon work. If all I have to do is trot through an empty stable and report my findings, I’ll be on my way again inside the better part of an hour. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna get right to it. I’m a busy pony and I have things to do.”

“Reggie…” the old griffoness sighed impatiently as I turned my back on her.

At her mother’s suggestion, the adolescent griffoness moved to impede my path, blocking the door with her large frame and stopping me with a beefy palm to the chest. “Not so fast, pal.”

Before I could inquire as to what their problem was, Gawd—if that was her actual name—had slipped out from behind her desk and stomped over to where I was standing by the door.

“What, you think I’m stupid?” Gawd asked, and cut me off as I opened my mouth to fire back a snippy response. “If you think I’m just gonna let you walk out that door, you’ve got another thing coming. What’s stoppin’ you from takin’ off the second you’re outside? I need collateral—somethin’ important you won’t be caught dead without.”

I was so dumbfounded that she’d seen right through my plan that I wasn’t able to duck as Gawd’s claw reached towards me. The griffoness seized the ScoutBuck and tugged it roughly free of my ear, holding me at foreleg’s length as I tried and failed to snatch it back. “This looks pretty valuable. You can have it back once I get what I want.”

“I need that, you can’t take that!” I protested adamantly.

“We’ll hang on to your guns, then.”

“But what if there’s…” I hesitated, feeling a little foolish that I would even think such a thing. “What if there are… things in the stable? Hostile targets? I’ll need my guns to protect myself.”

“Well, pick one or the other or give me somethin’ equally valuable t’ hold as collateral. What’s so important about this stupid thing that you can’t part with it fer a couple hours?” Gawd asked, turning her head sideways so she could fixate her lone piercing eye on the device. “Is it some kinda Enclave gizmo?”

“It’s my navigation system,” I said simply, not willing to reveal any more of the ScoutBuck’s abilities, lest the greedy mercenary decide to keep it for herself. “If I don’t have it, how am I going to find my way to the stable and back? Or is this whole thing just a snipe hunt that’ll wind up getting me killed? Stars know you wouldn’t care if I dropped dead right here.”

“I won’t lie—I really don’t care what happens t’ you one way or the other,” Gawd said. “But I’m damn sure not settin’ you up t’ fail. If I send anyone else t’ check out that stable, I’ll be drawing suspicion t’ myself. With you, I can get away with it easily.

“That said, if this is how you’ve been traveling from place t’ place without gettin’ lost, I think one person can probably slip outta here without arousin’ any suspicion. Reggie will show you the way—I don’t want to hear it, Reggie,” Gawd snapped as the young griffoness opened her beak to argue. “Show the pegasus t’ the stable and get back here pronto, am I understood?”

“Yeah, Mom…” Reggie sighed miserably in a vibrant display of reluctant obedience. Turning to me, she locked a claw around my foreleg like a vise and dragged me roughly out of the train car. “Let’s go, you little twerp. I ain’t got all day.”

“Hey!” I snarled as I tripped and fought to get my remaining three hooves underneath me. “Get your damn claws off me, I can walk just fine! You’re only making it more difficult for me to balance!”

“Tch, do you always whine this much?” Reggie scoffed as I wrenched my foreleg out of her grip. “Here, take your damn weapons back. Don’t try anythin’ funny or I’ll gut you like a damn fish.”

My stomach churned nervously and I shuddered at the memory of Garrote’s eviscerated entrails, but I accepted my effects from the griffoness and set to re-equipping them.

Reggie leered at me with a raised eyebrow as I worked my way into my battle saddle, though I pretended not to notice the odd look she was giving me. I cinched up the strap around my chest nice and tight, checking to make sure the bridle was within easy reach and giving my wings an experimental test flap to ensure that I had proper clearance. Only when I was sure that everything was in order did I raise my eyes to meet hers.

“You’re kind of a freak, aren’t you?” When all I gave her in return was a disgusted scowl, she took it upon herself to elaborate. “Your wi—”

“I know what you mean, now drop it before I slap the taste out of your mouth,” I snapped testily. “I’ll be damned if I’m going to stand here and be judged by a griffon.”

“Oh jeez, whatever,” Reggie huffed, sighing in exasperation and rolling her eyes. “Just see if you can keep up, freak.”

“This has not been a good start to my life down here,” I muttered as Reggie lifted off and began to gain altitude. I followed suit, launching into the air and putting on a sudden burst of speed to rapidly close the distance between us. Reggie didn’t wait for me to catch up, and instead flew off in the direction of a small mountain range in the distance when I drew near. “Two separate circumstances of having my stuff held hostage is a dangerous precedent. In the same day, no less,” I continued unabated.

“So what the hell is yer problem with us, anyway?” I turned with a start at the abrupt lurch into conversation, noticing that I was no longer on the griffoness’s tail. I’d been so caught up in my own thoughts that I’d missed her braking to slide back high and just off of my right wing. “Nobody just up and opens fire on complete strangers without any provocation. Are you some kinda psycho or somethin’?”

“I really shouldn’t have to explain this to you,” I sighed. “Enclave ponies hate griffons, and griffons hate Enclave ponies. That’s just the way it is. The way it’s always been.”

“Nuh-uh,” Reggie said, shaking her head dismissively. “There’s gotta be more to it than that.”

“If you have to know, my dad lost partial function in his right wing to a griffon’s talons,” I growled impatiently. “Ever since then, he’s been a crotchety, miserable old asshole. My mom told me that he used to be a lot like me when he was younger. Easygoing, cocky, the life of the party. Now he’s just a jaded old dinosaur hell-bent on making everything more difficult than it has to be. Your kind ruined my father. You ruined my life.”

“How old are you, again?”

“Older than you, why does it matter?” I sneered.

“Because you have the attitude of a spoiled little cub, that’s why,” Reggie shot back. “Did you ever grow up? What kinda grown stallion blames a whole race of people fer his father’s attitude? What kinda grown stallion blames his father fer ruining his life, fer that matter? You’re more of an immature little punk than I am, an’ I’m younger than you. That’s sad, pal.”

“Piss off, catbird.”

“It’s a damn good thing my mom needs this job done, or else I’d break you in half like a little twig and tell her you had an ‘accident’ en route to the stable.”

“Lucky me,” I said with a roll of my eyes.

Following a dark glare from the griffoness, I made the very wise decision to keep my mouth shut for the rest of the flight. Reggie soared on ahead now that she had nothing more to ask of me, and in all reality probably wanted nothing to do with me at all. I made a mental note to at least try and curb my hostility a smidge. Dad had almost been eviscerated by these chimeric savages, and the same could very well happen to me if I wasn’t careful. I didn’t have my friends to help me out when I shot my mouth off anymore.

Thankfully the awkward silence didn’t have to stretch on for long. A sudden motion by Reggie drew my attention, and I entered into a shallow dive to follow. We were fast approaching a craggy mountain with dull grey features that were a perfect match for the overcast skies. Reggie’s target was a small, roughly-hewn cave entrance high on the mountain, located at a spot somewhere in the neighborhood of three-quarters of the way up.

I caught up to Reggie as she paused to hover in place just outside the cave entrance and drew up just beside her. I tried peering into the cave mouth to assess any potential danger, but it was a futile effort. The dim light making its way through the cloud cover only managed to illuminate a small patch of rock about a meter into the tunnel.

Well. This would be interesting, for sure.

“This is it,” Reggie said simply, and turned her back to leave. “Have fun.”

“Wait, that’s it?” I said, turning to give the griffoness a look of utter disbelief. “You’re just gonna dump me right here at the entrance and leave?”

A startled cry escaped my lips when Reggie’s claw suddenly shot out and seized my neck. Powerful digits wrapped around the lean muscle of my throat, razor-sharp talons digging into my skin just deep enough to cause discomfort. I could feel incredible tension in those claws. Reggie could have very well crushed my windpipe like a paper cup. Instead, she merely yanked me through the air to press her forehead to mine and glare hatefully into my eyes.

“I ain’t got time to show you around,” Reggie snarled, and I shivered when I heard a guttural growl rumbling in her chest that underlined her words. “I’m supposed to show you where the place is and get back ASAP. It was risky enough having me show you the way here. The whole reason we’ve never scoped the place out on our own is because we don’t want anyone else to know about it. Now get in there and do what you’ve been told to do.”

The next thing I knew, I was sailing through the air. Being caught off guard afforded me no time to start flapping, and pain flared up in my shoulder as I landed roughly on the uneven cave floor and tumbled to a stop.

“Call me 'catbird' again and I’ll tear yer intestines out and use ‘em to choke you to death,” Reggie yelled into the cave before departing. Touchy.

I pushed myself up and glanced over at the shoulder that had taken the impact. The fabric of my jacket had torn open on a jagged piece of rock on the cave floor, likewise leaving behind a nasty scrape. I sighed and held a hoof to stem the bleeding until it could clot on its own. I’d landed at the mouth of the cave, and I turned to gaze down its length at the enormous cog-shaped door that sealed the stable.

I really, really didn’t want to go in there. Naturally I didn’t have a problem with being indoors, but the interior of a stable was indoors to the nth degree. The very thought of being trapped underground with thousands of tons of rock pressing at me from all sides was enough to turn my stomach. What if a support failed? I’d be crushed into such a fine particulate my body wouldn’t even be identifiable by the best medical examiners alive.

I hesitated for a moment, taking a deep breath before placing one hoof forward. “I… I can do this. I have to do this. I don’t have any other options right now.” Fighting the impulse to start hyperventilating, I made my way towards the door one step at a time. My eyes were locked to the ceiling the whole way, half expecting a stalactite to dislodge and smash me into a messy little pegasus pancake.

To my immense relief, I made it all the way to the stable door without sustaining grievous bodily harm. A glance at the massive steel door revealed a scuffed and faded number 18 painted in yellow numerals upon its center. Reaching over to a nearby control panel, I rested my hoof on a large switch and hesitated. What if the occupants had gone insane from being cooped up for two centuries, and they rushed out to murder the first thing they set eyes on? What if they didn’t want to leave the stable, or thought I had ill intent at heart and they shot me just for opening the door? What if the door opened and poisonous gas poured out and suffocated me? What if…

I shook my head. No. Those were stupid thoughts. At best, the stable would be perfectly preserved and the occupants relieved to see that ponies still lived following the Great War. At worst, everypony within had run out of supplies to keep themselves alive and had perished long ago. Without another moment’s hesitation, I threw the lever forward.

A klaxon began to blare from inside the stable before quickly dying with a pitiful squeal, and with an ear-piercing screech of metal on metal that set my teeth on edge, the enormous cog slid inward and rolled to the side.

Reluctantly, I plodded into the stable’s antechamber with my head hung and my ear drooping, my fears already partially confirmed by what I saw. The interior of the stable was dead silent except for the constant drip, drip, drip, of a leaky pipe from somewhere deep within. Air rushed past me as the pressures between the stable’s interior and the outside equalized, carrying with it the acrid tang and musty dampness of rust and mildew. This place hadn’t been occupied for a long, long time.

I took a breath of the stable’s stale, heavy air and a sense of palpable dread hit me like a freight train. Why couldn’t I catch my breath? Oh stars, I was breathing poisonous gas, wasn’t I? The floor beneath my hooves lurched and I grabbed a nearby railing to keep from falling over, panting like I’d just run a marathon. The room around me was spinning now, and I gasped as the walls began to close in around me. I had to get out! I had to get out before I got smashed to bits!

I ditched the railing and bolted for the open stable door, wobbling unsteadily towards the cave tunnel in an erratic zig-zag pattern. My hoof caught a groove at the threshold meant for the stable door’s passage and I tripped, landing flat on the rough, cold stone of the entrance tunnel. My battle saddle’s straps were suddenly uncomfortably tight and I fumbled with them in my panic, throwing the heavy assembly off of my back and tearing my jacket off soon after.

Only when my bare coat was exposed to the open air was I able to catch my breath, and I took it in with huge gulps like a pony on the verge of drowning. I spent the next several minutes breathing as if I’d never get the chance to again. I didn’t snap out of it until a chill blew through the cave and gently rustled my feathers, mane and tail. No longer fueled by adrenaline, my hindlegs quivered and gave out beneath me. I plopped down on the cold stone floor, shivering at the cool breeze.

I shot a suspicious glance over my shoulder at the stable’s antechamber. It looked just as it did when the door had opened. None of the walls had compressed like a massive trash compactor and the floor was as level as level could be.

I shivered again and scooped up my jacket, pausing after I’d fed only one leg through a sleeve. What in Polaris’ name had happened to me? I’d never been that terrified before in my life, and I’d come close to death several times before. It couldn’t have been poison gas or psychedelic drugs in the stable’s air, or I’d still be hallucinating. I seemed to be comfortably lucid at the moment, so that certainly ruled out gas or aerosolized drugs.

Whatever had happened, I couldn’t let it keep me from pushing forward. I briefly considered ditching the ScoutBuck and flying off to some other corner of the Wasteland, but quickly dispensed of the notion. Laziness may have been one of my biggest flaws, but I never abandoned the mission. There was a job I needed to do, and by Polaris, I was going to get it done. Heaving my battle saddle up onto my back again, I secured it and headed back towards the open stable door.

Barely a hoof past the threshold, I felt my stomach twist like a pretzel. I planted my hooves wide as the dizziness hit me again, and fought to keep my breathing even. I could’ve sworn I even saw the walls moving out of the corners of my eyes, but whenever I turned my head to focus, they were right back where they were supposed to be. I felt cornered. Trapped with no way out inside an abandoned, glorified bomb shelter comprised entirely of cramped rooms and corridors.

And then it hit me. Claustrophobia. I was claustrophobic.

I’d never really considered the possibility that I might be claustrophobic, but then again, I’d spent my entire life living in wide open skies. Barring some time I’d spent on Thunderhead and Raptor-class cloudships, I had no experience with this sort of thing. Even so, I had to find a way to deal with this, and I had to do it now.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. Almost immediately, my blind panic melted away without the confines of the stable to assault my sight. All I had to do was shoot through this place and report back to those filthy buzzards and I’d be on my way. Just a quick in and out. I could tolerate that for a little while. Just think about big spaces. Endless blue skies with plenty of room to fly.

My eyes snapped open. A wave of mild nausea washed over me, but only for a moment. I placed one trembling hoof forward, and when I didn’t collapse from dizziness I pushed onward, emboldened.

The stable’s interior was damp and cold—far colder than the ambient temperature outside. Light from dim emergency fixtures cast flickering shadows across the vast, featureless concrete corridors. Most metal surfaces had been claimed by rust, seizing several doors with corrosion and making passage through some areas impossible. All was silent save for the steady dripping of leaking pipes and my own hooves echoing with every step. I was barely aware of the sound of my own breath on every exhalation, weirdly amplified by the stable’s acoustics. Occasionally, a light breeze would blow in from the entrance tunnel, and the low howl of the wind’s passage sent shivers up my spine.

Nothing noteworthy jumped out at me on my trek into the stable’s depths. It wasn’t until I walked through a door and into a cavernous room that I actually stopped to take a closer look at my surroundings.

I was standing in a massive hub room, an atrium of sorts. Several doorways branched off and snaked outwards into the stable’s outer reaches. On the second floor above me, a pathway encircled the room in a series of balconies that overlooked the floor below. At the very top of one wall was a large glass half-dome with a dark room beyond. As to its purpose, I could only conclude that it was to watch over the stable’s residents as they went about their activities in the atrium beneath.

I felt a lot more at ease knowing that the stable wasn’t just a maze of suffocatingly narrow hallways. That fact alone didn’t make me feel much better, though. Now that I had an idea of just how large the stable was, I was feeling a lot less enthusiastic about my time estimate for a recon sweep. Truth be told, I didn’t even know where to begin. Signs were posted up over many of the adjoining hallway doors, though none really stood out as worthy of investigation. None but one—Overmare’s Office.

Overmare. That sounded an awful lot like a position of power. Perhaps this was the stable ponies’ analogue to our High Council? If that was indeed the case, this office seemed like my logical next step. There would undoubtedly be much to learn in there, and any information I found stood a good chance of placating Gawd’s thirst for intel.

With a clear goal to work towards, I felt myself relax a smidge. Substituting the chaos of a nebulous objective with a single, focused task quenched my thirst for structure. Military life had taught me to embrace order and routine with open hooves, even if it did start to wear on the nerves after awhile.

I took a second to get my bearings, directing my gaze towards a darkened sign with a broken bulb that pointed me in the direction of the Overmare’s office. As I was trotting over to the open door, something stuck to a nearby support beam caught my eye. Curious, I meandered over to the rusted steel girder and peered at the object affixed to it. It appeared to be an old poster. Worn and faded, a great portion of the top had been torn away, leaving behind nothing but a small shred bearing a short motivational quip.

“That is the corniest thing I’ve ever read in my life,” I snorted derisively, continuing on past the poster and chuckling to myself.

This far into the stable, the sound of the wind at the entrance had faded completely. With the exception of my hooves and breathing, everything was dead silent. The thick, uncirculated air felt like I was trying to inhale marshmallow and made catching my breath difficult. There couldn’t have been much breathable air left in the stable. Barely enough for a hoofful of ponies, I imagined. It was probably a good thing that I’d discovered this Overmare’s office. The second I got all the necessary info on this place, I was out of here like last year.

I soon found that the stable didn’t appear to be as empty as I’d initially thought.

The first thing to jump out at me was the wet splat my hoof made as it came down into a puddle I hadn’t seen in the low light. I paused to investigate and saw a dark liquid smeared on the bottom of my hoof. A curious whiff revealed a familiar coppery scent that made my mane crawl. Blood.

Fresh blood.

I noticed a good deal more as I let my hoof drop to examine my surroundings. Signs of severe structural damage pockmarked the corridor. It looked almost as if somepony had let loose with a cannon or a wrecking ball. Massive gouges were smashed and torn out of the concrete, littering the hallway with stone fragments of varying sizes. My gaze was eventually drawn to bright white score marks that ran along one wall before stopping abruptly. Jumping the gap in the trail led me back down to the floor where the scrape continued on for a few meters and faded.

The blood trail, as it turned out, followed the scrapes in a parallel, if broken trajectory. The largest deposit of it was near where the scrapes had terminated, and a series of thinner, stuttering lines led off deeper into the stable. Somepony was in here with me, and they were wounded.

What was worse, I had no idea who or what had injured the victim.

I checked my weapons, making sure the coilgun’s microspark cell was plugged in and the magazine was seated properly. I also took care to undo the strap securing my pistol in its holster, as well as the one on my knife sheath. I couldn’t leave anything to chance. If I didn’t prepare to run across whatever had done all this damage, I’d be a dead pony.

I started forward and strained my hearing for anything out of the ordinary. I figured that the smartest thing to do would be to locate the wounded pony. A wounded pony was a twitchy pony, and the last thing I needed was a bullet in the back while dealing with the cause of all this damage. If they weren’t too badly hurt, I could even help them and hope they’d be willing to team up to make sure we got out of this place alive.

The rancid stench of decay hit me like a brick as I moved closer to the drying pool of blood. So much for a rescue. Well, at least I could scavenge any possessions off of their corpse. Stars knew I needed everything I could get my hooves on down here.

I took care to step around the small puddle of crimson, but in doing so, my hoof brushed up against something solid. Whatever it was went skittering across the hallway and knocked into the wall, assaulting my ears with a veritable cacophony of noise that caused me to cringe. When my panicked heart finally slowed down, I opened my eyes and peered around until I’d found what I’d just kicked into the wall. The large, vaguely-spherical object had come to rest a short distance away, and I approached to investigate. It was metallic in nature, and appeared to be a helmet of some sort. Placing a hoof up against it, I carefully rolled it over and felt my blood turn to ice water in my veins.

An Enclave helmet.

What the hell was an Enclave helmet doing in a stable? Smack-dab in the middle of a pool of fresh blood, no less. To my knowledge, no ground operations had been authorized in recent memory. How had this trooper found his way into a sealed stable? Was it another Dashite refugee like Calamity? Could he have been injured by Enclave pursuit and fled here to recuperate?

No, that didn’t make sense. Calamity was the last Dashite since Radar, and he’d left a long, long time ago. The wounds weren’t consistent with typical Enclave combat doctrine, either. Unless they’d closed to grips and wounded the trooper with a bladed power armor tail, there wouldn’t have been any blood. Anypony who’d fought a power armored trooper in close quarters wouldn’t have lived to tell the tale, either. No, this was something else.

I picked the helmet up and turned it over in my hooves. It had sustained damage consistent with the battered hallway. A few dents pockmarked its pristine black surface, and a large spot of paint had been scuffed away right above the trooper’s left brow. Typically, Enclave soldiers with power armor training painted their names above the left brow, but the only thing left was bare grey steel. That threw any chance at identifying the pony right out the window.

That said, the helmet was still remarkably intact. Even the fragile, bulbous insectoid visor was unharmed. Power armor helmets weren’t just for protection, which made this find a very happy accident. Integrated into each helmet were many features that PipBucks came with standard. Maps and E.F.S. systems, and probably the most helpful at the moment—infrared spell matrices for night ops. Perhaps even better than all of that was the fact that proper training wasn’t necessary to know how to use a helmet. Without the ScoutBuck in my possession, this helmet was a gift from the stars themselves.

“Finders, keepers,” I said with a grin, and slid the helmet onto my head. It was snug, and I had a little trouble wiggling my intact ear through the hole at the top, but it fit decently enough. “Ugh,” I exclaimed in disgust, scrunching up my muzzle at the fetid stench of decay. “Shame these things don’t cover the whole head. It smells like a bloated, dead cow over here.”

The stench had increased tenfold by now, and I jammed a hoof over my mouth to keep from retching. I nearly puked out of sheer panic when a burbling, gravelly voice called out from behind me.

“You’re a disgrace, little pony,” the voice said in a guttural rumble. “Look at that bod—you’re all bony!”

I stood stock-still and slowly turned to look over my shoulder. What I saw made my breath catch in my throat, and it was all I could do not to scream. Outlined by my new helmet’s visor was a behemoth of a creature. Hunched over in the low corridor was a bipedal monstrosity practically rippling with muscle. The visor’s thermal imaging made discerning minor details very difficult, as it was a simple system that enveloped targets and environments with colored outlines. I had no idea what in the hell I was looking at, but one thing was for sure—this monster was huge.

Primal fear tore at my gut, and I could feel my leg muscles tense up in response to my distress. Instinct told me to take flight and get myself out of harm’s way immediately, but I didn’t have enough room to unfurl in the choked confines of the stable. Blind panic started to settle in when I realized that even if I ran, I had no idea where I was going.

Within the next few seconds, that all became irrelevant. The creature lunged forward with one freakishly gnarled appendage, and I took off running without a second thought.

A furious snarl from behind me motivated me to double my speed, and I skidded around a corner as the corridor took a sharp turn to my right. I could hear whatever it was struggling to keep up with me, thunderous steps making the solid floor beneath my hooves quake. The sound of shattering concrete caused me to shoot a quick glance over my shoulder, and I yelped in abject terror when I saw the creature make the same turn. Its sheer velocity and bulk caused the wall to crack and crumble as it failed to make the corner as deftly as I had. Barely fazed, it merely shook its horned head and continued pursuit.

This thing had too much strength. If it caught me, it’d tear me right in two.

I had to find a way to lose it. A way to circle around or double back to confuse it and lead it in a circle. Anything to increase the distance between myself and certain death. For now, all I could do was follow the path ahead of me. I bolted up a flight of steps at the end of the corridor’s run and took another right turn. Through an open door ahead of me I could see the vast expanse of the stable’s atrium, and the gears in my head immediately started turning.

Against every shred of survival instinct screaming at me to keep running, I slowed and waited for the behemoth to navigate its way up the stairwell. My heart was racing in anticipation. Surging adrenaline made my muscles quiver, and if it hadn’t been for the fact that I stood a very real chance of dying, I would’ve been exhilarated by the tension.

Once the thing had crammed its massive bulk through the narrow stairwell and rounded the corner, it turned to look at me and let loose a furious snarl. I shot a glance towards the atrium behind me and did some quick estimates, turning back just in time to see the creature lower its horned head and charge. Crunch time. I had a very narrow window for my plan to succeed. If I fucked this up, I was going to be one dead pony. I swallowed and took a deep breath as the monster barreled down on me..

Ten meters.

I turned to present my side to the creature, making sure to keep one eye on it the entire time.

Eight meters.

I crouched and made sure my hooves had traction on the smooth concrete.

Four meters.

I loosened up my wings in preparation for what was to come next.

Two meters.

When the thing had gotten close enough for me to smell its putrid stench, I used my fear-motivated reflexes to turn towards the atrium and start running. I could feel the creature behind me as I galloped towards the railing surrounding the atrium’s balcony, but he’d soon cease to be a problem. I jumped up onto the railing and used it to boost me higher up into the center of the atrium. Once in midair, I unfurled my wings and glided towards the opposite side.

I turned mid-flight and propelled myself backwards to ensure my plan had worked. Sure enough, the creature’s size and momentum left it no room to stop, and it crashed into the railing and kept right on going. I whooped and pumped my hoof in triumph as the horned monstrosity toppled off of the walkway and landed hard on the atrium’s floor. I drifted down to land on the walkway beneath me, propping my hooves up on the railing to peer down at the fallen creature.

“Ha!” I jeered, “Suck it, you musclebound freak! Maybe next time you’ll think twice about messing with somepony who can fly!”

I watched with twisted glee as the thing pushed itself back up to a standing position. It took a moment to look around and focus its beady little eyes on me, and it stalked wordlessly in my direction. I resisted the temptation to goad the beast further by turning and waving my flank around like a cheeky little foal. Dumb thing. By the time it found a staircase to get back up to my level, I’d be long gone.

Four beefy digits slapped down on the metal floor beneath me, causing me to jump back in shock. It was below me!

The whole structure lurched beneath me, and I spread my hooves wide to maintain my balance. Metal groaned and shrieked as it was pushed to the breaking point, and I yelled in surprise as the rusted steel platform dropped away beneath me. The walkway went crashing down to the floor, and I went right down with it. The structure listed severely, tipping me over the railing and dumping me out onto the atrium floor, where I rolled to a stop with a pained groan.

I had to get up. I had to get to my hooves and start running before this thing caught me. If that thing could pull down an entire walkway, it would rip me right in two if I gave it the chance.

“Laugh at me…” the creature growled in a hoarse rasp, and a shock went up my spine when I felt those meaty digits wrap themselves around my midsection. “I wrath at you.”

No, no, no!

I squirmed and flailed as I was hefted effortlessly into the air. Up, up I rose until I was held high above the creature’s horned head. I thrashed my legs even harder when I drew up next to those gleaming white bits of bone, terrified of being skewered upon them. To my surprise, the thing lifted me back even further, high and behind its shoulder. Panic traded places with confusion a few times as the creature shifted its stance, putting one hooved leg behind it and taking a large step forward. What was happening became clear as crystal when I felt the familiar force of sudden, rapid acceleration on my body.

The thing had wound up, stepped into his throw and promptly released me. My stomach shot up into my throat as I flew clear of his grasp and straight towards the nearest wall. I screamed in both fear and surprise as I streaked through the air across the atrium at a blistering speed, completely unable to control myself. At an absolute loss for how to dampen my impact, I did the only thing I could possibly think of to protect myself. I curled tightly into a ball.

When I finally made impact, I didn’t stop dead as I expected to. The sound of shattering glass assaulted my ears, and I felt several shards cut into me as I crashed through a window. I kept right on going into the room beyond the broken portal, tumbling onto the floor amid the cascade of little glass razors raining down around me. I groaned as the last of the shards tinkled down and fell silent, pulling my hooves in towards myself protectively in an attempt to comfort my wounded body.

I could feel blood trickling from multiple cuts on my flanks and legs, and the steady burning of a scrape where I’d landed and slid across the concrete floor. I couldn’t gauge how bad the wounds were through the aches of my previous injuries, but they hurt. Badly. I wanted nothing more than to lay there until the pain went away, but a noise from beyond the broken window gave me all the motivation I needed.

The creature was coming. It wasn’t done with me yet.

I got my hooves under me and pushed, the combination of adrenaline and pain causing them to tremor and wobble. A quick glance over my shoulder showed me the massive outline of the thing stooping down, attempting to squeeze its massive bulk through the windowframe. Impending death gave me a sudden burst of energy, and I managed to pick myself up from the floor with all due haste.

My head snapped from wall to wall in my attempt to locate an alternate exit that would get me away from that murder machine. Judging from the décor, he’d thrown me into some sort of supply room. Rows of storage lockers lined the walls, as well as stacks of old desks and chairs with wood surfaces claimed by rot from the stable’s moist air. By the time my eyes snapped back to the window, the thing had realized it wasn’t going to fit through the small hole, and had begun to pry on the frame. Metal groaned and slowly began to buckle, and my heart began to beat faster when I saw the gap in the wall slowly growing wider.

Door! Now!

My hooves pitter-pattered in a rapid staccato as I darted in every which way to locate a door. My heart sank when I spotted it at last—buckled in by an unknown force. Most likely by my pursuer in a past fit of rage. Tendrils of cold dread snaked their way up my legs and to my very core, plunging my whole body into a phantom chill. I was cornered. Trapped like a rat. The only way in or out of this room was through that window, which was currently stuffed to the brim with rippling muscle.

I threw back my head and growled in frustration. “Fuck! There has to be some other way out of this stars-forsaken room!”

I searched high and low, scanning the ceiling and the floor for some way, any way out of the room. No matter how hard I looked, there were only four walls, a window and a single door. The broken window and inoperable door were the only apparent ways in or out of the room. Was this really how I was going to die? Helpless, with no means of escape? There had to be an archway or something! A way into an adjacent room with a functioning door! A way...

Wait. That was it. The air ducts!

I was a pretty thin pony. If I could find a grate, I could try to contort my way through the ductwork and into an adjoining room. It was my only shot, my last hope to escape from this thing unscathed. I did a quick trot around the room in the search for a ventilation grate, glancing over my shoulder frequently to check the creature’s progress on the window. It appeared to be satisfied with the gap by this point, and had taken to trying to squeeze into the room again. No time!

“Aha!” I exclaimed upon spotting the familiar shape of a grate, barely obscured by a pile of old school desks. I bolted over to it immediately, sliding to a stop in a low crouch beside the wall. I reached a hoof towards the grate to tug it free before spotting something that made my heart soar. “Yes! Finally, something is going right for me!”

I hadn’t been the only pony with the idea to escape using the ductwork. Strangely enough, the grate had already been pulled off and thrown aside long ago. Given that time was not on my side, these circumstances could not have possibly been better for me. I squashed down flat on my belly and scooched up to the vent, carefully maneuvering my helmeted head into the cramped air duct. The smell of rusted steel was overpowering in such a small space. A wave of nausea hit me as I tried to jam myself into the confined passage, but I took a deep breath and swallowed before attempting to squish my shoulders in after my head.

It was going as well as I could have hoped until I had my shoulders completely within the duct. Once I’d managed to claw my way a little further ahead, my exposed muzzle bumped up against something that rattled oddly. I stifled a panicked yelp when I focused and identified what I’d bumped into. Apparently, I’d just found the pony who’d had the bright idea to squeeze through the air duct before me. The skeletal remains of an earth pony in stable barding were blocking any forward progress. Whoever it had been had met an untimely demise after coming into contact with a fan. I could see where the warped blade had sliced into the stable pony’s neck, and the cracked vertebrae made it obvious as to what had happened.

“Oh, come on!” I groaned pitifully. “Will somepony please give me a break?”

I thought about pushing the skeleton aside and continuing on, until I felt my battle saddle catch on the rim of the duct opening. Panic immediately overcame me, and I started thrashing and scraping at the smooth metal beneath my hooves to try and push myself out. I was stuck! I was stuck! I lifted both hindlegs and placed them up against the wall to give me leverage, and pushed with all my might to try and break myself free. A loud squeal and a tug on my head told me that my helmet had gotten caught on the duct. Twisting my head so that my left cheek was pressed flat to the metal surface, all resistance vanished and I shot out of the duct like a greased pig.

The room blurred as I flew back and tumbled end over end across the floor. I didn’t make it very far, and came to an abrupt halt when I collided with the stack of desks that had blocked the air duct from view. I groaned and flopped my head back against the pile of desks, each one of my wounds screaming in protest at the constant agitation. A loud growl from the creature encouraged me to open my eyes, and at that moment I finally spotted my salvation. Just above me, flush with the ceiling and incredibly difficult to spot in the low light was a large hatch. Painted in faded white letters upon the hatch were words that made my hopes skyrocket.

That was my ticket out of here!

I leaped and flapped simultaneously, boosting myself up through the air to snag the hatch’s handle. I put all my weight on the sealed access panel, but it refused to budge. I could feel sweat starting to trickle down my neck and back, and I chanced a look over towards the window. The creature had now managed to get its entire midsection into the room, and was now maneuvering its legs in after it. If I didn’t get this hatch open in the next few seconds, I was one dead pony.

“Come on, you bitch,” I growled, wrapping both forehooves around the handle and inverting myself to use the ceiling as a brace. Using my hindlegs to increase my leverage, I pulled on the handle with every last bit of strength I had. The muscles in all four of my legs burned with the strain, and I could hear my joints popping and cracking even over the creature’s ruckus. The hatch began to groan with my persistent tugging, and with a sudden jerk that threw me back to the floor, the heavy metal hatch flew open.

“If you wanna leave here alive,” the creature rumbled in its gravelly rasp, “You need the will to survive!”

I whipped my head around to fixate on the beast, and saw it rising up to stand tall just in front of the window. It was in the room with me. There was a moment of deathly calm while we traded glances. Naturally, hell broke loose immediately afterward.

The thing lowered its horned head and charged, kicking my flank into gear on pure reflex. While the creature barreled down on me, I launched myself towards the hatch, making sure to pull my wings in just as my hooves passed through the opening. There was a sudden tumultuous uproar from beneath me, drawing my gaze downward for a brief moment. I pulled my legs up into the access shaft just in time to see the pile of desks explode outward and scatter in multiple directions. A dark blur charged past a split second later, passing through the spot where my hindquarters had been dangling not a moment before.

With all due haste, I set to the task of making my escape. The maintenance accessway was a great deal more accommodating than the air vent had been. It was with no small amount of relief that I noted the crawlspace was big enough to easily fit me and my battle saddle. Not keen on being ripped back out of the passage by the creature, I clambered my way up over the lip of the vertical shaft and into the horizontal run. Beneath me, the concrete tunnel tremored as the thing attempted to get at me from beneath. Thank the stars it wasn’t just hanging sheet metal ductwork.

I didn’t have a whole lot of choice moving forward. There were no branching paths, so I was forced to continue crawling in a straight line. From what I could tell, the accessway was meant to give maintenance ponies an easier time getting to some of the stable’s hard-to-reach vital systems. Electrical conduits and water mains occupied the same space I did, with junction boxes and shutoff valves popping up every so often as I slid and scraped along.

Navigating was difficult with no way to determine my position inside the stable. Even my recovered helmet’s mapping systems were puzzled by my location. I continued to crawl along the maintenance tunnels, using my best judgment whenever I was faced with a choice of direction. I paused briefly at a three-way intersection to think about my next move. A great deal of power conduits were routing through to the crawlspace directly to my right. That much power could only mean two things—either I’d found some sort of electrical junction, or I’d stumbled across a portion of the stable with immense power demands. A control room of sorts, perhaps?

Either way, it seemed like a safe bet to head in that direction, so I set to crawling.

I reached the crawlspace’s terminus some twenty meters on. Much like the point I’d entered from, the tunnel took a sharp ninety-degree turn straight down. At the bottom of the drop was another hatch, and I carefully lowered myself down onto it. I held onto a rung built into the access tunnel and placed one hoof down on the hatch, testing my weight against it. The hatch didn’t budge, so I pressed down a little harder with no results. Remembering how badly the last hatch had been stuck, I let go of my hoofhold and stomped down with all four hooves.

“Huh,” I remarked when the hatch refused to budge. “Can’t really say I’m surp—whoa!”

I flailed my legs like a lunatic when the hatch dropped out from beneath my hooves and I plunged downward. The drop was short but the landing was rough, and I exhaled with a grunt when I smacked down onto the hard concrete floor below. It took about half a second before I realized I wasn’t alone. Of course, the shouting and the sound of magical energy weapons priming was something of a dead giveaway.

“Stars alive, that thing is in the ceiling?!” One voice called out. A mare. “I’ve got you covered, LT!”

“Hold fire, that’s a pony!” Said another, also female. This voice was higher-pitched than the last, and… I recognized it. I knew that mare!

“...Fluff?” I called out tentatively.

The mare’s answer wasn’t quite what I was hoping for. All the breath left my lungs when an immense weight landed on me. A burly hoof found its way to the side of my head and slammed it roughly to the floor, pinning me where I’d fallen. If that hadn’t been enough to discourage me, the multifaceted gem tip of a Sunburst rifle being thrust into my face sure was. Well, I’d apparently found the Enclave team that had wandered into the stable. Coupled with their reaction to my presence, I had a pretty good guess now of why they were in the stable.

“Aw, come on Fluff—”

“That’s Lieutenant Marshmallow Sundae to you!” the mare interrupted. “What did you do with the Captain? Why are you wearing her helmet? More importantly, is that thing still out there?”

“C’mon Marshmallow, is this any way to greet an old wingpony?” I grunted, as the mare was considerably heavy. I shifted uncomfortably as her forelegs dug into my back. “What’s with the twenty questions?”

“Don’t listen to him, LT,” the other mare cautioned, nickering distrustfully. “He’s just gonna try to talk you into letting him go.”

“Not now, Brightlance,” Marshmallow muttered to her wingmare. “Why’d you do it, Cap? Why’d you purge those maneframes? What could you have possibly stood to gain from that?”

“I didn’t do anything!” I yelled, feeling my temper begin to rise. “You have to believe me, Marshmallow! I’m innocent!”

“Innocent ponies don’t run!” Marshmallow bellowed into my ear. “I thought I knew you, Cap. I guess I was wrong.”

“I took the bullet, okay!?” I blurted, coming clean in the hope that it would get me out of this pickle. “My dad was the true culprit, but I took the fall for him. I just… Marshmallow, if you knew what my father meant to my mother and sister, you’d understand. It’s not that I wanted to see him rot in jail, but I didn’t do it for him. I did it for them. I wouldn’t lie to you, Marshmallow. You know that.”

There was a moment of tense, uncomfortable silence between us, which was broken when the weight immediately left my back. Before I could stand, strong hooves snatched me up and clutched me tightly to their owner in a death grip. All the air left my lungs in a massive wheeze, and I could hear the vertebrae in my spine cracking and popping as Marshmallow bear hugged me.

“Fluff—Marshmallow—I can’t breathe!” I gasped, and the mare dropped me back to the floor. “Stars alive, I forgot how strong you were.”

Now that my face wasn’t pressed to the floor, I could actually get a good view of the room I’d fallen into. A large glass half-dome on one wall made it clear that I’d managed to find my way into the Overmare’s office. The center of the room was taken up by a large circular desk, and a terminal was situated directly behind it, flush with the wall. Near the exit was a little waiting area with some plush chairs and a small table littered with moldy old magazines.

“You’re letting him go?” Brightlance said in utter astonishment. “B-But Lieutenant, you can’t take his word at face value. He’s a traitor to the Enclave! He destroyed classified data and then fled pursuit!”

“Allegedly. Believe me, I know Mach,” Marshmallow said, clapping me heartily on the back with one of her brass-hooved forelegs. “I’ve flown with him long enough to learn that he’s a terrible liar. He’s telling the truth, Brightlance.”

“Thanks, Fluff,” I said as I pushed myself up to a sitting position. “I knew I could count on you.”

“Cap, I thought I told you to quit calling me Fluff,” the mare growled, and I felt myself grinning when I saw her chubby cheeks puff up in anger. Her white coat made them look an awful lot like her namesake.

“I’ll quit calling you Fluff when you stop calling me Cap,” I shot back. “I haven’t been a captain for over a year now. We’re of equal rank, so stop treating me like your superior.”

“Rank is irrelevant now! You gave up your authority when you left,” Brightlance sneered, and I turned to warily regard the armored pony. I couldn’t make out much but the pale yellow muzzle poking out from beneath her helmet, but her body language—wings flared, aggressive stance—told me that she didn’t approve of Marshmallow’s decision. “I’m not obligated to follow any orders you give. If it was up to me, I’d—”

“But it’s not up to you,” I interrupted. “That’s up to your commanding officer. Isn’t it, Fluff?”

Brightlance opened her mouth to retort, but Marshmallow cut her off. “Brightlance, just leave it,” Marshmallow said. “I’m not running this operation, Mach. We were separated from our CO earlier when we were attacked by that… thing.”

“Yeah, I hear you. It came after me, too,” I said. “Bastard chased me across damn near half the stable, and I only just managed to escape from it. That’s how I wound up in that maintenance access shaft up there. Do either of you have any idea what it is? I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“We think it’s a minotaur,” Marshmallow said as she sat across from me. The chubby mare reached up a hoof to scratch at her protruding musclegut, drawing my attention straight to a bulging pouch on her uniform. My stomach growled hungrily in response. “We did a little poking around in the Overmare’s desk earlier, found some paperwork outlining the stable’s experiment.”

“Fluff, do you… do you still carry around extra ration bars?” I asked, eyeing the mare’s chubby-yet-muscular physique and brimming with hope. Marshmallow always used to carry extra rations around to help her bulk up. My growling stomach was hoping she hadn’t kicked the habit yet. “I haven’t had anything to eat in two days. Help a pony out?”

A look of shock passed over Marshmallow’s face, and a hoof shot up protectively to her pocket. “C’mon Cap, you know I need the protein. I’m bulking! I can’t share my stash with you! Stars know it took forever to get my hooves on this many...”

“Please?” I pleaded, flopping onto the floor and looking up at Marshmallow with the biggest puppy-dog eyes I could muster. “Please, Fluff? I’m running on empty and I could really use a bite to keep my strength up.”

“Fine!” Marshmallow squeaked, her voice cracking humorously in frustration. “You can take one—one—on the condition that you tell us how you found the Captain’s helmet. Okay?”

I greedily snatched up the compressed nutrient bar that Marshmallow tossed over to me. Tearing off the wrapper with my teeth, I tucked into it without further delay. I’d made it about two bites in before I noticed Marshmallow’s pouty glare, her dark blue eyes glaring murderous daggers at me. Oh, right.

“I found it in a hallway,” I mumbled, spraying crumbs all over the place. “Right by a big puddle of blood.” The two mares exchanged glances and nickered uneasily. “But no body! No body!” I said hurriedly, dropping the last bite of ration to the floor in my haste. “I saw signs of a struggle down there. Score marks on the walls and floor, blood trails... it’s entirely possible your captain is still alive. I didn’t have much time to investigate before that thing found me. You said it was a minotaur?”

“The documentation states that the purpose of the minotaur was to work as a life coach and fitness instructor,” Brightlance rattled off, drawing the gaze of both myself and Marshmallow. “He was hired by Stable-Tec for the purposes of their assigned experiment. It would seem that the goals of this stable were to see if peak physical fitness and the successful pursuit of one’s personal goals for each and every pony would circumvent the chain of events that brought about the Great War.”

“Nerrrd,” Marshmallow whispered to me, barely stifling a snicker. Her chortling caused me to snort and we both had to stifle bouts of laughter, earning us a death glare from Brightlance.

“How’d you two wind up separated from your CO?” I asked, looking from one mare to the other. “With an enemy that dangerous, isn’t it best to stick together?”

“You’ve no doubt guessed that the reason we’re here is to track you down,” Brightlance said, turning her hate-filled gaze toward me. “We didn’t expect to make it to the stable before you, and we were searching for you when we were beset upon by that stars-forsaken monster.”

“We’d made it down to the reactor level when it found us,” Marshmallow continued before I could question what Brightlance had said, picking up for her wingmare. “It’s venting radiation and that entire level will kill a pony in a few minutes. Brightlance reckons that’s why the damn thing is still alive. She thinks it’s been ghoulified by the radiation.”

“So it snuck up on you and you split?”

“Not by choice,” Marshmallow growled, stomping a hoof furiously. “Cap wouldn’t let me at the damn thing. She ordered a retreat and told us to fall back to the Overmare’s office. This was the regroup point, but she hasn’t made it back yet.” Marshmallow sat so she could pound one hoof into the other, her brass hooves clinking as they made impact. “If she would’ve just let me at him, I would’ve destroyed him!”

“Fluff…” I sighed, already well aware of where she was going with this.

“I’d have used a Diamond Cutter and made that side of beef minced meat! Oh yeah!” the mare shouted, jumping to her hooves and hopping up and down like an excited filly.

“Fluff…” I tried again, to no avail.

“He wouldn't have lasted a minute in the squared circle!"

“Marshmallow!” Brightlance and I shouted at the same time. I traded an awkward glance with the mare and we immediately averted gazes, embarrassed to be on the same page with each other.

“Marshmallow, we’re not in the sparring room at base,” I chided the bellicose mare. “Just because you’ve been able to send any pegasus dumb enough to fight you tumbling to the mat doesn’t mean you can do the same to that thing. Have you seen how big it is? It threw me right through a window! That thing would tear you in half like a Thunderhead operations manual!”

“Mach, I could throw you through a window,” Marshmallow said, puffing out one cheek in a grumpy pout. “You barely weigh anything.”

“Regardless, it’s a stupid idea to take that thing head on,” I said. “I think we should try and find your captain and get the hell out of this place before that thing tracks us down. Do you two have any idea where we should start look…” I trailed off when I heard the screech of rusted steel scraping against itself. Both mares tensed and I saw their eyes focus on a point somewhere behind me. Heart pounding, I turned around just in time to see the automatic door forced up into the recess in the ceiling.

Behind the door was a pony, who immediately leaned against the doorframe for support.

“Captain Aeolus!” The mares shouted in complete bewilderment. I tried to make myself as thin as possible as the two rushed past me to get to their commanding officer’s side, and I slowly turned to watch as they checked to make sure she was all right.

“Captain, are you all right?” Brightlance asked as Marshmallow maneuvered herself so that she was supporting the mare. “Where’s Sky Strider? We thought he went with you when we split up.”

“Dead,” Aeolus snapped, hobbling along with Marshmallow towards one of the nearby chairs. She seemed to be taking weight off of her right hindleg in particular. “There was a collapse in one of the corridors. That damn thing brought the whole ceiling down on us, and Sky Strider was right under the rubble when it fell. Fell back as fast as I could, but it got ahold of me. Smashed my head up against a wall and threw me, lost my damn helmet and gored my leg on some rebar. I had to hide a few times when it caught up with me, but I managed to sneak my way up here after it just… took off.” Aeolus sighed as she sank down into the moldy old chair. “Seemed like it had somewhere to be in a hurry, so I took full advantage of it.”

“You’re welcome,” I said, making my presence known.

Aeolus’s head snapped over to me and she hopped out of her chair, only to immediately lose her balance. Her long orange mane swayed without her helmet to contain it, and Marshmallow caught the mare to steady her before she fell. Marshmallow appeared to be gently restraining her commanding officer, but could not or would not exert the necessary force to sit her back down.

“Well, if it isn’t the treacherous rat,” Aeolus growled. “I see you’ve availed yourself of my helmet. Does anypony want to tell me why this criminal isn’t restrained? Secure the target and prepare for exfiltration immediately. I want this traitor tied up like a stars-damned pig, is that clear?” Neither Marshmallow nor Brightlance—to my immense surprise—moved to capture me. Aeolus distanced herself from Marshmallow and looked at both of her wingponies with disgust. “What is wrong with you two? I gave you an order! Am I going to have to do this myself?”

“Ma’am, with all due respect, you are wounded,” Brightlance said carefully. “and if you will recall, he is not the target. Our mission was to recover the stolen prototype. As much as it pains me to say it, we could really use his help to make sure we all come out of this alive. You’ve seen how dangerous that thing is, Captain.”

“I will not accept help from somepony who turned their back on the Enclave!”

I was across the room in two short strides, and Marshmallow swooped in to stand between Aeolus and I, keeping us at a distance with her powerful forelegs.

“I never turned my back on the Enclave!” I screamed, trying my best to lean around Marshmallow. “You think I want to live my life down here with these wastelanders? None of them trust me because of where I come from, and some outright hate me! I miss my family, I miss my warm bed, I miss my three square meals a day, and I’ve been injured more times in the past few days than I have in my entire military career! How stupid can you be to think I wanted this?”

“You came down here of your own free will, didn’t you?” Aeolus sneered from the other side of Marshmallow. “You could’ve surrendered to the authorities, but you chose to flee. You brought this upon yourself.”

I bit my tongue. She was right. There was nopony but myself to blame for my problems. As much as I wanted to stand here and trade banter though, there was still a very dangerous and deadly creature roaming about the stable.

“Look, we don’t have time to argue,” I said, pressing my hoof up to my forehead and massaging gently. “Our number one priority should be getting the hell out of this place before we all wind up dead.” I backed away from Marshmallow so I could see her properly and make addressing her less awkward. “Fluff, do you think you could carry her out of here? Brightlance and I will give you two cover while we make our way to the stable entrance.”

“Excuse me?” Aeolus hissed, throwing up a leg to keep Marshmallow at a distance. “What the hell do you think you’re doing giving my troopers orders? You should consider yourself lucky I haven’t shot you on the spot and taken that weapon from your lifeless corpse.”

“I think I’m making sure we all get out of here alive,” I said calmly. “You’re clearly not fit to lead your squad out of here, given that you’ve already lost a pony. You deliberately weakened your forces by ordering your troops to split in the face of a greater threat, and you’re still trying to call the shots with a debilitating injury. If you want to live to see your family again, I’m your best shot.”

“You betrayed your fellow ponies and you have the nerve to tell me I’m not fit to lead?”

“What I did doesn’t matter!” I shouted, pushing past Marshmallow so that I was standing directly in front of Aeolus. “Contrary to what you may think, I actually care about my fellow pegasi! I didn’t do what I did because of the wastelanders. Sure it helped my decision, but in the end I did what I did because I care about my family more than anything else in the world. The only other things I value as importantly as my family are my friends and my wingponies, in that order.” I gestured to the two mares behind me. “I’ve never lost a pony under my command, and I damn sure won’t let today be the day that changes. Can you make that same boast ?”

“You son of a bitch!” Aeolus screamed as she launched herself towards me, her purple eyes burning with red hot fury. “I don’t care if they want you alive! I’ll crack your damn head open like a nut and take the stupid gun from your body!”

I put up my hooves to protect myself, but Aeolus was aided greatly by her power armor. The enraged mare bowled me over and stood over me, swinging her forehoof down at my head with the intent of making good on her threat. I thanked the stars that I was the one wearing her helmet when my head snapped back and slammed against the hard concrete beneath me. Aeolus was able to get off two or three good hits before I could retaliate.

Before she could rip the helmet off and beat me to death, I kicked out with my hindleg. I made sure to aim for Aeolus’s bloody leg, and even though she had armor to protect it, the sudden jarring caused her to cry out in pain and topple over.

“You bastard,” Aeolus hissed as I scooted away. “If it weren’t for this leg you’d be dead right now.”

“Don’t push my buttons and I won’t push yours,” I said. “All I want to do is make sure we all get out of this place alive. That includes you, even though I can’t stand your guts.”

“I can already tell this is gonna be a project,” Marshmallow sighed as Aeolus and I glared at each other, chests heaving. “It’s going to be like babysitting a pair of rowdy foals on a long trip.” I felt a gentle pat on my shoulder as I stood and turned to face the mare. “You all right, Cap? You’re breathing pretty heavy.”

“That’s… not me,” I said uneasily, and I saw ears twitching all over the room.

I could hear it now—a heavy, ragged breathing too deep in register to have come from any of us. I spun in a circle, looking all over the room and even up into the access shaft to locate the origin of the noise. The only occupants of the room were us, and so I at last turned my panicked gaze towards the open door. A huge shadowy form hunched over within the corridor caused my breath to catch in my chest.

It had found us.

“Get the door!” I screamed, and charged toward the open door just as the minotaur did the same. I reached the door first and jumped up to seize the manual override handle. Even with all of my weight on it, the door slowly scraped its way down towards the recess in the floor. I started to panic until I felt a sturdy pair of hooves close around my waist, and the door slammed shut with the aid of Marshmallow’s strength. “Nice save, Marsh—”

My world lurched and I went sailing backwards when the heavy stable door crumpled in front of me. Marshmallow and I were thrown back away from the door, and I rolled to my hooves as fast as I could manage. A glance at the door showed that it had ballooned outward from the impact, and a pair of razor-sharp horns had come straight through the steel following the minotaur’s enraged charge.

“Everypony sound off!” I called as I helped Marshmallow back to her hooves. I received a chorus of affirmatives—Aeolus included—and so turned my thoughts towards our escape. “All right everypony, we don’t have much time. That thing isn’t going to just walk away, so we need to find another way out of this room ASAP.”

“What about that access shaft you fell down through?” Marshmallow asked, gesturing up at the open hatch in the ceiling. “We could go back the way you came.”

“That’d take too long,” I said, glancing over at the large glass dome overlooking the atrium. “There. Find a way to smash that window out. It’s big enough to easily fit a pony through, and we’ll have a straight shot back to the stable entrance once we’re in the atrium.”

“Yes sir,” Marshmallow said with a determined grimace, and I glanced over at Aeolus while she and Brightlance busied themselves with the task.

“I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed that thing didn’t gore you,” Aeolus snapped as I walked over to her.

“Look, Aeolus—”

“Captain Aeolus,” the mare interjected.

“—Captain Aeolus,” I amended with a roll of my eyes, “I don’t have a problem with you. Marshmallow is an old friend of mine, and I want to see her get out of here alive just as much as you. I’m not out to make enemies, I just want to avoid any more unnecessary deaths.” The sound of shattering glass from behind me caused me to cringe, and I looked over my shoulder to see Marshmallow standing by a broken atrium window. She touched a forehoof to her head in salute, and I grinned at her before turning back to Aeolus. “I’m not asking you to be my friend, I just want you to cooperate with me until we get out of this place, okay?” I held out my hoof for a shake.

“Get that thing away from me,” Aeolus snarled, batting my hoof aside. “I’ll play ball until we’re out of here, but you’re not leaving my sight with that weapon in your possession. Do we have an understanding?”

“If that’s what it takes.”

“Good. Now help me over to that window before I change my mind,” Aeolus grumbled.

I was about to throw Aeolus’s foreleg over my neck when I heard a deafening crash. I whirled around to face the door, turning just in time to see the heavy steel shutter torn free of its enclosure. The door toppled over as easily as if it were made of aluminum, skidding a short distance before coming to rest. We were out of time.

“Marshmallow, get over here and help Aeolus!” I yelled, giving the mare a gentle nudge toward the window. “I’ll buy you some time!”

“What are you gonna do, Cap?” Marshmallow asked as she galloped over and got her neck beneath her commanding officer.

“This gun was designed to punch through alicorn shields. It shouldn’t have a problem piercing the skull of a damn minotaur,” I growled, taking aim and grasping my bit firmly with my teeth.

I backed towards the window, keeping the crosshair on my helmet’s visor centered on the doorway. The minotaur had to stoop to make it through into the Overmare’s office, and I waited until he’d stood up to his full height before making my move. Sliding my crosshair up to rest on the creature’s disfigured face, I clenched my jaw to depress the trigger. Instead of the satisfying kick of recoil and a dead target, I achieved far less desirable results.

All I got out of the coilgun was a crackle and a loud pop, and I jumped when I saw a microspark cell ricochet off of the wall to my right. A quick glance to my side revealed that the coilgun had ejected its power source through some means, either by design flaw or intention. Either way, it left me and Aeolus’s squad vulnerable. I rattled off a string of curses as I continued backing towards the window, not at all willing to take my eye off of the bloodthirsty minotaur.

“Everypony’s clear, Cap!” Marshmallow shouted from behind me. “Let’s go!”

I spun around to face the window, hearing the minotaur snarl in outrage and charge toward my vulnerable backside. The familiar tingle of coursing adrenaline washed over me like a tidal wave, and I lowered my head and galloped towards the hollow window frame as fast as my legs could carry me. I could hear thunderous steps drawing closer as I neared my salvation, pounding in rhythm with my heart. Once I was close enough to the window I leaped, throwing my forehooves straight out and passing clear through the frame with centimeters to spare on either side. I felt a disturbance of air by my tail as the minotaur tried and failed to grab it. I found myself thanking my lucky stars that I preferred to keep it cut short.

Once I had ample room I unfurled my wings, gliding gently down to the floor of the atrium to land by the mares. The group had already started making their way to the corridor that led to the stable entrance, leaving me to catch up to them. I was just trotting up to Brightlance when a sound from back up towards the Overmare’s office gave me pause.

I looked up at the window after encouraging the mares to continue, only to see something that would’ve made my coat turn pink if hair could blanch. The wall around the window shuddered in time with the sound of a heavy impact. Subsequent impacts caused cracks to spider through the concrete surface of the wall, and I didn’t intend on staying around to watch what would happen. I bolted after the mares, stopping only to reach up and tug the door down behind me. I was banking on the door holding the minotaur back long enough to give us time to escape.

“Double time it!” I called to the mares, giving chase once I’d sealed the door. “That thing is coming through the wall!”

Sure enough, I heard the sound of heavy chunks of concrete crashing down to the floor like meteors on the moon’s surface. A much heavier thud heralded the escape of the minotaur, and it wasn’t long before it started trying to bash the sealed door down.

“What does it take to kill that thing?” Aeolus yelled as we rounded a corner and the familiar sound of a door tearing free met our ears.

“More than we’ve got,” I said. “Just keep moving before it catches up. I really don’t want to find out what it feels like to be torn in half.”

“C’mon Captain,” Marshmallow piped up, “Just let me—”

“No, Marshmallow!” we all said at once.

If I hadn’t been terrified for my life, I probably would have laughed. There was something humorous about Marshmallow’s insatiable lust for fighting. The thought of her taking on a creature three times her size and exponentially stronger with a smile on her face was admirable.

We rounded another corner and there it was in plain sight. The stable entrance. I chanced a look over my shoulder and felt my blood run cold. The minotaur had caught up to us. It was a straight shot to the stable door, and there were no offshoots we could use to lose it. If we didn’t make it out of the stable before it closed the distance, we’d all be dead.

“Run!” I bellowed. Marshmallow took a second to toss Aeolus up onto her back and we all broke out into full gallop. “Don’t stop and don’t look back, no matter what!” I shouted as we ran for our lives. “If anypony falls, call out so the rest of us can cover you while you get back to your hooves! This is it, everypony! One last sprint and we’re safe!”

The sound of bare and armored hooves hitting concrete echoed all around us as we made our break for freedom. Everypony’s breathing was ragged, and I could tell that this whole ordeal had taken its toll on us. I tried to keep my focus entirely on reaching the exit and not the sound of the charging behemoth gaining from behind. Aeolus bounced up and down on Marshmallow’s back, keeping herself steady with a hoof wrapped gently around the burly mare’s neck. Ahead and to my right Brightlance kept pace with the group, leaving me in the most vulnerable position. Directly behind everypony.

The spirits must have been looking after us that day, because before I knew it we were passing through the stable’s antechamber. My heart flooded with sudden exhilaration and hope as we ran through the open stable door and into the entrance cavern. While the mares kept running, I bolted over to the control panel and threw the lever back to its original position. My heart hammered in my chest as the door slowly rolled shut. I kept my eyes locked on the charging minotaur, but backed away as it drew closer and closer. Just when it looked like the door wouldn’t close in time, it sealed with a deafening screech, locking the minotaur within the stable for what I hoped was forever.

I let out a pent-up breath and felt a surge of euphoria hit me when I realized my life was no longer in danger. “Woo!” I shouted, trotting over to the mares with an ear-to-ear grin on my face. “Damn, I almost thought we’d had it in there!”

“You and me both, Cap. Stars alive,” Marshmallow sighed as she lowered Aeolus back to her hooves. “I’ll be glad to leave this place behind forever. No more ground ops for me, no sir. I think I’d rather park my flank at base and get my kicks in the sparring room. Still… would’ve loved to have the chance to cut loose on that thing.”

“Well, I guess this is where we part ways,” I said to Marshmallow, extending my hoof out to bump hers. “It’s been a fun little reunion, but I’m stuck down here for the rest of my life. Take care of yourself, Fluff. Okay? Tell my family I love them.”

“Will do, Cap,” Marshmallow said with a smile. “Good luck with everything. I hope you find purpose down here, whatever it may be.”

“Thanks,” I said. “Well, I’ve got intel to deliver to a person I hate, so I’d better get it done sooner rather than later.”

“Hold it,” Aeolus said from behind me, and I turned to see the mare pointing both of her Sunburst rifles squarely at me. “We had a deal. Give me that gun and I won’t turn you into a smoldering pile of ash.”

“You’re really going to argue with me over this thing when I helped save your life?” I snorted, incredulous. “You’re aware that it’s not even working, right? It’s useless. Garbage. I’ll take it off the Enclave’s hooves and we’ll call it square.”

“Whether or not you helped my squad and I out of that hellhole, we made a deal,” Aeolus said evenly. She wasn’t angry, merely stating fact. “Our mission was to recover the prototype and I am not returning empty-hooved. I won’t give up now. Not after we found you. Not after we got so close.”

“All right, fine,” I relented. “But if you’re going to take the damn gun, you may as well take your stupid helmet back too.”

I reached up to slide the helmet free of my head, grasping it carefully in my right hoof. I hesitated a moment, and then I threw the helmet straight at Aeolus. The mare was caught off guard by the sudden action, and threw up her hooves on pure reflex to catch the object thrown at her. With her occupied by the helmet, I turned tail and fled toward the cave mouth, throwing myself off of the cliff just as a hailstorm of orange energy beams streaked after me. I wasn’t worried about pursuit. Aeolus’s injuries would slow her down, and she wouldn’t want to venture any closer to the surface than was necessary.

Continuing my dive downward, I leveled out when I reached an altitude I was certain would deter Aeolus’s pursuit. Now all I had to do was remember the way back to the junction where Gawd had set up shop.

...Which way had that been, again?

“Okay, I fulfilled my end of the deal, now give me my damn ScoutBuck back,” I snapped, slamming both forehooves down on Gawd’s desk.

“You’ll get yer little toy when I get my info,” Gawd said, reclining slightly and tenting her claws atop her desk. “You were gone a good long while. Have some trouble in there?”

“Yes, I fucking had trouble!” I shouted. “You know what I found in there? A minotaur! A ghoul minotaur that wanted to rip my spine out! Oh and wait, that’s not the best part. Get this—an Enclave recovery team here to hunt me down for this stupid fucking gun! I was too damn busy trying not to get killed to scout the place out, so here’s what I know: The reactor is kaput and has leaked radiation all over the stable's lower levels, so nothing works anymore. Oh yeah, and there’s… y’know… the minotaur. That’s something you might want to think about.”

“Shit,” Gawd sighed. “Well, that was a waste of time. I was hopin’ the place would be up an’ runnin’ so we could move outta here. At the very least, I was hopin’ there’d be some good shit t’ loot outta there. If there’s a minotaur in there though, that sounds like more trouble’n it’s worth. Here,” Gawd said, sliding my ScoutBuck across her desk towards me. “Gawd is always loyal t’ the contract. You’re free to go.”

“What, just like that?” I asked as I fastened the device to my ear.

“The terms and conditions of yer employment with me have been fulfilled. Yer off the chain.”

“Oh. Well, that’s… huh. I guess I’ll be going, then.” I started towards the door, but slowed to a stop when I realized that I had no idea where to go.

Even if it had been reluctantly, doing this job for that old griffon crone had given me purpose. Without a goal to work towards, I was back to being directionless again. I couldn’t go back to New Appleloosa, and I didn’t know of anywhere else to look for work either. What the hell was I supposed to do now?

“You look a li’l lost there, pal,” Gawd said, and I looked over at the griffoness as she made her way past her desk towards me.

“I… I don’t know where to go,” I answered truthfully. "I came here looking for work, but I didn’t expect to run into griffons. I didn’t expect to be roped into a contract, either. I just… I feel like I have no direction anymore.”

“I could point ya towards a wealth of work if ya want,” Gawd said. “But I don’t know if ya wanna take advice from me. Y’know, bein’ a griffon and all…”

I gave the griffon a flat stare but didn't open my mouth. I'd learned my lesson. Speaking my mind was a bad idea here.

"I'd appreciate that."

“Head east,” Gawd said, pointing toward a wall of the train car. “All the way east, t’ the coast. A long time ago a friend of mine left fer a city out there lookin’ t’ make somethin’ of himself. Rumor had it that the place was total anarchy. A lawless pit ruled by slavers, raiders and merc bands. I hear he’s cleaned the place up a bit since then, but they still have a lotta problems out there, especially with local wildlife and raiders. My advice? Take up work with one of the local mercenary factions. You’ll never be without somethin’ t’ do.”

Already I could feel that familiar sensation of purpose welling up inside me. A chance to do some work bringing order to a chaotic mess of a city? Hell yes, I was up for that. All I needed was a name to coax the ScoutBuck into giving me a map marker. “Does this place have a name?”

“They call the place Sanctuary now. Or at least, that’s what they call the part of it that isn’t a complete shithole. You can’t miss the place, there’s a huge skyscraper right in the middle of the city.”

It wasn’t much, but after being forced into employment twice, I finally had a goal of my own. A purpose. Today marked the day that I truly began my life in the Wasteland.

Author's Notes:

This took... a lot longer than I expected. Three and a half months, I think? I apologize for the delay (and the length-to-progression ratio, I'm so sorry), it's been an uphill battle with depression, coupled with the stress of a move and taking care of my mother post-surgery. I hope to get back on a reasonable update schedule from here, but I won't make a promise that I can't keep. That said, I never would have gotten this chapter done without the support of my very special somepony. You know who you are. Thank you so much for all of your help.